After more than seven years, a man has been found guilty for the brutal murders of two teenage girls in 2017 — following a saga which included chilling cell phone video from the victims’ phone, alleged confessions and even accusations of ritual sacrifice.
An Indiana drugstore employee has been found guilty in the killings of two teenage girls whose deaths gripped the nation.
On Monday, after 18 hours of deliberation from the jury, Richard Allen was convicted of killing Liberty “Libby” German, 14, and Abigail Williams, 13. He was found guilty of two counts of murder and two additional counts of murder while committing or attempting to commit kidnapping.
Williams and German disappeared after going out for a hike on the Delphi Historic Trails in February 2017. They were last seen on Abby’s Snapchat crossing the Monon High Bridge, before their bodies were found with their throats slashed the next day. An unspent round from a 40-caliber gun was found nearby.
Throughout the five-and-a-half year investigation, police released video of a man they believed was a suspect, captured by Abigail on her phone. The video showed a man in a blue jacket — dubbed “Bridge Guy” — along with audio of him saying, “Guys … down the hill.”
During the trial, Indiana State Police master trooper Brian Harshman testified that — after listening to more than 700 calls Allen made in prison — Allen was “Bridge Guy,” something prosecutors also insisted during closing arguments.
“Richard Allen is Bridge Guy,” Carroll County Prosecutor Nicholas McLeland told jurors, saying Allen kidnapped and murdered the two teens.
Indiana State Police
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Allen worked for the local CVS and, according to Libby’s aunt, Tara German, he even helped print photos of the young girl for her funeral.
“I went into the store to print photos of Libby for the funeral, and he was the one who helped me,” German told CNN after the arrest. “I was a mess trying to get the images off my phone. Once they were printed, he looked at me and said, ‘I’m not gonna charge you for this.'”
He was also interviewed by police in 2017, admitting he was on the same trial at the time the girls were there, but only recalled seeing three women he couldn’t identify. In 2022, he was interviewed again, before police searched his home and determined the unspent bullet found near the bodies had been “cycled through” his own gun.
Indiana State Police/FBI
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While Allen denied being involved in the girls’ murders in police interviews and pleaded not guilty, he also allegedly confessed to the killings in phone calls with his wife and mother.
Allen also allegedly told a therapist who he spoke to while awaiting trial, “I killed Abby and Libby. I will kill everyone. I will wipe out everybody,” the therapist testified. In those sessions he also allegedly said he planned to rape the girls, got scared by a passing van and instead killed them, slashing their throats before covering their bodies with branches.
Defense argued that being in solitary confinement behind bars drove Allen to give false confessions while in a state of psychosis. Insisting Allen was innocent, his defense attorney also said no physical DNA linked his client to the murder scene.
The defense initially planned to argue the two girls were “ritualistically sacrificed” by a cult, pointing the finger at a white nationalist group known as Odinists — and saying “the evidence strongly supports an organized pagan cult as being the killers.”
The judge, however, said they weren’t allowed to introduce that theory to the jury.
Allen’s sentencing is scheduled for December 20.
Fox News
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