Delphi murder trial: Day 17 live blog - Indianapolis News | Weather Indiana

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) – Wednesday marks day 17 in the trial of Delphi Murders suspect Richard Allen at the Carroll County Courthouse in Delphi.

Allen, 52, is charged with murder and murder while committing or attempting to commit kidnapping in the deaths of 13-year-old Abigail “Abby” Williams and 14-year-old Liberty “Libby” German. The girls’ bodies were found near the Monon High Bridge near Delphi on February 14, 2017, a day after they went missing.

Allen was first investigated in 2017 and again in October 2022. After a second police interview, he was taken into custody.

The trial began on October 18 and was expected to last until mid-November. Originally, 16 Allen County residents served as a jury in the case, but one juror was dismissed on October 25.

Cameras are not allowed in the courtroom.

Tune in to News 8 and follow our daily live blogs throughout the trial period for the latest developments.

NOTE: The times listed in the blog headings are the times the entries were added. Specific times for courtroom events will be listed in the entries, where available. These notes are compiled from photographs of written notes provided by reporters in the courtroom and emailed to the WISH-TV news desk.

For a quick recap of Day 16 in the Delphi Murders trial (Tuesday), scroll to the bottom of the page.

To see all our previous trial coverage, click hereand follow Kyla Russell of News 8 on X while reporting the process live from Delphi.

9am: Court hearing set for Wednesday

Brief summary of day 16 in the Delphi Murders trial

Tuesday’s first testimony came from Betsey Blaira witness who told police she saw “Bridge Guy” on the Monon High Bridge in Delphi. She said she went to the trails twice on Feb. 13, 2017, but left for good around 2:15 p.m. She told the jury she left through the Mears entrance, turned left and saw one vehicle on the CPS property. According to Blair, it was backed up in the parking lot and did not have a bright color.

She told the defense she only saw the side of the vehicle and could not tell if it was a hatchback like Richard Allen’s vehicle. After brief cross-examination, Blair told the jury that the CPS building was abandoned and therefore could not have belonged to an employee or anyone inside.

The next one on the stand was Dr. Stuart Grassian. Grassian is Harvard educated and has been a professor at Harvard University School of Medicine for 25 years. He said he has a special interest in what solitary confinement does to a person’s mental health. He has interviewed hundreds of people under those circumstances.

Grassian reviewed reports from Allen’s psychologist in Westville, Dr. Monica Walaand said Allen met the requirements for entering psychosis, given his environment and lack of mental stimulation. He also said solitary confinement can cause behaviors noted by Allen, such as fecal smearing and sexual behavior. He also said circumstances can always impact memory and define the difference between solitary and protective custody. He later told the jury that a normal person could become absolutely psychotic after being in solitary confinement for more than six months.

Grassian left the stands and the defense called Dr. Eric Warrena toolmark specialist based in Memphis.

He said he was asked by the defense to review Toolmark’s conclusions Melissa Oberga former firearms analyst who examined the bullet found in Libby and Abby’s bodies and Richard Allen’s gun. He described the different characteristics of a bullet, including class, subclass and individual, and explained the difference between cycling and firing a bullet.

Warren then confirmed that Oberg used a fired bullet to compare the cycled round to, which he said was incorrect because it is not repeatable and reproducible, and also produces different markings on the cartridge.

Prosecutor James Luttrell began his cross-examination asking whether Warren would look only at the report and photos and not physical evidence, which would affect his ability to draw conclusions. But Warren disagreed.

He said Oberg did not examine the actual extractor in the gun to determine if there were any potential subclass characteristics.

Attorney Brad Rozzi then showed Warren a photo of triangular marks on the cartridge, which are ejection marks. He says this was ‘a hallmark of the characteristics of a subclass’.

After a brief pause, Rozzi continued to question Warren, asking about firearm characteristics, including the power of the slide, whether any research had been done over time on the integrity of the slide, and the quality of the Sig Sauer . He said the shear was a “blueprint mark” and that the Sig Sauer should maintain its integrity over time.

Luttrell began his cross-examination asking Warren about the characteristics of the cartridge. After a back-and-forth about cartridges, with Luttrell “hammering Warren about why he didn’t request or physically examine the cartridge and gun,” Rozzi asked if Warren had written a report. He said no, but said he was available for the defense when they wanted to depose him, but he was in Morocco.

The jury asked Warren 16 questions. Here are a few:

Would the individual markings be different depending on who is cycling? Warren says, “Oberg’s documentation does not support the conclusion.”
What is the probability that the cartridge will match the test bullets on site? Warren says, “only in Indiana are guns more likely.”
Would removing, cleaning and disassembling change the individual characteristics of a firearm? Warren says, “No, only if there is some kind of harm.”

The next witness was Stacy Eldridgean expert in computer information management. She examined Libby German’s cell phone following the Indiana State Police investigation.

She explained which tools she mainly used to examine the phone Axiom against the use of ISP Cellebrite. She told the jury that there are three Level 6 extractions you can do to retrieve data, each retrieving a different amount of information. Libby’s early 2017 extraction covered only basic information.

Eldridge said ISP had the capacity to perform a full extraction in early 2017, but this did not happen until later that year. She said this caused problems and caused the loss of “current power log” data, which is retained between turning a phone off and back on.

Eldridge says the log can also indicate if the phone went into airplane mode. She said her priority was to find out what was going on with the phone at 4:34 a.m. on February 14, 2017, so the phone could receive multiple text messages.

After a brief sidebar from Judge Gull, Eldridge left the witness stand to discuss her report on Libby’s phone. She said she generally agrees with the state expert’s investigation, but there are things she disagrees with about Libby’s investigation. She did not agree with some of the times, texts, phone calls and FaceTimes delivered between February 13 and 14.

Eldridge said the last connection time on Libby’s phone was 4:33 a.m. on Feb. 14 and before that was 5:45 p.m. on Feb. 13, and said there is evidence that no messages were received during that period. Some text messages were timestamped, but were not received until February 17.

Eldridge said she doesn’t know why the phone didn’t ping during that time frame, even though it was under Abby’s back and on silent. She said: “I can only conclude that something external happened to the phone,” meaning the phone could have been moved, blocked by metal or blocked from within the tower.

She said she now knows that a wired headset was plugged into the phone on Feb. 13 from 5:45 p.m. to 10:32 p.m.

At 3:09 p.m., prosecutor Nick McLeland begins cross-examination. He asked Eldridge about her training in cell phone extraction. She said this is the first time she has testified about cell phone confiscation other than July.

She said she focused mainly on the phone’s health data and also watched the Bridge Guy video. She said the phone would not have registered movement if it were in a car, and that she could find no evidence that the phone was turned off. Libby’s phone seemed to ‘turn on and off’. She added that the movement of the phone to plug in headphones could have been recorded as health data, but she did not test that, and there could have been a signal blocker on the phone.

The jury asked Eldridge six questions, including whether she wrote her own timeline for the cell data, whether it could be connected to Libby’s iPad, and whether she could view Allen’s location timeline when he was using a phone. She said she didn’t have time to create a timeline, the iPad and phone weren’t synced, and she could follow Allen’s timeline if it was available.

The final session on Tuesday began with Gull scolding the jury for talking and saying she would kick out anyone who talks in court.

The last two witnesses were ISP First Sgt. Chris Cecil And ISP Lieutenant Brian Bunner. The defense asked Cecil to explain an ‘initiation of audio output’, but he said he did not know nor did he have the knowledge to explain why a cell phone would or would not connect to a cell tower .

McLeland began his cross-examination and began by saying that he had Googled a question the jury had asked Eldridge. They asked if a phone made contact with water, would the phone register this as movement? According to Google, a phone can register water or dirt in the headphone port as if headphones were plugged into it.

The defense redirects and asks Cecil if he googles things while conducting a criminal investigation. Cecil said he doesn’t do that and normally looks at peer-reviewed research.

The defense asked: “Have you and the state had 7.5 years to investigate this?”

“That’s right,” said Cecil.

Brian Bunner came to the booth and also said he didn’t know what “start of audio output” was and that he hadn’t done any Google searches.

The court adjourns at 4:25 p.m