Seven years ago, the bodies of two teenage girls were discovered near a hiking trail outside the small Indiana town of Delphi.
The case remained unsolved for years, and authorities have offered few details publicly about why Richard Allen, a onetime pharmacy employee charged in the murders of Liberty German, 14, and Abigail Williams, 13 — known as Libby and Abby — is believed to have killed them.
Lawyers for Allen, 52, have said he is innocent and claimed the killings were part of a ritual sacrifice. Allen’s trial got underway in a Carroll County courtroom this week.
Here’s what you need to know about the case.
How did Liberty German and Abigail Williams die?
Libby’s older sister testified she dropped the eighth graders off at a well-known trail outside Delphi on the afternoon of Feb. 13, 2017 — a makeup snow day the close friends had off.
Libby’s father was supposed to pick them up later that afternoon, he testified, but he couldn’t reach his daughter by phone and he couldn’t find them when he parked at the trailhead and began searching.
Their bodies were found Feb. 14 a half-mile upstream from what was then an abandoned rail bridge near the trail, state police said at the time.
In his opening statement, Carroll County Prosecutor Nick McLeland told jurors their throats had been cut. Libby was naked and covered in blood, he said. Abby was clothed in Libby’s sweatshirt and jeans.
An unspent round from a .40-caliber pistol found near their bodies came from a gun owned by Allen, a probable cause affidavit in the case alleged.
Who is Richard Allen?
Allen worked at a CVS in Delphi and had processed photos for Libby’s family without charging them, her grandparents have said.
Authorities now believe he was the man seen in a mysterious Snapchat video that showed a white male in jeans and a dark jacket walking on the trail where the teens had gone to hang out.
Investigators found the images on Libby’s cellphone and released them days after the girls’ bodies were discovered in a bid to identify a possible suspect.
Authorities released a separate audio clip, also found on Libby’s phone, of a male voice saying: “Guys, down the hill.”
For years, authorities did not identify any suspects and sought help from the public in locating one. At one point at a news conference in 2019, Indiana State Police Superintendent Doug Carter said the killer most likely had close connections to the community and had probably been interviewed by police.
“Directly to the killer — who may be in this room — we believe you are hiding in plain sight,” he said.
Allen, who was interviewed by authorities in 2017 and admitted being at the trail the day the teens vanished, was arrested in 2022. He was charged with two counts of murder and two counts of felony murder and faces a maximum prison term of 130 years.
Prosecutors have said Allen, who has been held at a maximum-security prison while he awaits trial, confessed to the killings in conversations with facility staff members and inmates and in a recorded phone call to his wife.
Allen’s lawyers have said that he is innocent and that he appears to be experiencing mental health issues, including delusions and memory loss.
What is Odinism?
In a lengthy filing last year, Allen’s defense team said the teens were killed in a ritual sacrifice by people affiliated with a pagan Norse religion known as “Odinism” that has been embraced by white nationalists.
The attorneys cited ritualistic symbols found at the crime scene — including the position of Libby’s body — and said authorities initially investigated two Indiana-based groups of Odinists in connection with the killings but later turned their focus to Allen.
In a request for a search warrant in 2017, an FBI agent said the girls’ bodies appeared to have been moved and staged.
“Absolutely nothing” links Allen to “Odinism or any religious cult,” the lawyers wrote in the filing.
Carroll County Prosecutor Nick McLeland dismissed the theory as a “fanciful defense for social media to devour,” while the judge overseeing the case denied their effort, saying in a decision last month that the “probative value of such evidence is greatly outweighed by confusion of the issues and its potential to mislead the jury.”