Richard Allen confessed “no less than five times” to his wife and mother in jailhouse phone calls that he killed 14-year-old Liberty “Libby” German and 13-year-old Abigail “Abby” Williams on Feb. 13, 2017, prosecutors said in documents publicly released for the first time Wednesday. A judge ordered the documents to be unsealed in response to a motion filed by Kevin Greenlee, an attorney and co-creator with Áine Cain of the “Murder Sheet” podcast, who successfully argued there was no reason to keep them from the public.
Although prosecutors and defense attorneys acknowledged that Allen had made incriminating statements during a June 15 public hearing, the documents unsealed June 28 provided additional detail about the circumstances under which Allen allegedly confessed — and other bombshells. These included revelations about the crime and crime scene from a search warrant affidavit, findings from a search warrant of Allen’s home, and filings related to Allen’s health and behavior in prison, which changed dramatically after his last phone call to his wife.
To recap: When authorities first announced Allen’s arrest on Oct. 31, 2021, they released few details other than identifying the man they had arrested. In the years before that, Indiana State Police had released mere seconds of a reportedly 43-second video filmed by Libby of a man police believed to be their attacker. In the grainy video, the man, who became known as “Bridge Guy,” orders, “Guys, down the hill.” It wasn’t until early December that authorities released a probable cause affidavit that placed Allen at the scene, according to witnesses and Allen himself in a 2017 interview with a conservation officer that investigators had apparently only recently unearthed.
Allen’s alleged confession to his wife
Probably the biggest bombshell dropped in the documents was a jailhouse phone call between Allen and his wife, Kathy, on April 3 of this year. In the call, authorities said he admitted “several times” to kidnapping and killing Abby and Libby. What’s more, Kathy hung up on her husband — “abruptly ends the phone call” is the phrasing used in an April 20 motion by prosecutors.
Allen’s steep decline after the call
Allen has not talked to his wife since Kathy hung up on him. In fact, authorities said he hasn’t made a single call, despite previously placing calls around twice a day since he was arrested. In the days after April 3, he refused to eat and sleep, and he destroyed the tablet he was given to send emails, listen to music and make phone calls, according to the prison warden. (It’s not clear whether these are the same as the “public jail phones” authorities said he used in the calls in which he allegedly confessed to Kathy and his mother.)
Clashing characterizations of Allen’s mental and physical health
Allen’s defense did not dispute that Allen had made incriminating statements, but attributed them to his deteriorating physical and mental health, noting in requests to move him from the state prison, where he is being housed as he awaits trial, to a jail near Delphi, Indiana, that he had displayed symptoms of schizophrenia. Prosecutors said that they had considered “involuntary medication” to treat Allen’s symptoms, but two psychiatrists and a psychologist had allegedly deemed it unnecessary, and they also felt it wasn’t necessary to move him to another facility with a psychiatric unit.
Prison conditions
Allen’s defense said in an April filing requesting he be moved to another facility that his living conditions at the prison were akin to those of a “prisoner of war,” including a photo — taken on April 4, the day after his last phone call to his wife — in which he appears thin, frail and unwashed. Prosecutors acknowledged that Allen had lost weight, but said his BMI, or body mass index, was still “on target” for his age. They described him as being “entombed” in a cold 6-by-10-foot cell like a dog kennel, where he slept on a pad on the concrete floor, and said he was forced to wear soiled and ripped clothes, could only take one or two showers a week, and had limited recreation time. In response, prosecutors called the defense’s filing “colorful and dramatic” and included an affidavit from the prison warden saying that Allen’s cell is the “standard size” of 8-by-12, that he has a mattress on a bedframe attached to the floor for protection since “he has made suicidal statements,” has access to clean clothes and is allowed to shower three times a week, and has recreation time five days a week.
Prosecutors, in fact, said the April 4 photo of Allen was taken immediately after his rec time, in the shirt he normally wears for rec time, and that he had clean shirts in his cell. They insist that the photo of Allen wearing a dirty shirt was used to “curry sympathy in the public eye.”
The killings and crime scene
Another detail from Libby’s bridge video was included in a prosecutors’ motion in the documents trove: In addition to one of the girls saying “gun,” investigators believed they could hear “the sound of a gun being cycled.” Other documents identify the clothes taken from the crime scene: a sock and underwear, and reveal that Libby’s phone was found beneath her body.
The girls’ wounds were caused by “a sharp object,” according to a search warrant affidavit, specified as a knife in a separate motion.
Search inventory: weapons
In addition to Allen’s Sig Sauer .40-caliber gun that authorities later linked to the bullet found between the girls’ bodies, police executing the search warrant recovered around 15 knives, some in sheaths and others folded, and several mutitools at his home.
Search inventory: clothing, electronics and carpet
According to the search warrant inventory, police collected a number of boots, jeans, sweatshirts, and hats and headgear items consistent with witness accounts and what “Bridge Guy” appeared to be wearing in Libby’s video — and what Allen allegedly told police he had been wearing that afternoon. He also told police he had worn a Carhartt coat, which his wife previously told police he still owned.
Investigators also took a cutting of a carpeted area underneath the spare tire of Allen’s Ford Focus, a car that police said was consistent with what some witnesses said they’d seen parked not far from the trailhead on the day of the killings.
The property receipt notes that of all the items collected, only three were sent to the lab: the handgun, the carpet cutting and one other hair-raising find — a 40-caliber bullet found in a keepsake box in the Allens’ primary bedroom. Authorities have not said whether it shares any characteristics of the bullet found at the crime scene.
The hundreds of pages unsealed last week because of “Murder Sheet” is not the first time the podcast has unearthed documents in the case. In May 2022, the podcasters obtained a copy (also posted by the local News & Review) of a March 2017 FBI warrant — which authorities had not publicly shared or confirmed details of — to search the home of a man who was later ruled out as a suspect. The warrant stated that “a large amount of blood was lost by the victims at the crime scene,” the girls “had no visible signs of a struggle or a fight,” something belonging to one of the victims (the item was redacted) was missing from the crime scene while “the rest of their clothing was recovered,” and their bodies appeared to have been “moved and staged.”
Allen has pleaded not guilty to all charges. His trial is currently scheduled for January.