Accused double murderer and former CVS pharmacy technician Richard Allen “confessed five or six times” to killing Delphi, Indiana teens Libby German and Abby Williams on a hiking trail in 2017, prosecutors said in court on Thursday.
Carroll County Prosecutor Nick McLeland told Judge Fran Gull that Allen, a 50-year-old father of two, had in fact made “multiple confessions to multiple people” since his arrest last October.
However, defense lawyer Bradley Rozzi argued that while Allen “made incriminating statements implicating himself in the crime,” he said they should be discounted in light of his client’s apparently flagging mental health. Rozzi and co-counsel Andrew Joseph Baldwin also claimed Allen’s alleged confessions were not consistent with his past denials.
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“At one minute, Rick is saying one thing, and another minute he’s saying something else,” Rozzi said.
Further details about Allen’s supposed admissions did not emerge on Thursday.
Libby German and Abby Williams were killed on a hiking trail in 2017.
Indiana State PoliceAllen has been detained in an isolation cell at the Westville Correctional Facility, under conditions his attorneys described in an April court filing as borderline inhumane. He appeared gaunt and confused during the hearing, and his manner in court “completely incoherent,” according to attorney Bob Motta, who is not involved with the case but was in the courtroom as an observer.
“I fully anticipate that RA’s attorneys will be challenging his competency. Imminently,” he wrote on social media. “His eyes were vacant.”
Motta estimated that Allen has lost at least 40 pounds and said he looked “tranquilized.”
Libby and Becky went for a walk together on Feb. 13, 2017, but never returned. Their remains were found two days later, next to a creek. Police found a video clip on Libby’s phone, which investigators said showed a man walking towards them on the narrow bridge where the pair was last seen.
“Down the hill,” the man can be heard saying in the footage.
An unspent .40 caliber round discovered near the girls’ bodies was traced to a gun owned by Allen, police said. Allen, who told investigators no one else had ever used his gun, had no explanation for why the bullet was found there, prosecutors previously said.
The defense team called the ballistics evidence “flimsy,” and has moved to strike it from being introduced at Allen’s trial, which is set to begin early next year.
Friends of Allen’s said they were stunned to hear of his arrest. A sketch circulated by police looked nothing like Allen, and the voice didn’t seem to match his, according to one local bar owner who knew Allen well. In an eerie twist, Libby’s family previously said that Allen didn’t charge them for funeral photos they had processed and printed at the CVS where he worked.
Jury selection is scheduled for Jan. 8, 2024. The trial is expected to last three weeks.
