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Delphi Murders trial: Day 4 live blog

Delphi Murders jury sees, hears bridge video

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — The fourth day of testimonies in the trial of Delphi Murders suspect Richard Allen were Tuesday 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 residents of Allen County are hearing the case.

Day 4 of the Delphi Murders trial was set to begin at 9 a.m. Tuesday.

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.

For a brief summary of Day 3 in the Delphi Murders trial (Monday), scroll to the bottom of the page.


4:59 p.m.: Trial adjourned for the day

3:45 p.m.: 2 people testify about being on Monon trail on Feb. 13, 2017

Breann Welber was 16 when she was walking on the Monon High Bridge on Feb. 13, 2017. That’s the day authorities believe 13-year-old Abigail “Abby” Williams and 14-year-old Liberty “Libby” German were murdered.

Welber said she made a post on Snapchat when she was on the bridge that February day. She says it wasn’t uncommon for people to go on the Monon trial with friends but never alone.

Libby had messaged Welber on Snapchat while Welber was on the trail. Later that day, she learned Abby and Libby were missing.

Days later, Welber saw an image that police had shared from Libby’s cellphone. The image in the trial has been described as “bridge guy.” It’s a grainy image of a man on the Monon trail, believed by authorities to be murders suspect Richard Allen.

Welber told jurors on Tuesday that, upon seeing the grainy image, “First thing I thought was that is the person I saw on the trail.”

Next to testify was Betsey Blair, who said she frequently visited the Monon trail in 2016 and 2017, including on Feb. 13, 2017. Her Fitbit, a wearable electronic device, helped her recall how many loops she did on the trail that day. In her third and final loop, she saw a man and later two girls on the trail.

Eventually, she’d called the county sheriff’s office and reported the people she encountered on the trail.

After the grainy image had been released, Blair told jurors, “I recognized him as the one I had seen on the bridge.”

She later added, “I immediately knew when I saw that photo that was the man I saw on the bridge.”

The jury questioned how Blair recognized “bridge guy,” and she said it was his posture and the way he was standing. She also said she could have mistaken the man having a hat on his head for brown “poofy” hair.

The final person to testify Tuesday afternoon was Steve Mullin, an investigator for the Carroll County Prosecutor’s Office. Mullin talked about collecting video from sources in the Delphi Murders case,, and how he determined when and where the videos were taken.

3:26 p.m.: Trial takes afternoon break

2 p.m.: Jury shown Libby’s cellphone recording

Audio and video of two girls and a guy walking on a bridge was played for the jurors. It was the full cellphone recording one of the two murdered girls, Libby German, captured before their murders in February 2017.

The recording has been a huge piece of the puzzle in the Delphi Murders of Abby Williams and Libby.

Jeremey Chapman, an audio-visual forensic expert who’s worked with Indiana State Police and in civilian roles, testified about how he can enhance audio to make the sound better and eliminate background noise. He described what he did on the Libby’s recording.

Chapman said he enhanced the portion of the video that’s been played in the media when a voice says “Down the hill.”

In the later half of February 2017, state police first shared a portion of the audio from the video, and a short clip of the man walking on the Monon High Bridge near Delphi. Police had said the voice saying “Down the hill” was a suspect. Authorities had not released any other portions of the cellphone recording before Tuesday. In 2017, police had called Libby a “hero” for getting the recording, which has subsequently been referred to as the “bridge guy” video.

The prosecution asked Chapman what he thought was being said when that portion of the video was being played. A defense attorney objected to the question, but Chapman answered, “My opinion is he says, ‘Down the hill.’”

In the video, Bridge guy says, “Down the hill.”

The girls are walking along the bridge and one them says, “See, this is the path. Um, there’s no path there so we have to go down there.”

Next to testify was Railly Voorheis. On the day Abby and Libby went missing in 2017, Voorheis, who was then age 16, was also on trail that the girls had walked.

Voorheis talked about passing a man along the trail, and she said “hi” to him. He didn’t reply.

Once the girls were reported missing, Voorheis reported that she’d encountered the man, and she later shared with authorities the photos she’d taken on her phone, and talked with authorities about the man she’d passed.

The prosecution shared a photo of “bridge guy” from Libby’s recording, and Voorheis said that he was the man she’d passed.

Defense attorney Jennifer Auger asked Voorheis to describe the man she’d passed. Voorheis gave a description.

Later, Voorheis agreed that the photo of “bridge guy” had “possibly” affected her memory of him as she described him to jurors.

1:15 p.m.: State forensic examiner explains cellphone extractions

The state’s second witness was Indiana State Police Lt. Brian Bunner, a state forensic examiner who’s worked with ISP’s digital forensic unit since 2009.

Bunner explained the process of cellphone extraction to the court, which included retrieving the phone, manually examining and photographing the phone, extracting the data with tools by plugging it into a computer, putting data into a different software, then processing that data into a report.

Bunner said the report for Libby German’s phone was several hundred pages. After creating the report for Libby’s phone, he told the jury he handed it off to detectives. “(I) wanted to get that information off that phone and into the hands of the investigators,” he said.

Bunner said he looked through Libby’s camera roll and found the “bridge video.” He also mentioned the camera roll was the phone’s “last user activity.” The approximately 35-second video was taken between 2 p.m. and 2:30 p.m. on Feb. 13, 2017.

In the video, Libby and Abby can be heard talking and conversing while on the bridge. Libby’s mother cried upon hearing their voices, News 8’s Kyla Russell said.

According to Russell, one of the girls was heard on video saying, “See the trail ends here. There’s no path. So, we have to go down there.”

Bunner told the court he took several screenshots of the video to send to detectives. State prosecutor Nick McLelland asked if in the pictures, could he see a man behind Abby.

“No,” Bunner said.

“In the following photos, can you?” McLelland asked.

“Yes,” Bunner replied.

Libby’s phone had data extracted at least four times, according to Bunner.

The defense began their cross-examination, going back and forth on the types of extractions and the metadata collected. They asked about the longitude and latitude coordinates pulled from the bridge video, which Bunner claimed was close, but later admitted that he did not look at the GPS data on the video.

He told prosecutor McLelland after the cross-examination that the GPS location on the video was in a reasonable area, but not exact because that “capability was not there yet.” He ended his statement by saying an iPad could have been used to find phone location, if “Find My iPhone” was turned on for both devices.

12:55 p.m.: Court breaks for lunch

11:08 a.m.: Cross-examination of ISP Trooper Olehy begins

Court began at 9 a.m. Indiana State Police Trooper Brian Olehy returned the stand Tuesday morning to continue his testimony, and to discuss a large exhibit of crime scene evidence.

News 8’s Kyla Russell reported state prosecutor James Luttrell also brought a physical piece of evidence in a paper bag – a size 10 black Nike shoe found at Deer Creek, the shoe that belonged to Libby.

The exhibit included physical pieces of evidence, such as clothing from the girls: A tie-dye shirt, a gray-hooded sweatshirt, and a pair of Converse shoes were among the articles. The exhibit also included a Smith and Wesson cartridge, hair from Abby’s fingers, strands of fiber, and various DNA swabs from the girls’ bodies and other pieces of evidence.

Olehy told the jury that the pieces of evidence were put in storage on Feb. 14, and he completed sealing and recording them on the 16th. He was also present on the Feb. 15 autopsy. The jury viewed an autopsy picture of Abby, seen wearing a pink shirt under a black sweatshirt. Olehy explained where blood and wet spots were on the clothing. The clothes were still wet at the time of the autopsy. The question of if Abby’s clothes were wet or not has been highly contested, according to Russell.

Defense attorney Brad Rozzi began cross-examining Olehy, referencing DNA evidence mentioned in the exhibit. Olehy told the jury he was “not aware” of any DNA found in those exhibits connected to Richard Allen.

Luttrell objected, first stating Olehy was not the right witness, then objected on relevance. Special Judge Fran Gull sustained.

Russell says that Rozzi and Olehy entered a “tense” back-and-forth about the public taking photos of the crime scene, prompting Luttrell to object to questions on crime scene integrity. When asked about the sticks found near and on the girls’ bodies, Olehy said they “appeared to be placed there by an individual” to “conceal” them. Olehy continued, adding that the sticks weren’t tested, he wasn’t aware of any effort to take shoe impressions, and said there was no effort to lift fingerprints at the scene because “there were no good surfaces.”

Rozzi questioned Olehy about blood found on a tree at the scene, as well as if “there was anything usual or unusual to find an unspent bullet in a wooded area in Indiana.”

Olehy said, “It’s not uncommon to find a bullet anywhere in Indiana.”

Rozzi referenced the photo of the unspent bullet found at the scene, to which Olehy said he had not seen more than six photos of the bullet, and admitted that there were not pictures of where the bullet was after it was removed. The bullet was collected in its “pure form.” He later said that only five or six photos of the bullet “was good.”

After a few questions from Luttrell and another from Rozzi, the jury asked if the ground under Abby appeared disturbed to indicate that she was dressed there. Olehy said, “It was not disturbed.”

9 a.m.: Court begins morning session

8:05 a.m.

News 8’s Kyla Russell reported at 6 a.m. that the line outside the Carroll County Courthouse in Delphi continues to grow. She’s been waiting in line at the courthouse since the early hours of Tuesday.


Brief summary of Day 3 in the Delphi murders trial

It was an emotional day in the Carroll County courthouse on Monday.

While the jury heard from three law enforcement officers who were some of the first to document the scene, the court also saw 42 crime scene photos. Most of the courtroom struggled to watch.

They included several graphic images of Abby Williams and Libby German’s bodies, as well as other evidence from the scene. News 8’s Kyla Russell reported that Family members of both the girls and Richard Allen were emotional, either holding hands, crying, or looking away from the exhibits.

Testimonies were given by Dep. Darron Giancola, the first deputy to see the girls’ bodies; Indiana State Police Sgt. Jason Page, a crime scene investigator who secured and photographed the scene; ISP Sgt. Duane Datzman, a retired crime scene technician who was the CSI at the Deer Creek scene; and ISP Trooper Brian Olehy, who helped photograph evidence of the crime scene. To read their testimonies, click here.

Outside of the courtroom, Richard Allen’s defense team requested that crime scene video recorded by Libby German shortly before her death should be limited and asked that the state not elicit testimony about the sounds in the area.