The Delphi Murders: The Evidence

[00:00:00] Content Warning, this episode contains discussion of the murder of two girls.

[00:00:06] As we record, it has been less than 24 hours since the jury returned its guilty verdict in

[00:00:14] the trial of Richard Allen. Already, I'm seeing some confusion in social media and elsewhere

[00:00:22] where people don't really seem to understand why the jury reached the verdict it did. I think

[00:00:29] a big part of this confusion is because there's been some bad reporting about the case. Some

[00:00:36] of that bad reporting is actually been done intentionally by people who have their own agendas to pursue

[00:00:44] about this case. So we thought it would be worthwhile to take an episode here where we just run through

[00:00:52] the basics of the case against Richard Allen. So you will understand why the jury really had no

[00:01:01] choice but to come to this conclusion because there was a conclusion backed by the evidence, which again,

[00:01:07] we will be sharing with you. My name is Anya Kane. I'm a journalist.

[00:01:13] And I'm Kevin Greenlee. I'm an attorney.

[00:01:15] And this is The Murder Sheet.

[00:01:17] We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting, interviews, and deep dives into murder

[00:01:23] cases. We're The Murder Sheet.

[00:01:25] And this is The Delphi Murders, The Evidence.

[00:02:14] So let's go over some ground rules for what we're going to be talking about right now. This is going

[00:02:20] to be essentially three parts. Part one will be all the evidence that we feel was the most important

[00:02:27] and crucial in the case that was gone over. Then we're going to be talking about what you would have

[00:02:34] to believe in order to knock down all of that. And then we're going to talk about what pieces of

[00:02:40] evidence that were not talked about, you know, hypothetical, perhaps non-existent things that may

[00:02:46] have made us go a different direction with our views on the case. So those will be the three parts.

[00:02:52] And I want to note that we're going to be taking an extreme bias toward what was actually discussed

[00:02:59] in court. If true crime swine 89 on YouTube has a, you know, five hour presentation for his,

[00:03:07] you know, 60 followers where he's going over some in-depth thing, I don't really care about that

[00:03:12] because the defense attorneys didn't present it. And I imagine, you know, that would be because

[00:03:18] perhaps there's some issues with it or it's, you know, they-

[00:03:21] Perhaps there's some issues with-

[00:03:22] Perhaps true crime swine lied. I don't want to start a beef with him.

[00:03:26] True crime swine 89, is that any relation to true crime swine 69?

[00:03:31] Well, he rebranded to be a little more family friendly. But the thing is, I guess it's just

[00:03:35] like a lot of people can say, well, you know, for instance, you know, Richard Allen confessed

[00:03:40] because he was drugged, his food was drugged and, you know, he was drugged all the time. And

[00:03:45] while discussion of him being administered Haldol was discussed and specific dates of those

[00:03:53] administrations were discussed, the defense didn't make some argument. They didn't bring

[00:03:57] on an expert to say, here's what happens when he got Haldol. He made up a bunch of stuff. So,

[00:04:02] I mean, if they're not saying it, I think we're going to be trying to avoid that because that's

[00:04:06] just in the realm of sort of conjecture and it wasn't actually presented in court.

[00:04:09] Yes. So, that's how we're going to do it.

[00:04:13] Let's start where most of us started with this case. I think the very first piece of information

[00:04:21] or knowledge most of us had about this case was quite likely the video. This is the video that

[00:04:29] Liberty German, one of the victims in this case, took on her phone.

[00:04:35] Yes. Now, let's recap what we saw in court with this video. We saw the original version,

[00:04:42] which spun around a lot. It was a bit hard to see. And we saw a stabilized enhanced version where

[00:04:48] the audio was better and you could actually see what was going on because it was essentially

[00:04:52] made it so that it wasn't turning upside down randomly.

[00:04:56] So, you out there, unless you were in court, you didn't see that, but you have seen the Bridge

[00:05:01] Guy video. And what this video shows us is with GPS and timestamps, it tells us where and when

[00:05:09] the kidnapping of the girls occurred. And this is the kidnapping that ended, of course, in their murder.

[00:05:15] I just want to say you've seen a small clip, a few frames of the video. That was what was publicly

[00:05:20] released of Bridge Guy walking across the bridge. So, you haven't seen the whole thing.

[00:05:24] I imagine it'll be released at some point.

[00:05:27] Yes. But they've seen enough to see what I'm about to say, which is that looking at that,

[00:05:33] you can see how the kidnapper, the killer, you can see how he is dressed. You can't really get a

[00:05:40] great view of his face, but you can clearly see how he is dressed. Namely, that he was wearing jeans

[00:05:49] and a blue jacket.

[00:05:51] Yes.

[00:05:53] The video that was shown in court, you can hear Libby making a comment about a gun.

[00:05:59] It sounds like she's either saying, quote, that be a gun, like a question, or maybe Abby a gun. I

[00:06:06] think I tend towards that be a gun, but you can clearly hear her say gun.

[00:06:12] Yes.

[00:06:12] And then some people did not hear this, but we both felt that we did in court. A metallic sound

[00:06:19] that sounded like a gun racking. Now, we actually heard guns racking in the courtroom a number of

[00:06:25] times. Lieutenant Jerry Holman at one point demonstrated with Alan's gun racking it. That was

[00:06:32] super loud. Melissa Oberg, the forensic examiner who tested the bullet or the cartridge in this case,

[00:06:40] also racked the gun. So it sounded to me something like that on the video.

[00:06:46] Okay. So the takeaway from this video, it tells us where and when the kidnapping occurred,

[00:06:54] and it shows us how the kidnapper is dressed. To get more information, we have to go to

[00:07:02] the eyewitness accounts. Absolutely. And just to kind of put a timestamp on it,

[00:07:07] 213 is when the video was taken. So that's when we're seeing this abduction. So eyewitness accounts

[00:07:12] fill in maybe some of the things predating.

[00:07:16] What did the eyewitness tell us?

[00:07:17] Well, there were a number of eyewitnesses. There was a group that consisted of four girls,

[00:07:26] including Brianna Willeber, I think Anna Spath, and Rayleigh Voorhees. Some of them may be married

[00:07:32] now. So I apologize if I got some of their names wrong. But that was what who they were that those

[00:07:36] were their names back then. And they're walking along their group of teenage girls, and they see a man

[00:07:42] dressed exactly like Bridge Guy. And they identified him as the man in Liberty's video. So they're not

[00:07:51] saying, hey, I saw Joe Smith. They're saying, the guy we walked by is the same guy who is in Liberty's

[00:07:59] video. We didn't get a great look at his face, but we know that that is the same guy.

[00:08:04] What did Betsy Blair see?

[00:08:06] Betsy Blair on a sort of fitness walk around the trail doing her loops. She got to the moan on

[00:08:13] high bridge and saw a man dressed identically to Bridge Guy standing on the first platform of the

[00:08:20] bridge. And she also strongly identified him as I saw the man in Liberty's video. So now we have

[00:08:26] a number of women who are saying, I saw Bridge Guy.

[00:08:33] Did any of these witnesses report seeing anyone else on the trails wearing those clothes or dressed

[00:08:41] like that? No. Okay. So again, here's our takeaway. The video tells us here is the time and place where

[00:08:49] the kidnapping occurred. Here is what the kidnapper looked like. We expanded a bit. We see people who

[00:08:57] were in that general vicinity at about that time. They see the person in the video. They see the person

[00:09:05] in the video and they identify that person as the person they see in the video. So this is where

[00:09:12] we're at now. That's where we're at. And let me just say, just in case you're wondering with all of

[00:09:17] these witnesses, they have either photos or data or phone data showing that they are where they say

[00:09:24] they are at the time they said they were. So no doubt that they're there. And they say,

[00:09:28] hey, we saw the person in the video and the person in the video is the person who did the crime.

[00:09:33] Also I'll note with Blair, she not only sees Bridge Guy, but as she's walking back for the final time,

[00:09:38] she sees Abigail and Liberty. They're talking, they're heading toward the bridge. So she is leaving

[00:09:45] very shortly before this final confrontation, but before he accosts them on the bridge, but she's,

[00:09:51] all the pieces are falling into place here. Okay. So we've talked about the video. We've talked

[00:09:55] about the witnesses. Let's talk about Richard Allen. Yes. So he comes forward, he calls into the tip line

[00:10:05] and has a conversation with Dan Doolin, a captain with the Department of Natural Resources in the

[00:10:13] parking lot of a grocery store. And this is a few days after the murders. So he's coming forward in

[00:10:18] 2017 and he claims that he was on the trails that day from about 1.30 PM to I believe around 3.30 PM

[00:10:25] Does that sound right? Yes. So he says he was there that day at that specific time. Again,

[00:10:31] the kidnapping is 2.13. So he places himself there. He says, I was there. And he also has an anchor

[00:10:37] point that's important because he says he saw the group of girls that consisted of Anna Spath,

[00:10:45] Rayleigh Voorhees and Brianna Wilbur. So that group of girls said, we only saw one person. That person we

[00:10:51] saw was bridge guy. And Richard Allen says, I saw them. And in the subsequent interview,

[00:10:56] he says, I was dressed as bridge guy was dressed. So he's saying he was there at that time wearing the

[00:11:02] clothes of the killer. And we have no evidence or any suggestion whatsoever that anyone else was

[00:11:08] there dressed like that. He doesn't see Betsy Blair. No. But he says at one point, I was standing on the

[00:11:14] platform of the bridge where Betsy Blair saw him. So he was standing where Betsy Blair says bridge guy

[00:11:22] was standing. It's like if there's almost a choreography being set by all these eyewitness

[00:11:27] accounts, he's hitting all the same exact steps that they're saying bridge guy is hitting.

[00:11:33] And when it comes to something that's also a bit of a bizarre wrinkle,

[00:11:38] one of the pieces of his early story was that he had a phone in 2017. Dan Doolin took down the sort of

[00:11:49] specific number identifying that phone, not the phone number, but sort of the device number.

[00:11:53] And he said that that phone was with him that day. He had it on the trails. He was checking his

[00:11:59] stocks on it. That phone never appeared in any of the tower data. And that same phone has since

[00:12:06] vanished, despite the fact that Alan kept many, many other older phones and pagers.

[00:12:14] Okay. So the pieces are fitting into place.

[00:12:18] Alan is looking at this point more and more like bridge guy.

[00:12:21] Yes.

[00:12:22] They look to be one in the same because again, he's being, he's, he's seeing the people who are

[00:12:28] seeing bridge guy. They're seeing him. He's going in the same places where bridge guy is seen. So

[00:12:32] that's not looking good for him at this point.

[00:12:34] And there is still more evidence placing him there because the state was able to produce video

[00:12:42] footage of Richard Allen's car heading towards the trails at 1 27 PM. This is about 45 minutes before

[00:12:51] the kidnapping. And it perfectly lines up with what he said in 2017, namely that he was there from

[00:12:58] roughly 1 30 to 3 30. We have video of his car going there.

[00:13:03] And we can see that it's his car because it's, it's, it looks identical in my opinion, but you also

[00:13:09] see little details. The rims of Alan's car would have like light going through them. You can clearly

[00:13:15] see that on the Hoosier Harvest Store video where the image of the car was captured. And what came out

[00:13:20] with a, with some good lawyering by Nick McClellan, the Carroll County prosecutor and his investigator,

[00:13:27] Steve Mullen, that Allen had the only car of this specific make and model registered in Carroll County

[00:13:32] at the time, according to Bureau of Motor Vehicles records. So it's narrowing it down. It's narrowing

[00:13:39] it down. I mean, again, this is, these are pieces that are stacking pieces of evidence that are

[00:13:46] stacking. And then comes the gun, the gun. So in between the bodies of Liberty German and Abigail

[00:13:54] Williams, a bullet is found and ballistics testing demonstrates that that bullet had been cycled

[00:14:02] through a gun belonging to Richard Allen and Richard Allen tells authorities, no one else had access to

[00:14:09] that gun. So a bullet from a gun that no one, but Richard Allen has access to is found at

[00:14:16] the murder scene. Yeah. And let's, let's go over some possibilities because, you know, that's a

[00:14:25] pretty significant piece of evidence. Let's talk about one sponsor. We are really excited about

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[00:15:51] Alan, in his interview with Lieutenant Holman, was adamant that he never went to that area where the crime

[00:16:00] scene was. He said he would carry his gun while mushroom hunting, but never went in that area.

[00:16:08] He never loaned out the gun to others. He had zero explanation for how that cartridge got there,

[00:16:16] having been cycled through his firearm. He's not saying, well, my neighbor would borrow it. Maybe,

[00:16:20] you know, there's nothing like that. And I just want to note that when it came for the defense to maybe

[00:16:26] try to knock down this ballistics evidence, because ballistics can be controversial at times,

[00:16:30] he did not even, their expert did not even examine that bullet properly, or that cartridge properly.

[00:16:36] He didn't...

[00:16:36] Didn't even examine it at all.

[00:16:37] He just looked at pictures, which you're not supposed to do.

[00:16:39] Yes. So, again, let's summarize. Richard Allen is there in the killer's clothes,

[00:16:46] and a bullet from his gun is left at the crime scene.

[00:16:52] Bad place to be in if you're Richard Allen. So, let's go back to Liberty's phone for a second,

[00:16:58] because this also further contextualizes maybe what happened to these girls.

[00:17:03] There is a drop in sort of, I guess, you know, from the health data, from the data on the phone,

[00:17:08] there's a sort of drop in altitude, which shows the girl seemingly going down the hill,

[00:17:13] which we know the killer ordered them to do on the video. So, we see that. And then we also see

[00:17:19] a lack of movement on Liberty's phone in terms of her Apple health data after 2.32 p.m.

[00:17:25] So, the phone is discovered beneath Liberty's shoe, which is also beneath Abigail's body.

[00:17:33] So, it's not to say that the girls were killed exactly at 2.32, but at that point,

[00:17:38] the phone is on the ground, presumably the shoe's over it. Things... It indicates that,

[00:17:44] in my view, that they were probably not alive much longer than that time, because at that point,

[00:17:50] Abby's body has to go over the phone. So, that kind of puts maybe an end point on all of this.

[00:17:57] Which will become important in a second. Let's talk about, in addition to everything we've covered,

[00:18:02] Richard Allen has confessed. And he has not confessed once or twice. He has confessed or made

[00:18:09] incriminating statements at least 61 times. And these are not confessions made while he is being

[00:18:18] interrogated by brutal police investigators. These are confessions he makes freely to people like his

[00:18:26] wife, people like his mother, people like a therapist who he trusts. And what is crucial is

[00:18:33] that some of these confessions are detailed. And they contain information that only the killer would

[00:18:41] know. And let me just be clear. Psychosis cannot give one psychic powers. It's not like you get the

[00:18:50] ability to somehow see a crime that you didn't committed. It didn't commit. It's just like,

[00:18:56] so let's talk about some of the details that I wanted to tease out. And you make that point because

[00:19:00] there have been claims that he was in psychosis when he made these confessions.

[00:19:06] Psychosis can absolutely make you say things that are not true.

[00:19:09] But they can't make you reveal details about the crime that are verifiable that no one but the killer

[00:19:16] knew. Yes. I might say I'm Joan of Arc if I'm in a psychotic episode, but I'm not going to somehow know

[00:19:22] about a crime, you know, specific details that I didn't. It's just, it's something to delineate here

[00:19:29] because I think people kind of have been writing everything off as psychosis. And I don't really

[00:19:34] understand that. So I want to talk about some of the details. One that seems kind of minor,

[00:19:40] but I thought was interesting. Alan, in one of his confessions, said he sort of skulked out of the

[00:19:45] area, avoiding trails so as not to be seen. This actually does match something that another eyewitness,

[00:19:51] Sarah Carbaugh, saw when she was driving down 300 North, which is a very narrow road. She drove

[00:19:59] very close by to a man that she described as muddy and bloody. He's covered in mud and blood.

[00:20:07] And he's kind of has his head lowered and seems to be kind of avoiding any sort of eye contact with

[00:20:14] the drivers or at least with her when she was driving by. So that kind of points to that.

[00:20:20] Alan also mentioned that he used a box cutter that he stole from his work at CVS

[00:20:26] as the murder weapon. Any retail employee can tell you that, you know, box cutters are

[00:20:31] plenty and, you know, you might accidentally take them home or whatever. But he's saying that he used

[00:20:37] a box cutter and that he disposed of that in the CVS trash. And pathologist Dr. Roland Kaur

[00:20:45] testified at trial that the injuries, at least on Liberty's neck, would be consistent with a box

[00:20:52] cutter that had a thumb guard. So that was something at trial that came out that, you know, I don't think

[00:20:59] he said it has to be a box cutter, but certainly it's very consistent with what you would see with a

[00:21:05] box cutter. In a confession, perhaps maybe the most blockbuster crucial confession to Dr. Monica Walla,

[00:21:14] Alan said that he originally intended to rape the girls, but was startled by the appearance of a van.

[00:21:22] So that's important.

[00:21:25] This van is on what's been described as an access road. What also has been described is a long driveway.

[00:21:32] And this access road or long driveway leads to a residence which is occupied by a gentleman named

[00:21:39] Brad Weber. Investigation reveals that Brad Weber was indeed driving home at the time of the murders,

[00:21:48] and he was indeed driving a van, which matches the description of what Richard Allen says he saw at that time.

[00:21:57] Yes. Yeah. Weber clocked out at 202.

[00:22:00] Yes.

[00:22:01] So he would be home then and he would be on his way home then. And also it should be noted that this

[00:22:11] information about Weber's trip in the van was not included in any police reports and therefore not in

[00:22:18] discovery. So this is not something that Richard Allen could have read about in his discovery upon

[00:22:24] obtaining that in prison. It was not in there. It was not a detail that he could have learned aside from

[00:22:33] being there.

[00:22:34] Is it time to summarize this?

[00:22:36] Yeah. And I just want to say it's not just that he knew of a van being involved. He somehow knew of a van

[00:22:41] that just happened to be on that specific road, on that very seldomly traveled access road at a specific

[00:22:47] time while this crime was being committed. So Richard Allen is the only person who was there

[00:22:54] at the crime scene wearing the clothes of the killer and a bullet from his gun was left between

[00:23:01] the bodies of these two girls. And he has subsequently confessed to the crime repeatedly,

[00:23:08] including details that no one but the killer would know. That's a strong case.

[00:23:12] This is a case that is dependent on the totality of evidence. I think you and I can agree if you take

[00:23:18] if you take maybe one of these pieces and nothing else, then you don't have a case.

[00:23:26] But what you do have is a lot of smaller pieces that add up to an answer. And that is plenty of

[00:23:35] criminal cases are that. You don't necessarily always have that one piece of blockbuster information

[00:23:41] like somebody committing the crime on camera or, you know, a lot of really good DNA left at the scene.

[00:23:47] That's not necessarily the majority of cases. But what this is, is the stacking of evidence

[00:23:53] in a way that makes it ultimately very hard for, I think, any reasonable person who has an open

[00:23:59] mind to conclude anything other than he did it.

[00:24:03] So let's take that as the jumping point and go and do what you mentioned we would do earlier,

[00:24:09] where let's look at that evidence again and discuss what you would need to believe

[00:24:14] in order to dismiss it.

[00:24:17] Yes, because I understand we're all used to kind of reading the novels, watching the shows.

[00:24:23] You know, the CSI effect is very much real. You want to have something where it's like

[00:24:27] the razzmatazz on some level. But I think it's helpful to look at it from the opposite angle,

[00:24:32] because it's like, let's let's try to knock down all of that at once and see where how logical that

[00:24:37] is.

[00:24:38] Let's go back to the beginning, the video that Libby took on her phone. You would have to

[00:24:44] believe that this video was shows the kidnapping. Maybe it wasn't even shot at the moon on high bridge.

[00:24:49] It was very clearly shot at the moon on high bridge. To be clear, you can see the moon on high

[00:24:53] bridge very clearly in the video. But one thing that would throw all of this off is if it doesn't

[00:24:58] even happen there. So I don't know. Somehow it's at some secret bridge no one knows about.

[00:25:03] You'd have to believe that the man who appears on the video is not the man who kidnapped them.

[00:25:11] And the defense actually tried to posit this at the trial a couple of times completely

[00:25:16] unconvincingly. So you'd have to believe that this man behind Abby on the bridge who is speeding up

[00:25:23] and catching up with her. You'd have to imagine he then just walks off into the distance while

[00:25:28] another person who was already on the other side of the bridge pops out and does the kidnapping.

[00:25:34] And meanwhile, to be clear, you see Abigail run past Libby at one point. So you can assume that

[00:25:40] she's running to this other mysterious figure who is threatening them. So yeah. So like they didn't

[00:25:48] admit that Alan was bridge guy at trial. I mean, his defense team, but by the fact that they were

[00:25:54] essentially defending bridge guy at that point, it kind of it was an interesting thing. So we have to

[00:25:58] believe that bridge guy was following them closely and then just brushes past them or turns around and

[00:26:08] never once thinks, hey, maybe I should report the fact that I saw another guy maybe dress very

[00:26:14] similarly to me accosting these two girls at the center of a high profile double homicide case at

[00:26:21] the end of the bridge. So like never mentions that to anybody, never says anything.

[00:26:27] Doesn't doesn't really make a lot of sense when you're when when you're watching the video that

[00:26:32] Liberty shot. She's not saying, oh, God, there's no indication there's another guy on the end of the

[00:26:37] bridge. It's she's. She's almost just like, OK, the trail ends here, like almost trying to figure out

[00:26:43] what they do next. There's no indication of fear or anything in terms of like another guy pops out of

[00:26:49] the bushes. You'd have to believe that the eyewitnesses either saw someone else dressed exactly

[00:26:58] like Richard Allen doing the exact same things Richard Allen did, or you'd have to believe there

[00:27:05] was someone else dressed exactly like Richard Allen doing the exact same thing Richard Allen did

[00:27:09] that these eyewitnesses and everyone else failed to see.

[00:27:12] Or that Voorhees, Wilbur, Spath and Blair were all just for some reason telling the exact same

[00:27:18] lie, claiming the exact same things. And let's be clear, if these witnesses, if you want to believe

[00:27:25] that these witnesses lied, you'd have to believe that they worked together and actively conspired to

[00:27:31] lie so that all of their stories would fit together so perfectly.

[00:27:36] Yes. And they have no reason.

[00:27:37] And that's nonsense.

[00:27:38] They have no reason to lie. They all came forward quickly in 2017 to describe what they saw to help

[00:27:43] with a horrible investigation. They did the right thing. So it's like they have to lie in a way that

[00:27:49] just somehow works out. I mean, you know, and again, there's, you know, all these conspiracy theories,

[00:27:54] but everyone's out to get Richard Allen. But like he they didn't even arrest him until 2022. So it's

[00:28:01] it's yeah, it's also you'd have to believe that in Blair's case, she maybe saw exact. So maybe Richard

[00:28:10] Allen dressed like bridge guy on the platform on the first platform where he says he was.

[00:28:14] But then he just abruptly leaves just in time for the real bridge guy to come forward and do the crime.

[00:28:21] But somehow neither she nor Allen see this guy coming.

[00:28:27] They don't see him on the trails.

[00:28:30] These things I suggest respectfully are absurd.

[00:28:34] Tell us about what we have to believe about Richard Allen.

[00:28:37] So that Richard Allen, Allen changed his story in 2022 when he was confronted by

[00:28:45] Tony Liggett of the Carroll County Sheriff Department and Mullen of the prosecutor's investigator.

[00:28:51] And he said, actually, I was there.

[00:28:53] I believe it was from like, what, 1230 to 130 or something.

[00:28:58] He shifted the time earlier.

[00:29:00] So we have to believe that he was more accurate in 2022 than in 2017, a few days after the murders.

[00:29:06] And that when he said he saw those three girls, that he was that that they were lying about the time they were there because, again, they saw each other.

[00:29:18] And these girls were.

[00:29:19] We know we're there when they said they were there because they were taking photos throughout.

[00:29:23] So those photos are timestamps.

[00:29:25] Photos are timestamps.

[00:29:25] So somehow, I guess, all the all that was manipulated somehow by like, you know, hackers who never left a trace.

[00:29:33] And in fact, everyone was there a lot earlier than they were saying, even though that makes no sense.

[00:29:37] And Allen said he was there at 130.

[00:29:40] Close to the crimes.

[00:29:42] You'd have to believe he was lying about the way he was dressed that day.

[00:29:46] Yeah, for no reason.

[00:29:47] And that he was maybe even lying about being there and that he was lying about seeing a group of young girls, even though he noted that one of them had long, dark hair, which fit Voorhees's description.

[00:29:58] And that he was maybe telling the truth about having his 2017 phone on him that day so he could check stocks.

[00:30:03] And somehow some magical glitch happened with the cell tower that made it so that never appeared.

[00:30:12] What about the car?

[00:30:14] You'd have to believe that by some bizarre coincidence, a car identical to Richard Allen was driving to the trails at the time Richard Allen said he was there in 2017.

[00:30:28] Yes.

[00:30:29] You'd have to believe about the gun that the testing was wrong, even though it was done by an experienced forensic examiner and then verified independently by her supervisor who didn't know the results she got when he was verifying it.

[00:30:43] Alternatively, you'd have to believe Richard Allen said no one but him had access to this gun.

[00:30:48] So if those results are accurate and there is every reason to believe that they are accurate, and I believe they were accurate, if those results are accurate, you then have to believe that someone broke into Richard Allen's home, took his gun, used it in the commission of this crime, and then broke into Richard Allen's home a second time and returned the gun, all of which is unknown to Richard Allen.

[00:31:15] And again, that's absurd.

[00:31:18] With Liberty's phone, when we're talking about the data on that, you must believe that perhaps somehow magical hackers messed up the phone data in ways that no one ever brought up in trial and has never been indicated, frankly, by anyone.

[00:31:32] Or that rather than being affected by dirt and water, and we know that these girls, the phone was dirty, they crossed a creek during the abduction, that somehow the headphone jack was indeed magically connected, despite the phone never moving after 2.32.

[00:31:49] So presumably someone is lying on the ground connecting it while it's sitting on the forest floor.

[00:31:54] I don't even know what to just know.

[00:32:04] And then again, while without moving the phone at all, some killer turns it on for about half past four in the morning for reasons unknown, as opposed to it just being in low battery mode and kind of coming on as phones sometimes do because they're not quite dead.

[00:32:19] But I mean, anyone who's at a phone knows how some of these defense contentions were somewhat ridiculous.

[00:32:26] If there's a kind of a wild, just totally off the wall explanation and then a very simple mundane explanation, I think I tend to prefer the mundane.

[00:32:36] What would we have to believe about the confessions, Anya?

[00:32:40] Well, I guess, you know, I think psychosis can look different in different people and you might be having something.

[00:32:45] But one thing we heard over and over again was that people at Westville consistently thought that Richard Allen was feigning symptoms, although that his behavior got so erratic that it came to the point where it doesn't matter if he was feigning, he was harming himself.

[00:32:58] And essentially, when you're looking at all of his recorded confessions, that his calm, even logical tone, his sort of chronological insistence, hey, I did this, I want to talk about this with you, is masking, was masking consistently full blown psychotic episodes.

[00:33:17] Or that he is the victim of some vast odinous conspiracy reaching to the highest halls of power in Indiana and that they basically, they, quote unquote, forced him to confess.

[00:33:30] So he was doing it when he was in his right mind, but it was just for the purpose of protecting himself or his family.

[00:33:37] Even though, again, this was never alleged in court, nor was any evidence produced ever, despite the fact that his cell was recorded and images of him in the hallway were always recorded.

[00:33:49] So somehow they, I guess they slipped past the cameras and got it, got the message to him.

[00:33:54] You'd also have to believe that he just happened to randomly blurt out that a certain van startled him at that time and it was completely made up, but it was just a really unlucky guess that it turned out to be completely accurate.

[00:34:07] Yeah, or the medication was making him confess that they didn't really go into anything in court about like, hey, Haldol would have this kind of thing and would make you think, like there was nothing like that.

[00:34:18] Certainly no reason to think Haldol would make you know that there was a van there.

[00:34:22] No, and in addition to that, you'd have to believe that somehow Dr. Monica Walla, who was admittedly a fan of some true crime shows around the Delphi murders, that she, for some reason, just decided to plant it all in his mind.

[00:34:37] And the defense sort of alluded to this at times, but they didn't really go the distance, which told me that they didn't have any evidence of that and didn't feel comfortable kind of really going there.

[00:34:48] Is that fair to say?

[00:34:49] That's fair to say.

[00:34:50] You also have to believe, talking about the van that you mentioned, that Brad Weber is lying about when he clocked off, despite that being documented by his work.

[00:34:59] So you have to imagine that Subaru is now in on this, helping him produce falsified work documents for, you know, I guess they're Odinists too.

[00:35:07] I don't know.

[00:35:08] We're all Odinists, aren't we?

[00:35:11] Or that he's lying about driving the van that day, despite indicating that he checked his text and saw information confirming he was driving the van that day.

[00:35:19] And despite the fact that he's been incredibly insistent that he was driving the van that day and continues to affirm that to this day.

[00:35:29] Or that he's secretly involved despite very clearly having an alibi if he's clocking out of work at 2.02 p.m. that day and the girls are abducted at 2.13 and his home is like 25 minutes away.

[00:35:41] You do the math.

[00:36:11] All the while the police are being roundly criticized for not solving the case.

[00:36:15] I guess they were playing the long game, right?

[00:36:20] Yeah.

[00:36:21] So that's, I think, what you have to believe in order to make all of this go away.

[00:36:25] And I respectfully suggest that those things are impossible to believe.

[00:36:31] Yeah.

[00:36:32] It's not even close.

[00:36:34] And let's talk about, though, next what might have made us go in a different direction had this information come up at trial or been presented at trial.

[00:36:41] And to be clear, this information may very well not exist or not be true.

[00:36:47] And actually, I believe that that is the case.

[00:36:48] We just wanted to highlight some things that, like, this would have been evidence that had we heard it, had it been presented, had it existed, we might have had some pause.

[00:36:58] Let me say this a different way.

[00:37:01] Richard Allen murdered these girls.

[00:37:03] Richard Allen is guilty.

[00:37:06] If he was innocent and hadn't committed these crimes, what sort of evidence could we have expected to see presented in court?

[00:37:15] That's a good way to put it.

[00:37:16] One is, big one, I would say alibis, his alibi or a near alibi.

[00:37:22] So an alibi, obviously, is I was at CVS working when this happened.

[00:37:29] Obviously, that that was not going to exist in this case.

[00:37:32] We knew that because it was never brought up pre-trial.

[00:37:35] But there's such a thing as, I think, near alibis.

[00:37:37] So if you accuse Richard Allen of this heinous crime where he's going to be covered in blood and all dirty and, you know, Sarah Carboss sees bridge guy right before 4 p.m.

[00:37:48] And at 4.30, a beaming Richard Allen is wearing a nice white shirt and looking totally clean and fine and normal at a child's birthday party across town that he could have feasibly driven to.

[00:38:01] But, like, I think that would give me reason to pause because it's like, could he have really done that?

[00:38:07] Like, it would just be something where it would make you think, well, seems hard to believe a guy could kind of just do something like this and then just roll into a normal social activity where he seems and looks normal.

[00:38:18] Is that fair to say?

[00:38:21] I think I might have been inclined to have a different view about this case if all of these confessions had come from coercive police interviews.

[00:38:31] Yeah.

[00:38:31] If they'd been abusing him or bullying him in interviews to get these confessions as opposed to him just casually mentioning it to his wife and mother.

[00:38:41] Speaking of the confessions and the recorded confessions, had Allen's tone been really illogical, agitated, disorganized, rambling?

[00:38:49] If he were saying things like, I'm secretly the descendant of Charlemagne and that's why this is happening.

[00:38:56] I would have that would have given me a lot of pause around the recorded interviews because I might have viewed them through more of the lens of this is not someone who's trying to convey the truth to his wife and mother who refused to listen.

[00:39:08] This is, in fact, somebody who's going through some sort of acute mental health crisis at this moment.

[00:39:14] And maybe it's better to discount what he's saying.

[00:39:17] The bullet.

[00:39:19] The bullet from his gun at the crime scene.

[00:39:22] If the defense had been able to produce a credible expert who actually examined the bullet itself and came to a different conclusion and said, no, this wasn't from Richard Allen's gun.

[00:39:37] That might have been persuasive.

[00:39:39] They chose not to do that.

[00:39:40] They chose to have an expert on the stand who did not examine the bullet.

[00:39:44] And I think that is telling.

[00:39:47] Why?

[00:39:47] I think they did not have the expert examine the bullet because they knew if the expert examined the bullet, he would conclude that it came from Richard Allen's gun.

[00:39:57] I agree.

[00:39:58] They did not.

[00:39:58] You don't you don't you don't.

[00:40:01] If you're if you're confident, it's not going to come for your client's gun.

[00:40:04] Then you do that.

[00:40:04] Otherwise, you're not going to take that risk.

[00:40:07] I think if the prosecution had been unable to put Brad Webber in a van on the road at that time by Brad Webber coming out and saying, I don't remember or actually I'm pretty confident I was driving my Subaru car that day.

[00:40:21] You know, I have a van, but I don't think I've been driving it that day.

[00:40:24] That would have given me pause.

[00:40:27] I think it would have been interesting if other people had access to Richard Allen's gun.

[00:40:33] If he loaned it out or if it was the sort of a weapon that maybe he let other people and friends use frequently, then it would be difficult to tie it on that day to Richard Allen specifically.

[00:40:45] But by Richard Allen's own account, he and he alone was the only person who had access to the gun that the bullet found in the crime scene was cycled through.

[00:40:56] I'm going to tell you, had he come out and said, I mean, this could have been just an excuse, so I don't know if this would be a huge game changer for me.

[00:41:03] But if he had said, guys, I'm constantly mushroom hunting out there.

[00:41:07] I carry my gun when I'm doing it.

[00:41:10] Maybe something happened.

[00:41:12] Here's a bunch of pictures of me mushroom hunting with my, you know, with my daughter, with my wife.

[00:41:16] We go around this area.

[00:41:17] You can see where we normally are.

[00:41:19] Again, it would have at least potentially accounted for the bullet being there.

[00:41:24] And he provided none of that.

[00:41:26] He just consistently repeated the same thing.

[00:41:29] That can't be my bullet, which it was.

[00:41:33] I think if the prosecution had relied too much on weak evidence like vocal matches, despite the fact that guys down the hill is not enough to really get a good vocal identification.

[00:41:44] Now, to me, Richard Allen sounds exactly like bridge guy because he is bridge guy.

[00:41:48] But I think if the prosecution had leaned too hard on stuff like that, it would have looked pretty weak.

[00:41:54] And I'm going to tell you the same thing goes for the problematic and exact height analysis.

[00:41:59] If you're if you're saying, oh, we can we can kind of estimate.

[00:42:03] But it's like a range of four inches.

[00:42:05] Well, then who cares?

[00:42:06] Like, like, that's not useful.

[00:42:08] So they didn't they didn't go for any of that stuff.

[00:42:10] And I think that was to their credit because I just think that would have been useless.

[00:42:14] If the witnesses had come forward, if the eyewitnesses had come forward and said, oh, it was the darndest thing as we were on the trails that day, we saw two different guys dressed almost completely alike.

[00:42:29] And they were doing very similar things at very similar places just at different times.

[00:42:35] But they were two separate people.

[00:42:37] If the witnesses had said that, that would be an argument that Richard Allen was not the person who perpetrated the crime.

[00:42:44] But of course, the witnesses did not say that because Richard Allen was the only person out there that day.

[00:42:49] If Richard Allen himself had said, yeah, you know, when I was walking around, I did see one other guy.

[00:42:54] I think he was kind of dressed like me and doing, you know, kind of we kind of crossed each other a few times when we're kind of, you know, I would do something.

[00:43:01] And then he'd go on the platform and I'd go down this trail and he then again, that would be sort of hard to believe, but certainly something to to chew on.

[00:43:09] And I would also add, you know, if if if Libby's phone had shown some kind of concrete use and movement past two thirty two p.m.

[00:43:18] And I don't mean some nonsense with the headphone jacks.

[00:43:20] That was desperation on the part of the defense.

[00:43:22] I mean, like, oh, the phone is moving down the, you know, Hoosier Heartland Highway.

[00:43:28] Yeah, that that that throws everything into question for sure.

[00:43:32] That's not what happened because that's not what occurred.

[00:43:35] And I just want to go back.

[00:43:36] I mean, just from this is not something that I found like to be this was more for my own personal mindset, but not so much for the evidence of the case.

[00:43:48] But had Alan not had the voice of bridge guy.

[00:43:55] But of course, that would require him not being the murderer, which I'm very, very, very convinced that he is.

[00:44:02] I'm firmly convinced.

[00:44:05] Yeah, he's the killer.

[00:44:07] He's the guy that did this.

[00:44:08] It's it's it's Richard Allen.

[00:44:09] There's no doubt about that.

[00:44:11] And I only wish Judge Gull had allowed the public to access all of this information by being able to attend the trial, either by in person or by watching it on television or at least listening to audio of it.

[00:44:30] I firmly believe that if more people had had that opportunity, there would not be confusion about this verdict.

[00:44:40] It's the only rational verdict this jury could have reached.

[00:44:45] And it is a shame that people have tried to lie about the evidence in an effort to, I guess, either get attention or make a quick buck.

[00:44:56] I'm already hearing talk about people trying to crowdfund or whatever for an appeal.

[00:45:02] And I want to repeat what I said yesterday.

[00:45:05] This is over.

[00:45:06] This is over.

[00:45:08] I follow this very closely.

[00:45:12] I have not seen any reasonable grounds for an appeal.

[00:45:17] I do not expect any of these appeals to be successful.

[00:45:22] Appeals will be made.

[00:45:23] People will try their best.

[00:45:26] They may even try to get people to send money to them.

[00:45:30] I wonder why that is.

[00:45:32] They're not going to succeed.

[00:45:34] I see no reason.

[00:45:36] I see no rational prospect of these appeals succeeding.

[00:45:40] Richard Allen is guilty.

[00:45:43] And on December 20th, he is going to receive a sentence.

[00:45:48] I do not know what that sentence is.

[00:45:50] But I do predict he will never breathe a breath outside of a prison ever again.

[00:45:58] Yeah, as he should.

[00:46:00] This man hunted these girls like they were prey.

[00:46:06] That he put them through unimaginable terror and fear and humiliation.

[00:46:13] He forced them to strip.

[00:46:15] He forced them across the creek.

[00:46:16] He thought he was a really big man with his little gun.

[00:46:21] He does not deserve to be out amongst us.

[00:46:26] This is seeing the injuries done to them, seeing what this has done to their families.

[00:46:34] He does not.

[00:46:36] He should.

[00:46:37] He's exactly where he needs to be.

[00:46:39] He should be in the prison system for the rest of his life.

[00:46:41] All of us are safer with him locked up.

[00:46:43] He's a sorry excuse for a man.

[00:46:45] And I just I just think the fact that grifters have sort of swooped into this case and sort of made him to be some sort of cause celeb like about, you know, you know, he's been railroaded.

[00:46:57] No, he hasn't.

[00:46:59] This jury was was smart enough to look at all of this evidence and put it together.

[00:47:06] And they made a fair and appropriate verdict in my mind.

[00:47:10] They took their time.

[00:47:11] They deliberated.

[00:47:12] And I don't I don't see having looked at it myself how you could come to another conclusion when you when you actually look at it.

[00:47:19] I think people have unrealistic expectations for criminal cases.

[00:47:24] I don't think that's helpful.

[00:47:25] I don't want people like that on juries, frankly, if you're saying, oh, it needs DNA or I don't believe it, then, yeah, please, please say that in what dear.

[00:47:35] So you don't get on a jury, I guess.

[00:47:37] But I think people need to understand that in a situation like this, with the amount of evidence that stacked up against him, the totality of the circumstances, the totality of everything.

[00:47:50] They got their guy.

[00:47:51] They got bridge guy.

[00:47:53] They got Richard Allen.

[00:47:54] And I'm I am glad I feel better knowing that someone like this is going to go away forever because he should not be out.

[00:48:02] He should not be able to inflict this on anyone else.

[00:48:04] A lot of people who faced a lot of unreasonable and unthinking criticism worked very hard for the result that happened yesterday.

[00:48:15] I include people on the prosecutors team, people in law enforcement, people, volunteers like Kathy Shank, who, again, I repeat, is a hero.

[00:48:25] A lot of people worked very, very hard for that.

[00:48:28] It's it's a day very long in coming.

[00:48:31] It doesn't bring the girls back, but it at least holds the person responsible who took them from us.

[00:48:43] Well said.

[00:48:44] And I guess we'll probably do more coverage as things come up or as topics come up or as people want to know about different things.

[00:48:51] But, you know, it's been.

[00:48:55] We came into this and we tried to kind of clear our minds going into the trial to a certain extent.

[00:48:59] But as things developed and as as evidence came up and as we heard everything and as frankly we heard the defense case not really rebut anything of the substance and still just instead just go with this kind of like, well, he's kind of a sad sack.

[00:49:15] And, you know, he got depressed in prison.

[00:49:17] It's like, OK, that's that's not about the facts of the case.

[00:49:21] We just we we feel it's important at this time to state how we feel and how we came to that conclusion and how how we view things at this point.

[00:49:30] So at the very least, you can know that.

[00:49:32] But thanks for sticking with us.

[00:49:34] This has been.

[00:49:36] At times a difficult reporting process.

[00:49:39] And I feel like we've kind of, you know, like it's just been a very odd experience in some ways, but it's it's something that we care deeply about.

[00:49:50] About this case.

[00:49:51] And so in a way, it's it's strange to have it be at least this chapter be over.

[00:49:59] Everybody talks about the cliche thing that Mr. Rogers said during a disaster.

[00:50:06] Look for the helpers throughout this process.

[00:50:09] There have been people who have actively sought to make this tragedy worse.

[00:50:17] They've gone after the families.

[00:50:19] They've accused innocent people.

[00:50:21] They've said terrible things about the investigators on this case.

[00:50:26] They have tried to make a quick buck by grifting on their pathetic little YouTubes or what have you.

[00:50:34] So in a way, I feel that my perception of humanity has darkened a bit.

[00:50:42] But at the same time, there have been so many wonderful people involved in this case.

[00:50:50] People who put their heads down and did the right thing and didn't just do the right thing once who just kept on working and working and behaving ethically and with honor and who helped bring this home.

[00:51:07] And one thing I hope to do is to tell some of their stories because some of the behind the scenes efforts by the people in this case is something that gives me hope and that I find inspirational.

[00:51:19] And I hope to share some of those with you in the weeks and months to come.

[00:51:25] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:51:27] All right.

[00:51:28] Well, I thank you guys for listening.

[00:51:30] And I guess we'll well, I'm sure you'll be hearing from us soon.

[00:51:34] Bye.

[00:51:35] Thanks so much for listening to the Murder Sheet.

[00:51:38] If you have a tip concerning one of the cases we cover, please email us at murdersheet at gmail.com.

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[00:52:19] Special thanks to Kevin Tyler Greenlee, who composed the music for the Murder Sheet, and who you can find on the web at kevintg.com.

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[00:52:49] Thanks again for listening.

[00:52:51] Thanks so much for sticking around to the end of this Murder Sheet episode.

[00:52:57] Just as a quick post-roll ad, we wanted to tell you again about our friend Jason Blair's wonderful Silver Linings Handbook.

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[00:54:21] Yeah, I think our audience will like it.

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[00:54:30] I say this in one of our ads about him, but I literally always – I'm like, oh, yeah, I remember when Jason said this.

[00:54:35] That really resonated.

[00:54:36] Like I do quote him in conversations sometimes because he really has a good grasp of different complicated issues.

[00:54:43] She quotes him to me all the time.

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[00:54:53] And again, he does a range of different topics, but they all kind of have this similar theme of compassion, of overcoming suffering, of dealing with suffering, of mental health, wellness, things like that.

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[00:55:09] And we work on a lot of stories that can be very tough, and we try to bring compassion and empathy to it.

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[00:55:26] It's compassionate.

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[00:55:43] Yeah, and he's got a great community that he's building.

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[00:55:46] We're fans of the show.

[00:55:47] We love it.

[00:55:48] And we would strongly encourage you all to check it out.

[00:55:51] Download some episodes.

[00:55:52] Listen, I think you'll understand what we're talking about once you do.

[00:55:56] But anyways, you can listen to The Silver Linings Handbook wherever you listen to podcasts.

[00:56:00] Wherever you listen to podcasts.

[00:56:02] Very easy to find.

[00:56:03] Absolutely.