Suspect in grisly Delphi slaughter case slapped with additional murder, kidnapping charges
Prosecutors in Indiana have filed new charges — including murder — against the suspect in the heinous killings of two Indiana teen girls seven years ago.
Richard Matthew Allen, 51, the man accused of killing 14-year-old Libby German and 13-year-old Abby Williams while they were hiking near their hometown of Delphi in 2017, had new felony kidnapping and murder charges filed against him on Thursday, according to a report.
Allen had previously been charged with two counts of murder following his October 2022 arrest.
The new filing by Carroll County Prosecutor Nicholas McLeland with the Indiana Supreme Court claims the new charges “more accurately aligns the charging information with the cause’s discovery and probable cause affidavit.”
In the state of Indiana, murder is defined as knowingly or intentionally killing another human being.
If the prosecution can prove Allen kidnapped or attempted to kidnap the girls, he can be brought up on the two counts of felony murder since he would be linked to the killings — even if they cannot prove he was the actual killer.
Judge Fran Gull has not yet ruled on the motion.
Thursday’s filing comes on the same day that the Indiana Supreme Court had heard arguments to allow the reinstatement of Allen’s original court-appointed attorneys, Andrew Baldwin and Brad Rozzi, after the accused killer had petitioned for them to be reinstated.
The Supreme Court also denied a request from the defense to remove Gull as the judge for the trial during Thursday’s hearing and ruled against the defense’s attempts to have the trial commence within 70 days.
The two attorneys had withdrawn from the case in October 2023 after Gull found that they had been “grossly negligent” after a leak of court documents — which included photographs of the gruesome crime scene — from Baldwin’s office.
Gull had issued the gag order in December 2022 for all involved in the case — including the girls’ family members — given the intense national interest in the murders.
The trial was scheduled to start on Jan. 8, 2024, before Baldwin and Rozzi’s withdrawal.
Their shocking withdrawal came 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.
The accused teen killer allegedly had confessed multiple times to the murders on prison phone calls to his wife and mother, according to earlier court documents.
However, his attorneys claim their client 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 killers.
The murders had haunted the small city of about 3,000 people until Allen’s arrest last year.
The bodies of the two girls were found in a rugged area near a hiking trail on Feb. 14, 2017 — one day after they vanished during a day off from school.
The eighth-graders had documented some of their walk on Snapchat, and chilling grainy footage taken from German’s phone showed a man walking on a bridge near where the girls were last seen.
An audio recording was also released of a man, believed to be the suspect, saying, “Down the hill.”
Allen was charged 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 now faces four counts of murder but will only be sentenced on two murder counts if found guilty of murdering the teens.
Despite the four different murder charges, each carries the same possible sentencing of 45 and 65 years in prison.
If found guilty of kidnapping, he will also face an additional three and 16 years behind bars, according to Indiana law.
Allen has pleaded not guilty to the original two murder charges following his arrest.
It remains to be seen if the new charges will affect the proposed trial date set for October 2024.
With Post wires
