Delphi murders: Richard Allen sentenced for killing 2 teen girls on hiking trail

An Indiana judge on Friday sentenced Richard Allen, who was recently convicted for the February 2017 killings of two teen girls who had been walking on a hiking trail in Delphi, known as the Delphi murders, to a maximum of 130 years behind bars.

The sentence includes 65 years for the felony murder of Abigal “Abby” Williams and 65 years for the felony murder of Liberty “Libby” German to be served consecutively.

Allen’s attorneys plan to appeal, saying in a memo filed earlier this week that Allen “maintains his innocence and his hopeful that the appellate process will provide him with an opportunity to present a full defense at a second trial.”

An Allen County jury in November found Allen guilty of murdering Abby, 13, and Libby, 14, who disappeared during their walk along the High Monon Trail on Feb. 13, 2017. Investigators found them both brutally murdered the next day with sticks covering their bodies in a wooded area near the trail.

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Allen was convicted on two counts of murder and two counts of felony murder and faced up to 130 years in prison.

During his trial earlier this year, prosecutors placed Allen at the crime scene with evidence including an unspent bullet at the scene matching a firearm recovered from Allen’s home in 2022, as well as the dozens of confessions he made in prison, according to FOX 59 Indianapolis.

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Superintendent Doug Carter of the Indiana State Police speaks during a press conference on an update on the Delphi murders investigation on Monday, April 22, 2019 at the Canal Center in Delphi, Indiana. (Nikos Frazier | Journal & Courier / USA TODAY NETWORK)

Allen’s defense leaned largely on expert analysis showing Allen’s unhealthy mental state after his 2022 arrest, which took the Delphi community by surprise at the time. Allen had been a longtime CVS employee in the small Indiana town when police took him into custody five years after the murders.

Carroll County prosecutor Nick McLeland told jurors in his opening statement that when searchers found the two girls in a wooded area near the Monon High Bridge, Libby was naked and covered in blood. Both girls had their throats cut several times, FOX 59 reported.

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One key piece of evidence presented during the trial was a video Libby recorded on her phone at some point before she and Abby were killed.

Officers escort Richard Allen out of the Carroll County courthouse following a hearing on Nov. 22, 2022 in Delphi, Indiana. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)

Jurors watched 43 seconds of the video, which showed Libby and Abby walking with an unknown man wearing a hat and blue utility jacket, in court on Oct. 22. The man in the video became known over the last five years as “Bridge Guy.” Libby captured the video at 2:13 p.m., less than 25 minutes after she and Abigail’s family members dropped them off at the trail.

“Guys, down the hill,” the man can be heard saying to the girls in the video.

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Prosecutors argued that Allen is “Bridge Guy,” after witnesses who testified against Allen said they saw him on the trail around the same time the girls disappeared, and authorities recovered a similar blue utility jacket from Allen’s home in 2022.

DELPHI MURDERS SUSPECT CONFESSED TO KILLING 2 GIRLS ON HIKING TRAIL IN SMALL TOWN, PRISON DOC SAYS

Snow covers the water of Deer creek as the Monon High Bridge towers above on Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2022 in Delphi, Indiana. Abby Williams and Libby German, both Delphi eighth-graders, were murdered while hiking a popular community trail near Delphi on Feb. 13, 2017. (Nikos Frazier / Journal & Courier / USA TODAY NETWORK)

Allen also admitted in one jailhouse confession that he did order the girls “down the hill.” He repeatedly confessed to killing the girls, apparently saying he wanted to rape the girls but was spooked by a van driving nearby, at which point he decided to kill them.

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His attorneys said his declining mental stability led him to make false statements behind bars.

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Grainy cellphone video footage and a sketch of a prime suspect in the murder of Delphi girls Abigail Williams and Liberty German, on the office wall of Tobe Leazenby, Sheriff of Carroll County. (Robert Scheer/IndyStar / USA TODAY NETWORK)

More than five years after their deaths, investigators executed a search warrant of Allen’s home in Delphi on Oct. 13, 2022, and they recovered a blue Carhartt jacket, a SIG Sauer P226 .40-caliber semiautomatic handgun and a .40-caliber S&W cartridge in a “wooden keepsake box” from a dresser between two closets in Allen’s bedroom, according to authorities. 

The handgun recovered at Allen’s home was consistent with a .40-caliber unspent bullet police found at the site of the murders in 2017, police said.

Fox News’ Patrick McGovern contributed to this report.

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Audrey Conklin is a digital reporter for Fox News Digital and FOX Business. Email tips to audrey.conklin@fox.com or on Twitter at @audpants.