DELPHI, Ind. ― For five years after Abigail “Abby” Williams and Liberty “Libby” German were found dead in the woods off the Monon High Bridge trail, Richard Allen was not on investigators’ radar.
That changed on Sept. 21, 2022.
Kathy Shank, a retired government employee who had started volunteering as a clerk to help with the investigation, came across a “lead sheet” about Allen.
The document seemed to catch Shank’s attention. She’d previously read that a girl had reported seeing a man on the trail on the afternoon of Feb. 13, 2017, when Abby and Libby went on a hike and were never heard from again. Allen, according to the document, told police three days after the girls disappeared that he was also on the trail that afternoon.
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“I thought there could be a correlation,” Shank testified Thursday.
Shank and a few other witnesses took the stand Thursday, the sixth day of testimony in the double murder trial, telling jurors of the series of events that led to Allen’s arrest on Oct. 26, 2022, just a little over a month after the volunteer clerk found the old tip sheet about Allen and alerted investigators about it.
Allen, who appeared in court in khaki pants and teal shirt, is charged with two counts of murder and two counts of murder while kidnapping the girls. His long-awaited trial comes more than seven years after the girls’ deaths and two years since his arrest.
The route that led to Richard Allen
On Feb. 16, 2017, Allen self-reported to investigators that he was on the trail the same afternoon Abby and Libby disappeared. He was later contacted by Dan Dulin, an Indiana Department of Natural Resources captain who was helping with the investigation at that time, and the two met at a grocery store.
Allen said he was on the trail between 1 and 3:30 p.m. on Feb. 13 and saw three girls near the Freedom Bridge as he headed toward the trail, Dulin testified.
Allen, though, was ultimately cleared, and the paper trail of his interaction with investigators was put away in a box.
On Sept. 21, 2022 ― a date Shank still remembers because it’s her husband’s death anniversary ― she came across a box of tip sheets in a desk drawer, she told jurors. She opened it and began going through the files, thinking she had to log them into a database. Then, she told jurors, she saw the Allen tip sheet.
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Shank, who has lived in Delphi for four decades, began volunteering to help with the investigation in 2017. She started as a receptionist and, over the years, was given more responsibilities, including processing tips and logging them into a database, Shank testified. She also organized investigative reports, compiling narratives from interviews investigators conducted and filing them in several cabinets.
The Allen file was labeled with a green dot, Shank said, meaning it had been cleared. The document also appeared to have been mislabeled as “Richard Allen Whiteman.” Allen lived on Whiteman Drive in Delphi.
Shank took the document to Tony Liggett, who was the chief deputy at the Carroll County Sheriff’s Office and the case’s lead investigator. He alerted Steve Mullin, who was chief of the Delphi Police Department when the girls were killed and later became an investigator at the prosecutor’s office.
At that point, the investigation focused on Allen.
Investigators found that Allen owned a 2006 Ford 500 and a 2016 black Ford Focus. Surveillance footage from the nearby Hoosier Harvestore showed a black Ford Focus passing by the store toward the trail just before 1:30 p.m. on Feb. 13.
Under cross-examination by defense attorney Andrew Baldwin, Mullin insisted he believes the car belonged to Allen.
▶ Gasps and tears:Graphic images of Abby and Libby are shown to jurors at Delphi trial
Mullin and Liggett went to Allen’s home to interview him on Oct. 13, 2022, the first time he talked to investigators since his meeting with Dulin five years earlier.
Based on Mullin’s testimony, here’s what Allen said in his second interview: He spent the morning of Feb. 13 in Miami County, where he visited his mother. He went home to get a jacket and headed to the trail. He saw three girls near the Freedom Bridge as he was walking toward the trail. When he got to the high bridge, he looked down Deer Creek and watched the fish.
Mullin also told jurors that Allen said he was wearing a blue or black Carhartt jacket, jeans and a beanie.
At some point during the interview, Allen became agitated and walked out of the room, Mullin told jurors.
Mullin also said he asked Allen if he was “Bridge Guy,” the man seen in the infamous photo and video following Abby and Libby on the high bridge.
“His response was, ‘If the picture was taken with the girls’ camera, there was no way it was him,'” Mullin testified.
There were some inconsistencies in Allen’s statements.
In 2017, he said he arrived at the trail around 1:30 p.m. and left around 3:30 p.m. In 2022, he said he arrived there around noon and was not on the trail later than 2 p.m.
Investigators searched Allen’s home shortly after that interview with Mullin and Liggett. They arrested Allen less than two weeks later.
Allen lead should not have been cleared, Liggett says
Liggett acknowledged that Allen was not considered a suspect in the teens’ deaths for five years, even though he’d self-reported that he was on the trail Feb. 13, 2017.
Allen “got lost in the cracks,” Liggett told jurors, and someone who he believes was a dispatcher cleared the Allen lead in 2017. But he said it “shouldn’t have been” cleared.
During his cross-examination, defense attorney Bradley Rozzi seemed to suggest that Liggett wanted an arrest because it would benefit his career. Liggett was elected sheriff of Carroll County in November 2022, weeks after Allen was arrested.
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“It was never about me,” Liggett testified. “It was about the murders of two girls.”
Liggett also acknowledged that none of the physical descriptions eyewitnesses gave of “Bridge Guy” matched Allen.
Knives, a photo album and a gun: What police say they found in Allen’s home
The state capped Thursday’s proceedings with testimony from two Indiana State Police investigators who assisted in the search of Allen’s home.
Prosecutors flipped through over a dozen photographs taken during the search, showing jurors photos of his house, his 2016 Ford Focus and multiple knives.
Jurors were shown a photo of Allen’s kitchen with a basket that Det. David Vido said was carrying “everyday belongings,” such as keys. Vido said that inside the basket, or next to it, was a box cutter.
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Lt. Jerry Holeman testified that while the search was underway, Allen was advised he could file a complaint if the house sustained damage during their investigation.
“It doesn’t matter, it’s over,” Allen said, according to Holeman.
Jurors also were shown a photo album with several photographs of Allen’s family along the trails near the bridge.
During cross-examination, defense attorneys Baldwin and Jennifer Auger countered that Allen has a fishing license, and implied that fishermen often use knives to cut their lines. Auger also said many families in Tippecanoe and Carroll counties traverse the trails.
Police also found the Sig Sauer, Model P226, .40-caliber handgun that they allege is tied to an unspent round found between the girls’ bodies.
Testimony will resume Friday.
Contact IndyStar reporter Kristine Phillips at (317) 444-3026 or at kphillips@indystar.com.
