The Delphi Murders: The State's Response to Motion to Correct Error

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[00:03:10] [SPEAKER_00] Content warning. This episode contains discussion of the murder of two girls. So, today, we're going...

[00:03:19] [SPEAKER_02] Should we backtrack? A couple of weeks ago, the defense attorneys in the Richard Allen case... And by defense attorneys, I should be specific here. The trial counsel, Andrew Baldwin, Brad Rosey, Jennifer Auger, they filed a motion to correct error. This was a document in which they identify things that they feel were purported errors in the way Richard Allen's trial took place. And said, here's these errors. We got to correct them.

[00:03:49] [SPEAKER_02] Maybe just throw the whole conviction out. So, that was basically what they said. Actually, not much more elegantly than that. You may recall we did an episode at the time about it, which we took a very skeptical look at it. And I think, as we may have mentioned on that program, the reason we took such a skeptical look is that we have come to know this defense team and come to know how they operate.

[00:04:15] [SPEAKER_02] And so, now, a couple of weeks later, Nicholas McClellan for the state of Indiana has filed his response to that. And we're going to talk about that in a minute. But we were talking that you wanted to make some comments about media.

[00:04:31] [SPEAKER_00] Yes. Yeah, I'm sure you remember. We were skeptical in our coverage. I think there was some sighing involved, perhaps. And, you know, I think that's – I think we have the right to feel that way at this point. We've covered this story in an extreme amount of depth. And we have seen the same playbook again and again where we have a explosive claim or claims in a defense filing come out.

[00:04:57] [SPEAKER_00] It's breathlessly and kind of, frankly, naively covered throughout both social media and traditional media, unfortunately. And then more information comes out that debunks what they're saying or, at the very least, casts a real shadow over what they're claiming. It turns out to be more nuanced. It turns out to not be true. It turns out to be kind of a garbled version.

[00:05:25] [SPEAKER_00] And, you know, I think –

[00:05:28] [SPEAKER_02] You may remember that one of the things in this document they filed a couple weeks ago, for instance, was, Oh, this story about Ron Logan allegedly confessing. And that got to be a huge story.

[00:05:40] [SPEAKER_00] It was a huge story. And, you know, we were sitting there being like, guys, you know, come on. We've been through this before. No one listens to us, obviously. Because it's not –

[00:05:50] [SPEAKER_02] Except for you, dear listeners.

[00:05:51] [SPEAKER_00] Except for you wonderful people. But it's not surprising. And I understand why because it's not interesting. It's interesting where it's like, whoa, new evidence found in the Richard Allen case? Does this change everything we thought we knew? Was Ron Logan, twist, really the killer? And – And it's no fun to be the people who are like at the party being like, no. It's more interesting.

[00:06:15] [SPEAKER_00] And from the data, you know, from the media, I don't think we've really seen, especially in true crime lately, and this is a lot of systemic issues, I don't think the media sees themselves anymore as like arbiters of what is true and – or kind of relied upon for in-depth investigative and fact-checking and whatnot. You do see that in some instances. But in this case, I think that has been lacking somewhat because it's like, well, the official defense attorney said this.

[00:06:45] [SPEAKER_00] So it must – there must be something to it. And I think that's an error because I think that's actually not getting at truth and accuracy. But I understand it and I'm sympathetic with where reporters are coming from because, I mean, they're working like hours and all this stuff is going on and they're being torn. It's not a competency issue necessarily. It's just kind of a resources issue and just this is how things are now. You know, you're pulled in a lot of different directions.

[00:07:12] [SPEAKER_00] If the defense drops an explosive filing, you're going to cover it. Maybe you're not really going to like look at their claims. You're just going to kind of cover it and show how exciting it is and move on. And so it's with sympathy I kind of see what they're doing. But I also think it's misleading the public.

[00:07:27] [SPEAKER_02] So the question you had or the point you made earlier before we began recording is, Kevin, people should evaluate – have all these outlets that breathlessly reported on this alleged Ron Logan confession? Are they going to discuss what we're going to discuss today, which is reasons why that confession is about as strong as wet toilet paper?

[00:07:49] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. Are we going to see the same level of breathless coverage? Not just – and I don't want to single out the traditional media. I tend to think the traditional media is better with this stuff and more reliable and accurate and something worthy of your following than social media or the typical kind of YouTube contingent or the typical social media commentators or even more of the kind of tabloidy side of the media. I mean that's where things really go off the rails. And I think we should be scrutinizing those actors.

[00:08:17] [SPEAKER_00] And are we seeing from them any sort of reciprocal coverage? Are we seeing both sides, so to speak? If they're going to say, well, anything that comes out in this case is worth like a level of kind of scrutiny and sort of taking it seriously, are they taking any of this seriously? Because this is actually a serious filing by a serious attorney. I mean – and I don't think what we saw previously was.

[00:08:43] [SPEAKER_00] And so I think it's just important for all of us – all of us to exhibit some of that media literacy, some of that kind of cutting through things. And if you're seeing one but not anything on this because it's basically just throwing cold water on something, then I don't know if those outlets or those individuals are worth even having in your media ecosystem because then you're really not hearing the full story. And it's not just a matter of like, well, they seem to kind of prefer one thing over another.

[00:09:13] [SPEAKER_00] It's actually just like you're not being told facts. And that has no place in anybody's media diet as far as I'm concerned. Like I don't have a problem. If the defense released a wild filing about how like elephants charging down the streets of Delphi and that had something to do with the case, then I might be skeptical about that. But if I then see a video proving that they're right, I'll come out and say, wow, they got that one right. Good for them.

[00:09:42] [SPEAKER_00] That's where we have to be. We have to be factual. You can have an opinion. You can have a point of view. All of that's great. But we have to have a commitment to truth and accuracy. And I just I feel like things have not really gone in that direction with this case ever, but certainly not recently. True crime podcasts are a bit like investments when it comes to your time. You're taking a few spare minutes here and there, tuning in and building up a knowledge base to set yourself up in the future.

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[00:13:19] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah, I just think we all, you know, the best thing we can do is basically kind of like excise the kind of the noise where it's just, you know, somebody consistently being like shocked and born yesterday about some of these filings. Like that's just not, that's not reporting. That's just kind of nonsense. It's just, you know, and it's just for clicks. I mean, because again, it's more interesting to say wrongful conviction than like, oh no, well, all that didn't turn out to be true. But thanks for playing.

[00:13:50] [SPEAKER_00] Let's, before we start, let's just like, before we kind of go to the music and stuff, and I promise I won't sigh loudly this time. I thought that the off-phonic that we use was going to catch that, but it didn't. But let's go over kind of generally what are the kind of concepts that the defense raised and just quickly all kind of try to run through them.

[00:14:12] [SPEAKER_02] Before you do, I think when we discussed it a couple of weeks ago, I don't remember if I said this explicitly or if it was just an implicit thing that I was suggesting. But I will say it explicitly now, that filing that the defense made in this case two weeks ago, it was not a serious filing. And in some deep ways, it's not worth your time. It's not worth our time. It wasn't worth Nick McClellan's time to sit down and respond to it.

[00:14:39] [SPEAKER_02] But with that said, there were a few points they raised, which we will discuss the state's response to them. A couple of their points revolved around the safekeeping order. This was the order that very early on in the case, after Allen was arrested, he was moved from Carroll County into the Indiana Department of Corrections.

[00:15:06] [SPEAKER_02] And the defense claimed that was somehow a violation of his rights. They also say, oh, by the way, he had a secret lawyer that no one knew about, even though this lawyer doesn't appear in the record. And so because of all this reasons, the trial needs to be thrown out. And I think number two was Brad Weber. What did they say about Brad Weber?

[00:15:27] [SPEAKER_00] They said they had a video showing Brad Weber's van going into the drive towards his house, I think about maybe approximately 15 minutes after the state sort of indicated that Liberty German's phone stopped moving. And therefore was likely that she was either, you know, like that basically was kind of like not necessarily the time that she's deceased, but around there.

[00:15:53] [SPEAKER_02] So we'll talk more about that. Then they also brought up something I alluded to earlier. A person who is incarcerated claims that he heard Ron Logan tell him that he was responsible for the murder of the girls. And the fourth thing is phone evidence. They claim that hours after the crime, someone returned to the crime scene, plugged headphones into the phone, left them plugged in for a few hours and then unplugged them.

[00:16:23] [SPEAKER_02] All and doing all of this without moving the phone and doing all of this without attracting attention of any of the many, many searchers in the area at the time. So those are the issues they raise. We'll be discussing Nick McClellan's responses to them in just a moment.

[00:16:40] [SPEAKER_00] My name is Anya Kane. I'm a journalist.

[00:16:42] [SPEAKER_02] And I'm Kevin Greenlee. I'm an attorney. And this is The Murder Sheet. We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting, interviews and deep dives into murder cases. We're The Murder Sheet.

[00:16:55] [SPEAKER_00] And this is the Delphi murders, state's response to motion to correct error.

[00:17:46] [SPEAKER_02] I'd like to say before we start, I think McClellan did a great job with this filing. As I indicated, I don't think the defense filing was a serious filing. So in some ways, this is as if some scientist had to write a lengthy explanation to a child as to why there's no monsters under his bed.

[00:18:07] [SPEAKER_02] That he's having to take seriously some ridiculous charges or misrepresented issues raised by the defense and explain why they are ridiculous.

[00:18:18] [SPEAKER_00] I'm having war flashbacks to back before the Richard Allen phase of the case where you and I would sometimes come on here and have to or even in the, you know, kind of pre-recording sessions talk about like, do we need to address these incredibly stupid rumors spread by stupid people on the Internet? Or can we talk about reality? And there was always this kind of balance between like you you sometimes have to debunk things.

[00:18:45] [SPEAKER_00] I mean, like because like it's spreading and people are being duped and people who are good hearted and just trying to learn stuff or being tricked into believing something that's not true. And you want to stop that. But then you also don't really want to give it that much air. And it's like and it's frustrating because you want to just report like what the facts are and not have to like go out and answer, you know, every stupid question that's just not based in anything.

[00:19:09] [SPEAKER_00] So like it's just weird being in a situation where I'm seeing almost the same thing happen, but in legal filings. Not really where I thought we'd be when these folks signed on to the case. But, you know, I guess.

[00:19:24] [SPEAKER_02] Well, the good news is I don't think Judge Cole is going to grant a hearing in this case. I think she's going to deny the motion without granting a hearing. I don't think I'm even going out on a bunch of a limb.

[00:19:38] [SPEAKER_00] I don't think there's any merit to their. Yeah.

[00:19:40] [SPEAKER_02] So we'll say that. So that means that the next filings in the case will probably be from the appellate attorneys who we have been assured are very competent and very good.

[00:19:53] [SPEAKER_00] That's Mark Lehman and Stacey Luliana. They both have good reputations as appellate attorneys. Appellate cases are typically to use a kind of stupid term less sexy than your trial cases. There's going to be issues about like, did the judge make a mistake here? Did the prosecutor do something wrong here? A lot of discussions about the law and things like that. And it's not flashy. It's not, you know, it. Now, here's my concern.

[00:20:19] [SPEAKER_00] I sometimes feel like this case is like some sort of cursed object that half of the people who come into contact with it lose their minds. So I don't feel comfortable at this point saying that, oh, yeah, it's all going to be just adults taking care of things from here on in. But I really hope that's the case because, you know, it's a serious matter and it deserves serious people working on it. And an appeal in a criminal matter like this is a serious job.

[00:20:47] [SPEAKER_00] And so I hope that I hope I just I mean, like, I guess I just bluntly hope that that's the case. But as I said, there is a history of this case where I feel like I see people who have some credibility come into it. And just that credibility is dashed upon the rocks of nonsense. And there we go.

[00:21:05] [SPEAKER_02] And I feel I would be remiss if I didn't know that, yes, these people, these appellate attorneys do have a good reputation. Before we saw Baldwin and Rosie in this case, we heard a lot of things about them. And we were told that they had a good reputation and that they were excellent trial attorneys. And that's not that's not that's not what I saw in court.

[00:21:26] [SPEAKER_02] I saw two ill, I guess, three ill prepared attorneys who were clearly out of their depth and who clearly had a very limited understanding of the actual facts of the case.

[00:21:40] [SPEAKER_00] But a lot of confidence in themselves.

[00:21:41] [SPEAKER_02] They had a lot of misplaced confidence. I often say critical things about discussions of this case that appear on social media and on Reddit. I feel that a lot of people on Reddit who I've read over the years have a more sophisticated knowledge and understanding of the case than did these defense attorneys based on what I saw in court.

[00:22:02] [SPEAKER_00] I think Reddit, I think you could have grabbed a bunch of randos on Reddit and you would have possibly assembled a group that may have actually had a better understanding of some of the discovery without even having necessarily gone over the discovery. Because I just felt like we were watching. I mean, if I'll give the only positive thing I could say about the performance at trial is that I think it was significantly better than the performance at the three day hearing where Odinism was thrown out. Like, I'll say that. It was better than that.

[00:22:28] [SPEAKER_00] That bar is not only low, it's on the floor. It's underneath the ground. And so it's submerged. And so, you know, Reddit could have done this for free, you know, for Carroll County. I just – and frankly, like, why were they catering to Reddit and YouTube? I don't even – like, there's so many things I don't understand. There's so many things I don't understand. I don't understand.

[00:22:50] [SPEAKER_02] They did not do well by Richard Allen and we tried to raise those alarm bells all throughout this.

[00:22:55] [SPEAKER_00] But of course, if you're – you know, if you raise any – like, the funny thing is it became so conflated that basically, you know, in the online discussions, you know, criticism, critiques of the defense team, you know, were tantamount to saying Richard Allen's guilty, which in no way is the same thing, you know. And so, like, it just was just so weird. I mean, there was, like, this cult of personality around these attorneys.

[00:23:19] [SPEAKER_00] And frankly, I would just think for most professionals that would make you really uncomfortable and you'd want to almost, like, avoid that and kind of be like, let me just do my job and that's not what happened.

[00:23:30] [SPEAKER_02] Yes. As we often do, we're running a field. So let's – Wow.

[00:23:34] [SPEAKER_00] Us? Us? Run a field?

[00:23:37] [SPEAKER_02] Let's talk about this document, which requires us to also talk about the document, of course, that it is responding to. As we indicated, like, four different categories of things mentioned that McClellan is responding to. The first one revolves around this safekeeping motion that resulted in Richard Allen being transferred from Carroll County Jail into the Indiana Department of Corrections.

[00:24:05] [SPEAKER_02] And I should say the reason why the defense is trying to harp on this and focus on this is that their contention, which is sandcastles built on air, built on wild supposition, is that their contention is that ultimately the only reason that Richard Allen confessed repeatedly to this crime of which he was guilty was because he had been transferred to the Indiana Department of Corrections.

[00:24:35] [SPEAKER_02] Indiana Department of Corrections. So if they feel like, oh, we can somehow taint that, maybe we can get the confessions thrown out. And so even before we discuss that, I'd like to say that I've seen no evidence of that. I think that what made him confess was his own guilt and his own torment over dealing with the effects of what he had done.

[00:24:59] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah.

[00:25:00] [SPEAKER_02] I don't think he was confessing solely because he was in a cell in Westville as opposed to a cell in Cass County. And in fact, when he was in a cell in Cass County, he still behaved very, very poorly indeed. So with that said, there's a couple of prongs to this safekeeping discussion. The first one worth mentioning is that in their filing, the defense contended, oh, guess what?

[00:25:28] [SPEAKER_02] But Richard Allen secretly had a lawyer that no one knew about who never filed into the case. But by golly, that attorney was not present at this safekeeping hearing. Actually, it wasn't even a hearing. I'll get to that in a minute. But the secret attorney was not a part of that. And so therefore, Richard Allen's rights were violated.

[00:25:51] [SPEAKER_02] And as I pointed out in our earlier discussion, they did not present any evidence that this attorney actually was representing him. Sorry, I'm already sorry. Because you would think if an attorney represented somebody and you wanted to prove that in a court filing, you would provide an affidavit from either the attorney or the client saying, yes, John Smith was my attorney. Yes, John Doe was my client.

[00:26:21] [SPEAKER_02] They didn't do that. They just had some sort of, I think, a receipt from Kathy Allen.

[00:26:28] [SPEAKER_00] And then some vague affidavit from Kathy Allen who, you know, can like…

[00:26:32] [SPEAKER_02] Very carefully worded. Yeah. Wow. And so I think I said this was like the dog that didn't bark. And the fact that they didn't have any statement from the attorney or from Mr. Allen himself saying this guy was my attorney, that told me he wasn't the attorney. He was at most someone who came in to do a quick consultation. And in fact, in this filing, Mr. McClelland includes an email from this attorney saying, I'm not the attorney.

[00:27:03] [SPEAKER_02] I'm not representing him. So all of that stuff about the secret representation by an attorney, pardon my language, is bullshit.

[00:27:13] [SPEAKER_00] Whoa.

[00:27:14] [SPEAKER_02] It's just a complete waste of time. And it was nonsense. And it was an insult to all of us.

[00:27:21] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah.

[00:27:22] [SPEAKER_02] Is that too strong?

[00:27:23] [SPEAKER_00] No, I don't think so. I mean, I also feel like it's… I don't want to have to come out here and talk about things that are in a legal filing that just, you know, at a certain point, you know, I think we all appreciate that defense attorneys as a whole have a difficult job to do. And, you know, you have to be vigorous and you have to kind of look for every angle. But I think it's fair to say, you know, there's a point where this just becomes dishonest.

[00:27:51] [SPEAKER_00] And we're well into that. And I don't really have any respect for that. I don't have respect for that no matter who's doing it or what side you're on. It's just, it's not, it's not acceptable. In this case, I mean, as you said, I think you just called it when we originally covered this. It was, you know, why would this guy not be at his hearing? It's possible to do consultations. Why would you not? Why would you just have this random vague thing from Kathy Allen being like, I paid the guy.

[00:28:20] [SPEAKER_00] And it's like, yeah, okay. When you have, it's just, it's just like, it's insulting to everybody. It's insulting to the court. It's insulting. I feel bad having to talk about it to you guys because I know people are interested in this. But like at a certain point, I just feel like we're all wasting our time here. And it's frustrating because like, you know, we feel like we have to cover it because, you know, it'll inevitably get picked up in certain spheres and people will, you know, just lie.

[00:28:50] [SPEAKER_00] But so I feel like we have to counteract that. But at a certain point, it's also like, you know, this is just, it's air. It's cotton candy. It's, there's nothing. There's no colloquium.

[00:28:58] [SPEAKER_02] Cotton candy is good. Yeah, that's true. I like cotton candy.

[00:29:01] [SPEAKER_00] Like it's, it's, what I'm trying to say is there's no nutritional value here.

[00:29:05] [SPEAKER_02] Well, I still love cotton candy.

[00:29:07] [SPEAKER_00] I know you do.

[00:29:08] [SPEAKER_02] I would love to start a new podcast talking about candy. I saw for some reason a news story today and I digress and it'll be very brief, I promise. But I saw a news story today about Taylor Swift's favorite candy. I said, by gum, that candy looks good.

[00:29:23] [SPEAKER_00] What the heck? You're going off the rails over there. So you're swearing. You're talking about candy. You're talking about Taylor Swift.

[00:29:32] [SPEAKER_02] Let's get, let's get.

[00:29:33] [SPEAKER_00] That's my job.

[00:29:36] [SPEAKER_02] Let's, let's, let's get back to this.

[00:29:38] [SPEAKER_00] I'm here to have a serious legal discussion and you're a.

[00:29:42] [SPEAKER_02] So there's a couple other things to discuss before we move on. One of which is there is a principle that I'm simplifying a bit that it's important for a defendant to have a counsel with him at critical stages of the process. So then the question becomes, what is a critical stage?

[00:30:05] [SPEAKER_02] And the principle is if you don't have a counsel at a critical stage, then perhaps, you know, you need to have a new trial because it wasn't fair. So we always talk about Anya and her serial stealing proclivities. Let's say she is on trial for stealing serial and there is a witness giving testimony about, oh, I saw Anya steal the serial and Anya is in court, but she doesn't have her attorney with her.

[00:30:31] [SPEAKER_02] That's a problem because the presentation of such a witness ultimately kind of goes to the guilt or innocence of Miss Kane in this particular matter. So that's a critical stage. She needs to have counsel there.

[00:30:45] [SPEAKER_02] Now, if you have situations where the matter being discussed doesn't really go to the innocence or guilt in front of a jury and it's more just procedural, then those are not considered to be critical stages. So what are some of the things that would not be considered a critical stage? One of which is cited in this document is the filing of information.

[00:31:13] [SPEAKER_02] That's not a critical stage. Or having a hearing on the probable cause. That's not a critical stage. Or even a hearing to select a special judge, I mean, from the document. That's not a critical stage because those things really don't touch on the guilt or innocence of the defendant in front of the jury. Does that make sense?

[00:31:36] [SPEAKER_00] It does. So you're saying, you know, if you're my attorney in that situation and somebody lured you outside with Taylor Swift's favorite candy or something and I was left alone and there was something going on that was a critical stage. My rights are being violated because I don't have my attorney here with me in a crucial moment where everything could hinge on this and I need some help.

[00:31:57] [SPEAKER_02] But let me read something here directly from the document. I'm quoting Mr. McClelland. The defendant is not facing the advocacy of the profit of the prosecutor with respect to his guilt or innocence of the criminal charges. It is also not a stage where incrimination may occur or where the opportunity to present a defense to the charge must be seized or forever lost or impaired. Those are critical stages. And things that don't touch on that are not critical stages.

[00:32:26] [SPEAKER_02] And so the reason why we're discussing this is then the question is, is this safekeeping motion filed by the sheriff shortly after the arrest? Was that a critical stage? And was the fact that there was no attorney present for that? Does that mean that Mr. Allen's rights were somehow impaired?

[00:32:46] [SPEAKER_00] Right.

[00:32:48] [SPEAKER_02] And McClelland points out there's a process outlined in the statutes for how this stuff is to be handled, the safekeeping motions. And the way it's outlined, it doesn't even require a hearing at all. A sheriff can file a motion saying, I can't keep this person safely in my jail for these reasons. And if the judge says, yes, those reasons make sense to me, he can sign off on that without even having a hearing at all.

[00:33:17] [SPEAKER_02] And if the statute doesn't even require a hearing, how can that hearing, which isn't required, be considered a critical stage?

[00:33:25] [SPEAKER_00] So why did they even make this argument?

[00:33:27] [SPEAKER_02] Also, it doesn't even touch on the guilt or innocence of the defendant.

[00:33:32] [SPEAKER_00] So why do you even make this argument when it's in the friggin instruction manual that this is not even the definition that you're going for? Why do that?

[00:33:42] [SPEAKER_02] McClelland also points out the statute does say that after such a motion is filed and granted, there is a process in place where the defendant can say, no, I think this was done incorrectly. I want to appeal it. I want to hear, I want a hearing. And in fact, in this case, Richard Allen did that through his attorneys. And when that occurred, the judge in the case, Judge Goal found, no, this was handled correctly.

[00:34:10] [SPEAKER_02] And he also points out correctly that many of the things that the defense attorneys, Mr. Baldwin and Mr. Rosie put in their filings on that matter were found by the judge to be inaccurate or in short lies.

[00:34:28] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah, it's it's just OK. You know, I don't even know what there is to say about that. It's just it.

[00:34:34] [SPEAKER_02] Am I making sense?

[00:34:35] [SPEAKER_00] You make sense to me. I hope we make sense to everybody else. It's it's just this doesn't even fit the definition of what they're asking for.

[00:34:42] [SPEAKER_02] So he did not have an attorney. And furthermore, this was not something that it was a critical stage where an attorney was required. And once he got an attorney, those attorneys did duly exercise his rights under the statute to appeal the finding. And they lost. That's basically the summary.

[00:35:03] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. Again, I think there's a difference between robustly trying to work every angle. And I don't know, this isn't it's just not an angle because it's just not factually like we I don't I don't see how we can be in a, you know, like a. We have to exist in a shared reality at some point, you know, words matter and mean things and calling something calling for something to happen where it could only, you know, have an impact at a critical stage.

[00:35:31] [SPEAKER_00] And then not even being close to meeting that definition just feels like a waste of everybody's time. But I repeat myself.

[00:35:39] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah, the due process thing, again, in terms of the safekeeping motion, it's can this person be kept safely in this particular facility? It doesn't mean it's not the judge isn't saying, oh, Richard Allen can't be kept in the Carroll County Jail because he is a guilty man. They're not making any determination whatsoever on his guilt or innocence. They're just saying, look, the facility at the Carroll County Jail is very small.

[00:36:08] [SPEAKER_00] It's tiny. Thirty four beds.

[00:36:10] [SPEAKER_02] We don't have the space or the mechanism to keep the man safely there. I think there has nothing to do with guilt or innocence.

[00:36:18] [SPEAKER_00] I think their office has like maybe 13. Deputies, detectives, things like that. It's tiny. Like this is it. This is not a big jail. I think if Allen was put in to something like that or a jail that small with that limited manpower, that would not have been a safe situation for him. I don't think there's any way around that. There was no accommodating him. And that's before his erratic behavior started.

[00:36:48] [SPEAKER_00] I mean, like that it's small. It's tiny. There's always overcrowding. They have a history, as we learned in our interview, I believe, with Sheriff Tony Liggett of putting people in White County just kind of by default because they just they can't handle it all. Well, at Carroll County there, I think they're getting a new facility soon. That'll be that'll be great. Maybe that takes some of the pressure off of it.

[00:37:12] [SPEAKER_00] But it as it existed back then, I don't know what they were supposed to do because they were going to be it was going to be bad either way. It was either going to be we we need to send him away or we we're going to take him on when we can't. And somebody is going to get hurt.

[00:37:28] [SPEAKER_02] So there wouldn't have been any Perry Mason moments if a defense attorney had been present. You wouldn't have had a fast talking attorney come in and make any whatever. And when Rosie and Baldwin tried to appeal the the safekeeping order, they used arguments that were fictitious and lies and their appeals were rejected and they appealed it many, many times. So, yeah.

[00:37:57] [SPEAKER_00] Well, I feel like the time they actually like at the three day hearing, this is probably the only bright spot of that for them in fairness was they were instead of hitting it like their angle being Richard Allen is the worst treated prisoner in the world and everything is so awful for him. Uniquely, they were just more of like, well, you know, we've worked things out more with Cass County. Carroll County doesn't care where he goes. Neither does the Carroll County prosecutor. Can we switch him over here? It seemed like that at that point, then that worked.

[00:38:27] [SPEAKER_00] And Gall was like, sure. You know, I mean, but their whole angle, that first one, was just this over the top nonsense. And it was like by almost playing it towards the media, by almost playing it towards this big, dramatic battle, I think they actually inflicted more harm on their client than anything else.

[00:38:44] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah, the defense attorneys made it clear throughout their entire representation of Mr. Allen that they cared less about Mr. Allen than they did courting the media. And that did a real disservice to Mr. Allen. Let me conclude this section. I'm going to read the last paragraph that Mr. McClellan wrote in this particular section.

[00:39:07] [SPEAKER_02] He's saying, even if you decide that not having an attorney there was wrong and it was a critical stage, he said, you still have to go through another hoop. You have to make it clear that that error had an impact.

[00:39:28] [SPEAKER_02] I'm going to quote from him, quoting Mr. McClellan, the lack of a hearing for the safekeeping motion on November 3rd, 2022, and the lack of counsel before the decision was made by the court had no effect on the jury's verdict and therefore is harmless. The jury did not find the defendant guilty because a determination on his safekeeping was made without a hearing on November 3rd, 2022, and no attorney appeared.

[00:39:53] [SPEAKER_02] Nor did not having an attorney or a hearing at this stage permanently deprive the defendant of the opportunity to raise any claims or assert any defense. Clearly, the defense did that after the order was issued. The lack of counsel must be complete to apply the presumption of prejudice. The presumption of prejudice only applies when the error infects the entire trial process and necessarily renders it fundamentally unfair.

[00:40:18] [SPEAKER_02] So again, he's saying, even if you decide this is a critical stage and it was bad, it did not impact the trial at all. And I would agree with that completely.

[00:40:30] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah, so do I. So we're moving on to the next point.

[00:40:34] [SPEAKER_02] Let's move on to the Brad Weber point. Remind us what this was.

[00:40:38] [SPEAKER_00] All right. So the defense included a video that they posted on Michael Osbrook's YouTube channel that showed what purported to be a white van driving down the road and then turning into what I can describe as the Weber Drive. It's this drive where his, you know, parents' home is at the end of it. And that's the road that Brad Weber was driving down the day of the murders.

[00:41:08] [SPEAKER_00] It's an access road to his house that goes under the Monon High Bridge. And so this is from a surveillance footage taken from a camera from a home, some sort of residence, it seems, that was nearby. So you can see this very, very blurry little dot going along the road and then turning in at a specific point. And so that's interesting.

[00:41:32] [SPEAKER_00] Now, where this comes down to, I think, and this is something we raised in our original coverage, where it comes down to it is that what the defense is saying is that they're taking the time stamps.

[00:41:47] [SPEAKER_02] Everybody agrees the time stamp on the video is wrong.

[00:41:49] [SPEAKER_00] Right. They're noting that the time stamp on the video is incorrect. And they're saying that, you know, basically this is we need to flip this by 12 hours. Right. It says it's, you know, I forget what the exact time stands, but they say it says it's 2.45 a.m., but obviously you can see it's sunny out.

[00:42:07] [SPEAKER_00] So it's 2.45 p.m. And, you know, therefore, if he came in at 2.45 p.m., that's 15 minutes after the state said that Liberty's phone moved for the last time. So if Richard Allen was startled by the appearance of Brad Webber in his white van, but then the phone stops moving at that point, that doesn't make any sense because the white van is supposed to be the reason that he was startled and that he sort of forced Liberty and Abigail across the creek and killed them.

[00:42:37] [SPEAKER_00] And so they're basically saying this proves the white van story can't work with the state's timeline. It obliterates the timeline. Everything's destroyed. And so the question that I raised in the last discussion of this is, OK, we're acknowledging that it's obviously 12 hours off. But how do we know that it's 12 hours off? If it's off, how do we not know that it is 12.15, you know, or, you know, 12 and change? Like how. How can we determine this?

[00:43:06] [SPEAKER_00] Is there any way to get the actual, you know, universal, totally correct timestamps where we can really determine what time this is? Because one thing I think we've all experienced is if you lose power or there's a glitch with something, you know, things like timing, you know, if you're stove, whatever, things can get off. Right.

[00:43:27] [SPEAKER_00] And I even I remember around this time I was seeing some discussion online of just people sharing their own experiences and saying, yes, I've had my surveillance cameras get off by not just 12 hours, but 12 hours plus 20 minutes, 12 hours plus 23 minutes. What have you. So.

[00:43:46] So.

[00:43:47] [SPEAKER_00] There's limited usefulness to that unless you can really lock down the specific time.

[00:43:53] [SPEAKER_02] The defense doesn't explain how they arrived at their gas that it was 12 hours. Exactly. It didn't McClellan have a good.

[00:44:00] [SPEAKER_00] Can I read this? This is my favorite line that they had in this whole thing. So, quote. The that the exhibit presented by the defense is in the form of a YouTube link that is not identified as an item of evidence by an Indiana State Police number and therefore is an improper submission for consideration by the court is unverified by legitimate means as to date and time.

[00:44:23] [SPEAKER_00] Defense alleged that the time in the video is off by 12 hours without any proof of said allegation, except their apparent ability to tell the time by simply looking at the daylight and moonlight in the video. So they make further they further make assumptions about the content of the video. They present zero evidence to support said allegations. I thought that was great about the moonlight in the daylight. It just makes it sound ridiculous, which it is, frankly, which it is ridiculous.

[00:44:47] [SPEAKER_02] It is ridiculous.

[00:44:48] [SPEAKER_00] I mean, what we may be seeing, I mean, what I think we're probably seeing is Brad Webber's van turn into. The drive when likely when he said it did. And and like kind of the, you know, the inciting. I mean, I mean, I mean, people say that this is what prompted Alan to kill the girls. I mean, I personally think if he was going to attack them and rape them, you know, that's an excuse.

[00:45:13] [SPEAKER_00] You know, you often see killers making some kind of excuses like, oh, I got scared or oh, this or that. I mean, and it's like, yeah, that's kind of trying to absolve oneself of responsibility.

[00:45:24] [SPEAKER_02] If he made his turn down the drive five or 10 minutes later than maybe what was suggested before. That doesn't really disrupt the timeline.

[00:45:34] [SPEAKER_00] Well, I mean, it just depends. It depends on the time. But if you're saying if we can't know what exact time it is, then I don't.

[00:45:41] [SPEAKER_02] Then it's worthless.

[00:45:42] [SPEAKER_00] It is truly worthless. And and, you know, it just the fact they put it forward as this kind of like gotcha moment is just like.

[00:45:48] [SPEAKER_02] And they put it on YouTube, which is not how people who are adults and who are professionals do things. They put it on YouTube. That gives the game away because that's their audience. The audience is not Judge Gall. The audience is the nuts.

[00:46:03] [SPEAKER_00] Well, it's not even the public. Well, that's what that's what gets me. It's not even really the public anymore, because the public is not all on YouTube. There's a lot of people who care about this case who are not necessarily that obsessed with it. And even amongst people, I would say, you know, not not not derogatorily, but obsessed with it. I think a lot of people within that segment are rational and they're not like they're not treating it like this conspiracy fest.

[00:46:29] [SPEAKER_00] So I feel like they're they're their bubble is so narrow and they so needlessly made it that narrow. And I still don't understand why that happened.

[00:46:40] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah, I don't I don't either. It's also before we leave this, we need to mention the fact that McClellan also correctly points out that the defense had this video close to a year before trial. So it's not newly discovered. And Mr. Weber appeared on the stand, I think, two or three.

[00:47:02] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah, let me read this. This is a good this is good. So, quote, finally, the testimony by Brad Weber was not the exclusive evidence the state used to convict Richard Allen. Brad Weber was put on the stand multiple times in the defense at every opportunity to cross examine him. If anything, this evidence is no more than impeachment evidence that the defense chose not to use. The defense is not permitted to request a new trial to change strategy when their chosen path fails.

[00:47:25] [SPEAKER_02] End quote. Very true indeed.

[00:47:26] [SPEAKER_00] So basically what he's saying there, impeachment is you're sort of discrediting a witness on the stand. Is that fair to say? Yes. And there's certain ways to do that properly. And if you just decide not to raise something like this in trial, you can't really go back and act like it's new evidence when you had it in discovery the entire time. It only raises the question of why didn't you break it out when you had the chance. That could have been a good moment to throw that out there in front of the jury if you felt it was important.

[00:47:57] [SPEAKER_00] Why sit on it and then try to use it as some sort of bogus trump card later on? That's just not how this works.

[00:48:02] [SPEAKER_02] It's not how it works. It would be as if I was a baseball pitcher and I threw a pitch and someone, the batter hit it and got a home run. And then I said, well, actually, I meant to throw a different pitch, so we should have a do-over. No, you had your chance. You had the information. You are ostensibly seasoned and skilled attorneys. You made your choices and your client got convicted. Right. It was a rightful conviction. You don't get to have endless do-overs.

[00:48:32] [SPEAKER_00] And if, again, if it was that important and they felt it was that, you know, much of something worth raising, maybe even if they don't have the time stamps exactly, they had every opportunity to do so for the jury. It really makes you wonder why not. And I guess I always go back and forth with this defense team. Normally, with a normal defense team, I would say, okay, well, a normal defense team wouldn't do any of this.

[00:48:57] [SPEAKER_00] But let's just say, normally, I assume a level of competence from professionals. And I would say, like, well, they maybe they looked at it and they weren't really quite sure about it. But, like, some of the stuff with this team, I just I'm like, did you go through, like, all of the discovery? Like, is it?

[00:49:15] [SPEAKER_02] I'm not convinced they went through all of the discovery. I'm not either. I was I was if you go back, if you do go back, God help you.

[00:49:23] [SPEAKER_00] But if you go back and go back, we're sorry.

[00:49:25] [SPEAKER_02] If you go back and listen to the episodes we did during the trial, I was genuinely shocked by the quality of the performance I saw from this defense team. Again, I was led to believe they were skilled attorneys with good reputations. And I did not see that. I did not see a high quality of performance.

[00:49:49] [SPEAKER_00] And I thought, well, their Odinism thing was taken away from them. Boo hoo. Boo hoo.

[00:50:47] [SPEAKER_02] I was stunned by the low quality of performance. I don't think it rises or rather I don't think it sinks to the level of ineffective counsel.

[00:50:57] [SPEAKER_00] You have to be that is such a high bar. You have to be like high drunk and like not doing anything in order to be ineffective. People don't people think ineffective means bad. It goes so far beyond that.

[00:51:13] [SPEAKER_02] It goes so far beyond that. They did a vigorous defense. It was just vigorously mediocre.

[00:51:21] [SPEAKER_00] Is this a good analogy or is this stupid? Feel free to say it's stupid because I don't know. Is it almost like you're doing you're doing like a karaoke night and like you like maybe maybe you stink and you're not really good at singing. But in order to be an ineffective karaoke person, you just you don't really sing or maybe like kind of hum at one point and then kind of run off the stage.

[00:51:44] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah.

[00:51:45] Yeah.

[00:51:45] [SPEAKER_00] Is that the spirit? I don't know. Don't listen to me. I'm just sitting over here. I don't know what I'm talking about. I'm not a lawyer. I'm ineffective.

[00:51:58] [SPEAKER_02] Much like Taylor Swift's candy.

[00:52:00] [SPEAKER_00] How is that in a...

[00:52:01] [SPEAKER_02] No, the candy sounded like good. I thought, oh, this sounds like good candy. And then I look and it's like flavored with rhubarb. I don't want rhubarb candy. But I digress. Let's go on to Ron Logan.

[00:52:12] [SPEAKER_00] Oh, God. OK.

[00:52:13] [SPEAKER_02] Do you want to cover this? Do you want me to cover this?

[00:52:15] [SPEAKER_00] I'll cover it. So this was the thing, you know, again, I felt for me. OK. For me, in fairness with the Weber stuff, I thought that was at least the most interesting thing that they raised. So I'm giving them a little credit there. I'm not saying I thought it was real or...

[00:52:30] [SPEAKER_02] Well, let me ask you. Do you want to cover what they said or do you want to cover his fiery comeback?

[00:52:35] [SPEAKER_00] Oh, I want to... Well, what... I mean, what should I do first, do you think?

[00:52:38] [SPEAKER_02] Well, why don't I set you up and then you read the truth? OK. So they... Again, they had this evidence before them during the trial. They had this evidence before them before the three-day hearing. At the three-day hearing, that was an opportunity for them to make a case that Ron Logan or Odinus were involved. And they had this and they could have used it if they wanted to and they chose not to. It's not newly discovered.

[00:53:01] [SPEAKER_00] Let me just add that at the three-day hearing, Ron Logan came up for, what, all of five minutes? I think they spent more time... They had OJ kind of come out there and do like some like, well, they found some laundry. And then it was over. It was like the cane came out and dragged her away. And that was it for Ron Logan.

[00:53:18] [SPEAKER_02] And you don't mean you?

[00:53:19] [SPEAKER_00] No, not me. I didn't do anything. You said the cane. Well, like in vaudeville. And it's a situation where they spent more time on kegging Klein. And I think for anyone who's been following this, you know, that should tell you something.

[00:53:31] [SPEAKER_02] But the point is they had this evidence and they had places where they could have deployed this evidence to actual effect. And so the evidence I'm referring to is that a man named Ricky Davis said, oh, I was incarcerated with Ron Logan. And Ron Logan is people, I guess, are wont to do while they're incarcerated just casually confessed to me that he was guilty of this murder. Anya, I'm going to Paul Harvey you. What's the rest of the story?

[00:53:59] [SPEAKER_00] I don't get that reference. So, um, let's see. Let me find a good, good moment.

[00:54:08] [SPEAKER_01] E.

[00:54:08] [SPEAKER_00] Oh, yeah. E. There we go.

[00:54:10] [SPEAKER_01] Read paragraph E.

[00:54:12] [SPEAKER_00] Paragraph E from Nicholas McClelland. Quote, that the alleged confession was made to an inmate at the Department of Corrections named Ricky Davis, who's serving 50 years for dealing in methamphetamine. That law enforcement interviewed Ricky Davis and submitted him to a polygraph at his request. That Mr. Davis failed the polygraph miserably. That Mr. Davis gave a statement that alleged Ron Logan confessed to him that he killed the older girl first and then took the younger one away from the scene.

[00:54:41] [SPEAKER_00] That he killed the second victim later and then brought her back to the scene. That he went back to the scene after the search party searched his property and moved the girls to another location. That he removed the cell phone battery from the girl's phone and left the phone behind. And that he took the girls clothing from the scene and burned it, I guess. Many of these details are directly contradicted by the evidence. The others have no evidentiary support.

[00:55:06] [SPEAKER_02] Let's stop there for a second.

[00:55:08] [SPEAKER_00] Good. Let me just say, good Lord.

[00:55:09] [SPEAKER_02] So this confession that they were making such hay from is clearly patently nonsense.

[00:55:17] [SPEAKER_00] Yes.

[00:55:18] [SPEAKER_02] Because none of what was described there is what took place based on any evidence whatsoever.

[00:55:25] [SPEAKER_00] When people people just get like locked into like, I don't know, like like one thing and it's like box cutter box. So that's the thing I kept hearing after this came out. Box cutter. How do you know it was a box cutter? Dr. Roland Kaur, the forensic pathologist in this case who autopsied Liberty German and Abigail Williams and was a forensic pathologist for many, many years.

[00:55:50] [SPEAKER_00] And he said in his testimony at trial that he thought a box cutter could fit the nature of their injuries or at least liberties. So there's no conclusive gotcha thing of like, we absolutely know it has to be a box cutter. It's just his testimony fit in with what Richard Allen confessed to multiple times. Right.

[00:56:16] [SPEAKER_00] And so like the box cutter, it's not like we see bridge guy in the video holding up a box cutter like that. I don't know how to convey this. Like the box cutter with Ron Logan doesn't matter. You know, he could say knife, he could say box cutter, he could say whatever. That's it. That's an interesting detail. It's an interesting guess. But that means nothing to me.

[00:56:41] [SPEAKER_00] Now, things like he killed the girls and then moved them to a different scene. That means something to me, because what we know from the testimony of Major Patrick Cicero, which, again, the defense offered no counter argument, no counter expert or anything, is that the girls were killed where they were found. So there's no killing them one place and then moving them somewhere else. And before you say, oh, well, Libby was moved. Yeah.

[00:57:10] [SPEAKER_00] Libby was dragged a short ways away to make her less visible to people on the other side of the creek.

[00:57:16] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah, just a few feet.

[00:57:17] [SPEAKER_00] Just a few feet. There's no there's no there's no extreme movements going around here. The cell phone battery of her phone is not gone. There's Ron Logan's house and property were searched multiple times because he was looked at strongly as a suspect. Early on. His property is searched. There's there's no indication that there's evidence of some kind of burn pit with his with the girl's clothing.

[00:57:46] [SPEAKER_00] Also, the majority of items of articles of clothing from the girls are found in the creek or at the scene, either on Abigail where she's wearing them or in the creek. A pair of underwear is gone and a sock is gone. And nobody knows if those were taken by Richard Allen or if those were washed away or what happened with that. So there's no like. That doesn't even make any sense, given what we know about what happened to the clothes.

[00:58:16] [SPEAKER_02] So the story is nonsense.

[00:58:18] [SPEAKER_00] And killing the second victim later as searchers are in the area. What? Yeah, this is nonsense.

[00:58:25] [SPEAKER_02] So it's nonsense. And I think it's also worth pointing out that there is no reason to believe that Logan ever even made this confession. No. It's all based upon the word of this Davis character, unlike, say, Richard Allen, who we actually have his own voice on tape repeatedly confessing.

[00:58:44] [SPEAKER_00] The only inmate confessions that I care about when it comes to confessing to a fellow inmate are ones that are recorded and where someone is wired.

[00:59:22] [SPEAKER_00] Okay. And they're not even in exchange or they might be getting some attention or maybe they just don't like the guy. Or maybe it's just like there could be any number of reasons to lie about this stuff. Davis is a convicted forger. Okay. He's been convicted of crimes that go directly to his credibility as a person. And I don't, yeah, I don't feel like I need to take the word of one career criminal who decided to insert himself into this. James Haas is another.

[00:59:52] [SPEAKER_00] James Haas is a convicted murderer. He's the other guy that people are always going on about. Oh, he was, you know, Ron Logan confessed to him in Carroll County jail. Well, you know, James Haas, like, stalked a woman and then killed the man she was going to remarry because, you know, that's the kind of person he is. I don't care what he has to say. I don't care what Ricky Davis has to say. I think what matters is what you hear from the person themselves. And if you get, you know, recordings and things like that, that's another thing.

[01:00:21] [SPEAKER_00] Then you have to assess whether the person themselves is credible. And I think that's fair to do. But with this guy, I just, you know, I think we need to really, like, you often, I'm just surprised. I guess, like, I don't know, this is maybe naive, but I'm almost surprised. I would think, like, a lot of defense attorneys would be like, hey, let's stop doing anything with, like, inmate kind of, like, oh, he confessed to me. Because those are kind of inherently problematic. I would think that that would be more of the attitude.

[01:00:51] [SPEAKER_00] And I get you have to use whatever could benefit you. But in this situation, it just, I mean, it was just obviously bunk. And he failed, he funked a plowlygraph, like, immediately. Like, I don't know. Well, whatever.

[01:01:03] [SPEAKER_02] Let me read the last paragraph from McClellan's discussion with all of this. Quote, even with the alleged information from Ron Logan about the box cutter, there would not have been enough to establish probable cause to arrest Ron Logan. No evidence places Logan at the scene of the murders, unlike the defendant, who left an unspent round at the scene that was subsequently matched to a gun that he owned, that he himself asserted was never in anyone else's possession,

[01:01:33] [SPEAKER_02] who put himself on the bridge at the time of the abduction, and wore the same clothing as Bridge Guy, unquote. Quote, so McClellan there is basically reminding us of the obvious points that there is a hell of a lot more evidence against Richard Allen than there is against anyone else. Certainly more evidence than there is against Ron Logan, who has virtually no evidence against him at all, because Ron Logan was innocent.

[01:01:57] [SPEAKER_00] Well, I mean, with Ron Logan, it's like, I just think that's, again, a tell, because there's like a bunch of people who, because Barbara McDonald was in a specific discord at one time talking about her opinions, made it their entire personality to believe that Ron Logan is guilty, and somehow controls Carroll County, even though he went to prison on probation violations. So I guess like one heck of a kingpin there.

[01:02:24] [SPEAKER_00] You know, it's, because of that, I mean, there's this kind of contingent where that's their, it's like a cult. I mean, I'm sorry. I know that kind of gets overused sometimes, but it is like a cult.

[01:02:35] [SPEAKER_02] Ron Logan did not kill Abby.

[01:02:37] [SPEAKER_00] No, I, you know, I just think, I think, but I think they're hat tipping to that. You know, it's like kind of like you want to play to your base, right? You want to kind of, you know, in politics, you want to kind of give some concessions to the people who are your strongest supporters. And I think, I think that's what we're seeing here. It's like some red meat for them. And, you know, I mean, again, I know we've made this joke before, but like, what is this?

[01:03:03] [SPEAKER_00] Like Reddit circa 2019, like what, like, what are we doing here? Anyways.

[01:03:10] [SPEAKER_02] Moving on, the final section is about the phones. I'll quote from Mr. McClellan. The defense alleges that an affidavit by Stacey Eldridge supports that dirt or water did not cause damage in the auxiliary jack in order to log wired headphones. They alleged that this is newly discovered evidence that would probably produce a different result at a new trial, unquote.

[01:03:34] [SPEAKER_02] So, again, the claim is that Libby's phone showed or seemed to show that headphones were plugged into the auxiliary.

[01:03:45] [SPEAKER_00] Or some kind of accessory, right?

[01:03:47] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah, we were plugged in after the phone stopped moving and experts for law enforcement said this was in all likelihood a false reading caused by dirt or moisture. And as we all know, the phone was was found outside in a dirty, moist place. And I think anyone who has a phone has had issues like this where.

[01:04:10] [SPEAKER_00] I've certainly have. I mean, it's not it's I think, you know, people people like to kind of cry and whine about, well, the state only said that they looked it up on Google and that's what it could have been. Yeah. OK, I understand that. But like if if you if your whole expert can be sort of debunked with a Google search, maybe that's more of a defense problem than anything else.

[01:04:31] [SPEAKER_00] I would expect an expert, an actual expert to come in with some kind of explanation for, OK, here would be the common and obvious reason why this would happen. But here's why it couldn't have happened in this case. I would expect that, you know, be defensive, like come in with the kind of like I know what you're thinking. It's dirt or moisture. Nope. Here's why. That's what I would expect. They didn't have that. All they had was yelling about Christopher Cecil mentioning a Google search on the stand.

[01:04:59] [SPEAKER_00] Again, I that's more of a defense problem. Why can't they why can't they explain that away? And the answer is because they can't, because when two kids are abducted by their client and forced across a creek and there's water and then a phone drops on the ground, there's dirt and moisture and whatever.

[01:05:17] [SPEAKER_00] You know, things are going to happen that are certainly a lot more, you know, based in reality than the coterie of Odinists in their, you know, 5 p.m. and 10 p.m. and 4 a.m. rituals, you know, decide that they want to like, I don't know, plug in some headphones without listening to any music for, you know, reasons. And again, this is for the conspiracy nuts, because I'm sure, you know, there's a lot of like, I'm sure they were planting, you know, stuff on the phone and blah, blah, blah.

[01:05:47] [SPEAKER_00] But, you know, that's not let's not even get into that. It's just when you have the explanation that the defense puts out there for this is patently ridiculous. And they don't have they don't have an expert. Well, as we can talk about, they didn't have an expert who was willing to exactly, you know, was able to even kind of lock that down.

[01:06:06] [SPEAKER_02] I'm going to quote from paragraph J quote. Quote, there were no headphones found with the bodies. It is unlikely that someone returned to the crime scene after 2 32 p.m. Remove the phone from underneath the body of Abby, plugged headphones into the phone and then kept those headphones in for five hours, unplug them and then put the phone back underneath the body all while not moving the phone unquote. It's patently ridiculous.

[01:06:33] [SPEAKER_02] And they point out or rather McClellan points out correctly that Miss Eldridge really does not have a lot of experience in this sort of analysis. And yeah.

[01:06:47] [SPEAKER_00] She only recently gave gain the quote gained the education to be able to testify to forensic phone analysis is recently in 2023. And the bulk of her expertise is in computer and network forensics, not cell phone forensics. End quote. Yeah, that's kind of a problem here. Like, you know, I think, again, it's like you have people have backgrounds and experiences that sound impressive.

[01:07:13] [SPEAKER_00] I mean, I think anyone, you know, Federal Bureau of Investigation, that's that's certainly something good to have on your CV. But I guess, you know, being gone from there since 2012 and then just only recently slapping together whatever you need to do with the cell phone forensics. I don't know. Kind of complicates that picture.

[01:07:34] [SPEAKER_02] McClellan writes, quote,

[01:07:41] [SPEAKER_00] Oh, I wonder why. Just like their gun expert, Dr. Eric Warren, didn't examine the cartridge. You don't want to have your expert examine something and then learn something that, you know, they can't unknow then.

[01:07:55] [SPEAKER_02] Yes. And again, also, this is not newly discovered evidence. So are we done? Please say we're done, Anya.

[01:08:04] [SPEAKER_00] I'll just say this. You know, I mean, we're not it's always going to be something. I mean, these I guess to me. What what makes me just baffled is the kind of notion that this trial team wants to continue working on the case. You know, not why would they? Because obviously they're getting a lot of attention for it. So, I mean, that's a benefit. I'm not confused about.

[01:08:33] [SPEAKER_00] But like why they would think why anyone would think that's a good idea. Usually when you when your client gets convicted, that's it. You're gone. And the reason for that is you lost. You know, you didn't you didn't get the result for them that. You know, would have benefited them. So basically go away and let the appellate team do its job.

[01:09:00] [SPEAKER_00] And so, I mean, one thing I'm kind of wondering is given that Lehman, one of the appellate attorneys, worked on behalf of Allen to bring back this defense team. And, you know, he's he's from Logan's Port, as is Brad Rosey. I'm just wondering, like, was this. And I've heard this from some attorneys that we speak to, too. Was this document filed with knowledge of the appellate team? And was this some sort of coordination?

[01:09:29] [SPEAKER_00] Because if so, then yikes. And if not, then if I you would you would hope that it wasn't because you wanted like I don't know. Like it's like people refusing to leave the party at the end of the night. It's like it's like people crashing your car and then demanding that they drive you to work the next day. It's like, no, you've done enough. Thank you. Like your services here are no longer required.

[01:09:56] [SPEAKER_02] Richard Allen is not going to get a new trial if I'm wrong and he does get a new trial. I would think if I were Richard Allen that I would choose to go with a different team because this team failed him. But but to be perfectly honest, this team had a bad hand to play. They they played it incredibly poorly without dignity of either.

[01:10:20] [SPEAKER_00] Let's be honest. I mean, with here's the thing. I think the case was a lot stronger against Allen than we knew and seeing it all come together. That changed my opinion. And it made me think, well, yeah, OK, he's guilty and he was rightfully convicted.

[01:10:37] [SPEAKER_00] But I think there are defense attorneys who could have really done a really good job and probably given the prosecution team a lot of heartburn by playing this close to the vest and really going for some key weaknesses. I do think that I think that he was I think the evidence was such that he would have there would have been a conviction and the prosecution team would have prevailed. But I agree with you.

[01:11:05] [SPEAKER_00] I don't think it's necessarily fair to beat up on the trial team for losing per se. But I think it is fair to point out that, like, they didn't even come close. This wasn't close. This is what they didn't do a good job. You know, they they were effective. They were that level of whatever they needed to do to, like, show up and be robust and whatever. And I'm sure they cared a lot about it. But I that doesn't I'm not even sure they did. It doesn't translate into success, obviously.

[01:11:35] [SPEAKER_00] And I don't understand. I their their choices have been baffling. Their courting of the media. But specifically, like a small subset of like weirdos has been strange and frankly, kind of embarrassing. And I just I basically coming into it be like, no, we're the only ones who can do it. No, you're the ones who lost. Wouldn't it be like if I were Alan or his family, I would just be like, get away from me. Like, like just literally anybody else at this point.

[01:12:05] [SPEAKER_00] You know, I the arrogance is shocking. Like, yeah, I want in. I want in again. No, like you don't get to do that after you've, you know, crashed the bus the first time, you know, let someone else drive for a while. Like. And frankly, the fact that you would think that people I mean, I don't know, I think there's there's buying your own PR and then there's whatever the heck this is next level.

[01:12:34] [SPEAKER_02] And I think we're done before we wrap up. I should admit I don't really know what rhubarb tastes like, but it just it doesn't sound like it would be good in candy. What does rhubarb taste like? No. Well, I think we should go investigate that. But meanwhile.

[01:12:48] [SPEAKER_00] Well, in the meanwhile, I'm just going to say this is kind of the what you'd expect from McClellan, just very down the middle, very professional, very. What you'd expect from an attorney who's on the ball. And so that's not surprising, but, you know, but I guess now the mystery must continue with the with the rhubarb hunt right now.

[01:13:07] [SPEAKER_02] Yes. Push the button and let's go get our hands on some candid rhubarb. Thanks so much for listening to the murder sheet. If you have a tip concerning one of the cases we cover, please email us at murdersheet at gmail dot com. If you have actionable information about an unsolved crime, please report it to the appropriate authorities.

[01:13:29] [SPEAKER_00] If you're interested in joining our Patreon, that's available at www.patreon.com slash murdersheet. If you want to tip us a bit of money for records requests, you can do so at www.buymeacoffee.com slash murdersheet. We very much appreciate any support.

[01:13:54] [SPEAKER_02] 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.

[01:14:04] [SPEAKER_00] If you're looking to talk with other listeners about a case we've covered, you can join The Murder Sheet discussion group on Facebook. We mostly focus our time on research and reporting, so we're not on social media much. We do try to check our email account, but we ask for patience as we often receive a lot of messages. Thanks again for listening.

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