Delphi murders trial: 'Bridge Guy' emerges as new crime scene evidence presented
An Indiana jury has heard a week's worth of testimony in the long-awaited trial for Delphi, Indiana, murders suspect Richard Allen.
Allen is charged with murdering 14-year-old Liberty German and 13-year-old Abigail Williams while they were walking on a hiking trail in Delphi on Feb. 13, 2017. Their bodies were found the next day, but Allen was not arrested until October 2022.
When investigators executed a search warrant at Allen's home in Delphi on Oct. 13, 2022, they recovered a blue Carhartt jacket, a SIG Sauer P226 .40-caliber semiautomatic handgun and a .40-caliber S&W cartridge in a "wooden keepsake box" from a dresser between two closets in Allen's bedroom, according to authorities.
The handgun was consistent with a .40-caliber unspent bullet police located at the site of the murders in 2017, police said at the time.
Seven years after the girls' deaths, their families and the Delphi community are learning what unfolded that afternoon in February 2017 when the girls went missing and how prosecutors believe Allen killed them.
"It's a very tough defense case, but they're doing a good job," Neama Rahmani, former federal prosecutor and president of West Coast Trial Lawyers, told Fox News Digital of Allen's defense.
"But ultimately … play the cards that you're dealt. This is not a good defense case, and I would be surprised if the prosecution loses it because there's no clear motive. You don't necessarily need a clear motive when you have all this other evidence."
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Here are the most significant takeaways from the trial so far:
For the first time since a judge issued a gag order in the case in 2022, Abby's and Libby's family members testified before the public on Oct. 18, the first day of the trial.
Becky Patty, Libby's grandmother, was the first to speak before the court, describing her granddaughter as adventurous, intelligent and calm. She added that Libby "loved crime shows" and "wanted to make a difference," as FOX 59 Indianapolis first reported.
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Patty recalled the moment on Feb. 14, 2017, when searchers located Libby's and Abby's bodies in the woods after they had been missing for a day.
"A friend comes running up to me, ‘We found them, we found them,’" Patty said. "I remember turning around to my sister who was sitting there crying. And all she could say was, ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry.’"
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Other family members who testified on Oct. 18 included Libby's sister, Kelsi German Siebert; German's father, Derrick German; and Abby's mother, Anna Williams.
During opening statements on Oct. 18 and in more testimony on Oct. 21, jurors heard gruesome details about the crime scene that had not been publicly known before the trial began.
Carroll County Prosecutor Nick McLeland told jurors in his opening statements that when searchers found the two girls deceased in a wooded area near the Monon High Bridge, Libby was naked and covered in blood. Both girls' throats had been cut several times, according to FOX 59.
Other articles of clothing were mismatched or thrown into the nearby Deer Creek, McLeland said. Abby was wearing her own undershirt but Libby's sweatshirt. She was also wearing jeans and shoes, but her socks were missing. One of Libby's shoes and Libby's cellphone were located beneath Abby's body.
Additionally, someone had placed twigs and leaves over the girls' bodies, which were placed between 3 and 5 feet apart, but not enough to cover them completely. Their limbs were slightly bent, according to FOX 59.
Jurors were shown about 40 photos of the crime scene on Oct. 21, the third day of the trial.
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McLeland also alleged that Allen, who has apparently confessed to the murder various times in jail, according to court documents, has shared details that only the killer would know.
At the center of the Delphi murders case is a video that Libby happened to snap on her phone at some point before she and Abby were killed.
For the first time since the girls were reported missing, jurors got to watch 43 seconds of the crucial video in court on Oct. 22. The video shows Libby and Abby walking with an unknown man wearing a hat and blue utility jacket who has become known over the last five years as "Bridge Guy."
"Guys, down the hill," the man can be heard saying to the girls in the video.
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One of the girls, who experts believe to be Libby, can be heard responding, "There’s no path down here. We’ve got to go down here."
The video then shows the girls walking down toward Deer Creek. Searchers located their bodies on the other side of the same creek the next morning, as FOX 59 reported.
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Indiana State Police digital forensic expert Brian Bunner said he extracted the same video from Libby's phone for analysis four separate times between 2017 and 2019.
A witness who testified on Oct. 23 placed Allen not far from the scene of the crime on the late afternoon of Feb. 13, 2017.
Sarah Carbaugh said she saw the same man shown in Libby's video, known as "Bridge Guy," walking down County Road 300 North around 4 p.m. on the day the girls went missing. He had his hands in his pockets and his head was down. They did not make eye contact, Carbaugh said.
She also told jurors that Allen had mud and blood on his clothing, looking like he had fallen in a muddy creek, FOX 59 reported.
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Carbaugh did not call her tip into police for three weeks, telling the courtroom that she delayed sharing the information because she was "overthinking" a traumatic situation.
Allen's defense attorney, Andrew Baldwin, pushed back against Carbaugh's testimony, saying she had described Allen's clothing as muddy, not bloody, in her deposition with investigators in 2017. Carbaugh doubled down, saying she remembered saying Allen was bloody at the time.
"I understand you’re doing your job," she told Baldwin, according to FOX 59. "I saw a man on the side of the road with mud and blood, and that’s that."
Carbaugh also testified that her videotaped interview was lost due to a technical error. The state has previously admitted that some interviews were lost due to errors with their system, FOX 59 reported.
Rahmani believes Carbaugh's testimony is crucial for prosecutors.
"The defense is arguing that Allen was on the trail, that he had left earlier, and his cellphone will show that he was gone by the time. But it's still important evidence that puts him there," Rahmani said. "Obviously, Allen himself admitted to being on the trail, so the timing really matters. But I would say as far as what's new, an eyewitness is certainly … something that had not been discussed prior to trial."
Just days after the murders, on Feb. 18, 2017, Allen reached out to police with information, at which point he agreed to meet Indiana Department of Natural Resources Capt. Dan Dulin in a store parking lot, after Allen refused to have Dulin over at his home or meet him at the local police station, according to FOX 59.
Allen apparently wanted to "self-report" that he had been on the Monon High Bridge the day the girls went missing and saw three young girls as he was walking the trail, Dulin said. Allen noted at the time that he was not paying much attention to his surroundings because he was checking a stock ticker on his phone.
Dulin also testified that Allen had changed the timeline of when he had been on the trail, initially saying he had been there from 1 to 3 p.m. but later changing his timeline to 1:30 to 3:30 p.m.
The sergeant said he did not think much of the interview, which only lasted about 10 minutes, later on until Allen was arrested in 2022.
Dulin filed his notes from the 2017 interview in a Microsoft Word document that was saved into his agency's system. Due to a clerical error, however, the interview was stashed away under the wrong name, Richard Allen Whiteman – "Whiteman" being the name of the street Allen lived on – and labeled as "cleared," according to Kathy Shank, a retired DCS worker who volunteered to help with administrative duties for Carroll County, according to FOX 59.
Allen was not officially named a suspect in the 2017 murders until October 2022.
Rahmani believes this clerical error may give Allen's defense "something to work with."
"I'm a former prosecutor. I respect law enforcement. But most of the time, the best defense is a good offense," Rahmani explained. "And it's to go after the police and say it was a rush to judgment and a shoddy investigation. … When you have an admission that one of the suspect's interviews was misplaced … it just gives the defense something to work with."