DELPHI, Ind. — When Indiana State Police Superintendent Doug Carter steps up before the microphones of reporters from across the country at the Delphi United Methodist Church Monday morning at 10 a.m., he is expected to announce what charges 50-year-old Richard Allen faces in connection with the murders of two young girls on the banks of Deer Creek beneath the Monon High Bridge on Feb. 13, 2017.
The families and friends of 14-year-old Libby German and 13-year-old Abby Williams, and strangers who have been captivated by this case, will learn what role, if any, investigators claim Allen played in the deaths.
“It is a small community, and you know these families and you love these families and whether you’re their best friends or not, there’s still a part of you and you feel that sadness and that hurt for them,” said Audrey Wardrip.
Allen was arrested on Oct. 26, a week after sources tell Fox 59 News that investigators converged on his house with a search warrant, seizing his car and digging through a firepit out back.
”I saw police cars going down there, a couple police cars and I never thought much of it,” said neighbor Joe Seurynck.
Allen appeared before a judge in Carroll County Circuit Court Friday morning during an initial hearing.
The case and the charges against him are sealed.
Allen was immediately booked into the Carroll County Jail just two blocks away before he was transferred to the jail of another county for his own protection on his way to eventual pre-trial incarceration at a state correction facility this week.
Superintendent Carter said early on during the investigation that the killer of the two girls could very well be hiding in plain sight in the community, a sentiment that was echoed this weekend by a visitor to the High Bridge east of town.
”And to be right in the community and probably has joined all the group sites that I have from the beginning on Facebook and to just to see what’s going on,” speculated Jeanne Logsdon.
ISP has been reluctant to divulge details of the investigation it conducted alongside the Carroll County Sheriff and, for a time, the FBI.
Two sketches of a potential suspect and audio and video captured on Libby’s cell phone of the killer approaching them on the bridge have been the extent of information revealed.
“Guys, down the hill,” the killer was recorded directing the girls, leading Carter to ask townspeople to listen closely to determine if the voice matched anyone they knew.
Meanwhile, Delphi residents said they often saw Allen in their community, either working at a local pharmacy or dining out with his wife.
“One of my servers was telling me that he wouldn’t speak much; his wife would order the food and that they would split it,” said Chandler Underhill, General Manager at the Brick & Mortar Pub. “He didn’t really speak.”
Allen’s home was searched the same week that another man accused of a charge unrelated to the murders but discovered during the investigation, Kegan Kline, was facing a pre-trial hearing in Miami County.
Kline is charged with 30 counts of child pornography, child solicitation and obstruction of justice as investigators allege he was communicating with Libby the night before her death via social media and was planning to meet her that day.
This summer, Kline’s attorney successfully postponed his client’s hearing, with the prosecutor’s acquiescence, so that “negotiations” could take place.
During that delay, Indiana State Police divers searched the Wabash River, reportedly for evidence related to either Kline’s charges or the Delphi investigation.
Those “negotiations” or results from the searches were not referenced during Kline’s hearing as the judge moved forward with setting court dates in December and January, and, at this time, there is no known connection between Kline and the murders.
The girls’ bodies were found on the property of Ron Logan, a 77-year-old farmer whose land was bordered by Deer Creek.
Logan denied involvement in the murders, lamented that the bodies were discovered within 200 feet of his back door, and eventually served nine months in prison for violating conditions of his probation following at a drunk driving conviction.
A search warrant served by the FBI on Logan’s home a month after the killings revealed that the landowner fabricated an alibi regarding his whereabouts the day of the murders and that his cell phone pinged near the crime scene the night of February 13, 2017, even though the bodies were not found until the next day.
Logan died of complications as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic this past winter.
He was never charged in the case.
There are a variety of counts and alleged involvements Allen could be accused of related to the Delphi murders.
Like Kline, he could face a tangential charge uncovered by investigators that may not have played a direct role in the deaths.
He could face a related or felony charge that puts him in the proximity of the deaths or participation in the killings or with knowledge thereof without committing the actual murders.
Or, he could be charged as the man who took the lives of the two girls walking along a hiking path on a day off from school.
Indiana State Police will be joined at the briefing by Carroll County Prosecutor Nicholas McLeland, Sheriff Tobe Leazenby, family members of the girls and a representative of the U.S. Marshal Service.
The FBI, which played a lead role in the opening days of the investigation, will not be represented at the briefing.
The U.S. Marshal typically tracks fugitives or wanted suspects who flee across state lines to avoid apprehension, though neither criteria which would accurately describe events surrounding Allen’s arrest last week.
Marshals do, however, often provide electronic device tracking and analysis expertise to local investigations.
