Richard Allen attorneys seek dismissal of Delphi case

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Liberty Libby German and Abigail Abby Williams (FBI), Richard Allen (Indiana State Police), and the area where the victims’ bodies were discovered (WXIN screenshot)

Attorneys representing accused Delphi murderer Richard Allen are seeking to have the charges against him dismissed, claiming that police intentionally or negligently destroyed exculpatory evidence — meaning evidence supporting Allen’s innocence. The filing is the latest dramatic development in one of the most high-profile murder cases in Indiana history.

Allen is facing two counts of murder while committing or attempting to commit kidnapping as well as two counts of murder and two counts of kidnapping in the February 2017 slayings of Williams and German, whose bodies were discovered in a wooded area just off the Delphi Historic Trails system.

Williams and German vanished while walking the Monon High Bridge Trail near Delphi, Indiana, on Feb. 13, 2017. The trail traverses an abandoned stretch of what was once the Monon Railroad and crosses an old trestle over a small river or creek. The girls were found dead the next day in an area near the trestle, and their deaths were determined to be homicides.

In the motion, Allen’s attorneys accused police of “destroying exculpatory evidence,” specifically, recorded interviews with two supposed “key suspects” in the murders which they say were mysteriously erased. Those two interviews took place on Feb. 17 and Feb. 19, 2017, just days after the girls’ bodies were found.

While authorities provided memorialized summaries of the interviews, Allen’s attorneys requested the recordings so they could “listen to the exact spoken words” of the two men, “particularly the statements that the author of the document admits were not memorialized in the document.”

Law&Crime has chosen not to publish the names of the two interviewees, both of whom Allen claims were involved in the murders, as they have not been charged with any crimes.

However, the state in September said they did not have any recordings of the interviews and “offered no explanation as to why these didn’t exist,” the motion states. Prosecutors subsequently sought to have Allen’s attorneys, Brad Rozzi and Andrew Baldwin, removed from the case. The duo were controversially removed by Special Judge Fran C. Gull in October before the Indiana Supreme Court reinstated them last month.

Upon being reinstated, Rozzi and Baldwin say prosecutors told them they had accidentally deleted any such interviews.

“Due to a DVR program error discovered on 9-20-2017 all recordings up to February 20th. 2017, were recorded over,” prosecutors wrote in the letter cataloging the discovery evidence provided to Allen. “There is no detectible audio found on this drive.”

The motion emphasizes that a key part of Allen’s defense hinged on “directing attention” toward the two interviewees as “being involved” in the murders of Williams and German, reasoning that failing to maintain all of the records of those interviews amounts to violations of Allen’s due process rights.

“The videotaped interviews were deleted by the police. It is unknown what other interviews were deleted during the relevant time frames,” the motion states. “The destruction of material interviews of key suspects, early in the investigation, demonstrates negligence, if not intentional conduct on the part of the State. How could law enforcement, while investigating the most serious of crimes, record over interviews of material suspects with recklessness or intentionality?”

Allen’s attorneys explain that statements from the interviewees that may not have been included in the interview summaries could be critical to his defense because “as additional information is developed, reviewing prior statements may reveal inconsistencies or raise questions about other witnesses or other information relevant to an unbiased investigation.”

The motion points to one such instance in which one of the interviewees in 2017 allegedly told police that he had “never met” Williams. However, that individual in 2023 allegedly told investigators that he “barely even knew that girl,” saying, “I met her once.”

“It is therefore plausible that many more contradictions would be available to the defense but for the State’s intentional or negligent failure to preserve all of the evidence,” the motion states. “Such negligent and intentional conduct on the part of the police has also resulted in the absence of material evidence which could be exculpatory in nature.”

A hearing to discuss prosecutors’ request to have Baldwin and Rozzi held in contempt of court for allowing the leaking of evidence in the case and bringing additional charges is scheduled for Feb. 12, but Allen has filed a motion to vacate the proceeding.

It also remains unclear if the trial will still begin in October 2024 as it is currently scheduled. Jury selection was originally slated to begin last month but was pushed back to autumn after Rozzi and Baldwin were removed and new public defenders were brought in to represent Allen.