DELPHI, Ind. – On Day 17 of the Delphi murders trial, the defense rested its case.
Defense attorney Bradley Rozzi started Wednesday's proceedings by announcing the defense was finished presenting its case. The jury was then taken out of court at 9:15 a.m. The state and defense discussed jury instructions.
At one point, the defense team left the courtroom, which remained silent for a long period of time before Allen's attorneys returned. The prosecution and defense ultimately had no objections to jury instructions. Richard Allen will not testify in his own defense.
Rozzi asked Special Judge Fran Gull for additional time to submit a proposal on how to judge the credibility of Allen's incriminating statements; Gull said the defense had until the "end of business" to submit one.
The prosecution was set to call some rebuttal witnesses on Wednesday. Court was waiting for one of those witnesses to arrive, leading to a delay in court and a break.
Sources said Wednesday's proceedings would likely wrap up with the lunch break.
The prosecution and defense will deliver their closing arguments on Thursday, setting the stage for the case to go to the jury. Each side will get around two and two-and-a-half hours to deliver closing arguments. Gull said she may offer a "gentle reminder" if attorneys go too long.
The prosecution rested its case on Day 12 of the proceedings. Allen’s defense team spent several days poking holes in the state’s case against their client.
Allen is charged with four counts of murder in the February 2017 deaths of Abby Williams and Libby German near the Monon High Bridge. Indiana State Police announced his arrest in October 2022.
Defense testimony included experts who suggested Allen’s time in solitary confinement may have affected his mental state, leading him to make false confessions. The defense also showed multiple videos of Allen in custody.
During Day 16 of the proceedings, Allen’s attorneys cast doubt on his confessions and the toolmark analysis that the state said matched Allen’s Sig Sauer P226 to an “unspent bullet” found at the murder scene.
They also called a digital forensic expert to the stand who said her analysis showed a headphone jack was inserted into Libby German’s phone at 5:45 p.m. and removed about five hours later.
At 2:15 p.m. Wednesday, in a third-floor courtroom in the Carroll County courthouse, Special Judge Fran Gull turned to a jury of seven women and five men plus three alternates and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, you have now heard all the evidence in this case.”
With that, the sequestered jurors filed out of the courthouse to return to their Lafayette hotel rooms to rest up for Thursday back in Judge Gull’s courtroom when they will hear up to five hours of closing arguments and then instructions from the Bench before retreating behind closed doors to debate the fate of Richard Allen, the Delphi man accused of killing Abby Williams, 13, and Libby German, 14, near the Monon High Bridge on February 13, 2017.
Carroll County Prosecutor Nicholas McLeland will go first, not utilizing his full two-and-a-half hours at the start, to remind jurors that investigators have a photograph of what they believe is Allen’s car not far from the murder scene and a bullet found near the bodies that an Indiana State Police expert testified came from Allen’s gun and confessions to his wife and his mother and a prison psychiatrist that he killed the girls and had exclusive knowledge about a white van that may have driven by as he was attempting to sexually assault the girls and his own statement that he was walking on a nature path to the bridge that day.
Lead defense attorney Bradley Rozzi will go next and will make his final attempt to convince jurors that investigators arrested the wrong man, that Allen’s DNA was not at the crime scene and the girls’ DNA was not found on Allen’s clothes or knives or car, that the State Police test that linked the found bullet to his handgun was flawed in an apples-to-oranges comparison, that social media was awash with references to a white van during the early parts of the investigation, that Allen suffered from psychosis while in solitary confinement in a state prison cell and made false confessions and the investigation was botched from the start, Allen’s own voluntary interview from 2017 was lost in the files until two years ago, and no witnesses positively identified Allen as being on the scene that day.
Then McLeland will give his final closing argument and Judge Gull will give jury instructions with emphasis on the concept of reasonable doubt, the credibility of Allen and witnesses and the reminder that Allen’s decision to not testify on his own behalf cannot be held against him.
Then it will be up to the jurors, all Fort Wayne residents who have lived away from home and their families and jobs since October 17th, to select a foreperson, review their notes, take straw polls and then begin debating whether Richard Allen should face 65 years in prison or more for the murders of Abby and Libby more than seven-and-a-half years ago. Their possible verdicts are guilty or not guilty or a hung jury if they can’t come to an agreement.