At 1:35 p.m. on February 13, 2017, 13-year-old Abigail Joyce “Abby” Williams and 14-year-old Liberty Rose Lynn “Libby” German were dropped off by German’s older sister, Kelsi German, on County Road 300 North, east of the Hoosier Heartland Highway. The girls were hiking on the Monon High Bridge over Deer Creek, among woodland in remote Deer Creek Township. At 2:07 p.m., German posted a photo of Williams walking the bridge; after this, they were not heard from again.
They were reported missing at 5:30 p.m. after they had failed to meet German’s father at 3:15 p.m. The families initially searched for the girls themselves before calling the police. Authorities who quickly searched the area did not initially suspect foul play in the disappearance. This would change when the bodies of the girls were found around noon the next day, about 0.5 miles (0.80 km) east of the abandoned Monon High Bridge.The body were discovered near the Monon High Bridge Trail, part of the Delphi Historic Trails in Delphi, Indiana, U.S.
The murders have received extensive media coverage, in part due to video and audio recordings released by law enforcement that came from German’s smartphone, which recorded an individual believed to be the killer. Caucasian male, hands in pockets, head down, walking on the rail bridge, towards the girls. A few days later, the person in the photograph was named the prime suspect in the double-homicide.
Law enforcement released an audio recording during which the voice of the suspect, although muffled, is heard to say, “Down the hill.”
On July 17, police distributed a composite sketch of someone sought as a person of prime interest in the murders. The sketch was apparently created from eyewitness accounts of a hiker on the Delphi Historic Trails the day the girls vanished. On April 22, 2019, Indiana State Police announced a “new direction” in the case and released a new sketch of the suspect, while urging the public to look at the sketch, listen to the audio, watch how the man walks on the bridge and send tips to the tip line email.
As part of the investigation into the murders of Abigail Williams and Liberty German, authorities are asking for information about an online profile that has been uncovered by detectives with the Carroll County Sheriff’s Office and Indiana State Police.
The online profile named “anthony_shots” was being used from 2016 to 2017 on social media apps such as Snapchat and Instagram. Anthony Kline was behind profiles. Detectives say the creator of this fictitious profile used images of a known male model, and portrayed himself as being wealthy and owning sports cars. This information was used while contacting juvenile females to solicit nude images, their addresses and in attempts to meet with them. The link between the “anthony_shots” account and the Abby and Libby murder investigation remains unclear, and is something FOX59 is trying to learn from ISP. ISP stresses that the man pictured is not a person of interest, they are sharing the images in an attempt to get information on the creator of the profile who used them. The court documents in Kline’s case are heavily redacted, with information such as internet search history and chat transcripts blacked out. There appears to be no mention of the Delphi murders or any information linking Kline to the case. There are speculations that the girls went there to meet the boy from the picture.
The bodies of Liberty German, 14, and Abigail Williams, 13, were found on the back end of a private piece of property about half mile from where they were dropped off to go hiking on Monday. Ron Logan has owned that piece of land for 53 years and said that the discovery of the girls’ bodies on his property is something he still hasn’t been able to come to terms with. ”To have something like this in your own house, your own home – I just can’t get my mind around it yet, it’s really difficult,” said Logan, among other things. ”I can’t comprehend it.” Some people believe that he was a suspect. Some are sure he did it. Ron Logan died.
On October 26, 2022, a suspect, Richard Allen, was taken into custody and appeared in court on October 28. On October 31, 2022, Indiana State Police announced that the suspect had been charged with two counts of murder in the case. He has pleaded not guilty. Two public defenders were appointed to represent the suspect. Richard Allen is a married 50-year-old man who worked in the local CVS store in the heart of Delphi – where Libby German and Abby Williams lived with their families. He has a daughter. He doesn’t have a record. There is nothing in his life that would suggest that he would do something like that.
According to the redacted document, video footage recovered from German’s phone showed one of the victims mentioning “gun” as a man wearing a dark jacket and jeans approached them and ordered them to go “down the hill”. Investigators believe the suspect is the man seen in the video. Investigators also found a “.40-caliber unspent round” less than two feet from one victim’s body, but between the two victims. It was later determined that the round came from a gun owned by the suspect.A witness said she saw a man walking away from the bridge “wearing a blue colored jacket and blue jeans and was muddy and bloody.” Another witness and a tip mentioned that a car was parked “oddly” and appeared to be parked in a way as if to hide its license plate. Investigators said the description of the vehicle matched a vehicle that the suspect owned in 2017.
According to a probable cause affidavit, the suspect was interviewed by the police in 2017, and said he was on the trail that afternoon for around two hours. The document also said that in a subsequent interview in October 2022, the suspect told authorities he had worn “jeans and a black or blue jacket” that day and had gone to the bridge to “watch fish”.
On December 2, 2022, Judge Gull issued a gag order until January 2023. The suspect’s defense attorneys argued in a motion to move the trial out of Carroll County, based on concerns about juror bias due to what the attorneys described as the “extensive media attention” and the “highly publicized nature of the case” in the local area.
In October of 2023, Judge Gull removed the defense attorneys, Andrew Baldwin and Bradley Rozzi, citing gross negligence due to crime scene photos being leaked from their office. The court appointed a new attorney to represent Richard Allen, William Lebrato. The attorneys’ removal was appealed to the Indiana Supreme Court in which the justices of the Indiana Supreme Court reinstated the defense attorneys to the case.
Were Libby and Abby killed by a cult?
Odinism is a pagan Norse religion with origins in ancient Viking and Nordic beliefs and pre-Christian European culture. Over the years Odinism has become increasingly tied to white supremacist and neo-Nazi beliefs in the US.“The religion, which revives a pre-Christian pantheon of Norse gods, is appealing to white supremacists because it mythicizes the virtues of early northern European whites – seen as wandering barbarians, deeply involved in a mystical relationship with nature, struggling heroically against the elements,” the Southern Poverty Law Center explains. “It sings the virtues of the tribe, or folk, strongly emphasizing genetic closeness. And it credits whites with building civilization and an ethic of individual responsibility, even as they boldly slew wild boars, fought for their tribes and explored the far reaches of the known world.” Many followers – known as Odinites – are now said to exist among the white supremacist prison population. Richard Allen’s lawyers claim they saw Odinites among guards, and actually that was true, because those guards had to remove Odinist signs from their uniforms, but one of them did Odinist tattoo, allegedly. His lawyers claim that Richard Allen’s rights are violated. They wrote a theory, so called Odinist theory, and they accused some people of killing the girls because one of girl’s mother was, allegedly, had a relationship with a non-white man. They also used for their defense a profile did by The FBI. According to Mr. Allen’s attorneys, law enforcement officials did explore the cult’s possible involvement early on in the investigation – as far back as February 2018.
On the 2nd of May 2021, Police Detective and FBI Task Force Officer Gregory Ferency, one of the three authors of the Odin report, who continued that line of investigation, turned in that document, which the defense team later used, and was killed on the 7th of May 2021.
Task force member killed
A federal grand jury in Indianapolis returned an indictment today charging a Terre Haute man with the murder of a federal officer, attempted arson of federal property, and using a firearm during a crime of violence causing death. The charges against Shane Meehan, 45, stem from the July 7, 2021 killing of Terre Haute Police Detective and FBI Task Force Officer Gregory Ferency. Meehan was previously charged by a federal criminal complaint filed on July 8, 2021. According to court documents, on July 7, 2021, Meehan drove his pickup truck to the gate of the FBI resident agency building in Terre Haute. Meehan exited his truck and threw a Molotov cocktail toward the building. Shortly thereafter, Terre Haute Police Detective and FBI Task Force Officer Gregory Ferency walked out of the FBI building and was confronted by Meehan, who was holding a firearm. Meehan shot TFO Ferency, who died of his injuries.
Richard Allen’s attorneys have raised concerns about the loss of police evidence, specifically a tape recording which they argue could be crucial to disappearance of evidence that might impact the case’s integrity. Richard Allen’s attorneys believe in his innocent so much that they were ready to represent him pro bono.
“Autopsies of the girls ruled their deaths as homicides and their wounds were caused by sharp object,” according to the documents. Investigators also determined that “articles of clothing from the girls were missing from the scene, including a pair of underwear and a sock.” Law enforcement recovered numerous items from Allen’s property, including boots, multiple knives and sweatshirts, the Sig Sauer P226 that prosecutors believe link Allen to the case, multiple cell phones, an iPod, hard drive, laptop and other electronics.
A separate document revealed that Allen admitted to the murders on April 3, 2023, during a phone call with his wife. She ended the call abruptly, according to court documents. “Investigators had the phone call transcribed and the transcription confirms that Richard Allen admits that he committed the murders of Abigail Williams and Liberty German,” the document said. “He admits several times within the phone call that he committed the offenses as charged.” Prosecutors also wrote that Allen confessed to his mother during a phone call from jail.
Allen “has admitted that he committed the offenses that he is charged with no less than 5 times while talking to his wife and his mother on the public jail phones available at the Indiana Department of Corrections,” according to a state filing regarding Allen’s mental health records.
Allen’s attorneys argued that he’s under great physical and mental duress because of his time in captivity and don’t believe his admission is reliable. He even ate papers. Prosecutors countered, however, that Allen’s behavior changed drastically after the April 3 admission. He hasn’t made a single phone call since then, and had to undergo a psychiatric evaluation. By April 14, according to court documents, Allen’s strange behavior began to subside and he was eating and sleeping regularly once more.
Allen first talked to investigators about the case in 2017, when he told a conservation officer he’d been on the trail on the day of the murders. That information resurfaced in October 2022, when investigators took a second look at Allen and interviewed him. He told police he had guns and knives in his home. He also admitted he had clothing similar to the one worn by the infamous “Bridge Guy” in a video that is one of the key pieces of evidence released in the case. Libby German had recorded the video, investigators said.
His wife confirmed to police that Allen owned several guns and knives. He also had a blue Carhartt jacket similar to the one worn by “Bridge Guy.”
No longer bound by a gag order, public defender, William Lebrato, Allen’s former attorney gave an interview: “I thought it was hocus pocus. I honestly never heard of it and the more I got into it, that’s a real thing. That’s a real thing and is scary. I believe they sacrificed a girl and killed another one. Some people who live in Delphi were very brazen about their Odinistic beliefs, on the Facebook pages and other social media accounts, including the sergeant who was in charge of keeping this round safe. Mr. Jones had a tattoo under his right eye…” In the full interview he said that he rarely says that he thinks his client is innocent, but in this case he is sure that Richard Allen is innocent.
Allen, 52, was convicted on 11 November, 2024 in the teens’ deaths. He is set to be sentenced in December for four counts: felony murder for the killing of Abigail while attempting to commit kidnapping; felony Murder for the killing of Liberty; murder for knowingly killing Abigail; and murder for knowingly killing Liberty.
Lawyers for Allen have said he is innocent and claimed the killings were part of a ritual sacrifice.
Highly controversial trial shed light on poor investigative work and Special Judge Frances Gull’s decisions which may be seen as preventing a fair trial. LE didn’t allow FBI to participate in investigation and the evidence they collected was weak. For 13 months, accused Delphi double killer Richard Allen languished inside two state prisons, locked in solitary confinement, officials said, for his own safety, while awaiting trial, instead awaiting his trial in jail. He was not convicted of any crime at the time and for such a thing to happen is quite unheard-of. Even for convicted felons, 60 days in solitary confinement is the maximum period allowed, because it affects mental health tremendously. Richard Allen’s confessions under these conditions and although he was diagnosed with psychosis, were allowed in court. This is against the UN Convention of Human Rights and is considered forced confession. Judge Fran Gull denied the defense to present a third party culprit. A police sketch of a young man the jury wasn’t allowed to see. The trial was not public. Not only that Richard Allen has supporters who think that innocent man was railroaded, but there is a question whether the US still holds LE and judicial system accountable to the highest standards, something the rest of the world admires.
Special Judge Fran Gull sentenced Allen to 130 years for the February 2017 murders of Abby Williams and Libby German near the Monon High Bridge. He was given 786 days’ credit for time served.
