The man charged with killing 13-year-old Abigail Williams and 14-year-old Liberty German in a small Indiana town in 2017 forced them off a hiking trail before cutting their throats, prosecutors said during opening statements at his trial Friday, revealing gory new details in the murder case.
Officials had not previously released such specifics related to the killings—to which Richard Allen, 52, has pleaded not guilty. But a prosecutor told jurors (who will be sequestered from the media during the month-long trial) that their case will feature evidence that includes images and audio from one of the victim’s phones, the Associated Press reported.
In his opening statement, prosecutor Nicholas McLeland said that Allen was captured following the girls on a trail outside Delphi—a town of some 3,000 people—in grainy video recorded on Liberty’s phone.
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In that footage, a man prosecutors say is Allen can be heard telling the victims to leave the trail and go “down the hill.” (Their bodies were later found in nearby woodlands a day later.) Allen was brandishing a gun as he approached them, McLeland claimed. “Out of fear, the girls complied.”
McLeland said that an unused bullet found at the crime scene came from a gun Allen owned. He also claimed that, after he was arrested, Allen shared incriminating details of the crimes with his wife—and later with correctional officers, inmates, and law enforcement too.
Allen’s defense attorney, Andrew Baldwin, asserted during his opening statement that there is reasonable doubt his client committed the murders.
The incriminating jailhouse statements Allen made came under the stress of being imprisoned, Baldwin said, noting that one of the details Allen shared at that time was about the girls being shot in the back—which didn’t happen.
“Richard Allen is innocent,” he said. “He is truly innocent.”
Allen is charged with two counts of murder and two further counts of murder “while committing or attempting to commit kidnapping.” He faces up to 130 years in prison if found guilty, per the AP.
