‘Colorful, Dramatic, And Highly Unprofessional’: Prosecutors Push Back On Defense Theory About Delphi Murders

Prosecutors working the case of two Delphi, Indiana, teenagers who were murdered said the defense team’s latest filings are “fanciful.”

Carroll County Prosecutor Nicholas McLeland this week filed new court documents responding to last week’s motions from the defense that included an alternate theory of the crime. In those filings, defense attorneys Andrew Baldwin and Brad Rozzi alleged that the man arrested for the crime, 50-year-old Richard Allen, did not murder best friends Abby Williams, 13, and Libby German, 14, in 2017. Instead, the attorneys wrote, the girls were murdered by a group known as Odinists, a pagan Norse religion taken over by white nationalists.

McLeland, however, said that only 13 pages of the defense’s 136-page filing were relevant to the hearing they called for, known as a “Franks hearing,” which allows a judge to determine whether a law enforcement officer lied in order to obtain a search warrant.

“The remaining 90% of the Memorandum outlines its fanciful defense for social media to devour,” McLeland wrote.

The prosecutor added that while the allegations from Allen’s defense team are “colorful, dramatic and highly unprofessional, it is not completely true.”

“[T]he State believes the allegations outlined by the Defense are not supported by evidence that they have collected,” McLeland added.

Allen, a CVS worker and father, is accused of forcing Abby and Libby off of a trail they were hiking and into a wooded area, where he allegedly killed them both.

The defense team, however, said the girls were killed by “[m]embers of a pagan Norse religion, called Odinism, hijacked by white nationalists.”

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“Richard Allen has zero connections to any pagan cult or pagan cultists, and furthermore no forensic evidence (such as DNA) or electronic evidence links Richard Allen to the girls or to the crime scene – i.e., he is a completely innocent man” they wrote.

The attorneys wrote in the filing that two groups of Odinists, one from Delphi and the other from Rushville, Indiana, were investigated for their possible involvement in the murders. As evidence the girls were murdered as part of a ritual sacrifice, the attorneys point to ritualistic symbols allegedly found at the crime scene, which include the strange way young Libby’s body was positioned.

A March 2017 search warrant request from the FBI noted that the girls’ bodies looked as though they had been “moved and staged.”

The filing also notes that investigators didn’t further investigate the alleged ritualistic symbols left at the crime scene, which included sticks and tree branches placed on the girls’ bodies that mimicked certain Norse runes. At least one branch appeared to have been cut with an electronic device, suggesting premeditation, the defense argues. Libby’s blood was also used to paint a rune on a tree that was identified as a calling card of the pagan religious cult, they added.

While such a claim sounds outrageous, the attorneys note that those investigating the Delphi murders early in the case claim to have consulted a Purdue professor who said a cult was not responsible, which is why the angle was dismissed. The defense attorneys claim that those leading the investigation can’t name this professor, and that three law enforcement officers continued to pursue this lead prior to Allen’s arrest. One of the officers, Todd Click, was so concerned about the information used to arrest Allen that he obtained an attorney to help him draft a letter to the prosecutor in this case. This letter was only shared with defense attorneys until after it became clear they would most likely talk to Click – more than four months after the letter was sent to the prosecutor.

In addition to not turning over the letter, law enforcement also allegedly withheld an 85-page compilation of reports from Click and the other officers who investigated the white supremacist angle and several videotaped statements that all supported Allen’s innocence.

Included in the compilation is a statement that an FBI profiler had determined that the person or person’s responsible for Libby and Abby’s murder “were involved in Nordic beliefs,” the defense wrote.

Click agreed to attend a meeting with a law enforcement officer, hoping he would prove to Click that Allen was, in fact, the killer. But in an affidavit after the fact cited by Allen’s defense, Click wrote that this officer did not provide any evidence as to why Allen was the killer, and that he believed “the interview was an attempt by them to clean up their loose ends…”

Through Click’s investigation, names of alternate suspects were given to Delphi law enforcement no later than February 2018, the attorneys wrote.

The attorneys have also requested a hearing to present evidence that the search warrant obtained for Allen’s home should be suppressed at trial because it was based on faulty probably cause. The attorneys argue that detective Tony Liggett did not include “crucial information” and “provided false statements” that led to a judge approving the warrant. Had the detective included the missing information, including the evidence compiled by Click and the other officers, then the judge never would have approved the warrant, the defense argues. The attorneys also accuse Liggett of withholding information that altered the timeline of the crime, which would exclude Allen as a suspect.

Finally, the defense attorneys point to members of the cult as alleged suspects, whom The Daily Wire will not be naming since they have not been charged with any crimes. One of these named individuals’ social media posts contained images that mimicked the runes found at the crime scene, even though such images have never been released to the public, according to the defense. The individual allegedly also posted numerous “easter eggs” on social media that pointed to his involvement in the crime, including a recreation of the crime scene involving two women posing as dead with sticks over their bodies, just like the actual crime scene. This same individual also seemingly taunted police on social media, the defense claims.

One further tie to the victims is that this man’s son was allegedly “dating” the young victim Abby.

Police cleared this individual as a suspect within 30 days of the murders, even with this evidence, the defense argues.

This individual’s ex-wife also allegedly told police that he and another man in the Odinists had a falling out in February 2017 after conducting a ritual in the woods, near a river. The main alternate suspect lived very near to where the girls’ bodies were found, according to the defense’s filing. This ex-wife also allegedly told police that her ex-husband and “his people” killed the girls because one of their mothers was “mixing” with people who weren’t of the same race.

This individual was also tied to others who allegedly confessed to the crime. One of these individuals allegedly told his sister that he was involved in the crime and included details of the crime scene that were never released to the public. This man was also questioned, but denied involvement, according to the court documents. According to a state trooper who dropped him off at his home, this individual allegedly returned to the trooper’s vehicle and asked if he would still be in trouble if his spit was found on one of the victims, saying he could explain it away. This individual also told another one of his sisters that he spit on one of the victims, according to the defense.

This individual and a fourth man provided shaky alibis to police for their whereabouts at the time of the murder, with contradictory stories, Allen’s defense attorneys contend.

The connection between the four individuals – two in Delphi and two in Rushville – was a recruiter for the Odinists, who knew all the men, the attorneys continued.

Police knew all of this information, yet didn’t include it when seeking warrants against Allen, whose sole connection to this crime is an unspent shell casing that can’t be forensically linked to his gun, according to the defense attorneys.