Delphi killer Richard Allen is appealing his 130-year prison sentence for murdering two Indiana middle school girls, arguing that psychosis brought on by solitary confinement led to his repeated confessions to his wife.
Allen, 54, was convicted in 2024 of killing eighth graders Abigail Williams and Liberty German. The girls, who were 13 and 14, respectively, were found dead in 2017 near a hiking trail in Delphi, Indiana, with their throats cut.
He confessed repeatedly to prison guards and psychologists, and also admitted the killings several times to his wife, Kathy, during in-person conversations, phone calls and letters.
“I did it. I killed Abby and Libby,” Allen said during one of numerous phone calls with his wife that prosecutors played for jurors during his four-week trial.
When Kathy questioned his admission, he responded, “Yes, I did.”
Allen’s lawyers are seeking to have his conviction overturned, contending that he confessed only after becoming severely mentally ill in solitary confinement. Fox 59 reported that he smashed his head against cell walls, bathed in his toilet, ate paper, and smeared feces on his face and the walls of his cell.
During arguments Monday, appellate attorney Mark Leeman said the trial judge should have excluded Allen’s confessions from evidence.
“We want to make sure we got it right,” Leeman told the court.
He argued that the case did not produce a reliable verdict, saying he did not believe Allen, who had no criminal record, could have committed such a horrific crime.
Ellen Meilaender, representing the Indiana Attorney General’s Office, countered that Allen’s confessions were voluntary, were not coerced and did not occur as part of interrogations.
Meilaender also said Allen was placed in solitary confinement for his own protection.
While there, Allen had access to a tablet, which was replaced after he broke it, and met with a chaplain and mental health professionals.
Meilaender emphasized that the conviction did not depend solely on Allen’s confessions. She said Allen acknowledged in 2017, years before his arrest and time in confinement, that he had been on the trail when the girls were believed to have been killed.
When investigators revisited the statement years later, Allen gave a different account of his timeline.
Prosecutors said Allen, a former drugstore clerk, encountered the two close friends on the Monon High Bridge Trail outside Delphi in February 2017. Delphi is about 78 miles north of Indianapolis.
According to prosecutors, Allen forced the girls off the trail at gunpoint and threatened to rape them. He changed his plans after a van passed by.
He then took the girls to the bottom of a hill, about a quarter mile from the trail, and slit their throats. Their bodies were discovered the next day.
Allen was convicted in November 2024 and sentenced the following month to 130 years in prison, the maximum punishment.
