Opening statements have been made in the trial of Richard Allen, who is accused of killing two teenage girls on a Delphi, Indiana, hiking trail back in 2017.
Richard Allen, 50, is charged with the kidnapping and murder of 13-year-old Abby Williams and 14-year-old Libby German. Prosecutors, in their opening statements, alleged that Allen is the man seen in a video taken by Libby telling the girls to go “down the hill.”
The video was recorded as the girls crossed the Monon High Bridge. Their bodies were found nearby the day after they went missing.
Carroll County Prosecutor Nicholas McLeland said during opening statements on Friday that Allen forced the girls down the hill by gunpoint. He described the crime scene to the jury.
“You’re going to see the crime scene,” he said, according to ABC News. “It was a gruesome scene. Libby was completely naked. Her throat was cut, blood all over. Abby’s throat was also cut.”
Defense attorney Andrew Baldwin argued that the state’s investigation was botched and that cell phone evidence shows Allen couldn’t have been the one to kill the girls. Baldwin said the prosecution claimed the girls were killed by 4 p.m. on February 13, 2017, and their bodies were not moved prior to their discovery the next day. Allen, who admitted to being on the trail the day the girls were killed, left the area by 2:15 p.m., according to his legal team citing phone records.
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The prosecution also claims an unspent bullet found at the crime scene came from Allen’s gun, but the round is commonly used by law enforcement, and no officer’s gun was tested in connection to the case. The idea that a mass-produced bullet cycled through a mass-produced gun could create a unique marking is also dubious, according to Stephen Gutowski, a certified firearms instructor and reporter who founded The Reload.
“The forensic techniques used by crime labs to match specific guns to specific bullets have come under heavy scrutiny in recent years,” Gutowski told The Daily Wire in 2022. “So, I think it’s important to examine claims like this with a healthy dose of skepticism. The idea you could match a mark on the rim of a casing to a specific gun’s extractor seems dubious to me.”
“I could see an argument that an extractor on a certain model of gun could leave a unique marking on an unspent round if the round were cycled through the firearm since the extractor may have dimensions that are different from other firearms,” he added. “However, the Sig Sauer P226 has been an incredibly popular firearm for decades, and it’s unlikely the mass-produced extractors included on each pistol would leave a marking that’s obviously distinguishable from another P226.”
After his arrest, Allen admitted to the murders, but his defense has argued that his mental health declined in prison and the confessions can’t be trusted.
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[[{“value”:”
Opening statements have been made in the trial of Richard Allen, who is accused of killing two teenage girls on a Delphi, Indiana, hiking trail back in 2017.
Richard Allen, 50, is charged with the kidnapping and murder of 13-year-old Abby Williams and 14-year-old Libby German. Prosecutors, in their opening statements, alleged that Allen is the man seen in a video taken by Libby telling the girls to go “down the hill.”
The video was recorded as the girls crossed the Monon High Bridge. Their bodies were found nearby the day after they went missing.
Carroll County Prosecutor Nicholas McLeland said during opening statements on Friday that Allen forced the girls down the hill by gunpoint. He described the crime scene to the jury.
“You’re going to see the crime scene,” he said, according to ABC News. “It was a gruesome scene. Libby was completely naked. Her throat was cut, blood all over. Abby’s throat was also cut.”
Defense attorney Andrew Baldwin argued that the state’s investigation was botched and that cell phone evidence shows Allen couldn’t have been the one to kill the girls. Baldwin said the prosecution claimed the girls were killed by 4 p.m. on February 13, 2017, and their bodies were not moved prior to their discovery the next day. Allen, who admitted to being on the trail the day the girls were killed, left the area by 2:15 p.m., according to his legal team citing phone records.
MATT WALSH’S ‘AM I RACIST?’ COMING TO DAILYWIRE+ OCT. 28
The prosecution also claims an unspent bullet found at the crime scene came from Allen’s gun, but the round is commonly used by law enforcement, and no officer’s gun was tested in connection to the case. The idea that a mass-produced bullet cycled through a mass-produced gun could create a unique marking is also dubious, according to Stephen Gutowski, a certified firearms instructor and reporter who founded The Reload.
“The forensic techniques used by crime labs to match specific guns to specific bullets have come under heavy scrutiny in recent years,” Gutowski told The Daily Wire in 2022. “So, I think it’s important to examine claims like this with a healthy dose of skepticism. The idea you could match a mark on the rim of a casing to a specific gun’s extractor seems dubious to me.”
“I could see an argument that an extractor on a certain model of gun could leave a unique marking on an unspent round if the round were cycled through the firearm since the extractor may have dimensions that are different from other firearms,” he added. “However, the Sig Sauer P226 has been an incredibly popular firearm for decades, and it’s unlikely the mass-produced extractors included on each pistol would leave a marking that’s obviously distinguishable from another P226.”
After his arrest, Allen admitted to the murders, but his defense has argued that his mental health declined in prison and the confessions can’t be trusted.
“}]]
