Richard Allen, the man convicted of murdering two Delphi middle schoolers, is appealing his 130-year sentence, with his attorneys now arguing that psychosis brought on by solitary confinement led him to falsely confess to the killings.
Allen, 54, was found guilty in 2024 of murdering eighth graders Abigail Williams and Liberty German, who were 13 and 14 years old when their bodies were found in 2017 with their throats slit near a hiking trail in Delphi, Indiana.
During his four-week trial, jurors heard recordings of Allen repeatedly confessing to prison guards, psychologists and his wife, Kathy, both in person and over the phone. In one recorded call played for the jury, Allen told his wife plainly, “I did it. I killed Abby and Libby.” When she pressed him further, he responded, “Yes, I did.”
Allen’s appellate attorney, Mark Leeman, argued in court Monday that those confessions should never have been admitted as evidence, telling the court his client became severely mentally ill while held in solitary confinement. According to Fox 59, Allen smashed his head against cell walls, bathed in his toilet, ate paper, and smeared feces on his face and cell walls during that period.
“We want to make sure we got it right,” Leeman told the court. “We do not have a reliable verdict.” Leeman said he did not believe Allen, who had no prior criminal history, was capable of committing such a violent crime.
Prosecution pushes back
Prosecutor Ellen Meilaender, representing the Indiana Attorney General’s Office, countered that Allen’s confessions were voluntary and were not extracted during interrogations. She said Allen was placed in solitary confinement solely for his own safety, and that while there he had access to a tablet — which was replaced after he broke it — along with regular visits from a chaplain and mental health professionals.
Meilaender also noted that the case against Allen did not rest solely on his confessions. She pointed out that Allen had admitted in 2017, years before his arrest, that he was on the trail at the same time the girls are believed to have been killed. When investigators later followed up, Allen changed his account of that timeline.
What happened on the trail
Prosecutors say Allen, a former drugstore clerk, encountered the two close friends on the Monon High Bridge Trail just outside Delphi, about 78 miles north of Indianapolis, in February 2017. He forced them off the trail at gunpoint and threatened to rape them, but changed his plans when a van passed by, according to prosecutors. He then forced the girls down a hill and cut their throats about a quarter mile from the trail, where their bodies were found the following day.
Allen was convicted in November 2024 and sentenced the following month to 130 years in prison, the maximum sentence allowed.
