Richard Allen, the man convicted in the 2017 Delphi murders, is arguing that the confessions he made in prison should not have been admitted at trial because he was experiencing a profound psychological crisis at the time.
Allen, 54, was found guilty in 2024 of killing best friends Abigail Williams, 13, and Liberty German, 14. Their deaths stunned the tight-knit Indiana town and triggered one of the state’s most closely watched criminal investigations.
He is serving a 130-year sentence—65 years for each murder.
His attorneys are now seeking to overturn the convictions, maintaining that his unusual conduct and repeated statements while incarcerated stemmed from a severe mental health breakdown.
The Indiana Court of Appeals heard arguments Monday. Allen’s lawyers told the court that his alleged admissions were too unreliable to support the convictions because his mental condition had sharply deteriorated in custody.
The appeal adds another chapter to a case defined from the outset by a haunting piece of cellphone footage recorded by one of the victims.
On February 13, 2017, Abby and Libby were walking near Delphi’s Monon High Bridge on a day off from school when they encountered a man.
Libby, who was 14, captured a brief video on her phone. The blurry recording showed a man moving along the railroad bridge, accompanied by a male voice ordering the girls, “Down the hill.”
In Monday’s appeal, Richard Allen’s defense attorneys alleged that members of a pagan cult devoted to Odin, the Norse god of war, carried out the 2017 killings of Liberty “Libby” German and Abigail “Abby” Williams. They also claimed law enforcement framed Allen as the central suspect.
The girls had been given the day off school on February 13, 2017, and chose to walk near Delphi’s Monon High Bridge.
The eighth graders disappeared along the rural, abandoned railroad trail and were found the following day with their throats cut. At Allen’s trial, one of the most significant pieces of evidence was the video Libby recorded, in which a male voice can be heard saying, “Down the hill, girls.”
That chilling audio became a central element of the investigation and the case against Allen.
Prosecutors argued that Allen was the man seen in the footage and that he used a handgun to force the girls away from the trail before killing them.
The girls’ bodies were discovered the next day. Their throats had been slashed; one victim was found without clothing, while the other was dressed in the first girl’s clothes.
Despite the intense investigation, Allen remained free for more than five years before authorities arrested him in October 2022.
During the trial, prosecutors introduced an unspent cartridge found between the victims. They said it had been cycled through Allen’s handgun.
But some of the most striking evidence came from Allen himself.
While awaiting trial behind bars, he allegedly made a series of increasingly disturbing remarks about the killings.
Trial testimony indicated that Allen repeatedly confessed to murdering Abby and Libby.
Richard Allen was convicted in 2024 and sentenced to 130 years in prison—65 years for each girl.
At the time of the conviction Libby German’s grandfather, Mike Patty, said on behalf of both families, ‘Justice has been served for the girls. I want to thank the jurors, who took time out of their lives. For that, I will always be grateful.’
However now Allen is appealing his sentencing, with his lawyers stating he was suffering from a psychological crisis resulting from prison conditions and confessed wrongly at the time. His lawyers also pointed to a sketch of the suspect that was withheld from the first trial
One prison employee testified that Allen said: ‘I, Richard Matthew Allen, killed Abby and Libby by myself.’
Another witness said Allen described planning to sexually assault the girls before panicking and killing them.
Over 60 confessions in-person, over the phone and in writing, were presented at trial. But his lawyers now insist those statements and evidence cannot be relied upon.
The defense argues that Allen’s prolonged isolation and the conditions of his imprisonment – in solitary confinement- contributed to a severe psychological breakdown.
They proposed that the deterioration of his mental state led him to convince himself that he had killed the girls, arguing he was experiencing psychosis when some of the alleged confessions were made and adding that jurors should have been given more information about his mental state.
‘We live in a world where one or two things happen here,’ his attorney Mark Leeman said. ‘A pharmacy tech with no criminal history goes out for a walk to watch a stock ticker and look at fish and decides to gruesomely murder two girls. Or, we live in a world where the police through confirmation bias failed to find the right guy.’
Videos of Allen’s behavior in prison were displayed to jurors in an effort to convince them that Allen was unable to comprehend what he was confessing to at the time. The court has yet to decide if Allen will be given a new trial
Prosecutors strongly dispute that interpretation, maintaining that Allen’s confessions were genuine and have pointed to the timing of his statements, arguing that he began making admissions before some of the more extreme behavior later observed in prison.
Videos of Allen’s odd behavior in prison were shown to jurors, the appeals judges questioned why the trial judge did not allow the audio to be played as well, audio in which Allen claimed to be a king and that he had started World War III.
The panel also questioned why a defense expert wasn’t allowed to question whether marks on an unfired bullet can be traced to a specific gun, as prosecutors had asserted.
They also asked why a police sketch of someone seen near the trail was omitted from trial, noting that the sketch looked nothing like Allen.
His lawyers have also challenged other evidence used at trial and argued that jurors should have been allowed to consider an alternative theory involving unknown perpetrators and an alleged Norse pagan ritual.
The appeals court has yet to rule on whether he should receive a new trial.
Our News Outlet has reached out to Allen’s attorney Mark Leeman for comment.
