The trial is set to begin Monday for a central Indiana man accused of mysteriously killing two teenage girls whose bodies were found along a wooded trail more than seven years ago.
Jury selection is set to begin in the trial of Richard Allen, charged in the 2017 deaths of Abigail Williams and Liberty German in Delphi, Indiana.
In mid-September, the special judge in the case denied a defense request that the Indiana Court of Appeals review two of his orders before trial. The judge had ruled that the jury could hear 61 alleged confessions made by Allen while in prison. She also prevented the defense from presenting its theory of ritual sacrifice to the jury.
Less than two weeks later, WTHR, the NBC affiliate in Indianapolis, reported on September 23, Allen’s defense team requested that the jury be taken to where the bodies of Abigail and Liberty were found .
Allen’s public defenders say police arrested the wrong man. They say several people with ties to a pagan Norse religion known as Odinism were responsible for the killings and that they planned to tell the jury about those other suspects during the trial.
Prosecutors previously said Allen confessed to the murders of Williams and German to several people, including family members, prison guards, other inmates, a prison warden and a prison psychologist. His lawyers argued that Allen did not make the confession voluntarily, that he was coerced by guards, and that he was suffering from mental illness at the time of his confession.
Abigail, 13, and Liberty, 14, were killed while walking in February 2017 near the Monon High Bridge in Delphi, Indiana.
Allen, who has pleaded not guilty, has remained incarcerated since his arrest in October 2022.
