Delphi murder suspect’s lawyers withdraw from case amid security breach: ‘Unexpected turn of events’
Lawyers for Richard Allen, the Indiana man accused of killing two teenage girls on a hiking trail in 2017, dumped their client Thursday in an “unexpected turn of events.”
Defense attorneys Andrew Baldwin and Bradley Rozzi are withdrawing from the case after vital information surrounding the murders of Abby Williams, 13, and Libby German, 14 — including photographs of the gruesome crime scene — were leaked from their office.
The shocking move comes just one month after the duo unveiled their bizarre defense claim that the girls were “ritualistically sacrificed” by a racist pagan cult and not by their client, who is accused of attacking them after he found them hiking alone just outside their hometown of Delphi more than six years ago.
“We’ve had an unexpected turn of events,” Special Judge Fran Gull said during a scheduled hearing Thursday.
Gull did not say why Baldwin and Rozzi dropped Allen, 51, however, the withdrawal comes the same day it was revealed a trove of court documents was leaked from Baldwin’s office.
An attorney representing Baldwin said in a memorandum Thursday that authorities are investigating three suspected “disseminators” who “betrayed” Baldwin and gained access to his case-related paperwork that was kept “locked in a room or a locked fireproof file cabinet.”
“Attorney Baldwin did nothing wrong. He was snookered and abused,” Baldwin’s representation, David R. Hennessy, said in the memo.
The attorney’s withdrawal leaves the timeline for Allen’s case up in the air.
Gull said she would appoint a new public defense attorney for the alleged killer and hopes to hold a planned hearing Oct. 31, but doesn’t anticipate being able to maintain the Jan. 8 trial date that was originally set.
“I don’t believe counsel will be prepared within the next couple of months to try a case of this magnitude in January,” she said.
Allen was charged in October 2022 after an analysis concluded a .40-caliber round that was found between Williams’ and German’s bodies had come from a gun he owned.
He confessed multiple times to the murders in prison phone calls to his wife and mother, according to earlier court documents.
However, Allen’s former attorneys claim he was “monitored, intimidated, and mentally abused” at Westville Correctional Facility by corrections officers who were Odinists — the same cult Baldwin and Rozzi claim were the teens’ true murderers.
The white nationalist cult could have targeted the girls because one of their parents was in a mixed-race relationship and left several pagan symbols were also left at the crime scene, including the way German’s body was positioned, the former team claimed.
“Nothing, absolutely nothing, links Richard Allen to Odinism or any religious cult,” Baldwin and Rozzi wrote in a September filing.
With Post wires
