The man accused of murdering two teenagers for a walk in 2017 has finally been charged with their deaths.
Richard Allen, 50, of Delphi, Indiana, was arrested Friday for the deaths of Libby German, 14, and Abigail Williams, 13. He now faces two counts of manslaughter.
Allen has pleaded not guilty to the charges and is being held without bail. He is due to appear in court again on January 13, 2023, with a probable trial date of March 20, 2023.
He is reportedly not cooperating with authorities, according to WISHTV. He does not appear to have a criminal record.
“It’s a step in the right direction,” Nicholas McLeland, the Carroll County Prosecutor, said at a news conference Monday about Allen’s arrest.
He noted that it was “disappointing” that the suspect is a local resident, and said he can now bring the evidence against Allen to court in the future trial.
But when asked if anyone else was involved in the murders, McLeland simply said, “We haven’t closed this case.”
Richard Allen, 50, was charged with two murders before the deaths of Libby German, 14, and Abigail Williams, 13
Abigail Williams, left, and Liberty German, right, were murdered in February 2017 after walking. No one has ever been arrested for the murders of 14-year-old girls
It remains unclear what led police to eventually arrest Allen, as state police will not release evidence in the case under a court order.
A probable cause document has been temporarily sealed, with McLeland saying he requested that the documents be sealed for “additional scrutiny” related to the case and to protect the integrity of the investigation.
“The investigation is far from complete and we will not jeopardize its integrity by releasing any information until it is,” said Doug Carter, the Indiana State Police superintendent.
“If you choose to be critical of our silence, be critical of me, not the front line,” he said. “These are people who have devoted their entire lives to a conclusion, in other words, a conviction.”
But Allen was long thought to be the unknown man German and Williams approached as they crossed the Monon High Bridge in the woods outside Delphi in February 2017.
The bridge is just a few miles from his home.
Libby had shared a photo of herself walking along the track on the day of her murder, with the Snapchat updates causing a sensation that made the case one of the most infamous unsolved murders in the United States.
The bloodied bodies of the girls were found about 800 meters from the bridge.
Indiana State Police announced Monday that Allen has been charged with the murders
Carroll County Prosecutor Nicholas McLeland said Allen’s arrest is a “step in the right direction.”
The relatives of Libby German and Abigail Williams listened intently during the press conference
After news of Allen’s arrest broke on Friday, a disturbing photo surfaced of his daughter posing in the same spot where the teenage victims were last seen alive.
The photo shows Brittany Zapanta, 28 – the daughter of Richard Allen, 50, on Monon High Bridge. It was posted to Facebook in 2018 by Allen’s wife Kathy, 50, – just over a year after the girls disappeared in February 2017, although it’s unclear when the photo was taken.
There is also no indication of who took the photo on the Monon High Bridge Trail.
And another photo posted online showed Allen laughing with his wife, while in the background a police sketch of the Delphi suspect hung over his shoulder on a bulletin board on a wall.
It is not clear when and where the photo was taken. The version of the suspect sketch in the image was not released until April 2019, so the photo would have been taken at least two years after the murders.
It was later revealed that his home was less than two miles from the Delphi train bridge where Williams and German were last seen alive.
The photo of Allen’s daughter, Brittany, 28, was posted to Facebook by his wife Kathy, 50, in 2018 – just over a year after the girls disappeared in February 2017.
Libby German was filmed by her friend and co-victim Abigail Williams in February 2017, just before they were murdered –
Allen’s arrest could mark the end of a years-long investigation in which numerous possible leads have gone nowhere and police have kept quiet about the details of the case.
Exactly how the girls died remains unknown to the public, and the state in which their bodies were discovered also remains shrouded in mystery.
Over the summer, the details of a search warrant revealed that Libby and Abigail had been found covered in blood and that their killer appeared to have taken some sort of souvenir from the murder scene.
The warrant obtained by the murder sheet podcast and released on Indianapolis FOX59offered no further details on what the souvenir was, although it did say that “the rest of” [the girls’] clothing was recovered,” implying that the killer had taken something they were wearing.
And nauseatingly, the killer ‘staged’ the girls’ bodies in some way after killing them, though it remains unclear exactly how he did this.
Investigators also believed that photos or videos were probably taken of the grotesque set up to “remember” the crime scene.
The photo shows Richard Allen, 50, smiling with his wife while a police sketch that closely resembles him hangs on the wall over his shoulder.
This is the sketch that Allen was photographed close by. It is one of several released after the February 2017 murders of
The murder of Abby and Libby in 2017 became infamous after investigators released horrifying footage the girls recorded of a man following them and approaching them over Monon High Bridge.
A heavyset man in jeans and a blue jacket was seen approaching the girls, and in a short audio clip released, the man was heard saying “Down the hill” to the girls.
The full clip is reportedly 43 seconds long, but the content is thought to be too disturbing to share in full.
The voice in the clip was described as “not inconsistent” with Logan’s, the FBI investigation concluded. A short clip was also released of the man walking up to the girls on the path.
An unidentified man – now presumably Allen – was filmed approaching Libby and Abby before their deaths
Allen is pictured here with his wife, Kathy, in an undated photo
Over the years, numerous people have been put forward as possible suspects in the case.
Ron Logan, who died in 2020, has long been the prime suspect. The girls’ bodies were discovered on his property – just 1,400 from his home – and over the summer it was revealed that his alibi for the day of the murder was flawed.
His home was ransacked and he was arrested shortly after the murders, but he was released and never charged.
Kegan Kline, 27, of Peru, Indiana, was also previously named a suspect in the murders.
He allegedly admitted to talking to Libby German via a fake Instagram profile called Anthony_shots.
Kline – who is heavily built and has a sticky face – used an image of a ripped and muscular young man to trick underage girls into talking to him.
He is said to have met Libby at the Delphi High Bridge the day before she was murdered walking by.
But he is also said to have shared his Anthony_shots password with others, including his father, and said his father could be a prime suspect in the murders.
Kline is being held in prison after being arrested for separate child pornography in 2020. Neither he nor his father have been arrested for the Delphi Bridge murders.