November 01, 2022
An arrest has been made in the Delphi Murders case for the murders of Abigail “Abby” Williams and Liberty “Libby” German.
Williams and German were found along a popular Delphi Historic Trail in Delphi, Indiana, near the Monon High Bridge Trail on Valentine’s day of 2017.
The girls were best friends; Abby Williams was thirteen years old, and Libby German was fourteen at the time of their murders. The girls had been walking along the Monon High Bridge and taking pictures after being dropped off by German's older sister on the afternoon of February 13, 2017.
At 2:07pm Libby posted a picture of Abby walking along the bridge, in what would be the last post to social media either of them would ever make. When they failed to return home, they were reported missing to police. The following day the girl’s bodies were discovered less than a mile from the bridge, near Deer Creek.
The following day, on February 15, a grainy image of a prime suspect was released to the public. The man, a white male with his hands tucked in his pockets, wearing a hat, was shown walking in the area where the girls went missing. Later that month, police stated that the image was a still taken from a video recorded on Libby German's phone. The audio accompanying the image was that of a man saying : "Down the hill".
Libby was later praised as a hero for recording the video that would ultimately lead to her killer’s arrest.
Redacted documents shared with the Independent (UK) regarding the double murder stated that the victims had lost substantial amounts of blood and detailed that the killer had moved their bodies to the scene where they were found. The document also stated that the girl's killer would have been saturated with blood and that he may have taken a souvenir of the crime.
Although there have been several suspects over the course of the investigation, there was no arrest made for the murders of Abigail Williams and Liberty German, until finally, in October 2022, Indiana police announced that they had arrested a suspect- a fifty year old man named Richard Matthew Allen. Allen, who would have been forty-four at the time of the murders, was booked into a Delphi Jail on October 28, 2022.
He was then transferred to a state facility, reports state, “for his own safety.”
Allen had not previously been named as a suspect.
According to arrest records, Allen who is a resident of Delphi, lived just minutes from the crime scene, and has resided in the city since at least 2006. The suspect lives in a house with his family on Whiteman Drive, which is just a four minute drive by car to Deer Creek where the victim’s bodies were found.
It appears Allen has always lived in Indiana.
Reports state that he is employed as a pharmacy technician at a local CVS store, and is married and a father.
Media outlets report that Libby's grandmother, Becky Patty, revealed Richard Allen, who worked at their local CVS, was the employee who printed photographs of the girls for their funeral. Patty added that Allen did not charge for the prints.
An article regarding the case published by the independent (UK) writes that a member of the local community and business owner in the Delphi area who had passing interactions with the suspect described him as "a normal guy" who didn't speak much.
Although there is currently not much information about the suspect at the time of writing, Allen appears to have no criminal record prior to his arrest for the double murder. His image, which has been shared online, does show a resemblance to the composite sketches released of the suspect. It appears Richard Allen may have also gone by the alias: Craigh Ross Rentfrow.
A photograph published of Richard Allen online, which appears to be from the suspects personal social media profile, shows a selfie of Allen and his wife, Kathy, at a night out in a local bar, with the 2019 police sketch of the Delphi murders suspect pinned to a wall in the background. The poster of the police sketch is clear in the background of the selfie, and was posted by the suspect’s wife to her social media account in December 2021.
In a tweet, Kelsi German, Libby German's older sister who dropped the girls off at the trail on the day of the double slaying tweeted:
“Just know how grateful I am for all of you. No comments for now, any questions please refer to the Carroll county prosecutor’s office. There is tentatively a press conference Monday at 10am. We will say more then. Today is the day.”
UPDATE: In an announcement on October 31, 2022, Indiana Police confirmed that Richard M. Allen has been arrested on two counts of murder in the February 2017 deaths of Abby Williams and Libby German, and is being held without bond in the White County Jail.
In order to protect the integrity of the investigation, the charging documents remain temporarily sealed for now. According to officials, the suspect has already had his initial hearing where he entered a preliminary not guilty plea. The trial is believed to take place in late March 2023 with a pre-trial hearing taking place at the start of January 2023.
The investigation continues and the tip-line for information pertaining to the case remains open.
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