DELPHI, Ind. – Attorneys for convicted Delphi murderer Richard Allen filed a flurry of documents this week suggesting their client’s murder conviction should be vacated.
In a 24-page motion to correct errors, Allen’s defense team takes aim at the murder timeline, the validity of Allen’s safekeeping order, a purported confession from a different suspect and disputed phone evidence.
On Nov. 11, a jury convicted Allen of murder in the February 2017 deaths of Abby Williams and Libby German near the Monon High Bridge. Special Judge Fran Gull sentenced him to 130 years in prison on Dec. 20.
His attorneys have maintained their client’s innocence and hammered the state on procedural issues throughout the duration of the case. They are planning to appeal.
Safekeeping order, attorney dispute
Of the safekeeping order, the attorneys note Allen was arrested on Oct. 26, 2022, after being questioned by Indiana State police investigator Jerry Holeman. Allen was held in jail under a pseudonym.
On Oct. 27, his wife hired an attorney named Brett Gibson to represent Allen. Gibson tried to contact Allen by phone but was told no one under that name was at the Carroll County Jail. He then contacted Carroll County Prosecutor Nick McLeland, who arranged for Gibson to meet with Allen.
Around 10 p.m. on Oct. 27, Gibson advised Allen’s wife that he could not get Allen out of jail because he was being charged with murder. Allen was then moved to the White County Jail.
Allen mailed a letter from the jail on Nov. 1, 2022, stating he couldn’t afford an attorney, although the letter wasn’t filed until Nov. 9.
The defense said the safekeeping order that placed Allen into the custody of the Indiana Department of Correction was “plainly illegal.” They said Allen was being held in the White County Jail while Tobe Leazenby, the Carroll County sheriff, requested the safekeeping order. But the White County sheriff, the defense contended, and not Leazenby, had the authority to request the safekeeping order.
In their view, Carroll County Circuit Judge Benjamin Diener lacked jurisdiction to approve Leazenby’s safekeeping request. The defense also argued Diener, who had approved the search warrant for Allen’s home in October, assisted Leazenby in drafting the safekeeping order and should have recused himself. Allen had the right for another judge to review and issue the safekeeping order.
The attorneys claim several procedural deficiencies with the safekeeping order and said Allen had “an absolute right” to refuse being transferred into state custody. The attorneys said the safekeeping order wasn’t served to Allen or Gibson, the attorney his wife had hired, and thus neither Allen nor Gibson had the opportunity to argue against his transfer.
Allen’s attorneys argue the state deprived Allen of constitutional rights afforded in the Sixth and Fourteenth amendments.
Van and timeline questions
One of the key pieces of evidence used against Allen at trial was a confession in which he said a white van spooked him, leading him to panic and kill Abby Williams and Libby German.
The prosecution identified 2:32 p.m. as the moment when Libby German’s phone stopped moving. The prosecutor, McLeland, called it a “hard fact” that the phone stopped moving at that moment.
During a confession given to a prison psychologist, Allen said he abducted the girls on the Monon High Bridge and forced them down a hill. He claimed he was going to sexually assault the girls when he saw a white van heading down a nearby access road, causing him to panic and order the girls across the creek where he killed them.
The prosecution touted the white van as a detail “only the killer would know.” The driver of that van, Brad Weber, testified he drove past the murder scene around 2:30 p.m. on the way to his parents’ house.
But the defense said surveillance video showed a van matching Weber’s heading north on the access road around 2:44 p.m. on Feb. 13, 2017. That meant Weber couldn’t have passed the murder scene at 2:30 p.m. and would have arrived home at a time after 2:44 p.m.
Additionally, an FBI report indicated Weber’s phone first pinged his parents’ address at 2:50 p.m. on Feb. 13, 2017, reinforcing the timeline set out by the surveillance video.
The defense accused the state of presenting false information in court or failing to correct information it knew to be false. The state used Weber’s testimony to corroborate Allen’s confession to the prison psychologist.
If the state didn’t know about the surveillance video, the defense argued, then the video would constitute new evidence that would “probably produce a different result at a new trial.”
Ron Logan’s purported confession
Ron Logan owned property where the girls were killed. In the early days of the investigation, he provided reporters with tours of the property and talked about the case and the search for the girls.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation also requested a search warrant for Logan’s property in March 2017, just weeks after the murders. The warrant indicated investigators wanted to search his home and outbuildings for anything related to the girls’ killings, including forensic evidence, digital devices, guns and cutting instruments.
The search was conducted on March 17, 2017. The FBI agent who wrote the warrant said Logan’s physical build was consistent with the “Bridge Guy” video taken from Libby German’s phone and his voice was “not inconsistent” with the person in the video. He had also concocted a false alibi.
Logan was never charged in connection with the Delphi case. He died in January 2022.
According to a tip from May 2017, Logan confessed to another inmate that he killed the girls. The inmate said Logan claimed he burned his clothes in a fire pit and feared drops of blood from his nose may have ended up on the girls’ clothes.
Police followed up on that tip and interviewed the inmate, Ricci Davis, at the New Castle Correctional Facility. An Indiana State Police first sergeant conducted the interview.
The investigator’s handwritten notes indicated Logan told Davis he was walking and talking with the girls about knowing one of their fathers. One of the girls wanted to turn around; Logan grabbed Abby’s shoulder, which caused Libby to freak out. One of the girls said something about calling the police.
Logan told Davis he was “paranoid” about a probation violation and felt like he “crossed a line” when he grabbed Abby. Logan asked the girls if they wanted to see some of his animals, including his horses. Libby didn’t want to go while Abby was open to the idea, especially of seeing the horses.
Eventually, this led to a scuffle, according to the inmate’s account, and Logan got hit in the nose. He pulled out a boxcutter and attacked Libby, cutting her throat. He said Abby was scared and he took her somewhere, although he didn’t say where. He eventually cut her neck, too, according to the inmate’s account.
Logan told the inmate he came back hours later and wanted to move Libby to an area where she wouldn’t be found. He burned his clothes in a burn pit along with boots, gloves and a bag.
The next morning, people showed up asking if they could search his property. Logan told them they could because it would’ve felt “weird if he said no.” He then contacted a family member and left the area.
In a handwritten note about Logan’s confession, Davis said Logan killed both girls because things went “too far,” and they all panicked when he grabbed Abby to reassure her that things were going to be okay.
Logan’s mention of boxcutters is notable because Dr. Roland Kohr, the forensic pathologist who conducted the girls’ autopsies, said during the trial that the girls could’ve been killed by a single boxcutter. His initial opinion was that two different weapons may have been used in the murders.
“Ron Logan’s confession exculpates Mr. Allen and would probably produce a different result at a retrial. Accordingly, the Court should either vacate Mr. Allen’s convictions or set this motion for a hearing,” the motion said.
Headphone jack evidence
The fourth point raised in the motion concerns disputed evidence surrounding the headphone jack on Libby German’s phone.
During the trial, the defense called forensic expert Stacy Eldridge to the stand. She analyzed the data logs from the phone and said it appeared someone had plugged headphones into the auxiliary jack at 5:44 p.m. on Feb. 13, 2017, and removed the headphones at 10:32 p.m. on the same day.
The information cast doubt on the state’s timeline. After learning about it, the state’s phone expert, ISP 1st Sgt. Chris Cecil, suggested dirt or water damage to the phone may have been responsible for the logged activity. Cecil had performed a Google search during a court break before offering his opinion.
The defense said it didn’t have the chance to counter Cecil’s determination during the trial.
According to Eldridge, nothing on Libby’s phone indicated there had been water damage. Photos of the phone didn’t show the phone was covered in water, dirt or other debris. She was “unaware of any scientific or technological research suggesting that water or dirt damage to an iPhone 6s would cause the phone to inaccurately log wired headphones in or wired headphones out.”
At no point during the trial did the state allege Allen returned to the murder scene. Were a jury to lend credence to Eldridge’s analysis, the state’s “narrative is impossible,” the defense wrote in the motion.
“Ms. Eldridge’s opinion that dirt or water could not have caused L.G.’s phone to log wired headphones being plugged into and being unplugged from the phone on February 13, 2017, exculpates Mr. Allen and would probably produce a different result at a new trial,” the motion said. “Accordingly, the Court should either vacate Mr. Allen’s convictions or set this motion for a hearing.”
