DELPHI, IN — Kathy Allen arrived home from work the evening of Feb. 13, 2017, to find her husband, Richard Allen, lying on their couch.
Kathy sat on the couch, tuning into a TV program and seeing a news flash about two missing girls in Delphi, she told producers of the ABC News documentary recently released on Hulu, “Capturing Their Killer: The Girls on the High Bridge.” At the time, Kathy said Richard seemed shocked to hear the news.
Richard then told Kathy he’d been on the trails earlier that day, where Abigail “Abby” Williams and Liberty “Libby” German went missing, but he did not see them.
Kathy said she encouraged her husband to contact police to see whether he could help. Kathy said Richard met with a conservation officer a few days later outside of the Save A Lot grocery store, where his phone was analyzed and handed back to him.
Five years later, Richard would be detained for interrogation, ultimately leading to a search warrant and his arrest. A jury convicted him of the murders in November.
The three-part docuseries profiling the investigation of the murders of Abby and Libby includes extensive interviews and videos recordings of about 30 people, including friends and family of the girls, the defense team of Richard Allen, and experts in various fields of research relating to the case.
Here is what the documentary unveiled.
Allen’s wife proclaims his innocence
Kathy describes her husband, Richard, as a “wonderful, caring, compassionate father” with good morals. Kathy said she wants to see true justice for Abby and Libby, but “not at the expense of an innocent person.”
“How dare you accuse someone who is nothing but a people pleaser and works out in the public? How dare you,” Kathy said. “I need people to know that my husband is not a monster. He’s not the monster people think he is. He’s been accused of a horrendous crime, being charged with the double homicide of two girls.”
In video footage from Richard Allen’s first interrogation in 2022, Allen tells police that on Feb. 13, 2017, he was wearing blue jeans and a black or blue jacket, likely a Carhartt.
Asked whether he’s the man in the Bridge Guy photos, Allen tells officers it isn’t him.
“You’re not gonna make me believe it’s me,” Allen said. “You’re not gonna find anything that ties me to those murders. So, I’m not really that concerned.”
Jerry Holeman, the Indiana State Police lieutenant who interviewed Allen in 2022, declined to be interviewed for the docuseries, but he gave producers permission to include previous interviews on various YouTube channels.
Kathy Allen said that on the day a search warrant was carried out in their home, she and Richard sat in their van waiting for officers to finish. She cried while her husband attempted to console her.
After Allen was taken for questioning, Holeman explains to Allen that they were able to trace the unspent bullet as having come from his gun. Holeman said he offered Allen a polygraph test multiple times, to which Richard refused.
During an interrogation after the search, Holeman told Allen he could understand that his mental health has suffered, after killing two girls.
“You know what? I don’t really care about living at this point,” Allen said. “And with what you guys have done to me … kill me. I don’t give a (expletive).”
Holeman said what angered him was when Allen told him, “You’re going to pay for this.” Holeman erupted.
“I’m not paying for any of this shit. You’re paying,” Holeman said, pointing at Allen. “This is on you. This ain’t on me. It’s (expletive) on you, Rick.”
After further questioning, police allowed Kathy to enter the small room where her husband was being held. After hugging his wife and proclaiming his innocence, Richard Allen asks whether his wife is allowed to leave the room.
As she exits, Holeman tells her to instruct her husband to “do the right thing.”
Kathy Allen said a lawyer told her they would be able to bail him out of jail that night. But in a followup call, the lawyer said Richard would not be released, because police were planning to charge him with murder in the morning.
Allen’s legal team documents their work
In video clips recorded by Richard’s legal team, lawyers Andy Baldwin, Jennifer Auger and Brad Rozzi can be seen working around the clock on their defense.
After meeting with Richard Allen for the first time, in November 2022, Baldwin said he walked into the parking lot of Westfield Correctional Facility with Rozzi and said, “Holy crap, this guy is innocent.”
The volume of discovery from the five-year-long investigation equated to about 20 terabytes of information, Rozzi said, roughly “4 million pieces of paper.”
Rozzi said police identified dozens of suspects during their investigation, at least 10 of whom were “viable.” One Rozzi points to was Ron Logan.
Holeman said on a podcast that despite serving a search warrant at Logan’s home, police could find no evidence tying him to the murders.
Alice LaCour, co-host of “The Prosecutors Podcast,” said cell phone pings can sometimes give incorrect information where cell coverage is spotty, which was the case for Logan’s property — and where the girls were found.
Rozzi said he still believes Logan, who died in January 2022, is a viable suspect. But LaCour said Logan wasn’t the only suspect police looked at and couldn’t find evidence to tie to the murders, pointing to Kegan Kline.
The investigation of ‘Anthony Shots’
Allison Penn, a friend of Libby and Abby, said at one sleepover at her home with Abby and Libby before their deaths, Penn’s sister and her friend were talking to a stranger over the internet who introduced the group of girls to a “friend” of his named Anthony Shots, who said he was from the Delphi area.
“Liberty was like, ‘Hmm, I don’t know him, and I know everyone around here,'” Penn said, which prompted Libby to message the Shots profile herself. “He was giving them two different answers. ‘Oh, I’m from Delphi,’ or, ‘Oh, I’m from, like, Lafayette.’ It was just like he didn’t know where he was from. It started to make them question, Who am I talking to?”
Penn said she wasn’t aware Libby continued her conversations with whoever was behind the Shots profile. Police later learned the man was Kline, who used catfishing social media profiles to solicit nude photos from underaged girls.
But Holeman said no evidence indicates that Kline was on the trails the day of the girls’ murder. Kline was later sentenced to 40 years in prison on charges of child exploitation and child pornography.
A true confession, or a mental health breakdown?
When Allen’s lawyers could get his wife into the prison to see him six months after his arrest, Kathy Allen said her husband looked like “a little old man.”
“He was like a zombie,” Kathy said. “I was scared, because he kept saying all kinds of weird things.”
In a video clip, viewers see Richard apologizing to his wife in a phone call, telling her, “I did it. I killed Abby … I killed Abby and Libby.”
In that call, Kathy said her husband sounded “like a robot.”
Auger said Richard’s mental health had “plummeted” during his time in solitary confinement, leading up to confession phone calls.
Terry Kupers, a doctor with the clinical psychology program at the Wright Institute, said he was asked by the Human Rights Watch to tour the Westville prison, where he was “horrified” by what he saw.
“The cells were extremely austere. There is no real window,” Kupers said. “There’s a deafening silence in the cell.”
Kupers said United Nations standards state more than 15 days in solitary confinement is a human-rights abuse or torture. Richard Allen was in solitary confinement for over a year.
“Most people within a month are going to have very serious mental problems,” he said. “Thirteen months is an extraordinarily long time in solitary confinement.”
But John Galipeau, a former warden of the Westville Correctional Facility, said Richard Allen had more contact with people while incarcerated than most prisoners do.
“Was there a camera in his cell? Yeah,” Galipeau said. “You know what caused that? His actions. A lot of the times when he went out, he would be in a ballistic vest for his protection.”
Galipeau said he didn’t think Allen’s conditions of confinement were abusive.
“Do I think they were ideal? It’s not a Marriott,” Galipeau said. “It’s what the judge ordered. He was kept in a cell. Mostly, it was for his protection.”
The introduction of the Odinism theory
In April 2023, Baldwin said he stumbled upon a 12-page report about a Norse pagan religion possibly being connected to the crime scene.
Dawn Perlmutter, a ritualistic crime expert with experience involving the FBI, DEA and Homeland Security, said Allen’s lawyers wanted her opinion on whether the crime scene was ritualistic. When she first looked at the photos, the positioning of the girls’ bodies alongside the arrangement of branches on their bodies stood out to her.
“I can tell you from experience that these are common indicators of ritualistic crime,” Perlmutter said. “Once you determine that it may be a ritualistic crime scene, then the next step is determining which group it may be affiliated with.”
Perlmutter said the designs of the branches looked like runes, an ancient alphabet used by Norse people.
Rozzi said early in the case, police looked at a group of Odinists in the Delphi area. One man in particular, Thomas said, was Brad Holder, who posted to his Facebook page memes referencing “friends helping friends move bodies” along with images depicting runic symbols made of branches.
“Brad Holder had also posted a picture of two girls who were simialr in nature to the way we found Abby and Libby,” Thomas said.
Patrick Westfall, a veteran of the same deployment group to Afghanistan with Holder and a member of the same Odinist group in Delphi, said the group’s practices, often emphasizing its ties with nature, presenting different offerings to an altar, have nothing to do with human sacrifices or killing.
But evidence through time cards at Holder’s job were able to place him nowhere near the crime scene on the day of the girls’ murders, Holeman said. No evidence tied Westfall to the crime, either.
Rozzi said Allen’s team realized none of the information collected by police on the potential ties to Odinism were presented to the court, so they crafted a memo for Judge Frances Gull.
Carroll County Prosecutor Nicholas McLeland called the 136-page document “colorful, dramatic and highly unprofessional.”
Westfall, who was named in the memo, said it “absolutely crushed me.”
“That’s not small change stuff. This is a double homicide,” Westfall said. “It’s a worldwide watched, followed event, and my name is slapped all over this memorandum.”
In a TikTok post shown in the documentary, Holder wears a hat similar to the first composite sketch of Bridge Guy and insists he didn’t kill Abby and Libby.
“No matter how big of a dickhead I am, I didn’t kill those girls,” Holder said in the video.
Forty-five days before trial, Gull ruled that evidence supporting third-party theories would not be permitted. Rozzi said that looking back, the submission of the memo “probably wasn’t the best way to garner judicial support.”
“Whether or not the Odinists are responsible for the deaths of these girls, I don’t really have a personal opinion about that,” Rozzi said. “But what I do know for certain is, this ruling stripped Rick Allen of the ability to defend himself.”
Awaiting the jury’s verdict
Kathy Allen said after the jury left to deliberate, she felt “pretty positive they would make the right decision. Because reasonable doubt was written all over the place.”
Becky Patty, Libby’s grandmother, said at that point, there was nothing more her family could do, leading her to say, “Turn it over to God.”
Libby’s mother, Carrie Timmons, said the four days of deliberation were excruciating.
But Abby’s mother, Anna Williams, said the eight years of waiting is time she’ll never get back.
“It still feels much like it did the first day that the girls were gone,” Anna said, standing in the Abby and Libby Memorial Park just outside of Delphi. “Doing this park, in honor of the girls, ensures that they’ll never be forgotten.”
While the jurors deliberated, Kathy Allen said she called her husband in jail, noting she could detect some joy in his voice. She felt some, too, believing he would be found not guilty.
But Richard was found guilty on all counts and later sentenced to 130 years in prison.
“When I heard those words ‘guilty,’ I was in shock. Ricky looked confused,” Kathy Allen said. “And I wanted to stand there and scream for him.”
In the docuseries, the video sound cuts to Kathy audibly sobbing as Baldwin tells her Gull has ordered everyone out of the courthouse. It’s unclear what room they’re in.
“I’m not disappointed,” Kathy says between sobs. “I’m angry.”
“Well, when I kept telling you, man, that I thought it was a not guilty, I wasn’t lying,” Baldwin tells her in the recording. “I would have bet a lot of money on it.”
Allen’s lawyers plan his appeal
Baldwin said that stating Allen’s defense has a strong appeal makes him nervous, given his superstitious tendencies.
“But we have a strong appeal,” Baldwin said after a pause.
Kathy Allen said she still has Richard’s clothes ready. She’s hopeful for the appeal to succeed.
“I’ve got everything ready for him to come home,” Kathy said, thumbing through family photos of Richard and their daughter. “It was definitely our dream to grow old together, and it still is. I’m looking forward to that. I’m not giving up.”
Jillian Ellison is a reporter for the Journal & Courier. She can be reached via email at jellison@gannett.com.
