Richard Allen added two inches to his height and took 15lbs off his weight on his fishing license in the weeks after the murders of Liberty German and Abigail Williams, the court in the Delphi murder case heard Thursday.
Allen, 52, has changed almost beyond recognition since his arrest in November 2022 for the girls’ murders.
Spectators at his high-profile trial have expressed shock at his startling transformation since his arrest and the date of the crimes from a robust, bearded man to a gaunt, almost birdlike creature.
His signature long goatee became a short full beard and now, appearing in court, he is clean shaven.
Allen has been charged with four counts in relation to the murders of best friends Libby, 14, and Abby, 13, who were abducted and killed when they went on a hike on the Monon High Bridge trail outside Delphi, Indiana, February 13, 2017.
Richard Allen was pictured in a local bar right next to a wanted poster showing a composite sketch of the suspect in the killings before he was arrested for the murder of Liberty German, 14, and Abigail Williams, 13.
Allens signature long goatee that he had when his mugshot was taken in 2022 became a full, shorter beard, but now appearing in court, he is clean shaven
Spectators at Allens trial have expressed shock at his startling transformation since his arrest and the date of the crimes from a robust man to a gaunt, almost birdlike creature
He has been charged with two counts of murder and two counts of felony murder – murder committed during the act of another crime, in this case kidnap – and faces a maximum sentence of 130 years if convicted.
On Thursday, jurors in Carroll County Circuit Court heard why attention turned to Allen in the first place after the chance discovery of a lead sheet that had not been followed up on.
A composite sketch was released in 2017 showing a possible suspect in the case
Kathy Shank, a volunteer tasked with organizing the filing system for the tens of thousands of tips and leads generated in the Delphi investigation told the court that she had found the lead sheet relating to a ‘Rick Allen Whitehead’ who had contacted police three days after the girls were killed and self-reported being on the trail that day between 1pm and 3pm. He said he had seen three girls.
She recalled a girl telling police she had encountered a man that day and wondered if there might be a correlation. When she checked her files, she found that Allen had been briefly interviewed and the resultant lead misfiled under the name Whitehead and marked ‘cleared’ meaning no follow up was ever conducted.
She found the lead sheet on September 21, 2022 – a date she told the court she remembered as it was her late husband’s birthday.
The court heard from the Department of Natural Resources officer, Danial Dulin who carried out the first brief interview with Allen in a grocery store parking lot on February 18, 2017.
He recalled that he though it ‘odd’ that Allen would not come into the office or allow officers to go to his home and that Allen told him he was on the trail between 1.30 and 3.30pm.
Officers escorted Allen out of a courthouse in Carroll County, Indiana, after a hearing in November 2022
‘I just thought it was uncommon in an adult to increase their height. As we age, we might get a little shorter. To increase it just seemed like an anomaly to me, Department of Natural Resources officer, Danial Dulin told the court about Allens change of height noted on his fishing license application
Years later, when he was contacted about his interview with Allen following the 2022 discovery, Dulin looked into him in more detail and discovered that, in the weeks after their meeting Allen had purchased a new fishing license.
He noted that on it he had increased his height from 5ft 4 to 5ft 6 and reduced his weight by 15lbs.
He told the court, ‘I just thought it was uncommon in an adult to increase their height. As we age, we might get a little shorter. To increase it just seemed like an anomaly to me and I registered that I’d spoken to him about a month and a half prior.’
A photograph of Allen taken from his driving license which Dulin pulled at the time of their first interview, and shown to the jury shows how drastically his physical appearance today has changed from the round faced and sturdy figure he was back in 2017.
Dulin recalled nothing particularly unusual about his encounter with Allen back then. But, years later, when brought in for a more official interview by then Chief of Police Steve Mullins and colleague Tony Liggett, now Sheriff, both his story and his demeanor had changed.
Mullins took the stand to recall how Allen went willingly with him and Liggett for a more formal interview on October 13, 2022.
By then the officers had pulled surveillance camera from the road to the trail head and identified a vehicle they believed to be Allen’s arriving around 1.27pm February 13, 2017.
But when questioned in 2022 Allen, who told officers he had come forward on his wife Kathy’s suggestion, said he had gone to the trail around noon after visiting his mother than morning and having gone home to pick up a jacket. He said he stayed for only an hour.
Libby and Abby who were abducted and murdered when they went on a hike on the Monon High Bridge trail outside Delphi, Indiana, February 13, 2017
He said he had walked towards the bridge, seeing three girls leaving the trail as he entered, and walked out onto the bridge as far as the first platform where he stood and looked for fish before returning home.
Asked what he was wearing that day Allen said a blue or black Carhartt jacket, blue jeans, a skull cap and military boots or tennis shoes.
Allen initially said officers could examine his phone before changing his mind.
Then, Mullins told the court, ‘We showed Mr. Allen a picture of Bridge Guy and the way we framed the question was we needed to work out if the person was him and his answer was odd.
‘He said, “If the picture was taken with the girls’ camera there was no way it could be him”.’
The interview ended when Allen became agitated and walked out.
On Wednesday, Allens attorneys renewed their efforts to have jurors hear their theory that the two girls were murdered by multiple people as part of an Odinist ritual.
They claim in a new motion that the door has been opened to allow the evidence that Judge Gull previously excluded because of testimony already heard in court.
The attorneys had previously attempted to have their Odinist defense heard in court filing lengthy documents and pressing their case in an August hearing.
Odinism is defined by the worship of the Norse god Odin – associated with war, death, wisdom and magic. The group is characterized as a white supremacist cult that combines those beliefs with magical elements of neo-paganism.
Now they claim that the evidence of Crime Scene Investigator Ryan Olehy, who testified on Monday and Tuesday, is grounds for Judge Gull to review her earlier decision to deny it.
Judge Frances Gull will now have to rule anew on whether to allow defense testimony that an Odinist cult may have been responsible for Libby and Abbys deaths
During Olehy’s testimony jurors heard and saw crime scene photos that showed sticks, and in Libby’s case a large bough, arranged over the girls’ bodies.
In cross examination defense lawyer Bradley Rozzi pushed for Olehy to concede that there was ‘intentionality’ in the way the sticks were arranged. But the CSI officer resisted the attorney’s efforts to paint the crime scene as ‘odd’ or to find anything other than an attempt to conceal the bodies in the placement of the sticks.
But according to the defense’s new filing, ‘The State of Indiana has provided its explanation of what the sticks represent (concealment of the bodies), and Richard Allen has a 6th amendment right to offer the jury his alternative theory as to the reasons the sticks are aligned and arranged in the manner in which they are arranged.’
Rozzi also attempted to draw from Olehy a concession that blood found on a tree near the bodies was not simply spatter by a more deliberate marking. He referred to the tree as ‘the F tree’ suggesting that the letter had been written on the bark in blood.
Again, Olehy resisted his attempts and stated that, to him, it simply looked like a blood stain on the tree, roughly four feet above the ground.
At their August hearing the defense presented the testimony of Dr Dawn Perlmutter who has trained with the FBI and worked with several local, state and federal law enforcement and specializes in identifying ritualistic crime scenes.
Now, they have reasserted, ‘After reviewing the crime scene photographs and other reports and documentation, Dr. Perlmutter’s testimony including her assessment that the sticks on the bodies, F tree, and other aspects of the crime scene were textbook signs of a ritualistic murder related to Odinism/Norse Paganism, including using sticks and blood on the tree to form runes and bind runes.’
In fact, the new motion states, law enforcement investigated the possibility of Odinist involvement as early as the second day after the girls were found, until 2021 when law enforcement officer Greg Ferency was killed in an ambush on an FBI office in 2021.
According to Allen’s attorneys, a failure to allow them to put forward their theory would be unfairly prejudicial, leaving ‘the jury with ONLY one explanation – the explanation provided by the State of Indiana.’
Judge Gull has yet to rule on the motion.