INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Friday is the seventh day of testimonies in the trial of Delphi Murders suspect Richard Allen at the Carroll County Courthouse in Delphi.

Allen, 52, is charged with murder and murder while committing or attempting to commit kidnapping in the deaths of 13-year-old Abigail “Abby” Williams and 14-year-old Liberty “Libby” German. The girls’ bodies were found near the Monon High Bridge near Delphi on Feb. 14, 2017, a day after they went missing.

Allen was first investigated in 2017 and again in October 2022. After a second police interview, he was taken into custody.

The trial began Oct. 18 and was expected to continue through mid-November. Sixteen Allen County residents sit as the jury on the case.

Day 7 of the Delphi Murders trial was set to begin at 9 a.m. Friday.

Tune into News 8 and follow our live blog throughout the day for the latest developments.

NOTE: The times listed in the blog headers are the times which the entries were added. Specific times for courtroom events will be listed in the entries if available. These notes are compiled from photographs of written notes provided by reporters in courtroom and emailed to the News 8 newsdesk.

For a brief summary of Day 6 in the Delphi Murders trial (Thursday), scroll to the bottom of the page.

To view all of our previous trial coverage, click here.

• More Delphi Murders trial on WISHTV.com

5:23 p.m.: Expert’s tests of cycled bullets didn’t provide exact match

After a short break, former Indiana State Police forensic firearm expert Melissa Oberg continued at 4:03 p.m. Friday to present exhibits to the jurors. She added details from her earlier testimony; answering questions during cross-examination and redirect; and answering questions from the jurors.

Questions from the jurors includes ones about one cycled bullet found where near the bodies of Abby Williams and Libby German, and others taken from the home of suspect Richard Allen and cycled as part of Oberg’s testing. She the results of those tests did not result in an exact match.

After several additional questions from the jurors, the court then adjourned for the day.

3:54 p.m.: A juror dismissed

Court was back in session at 1:14 p.m. Friday.

News 8’s Kyla Russell reports only 15 of the 16 jurors came back into the courtroom after the lunch break. One juror was dismissed. That leaves 12 jurors, and three alternate jurors.

The prosecution plays a video on how Sig Sauer pistols are made. The video explains how the barrel, slide, and frame are made.

Former Indiana State Police forensic firearm expert Melissa Oberg continues her testimony. When asked about how she determined the gun Allen had cycled the cartridge found on the scene, Oberg responded “Based on sufficient agreement between the quality and quantity of marks.”

Oberg told the jury the verification process involves another examiner looking at the comparison and having them come to their own conclusion. Oberg says she does not stand over and watch the second examiner’s verification process.

Oberg said her supervisor did the verification process and “was able to verify the cartridge had been cycled, he agreed it was an identification.”

Defense attorney Brad Rozzi began cross-examination at 1:35 p.m.

Rozzi called into question the definition of “sufficient agreement” between the marks on the cartridge from the crime scene and the test cartridge. Rozzi read definitions of “sufficient.”

Oberg told the jury that the word means something different in her industry. Rozzi referenced the video and said it does not reference extractors or ejectors. He asked Oberg if she knows how many gun manufacturers there are in the U.S. Oberg responded that she doesn’t want to guess that there is “black-market stuff going on.”

Rozzi asked Oberg, “Your current job has nothing to do with firearms, does it?”

She responded, “It does not.”

Oberg said she works in health care data now.

Oberg told the jury she focused on identification, exclusion, and whether a particular firearm interacted with a projectile (bullet). She said, “I did not come to an incorrect conclusion.”

Rozzi said Oberg said to law enforcement during the investigation that firearm identification is as reliable as paternity testing.

Oberg said that is not the case.

Rozzi said that PCAST (President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology) has been studying if the “tool mark industry” is valid science.

Oberg said that, in 2016, PCAST concluded that the industry needed more studies.

Rozzi said the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has also criticized the industry, and that the NAS called for more research to prove the reliability of the toolmark industry. The toolmark industry is a part of the forensic science field that involves the identification of tools used in crimes.

Oberg said pressure is what is different in cycling versus firing.

Rozzi said there is little research on the cycling-versus-firing process.

Obert said the markings associated with firing a firearm is consistent with fired rounds.

Rozzi confirmed with Oberg that the fired round was used to draw her conclusion on suspect Richard Allen’s pistol.

Oberg confirmed there were three ejector marks, and three extractor marks on the cartridge found at the crime scene.

Rozzi said, “Not nearly as much as you might find on a fired round, correct?”

Rozzi said Oberg had not examined the cartridges under a microscope before testing.

Rozzi asked Oberg if it’s possible that an unspent round could have been cycled through multiple firearms; she agreed.

Rozzi referenced the 14-page report Oberg issued about her findings in 2022. He pointed out there is not one full page of the unspent round. Rozzi said he’s been asking for more information on the unspent round from the crime scene for a very long time.

Rozzi put on gloves and began to pull out the Sig Sauer; he moved on after meeting with Special Judge Fran Gull.

Rozzi asked Oberg about the testing process, and Oberg responded, “I chose to use the test-fired markings because they were stronger. This is a case of work smarter, not harder.”

Oberg repeated that the difference between cycling and firing is “the same process, just one has more pressure.”

Oberg said she does not know what the firearm could have been exposed to from 2017 and 2022, and did not know where the Sig Sauer was made.

Court was recessed at 3:40 p.m.

12:30 p.m.: Gun found at Allen’s home had cycled cartridge found near bodies

Court was back in session at 10:50 a.m. Friday

Oberg showed the jury a PowerPoint presentation that came to the conclusion that the gun collected from Allen’s home in 2022 had indeed cycled the cartridge that was found near the bodies of Libby and Abby.

Oberg tested another cartridge with the gun found in Allen’s home to see if the toolmarks would match. The toolmark industry is a part of the forensic science field that involves the identification of tools used in crimes.

She showed the jury five images of the test cartridge compared to the cartridge at the scene. She told the jury that several marks were in agreement.

Oberg testified that the cartridge at the scene had not been fired, but that the test cartridge had been fired. She told the jury there was research to back up doing it that way.

Court was recessed at noon.

10:34 a.m.: Testimony of Melissa Oberg

Court was back in session at 9:01 a.m. Friday.

Special Judge Fran Gull shared that the jury while under supervision had access to their phones Thursday night.

At 9:05 a.m., the state called Melissa Oberg. Oberg works for a clinical asset health management company. She told the jury she is an operations data analyst for that company.

Previously, Oberg worked for the Indiana State Police as a forensic firearm examiner. She resigned from that position in 2013.

She told the jury she looked at cartridges in the case, did function exams on firearms, and did toolmark examinations.

The toolmark industry is a part of the forensic science field that involves the identification of tools used in crimes.

She told the jury she has testified 112 times.

Oberg showed the jury on slides how her job works and explained what firearm and toolmark examinations are. She said that a tool is “something that is a harder object that comes into contact with a softer object that leaves the softer object with a mark.”

“A toolmark is features imparted on an object by the contact and force extended from a tool,” she told the jury.

She said there are two kinds of toolmarks: impressed and striated.

Oberg told the jury that a cartridge is a single unit of ammunition designed to go into a firearm. She says there is a casing, primer, powder, and bullet. The bullet is the projectile.

Oberg showed the jury a full cartridge and explained the parts of a firearm: slide, slide stop, sight, hammer, magazine release, grip, magazine well, magazine, trigger, trigger guard, and frame.

Oberg explained the inside of a firearm and how the components work.

She told the jury that the tools in the firearm are harder than the cartridge/bullet that they come into contact with.

She explained the cycling of a cartridge and explained what a bullet looks like after it’s been cycled.

She demonstrated cycling of a pistol with an actual firearm. She inserted the magazine and a 40-caliber Smith & Wesson dummy cartridge; she looked down the barrel to make sure it was empty and unloaded. She inserted the magazine and cartridge, and cycled the round.

Oberg testified as to different classifications of toolmarks. She described to the jury how some marks are made before manufacture, some during manufacture, and some after manufacture. She told the jury that an examiner uses several factors to determine if a toolmark is made in any of those circumstances.

Oberg describes the testing of a firearm and how an analysis is performed.

She told the jury the main thing that allows an examiner to make a conclusion is test firing a firearm and comparing with two microscopes. She said she then makes one of three conclusions: identification, inconclusive or exclusion.

At 10:10 a.m., the prosecution showed the jury the actual cartridge from the crime scene and photos of it from Oberg’s examination.

Oberg said the cartridge was tested for DNA first, and she noticed there was no biological substance on it, it was in good condition, and it was a Winchester 40-caliber cartridge.

She told the jury that there are miscellaneous marks on the head and sides of the cartridge, and she saw three possible ejector marks: one in one direction, and two in another. She compared it with a Glock 22, which was also a 40-caliber firearm and compared the ejector marks.

Court then recessed.

9 a.m.: Court is set to begin

News 8’s Kyla Russell was at the Carroll County Courthouse to share the latest developments in the Delphi Murders trial.

8:15 a.m.: Crowds wait for courthouse to open

A line has formed outside the front door of the Carroll County Courthouse in Delphi. The number of people allowed inside the courtroom is limited, meaning some people waiting in line could miss the proceedings.

Brief summary of Day 6 in the Delphi murders trial

Thursday began with testimony from Kathy Shank, who acted as a “secretary” for the investigation.

Shank said she took down tipster’s names and information, but that her job was not to decide if a tip should be followed up on. Shank eventually created a filing system and organized the reports — more than 14,000 of them — into five filing cabinets.

She told the court that in 2020, she was asked to scan every file into an electronic database — a process that took two years.

Shank said that in September 2022, she found a handwritten tip that said a “Richard Allen Whiteman” had “self-reported being on the trails and girls had seen him at the same time.”

Shank realized the tip was mislabeled. “Richard Allen Whiteman” wasn’t a name — it was a person named Richard Allen, who lived on Whiteland Drive.

The jury asked, “How did you determine the name was incorrect on the file?”

Shank replied that being from the area, she knew there was a Whiteman Drive.

Under cross-examination, Shank said the mistake on Allen’s name was made before she joined the investigation.

Defense attorney Andrew Baldwin asked Shank, “There was no other tip, to your knowledge, that involved Richard Allen?”

Shank replied, “To my knowledge, no.”

The second person to take the stand was Carroll County Sheriff Tony Liggett.

One of the most notable moments of his testimony, according to News 8’s Kyla Russell, was when he played the 43-second “Bridge Guy” video and shared what he thinks was said:

Abby: “Is he right here? Don’t leave me up here.”

Libby: “This is the path…that be a gun…there’s no path here.”

Bridge Guy: “Guys.”

One of the girls: “Hi.”

Bridge Guy: “Down the hill.”

Liggett said Kathy Shank brought his concerns to her, and he contacted former Delphi police chief Steve Mullin.

Steve Mullin was the next person to testify.

Mullin told the court he discovered Allen drove a black Ford Focus and that he found a car matching that description passing by the Hoosier Harvestore in security video from Feb. 13, 2017.

The jury was shown a 9-second video of the vehicle passing from east to west, followed by close-ups of the car .

Mullin said he and Liggett went to Richard Allen’s house to talk about the investigation and Allen agreed to go with them to the police station.

Allen told police what he was wearing that day, and gave a timeline of events that included time at his mother’s house in Peru, a stop in Delphi for a jacket, and parking his car at the old DCS building in Delphi.

Mullin said Allen told them he arrived at the trails at noon — which was different than what he’d said previously — and that he went on the Monon High Bridge to look at fish and saw three girls near there.

Allen told and Liggett they could look in his phone, but then changed his mind.

They showed Allen a photo of “Bridge Guy,” according to Mullin, and Allen said that if one of the girls took the photo on their phone, there was “no way” it could be him.

Allen left the interview after that.

Defense attorney Andrew Baldwin started cross-examination by telling Mullin he had “lied to the jury” because he was “so desperate for Richard Allen to be going west” on 300 North. If he was traveling that direction, the security camera footage would have caught him.

After some back-and-forth, Mullin ended up agreeing with Baldwin that Allen had said he was driving through the town to get to the trails, meaning he was traveling east. The video shared earlier as evidence showed the vehicle passing from east to west.

Carroll County Sheriff Tony Liggett returned to the stand Thursday afternoon.

He testified to finding out about the tip involving Allen and contacting Mullin. He told the jury he went to CVS to take a photo of Allen’s Ford Focus.

Similarly to Mullin, talked about interviewing Allen at the police station in October 2022.

Liggett also told the jury about what was found in the search of Allen’s home, including guns and ammunition.

He said he found another .40-caliber Winchester cartridge as well as more .40-caliber ammunition from a different brand. They also found a Carhartt jacket in a closet — Allen told Liggett and Mullin he was wearing Carhartt jacket on Feb. 13, 2017 — and over two dozen knives or box cutters.

Liggett says none of the physical evidence or digital evidence tied Allen to the scene.

Dave Vido from Indiana State Police was the next to testify. He helped carry out the search at Allen’s home in the fall of 2022.

Vido showed photos from the search to the jury. The photos included a workbench at Allen’s home that contained knives and box cutters, guns and ammunition, coats (including a blue jacket), and a closet gun case. Some items, including two dozen box-cutter knives, were taken to a state police post.

Vido told the court that he wasn’t aware of any connections found between Allen and the victims.

State Police Lt. Jerry Holeman testified after Vido. He said he did an initial walk-through of the home, then sat inside a car with Allen while the search was underway.

Holeman said that while they were in the car, he asked if Allen wanted to fill out a form for items damaged in the search. He said Allen responded, “It doesn’t matter. It’s over.”