What Happened at Delphi Murder Trial This Week: ‘Bridge Guy’ Video Shown, Timeline

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Left to right: Abigail Williams, Richard Allen, Libby German (Indiana State Police)

The Richard Allen murder trial featured jurors hearing testimony for a week and seeing new evidence presented in the case. Allen is accused of the murders of Abigail Williams, 13, and Liberty German, 14, in Delphi, Indiana, in 2017.

The teenagers, known as Abby and Libby, were found dead on February 14, 2017. The girls went missing a day earlier while walking along the trail on a mild winter day outside of school.

RELATED: Delphi murders: Unspent bullet and video provide proof of man’s guilt, prosecutors say

Allen is charged with two counts of murder, as well as two additional counts of murder while committing or attempting to commit kidnapping. The pharmacy technician, 52, was arrested in October 2022, more than five years after the deaths of Williams and German.

Authorities searched Allen’s home in 2022 and seized a blue Carhartt jacket, a .40-caliber SIG Sauer P226 semi-automatic pistol, and a .40-caliber S&W cartridge in a “wooden keepsake box” from a dresser between two closets in his bedroom. .

RELATED: Trial of Delphi Murders Suspect Richard Allen Begins Monday: What You Need to Know

FOX News reported that the gun was consistent with an unspent .40 caliber bullet located at the scene of the murders in 2017, police stated at the time.

According to the Associated Press, prosecutors revealed in court documents released several weeks after Allen’s arrest that tests determined that an unspent bullet found between Williams and German “had passed through” Allen’s gun.

What are the key moments of the Delphi murders trial so far?

Relatives of the victims speak

Abby and Libby’s family members testified before the public on October 18, 2024, during the first day of the trial. FOX News reported that a judge issued a gag order in the case in 2022.

Becky Patty, Libby’s grandmother, was the first to speak in court and described her granddaughter as adventurous, intelligent and calm. Patty recalled the moment on February 14, 2017, when searchers located Libby and Abby’s bodies in the woods after they had been missing for a day.

Other family members who testified on October 18 included Libby’s sister, Kelsi German Siebert; Libby’s father, Derrick German; and Abby’s mother, Anna Williams.

Crime scene described

Jurors heard chilling details about the crime scene during opening statements on Oct. 18 and in testimony on Oct. 21.

Prosecutor Nick McLeland said in his opening statement that when searchers found the two girls dead in a wooded area near the Monon High Bridge, Libby was naked and covered in blood. Both girls had their throats cut several times, FOX 59 in Indianapolis reported.

McLeland pointed out to the jury that the clothing either did not match or was thrown into a stream. Abby was wearing her own shirt but Libby’s sweatshirt. He was also wearing jeans and shoes, but his socks were missing. One of Libby’s shoes and Libby’s cell phone were located under Abby’s body.

FOX 59 reported that an individual placed twigs and leaves on the girls’ bodies, which were a few feet apart, but not enough to completely cover them, and the teens’ limbs were slightly bent. During the third day of the trial, on October 21, jurors viewed approximately 40 crime scene photographs.

Citing court documents, FOX News noted that McLeland claimed that Allen, who allegedly confessed to the murder multiple times in jail, shared details that only the killer would know.

‘Bridge Guy’ video released

A key piece of evidence in the Delphi murder case is a video that Libby filmed on her cell phone before she and Abby were murdered.

Jurors watched 43 seconds of the video in court on October 22, 2024. The footage shows Libby and Abby walking with an unknown man wearing a hat and blue jacket who became known over the past five years as ” “Bridge Guy.” FOX News reported.

“Guys, down the hill,” the man can be heard telling the girls in the video. One of the girls, who experts believe is Libby, can be heard responding: “There’s no way up here. We have to go down here.”

According to FOX 59, the video continues to show the girls walking towards Deer Creek. Searchers found the victims’ bodies across the same creek the next morning. Indiana State Police Digital Forensic Expert Brian Bunner said he pulled the same video from Libby’s phone for analysis four separate times between 2017 and 2019.

Witness of the “boy on the bridge”

On October 23, 2024, Sarah Carbaugh, a witness, testified during the trial and placed Allen near the crime scene on the afternoon of February 13, 2017.

Carbaugh said he saw the same man seen in Libby’s video, known as “Bridge Guy,” walking down a street around 4 p.m. on the day the girls disappeared. The man had his hands in his pockets and his head bowed. Carbaugh testified that she and the man did not make eye contact.

According to FOX 59, Carbaugh also shared with the jury that Allen had mud and blood on his clothes, as if he had fallen into a muddy creek.

Carbaugh did not inform police for three weeks, explaining that he delayed providing the information because he was “overthinking” a traumatic situation.

The woman also testified that her videotaped interview was lost due to a technical error. The state previously admitted that some interviews were missed due to errors in its system, FOX 59 noted.

According to FOX News, Richard Allen’s defense attorney, Andrew Baldwin, argued against Carbaugh’s testimony, saying she had described Allen’s clothes as muddy, not bloody, in her statement to investigators in 2017. Carbaugh contends, noting that He remembered saying that Allen was bloody at the time.

Richard Allen interview with police in 2017

Richard Allen contacted police with information on February 17, 2017, several days after the girls’ murders.

FOX 59 reported that Allen agreed to meet with Indiana Department of Natural Resources Capt. Dan Dulin in a store parking lot after Allen refused to invite Dulin to his home or meet him at a police station. of the area.

The news outlet noted that Allen apparently wanted to “self-report” that he had been on the Monon High Bridge the day the girls went missing and saw three girls while walking on the trail, Dulin said.

Allen said at the time that he wasn’t paying much attention to his surroundings because he was checking the stock ticker on his phone.

Dulin also testified that Allen changed the schedule of when he had been on the trail, initially saying he was there from 1 to 3 p.m., but later changed his schedule to 1:30 to 3:30 p.m.

According to FOX59, the sergeant said he didn’t think much about the interview, which only lasted about 10 minutes until Allen was arrested in 2022.

Dulin filed his notes from the 2017 interview in a Microsoft Word document that was saved to his agency’s computer system.

But due to a clerical error, the interview was filed under the wrong name, Richard Allen Whiteman – “Whiteman” is the name of the street Allen lived on – and labeled as “authorized”, Kathy Shank, a retired DCS worker. who volunteered to help with administrative tasks for Carroll County, told FOX 59. Allen was not officially named a suspect in the 2017 murders until October 2022.