Family and friends of Liberty German and Abigail Williams were left furious at an Indiana court’s decision to shield explicit prison video footage from public view out of ‘respect’ for the ‘dignity’ of the man accused of murdering the Delphi teens.
Jurors in Carroll County Court were the only members of the public permitted to view nearly two hours of video recordings made of Richard Allen during the 13 months in which he was held in Westville Correctional Facility in Westville, some 76 miles outside of Delphi.
Voicing her frustration outside the Circuit courtroom in which the trial is being conducted, Libby’s grandmother, Becky Patty said it was ‘ridiculous’ to be ‘hiding’ Allen when the court had ‘shown the girls at their worst,’ across a wealth of gruesome and publicly aired crime and autopsy photographs.
Libby, 14, and Abby, 13, were killed outside their home town of Delphi, Indiana, in February 2017
Richard Allen denies murdering Liberty and Abby who were killed while hiking in their hometown of Delphi, Indiana
Family members of Liberty German and Abigail Williams listen as Indiana State Police Superintendent Doug Carter announces during a news conference in Delphi, Indiana, Monday, Oct. 31, 2022, the arrest of Richard Allen, 50, for the murders of two teenage girls killed during a 2017 hiking trip in northern Indiana
Allen, 52, is facing four charges relating to the murders of best friends Libby, 14, and Abby, 13, who went missing after going for a hike on the Monon High Bridge trail on February 13, 2017.
He has been charged with the murder and felony murder of both girls, which means murder committed during the act of another crime, in this instance the other act would be kidnapping.
He faces a maximum sentence of 130 years if convicted.
Today, his defense continued to make their case by admitting into evidence close to two hours of footage taken from camcorders used by guards who constantly monitored and filmed Allen during his 13 months in solitary confinement and suicide watch.
At the start of Saturday morning Judge Frances Gull explained that due to the ‘rather explicit scenes’ contained across the 15 videos she would be publishing the exhibit – meaning the videos could be viewed – but only to the jury.
Bradely Rozzi, one of Allen’s team of attorneys, thanked Judge Gull for her decision saying: ‘Out of respect for various parties including my client and his dignity this is the most professional way of dealing with this.’
In pictures both girls were seen lying on the mortuary table on their backs, their neck wounds gaping wide. Both were 5ft 4, Abby weighed 95lbs and Libby 200lbs
The abandoned Monon High Bridge outside Delphi, Indiana, where Abby and Libby were murdered
The large screen on which evidence has been presented to jurors was turned away from the public gallery while the videos, which contain no audio, played out to a silent court.
Visible to some members of the media from where they sat in the gallery, in some Allen is naked, in all he is cuffed or otherwise restrained.
In one, he kneels, naked, facing a wall while two officers soap him up and wash him down before drying him and placing a black ‘spit hood’ over his head.
Allen, in another, still bearded at the time, is getting a haircut, sitting apparently passive, his hands cuffed behind his back. At some point he is dragged along a hallway by two guards who take either arm.
In another, he appears to be lying down while guards attempt to get him up.
Another video shows Allen naked and placed in white spit hood.
Yet another shows him transported to the prison’s medical unit, strapped onto a chair while he is apparently examined. Allen received several involuntary injections of the antipsychotic drug Haldol during his time at Westville.
The ‘movement videos’ were all taken when Allen was being transported in and out of his cell and filmed between April and June 2023, gleaned from hundreds of hours of footage reviewed by his defense team.
The jury is expected to be shown in cell video later next week.
The trail in Delphi, Indiana, where Abby Williams, 13, and Libby German, 14, were killed
Richard Allen is slight, gaunt, with closely cropped hair and barely five-feet, yet witness Breann Wilber described ‘Bridge Guy’ as tall and muscular
They depict what the defense has presented as the peak of the ‘serious mental illness’ and psychotic breakdown they claim Allen suffered because of constant monitoring and his lengthy stay in solitary confinement in the most secure unit of Westville.
Jurors watched the footage intently, at times one put his hand over his mouth, but they were notably less visibly affected than Allen’s own attorneys.
Jennifer Auger watched with clear discomfort as her colleague Rozzi presented each clip. At some point Andrew Baldwin, his arm round the back of Allen’s chair where he sat beside him, looked close to tears.
Yesterday the court heard that Allen was ‘seriously mentally ill’ when he made a string of prison confessions to killing Libby and Abby.
The statement came in expert testimony from Dr. Deanna Dweinger, the psychologist who oversees mental health care in Indiana’s Department of Corrections.
Under questioning from Rozzi, Dweinger told the court that the conditions in which Allen was held during his 13 months in Westville would have been ‘toxic’ for a man who was already suffering from depression and anxiety.