Gruesome crime scene photos of the two teenage girls murdered in Delphi, Indiana, garnered gasps from family and jury members on Monday.
Richard Allen, the man accused of killing 13-year-old Abigail Williams and 14-year-old Liberty “Libby” German in 2017 is on trial this week, facing two counts of murder and two counts of felony murder for their deaths.
A relative dropped the eighth graders off at a hiking trail on February 13, 2017, but they never returned. It took five years for police to arrest Allen, who was working at a CVS in Delphi. The families of the victims said Allen even helped them print photos for the funeral free of charge.
Darren Giancola, the Carroll County sheriff’s deputy who was the first official on the scene, gave emotional testimony for the prosecution on Monday.
He remembered one of the teens being clothed while the other deceased body lay naked in the wooded area where they embarked on a hike one day earlier.
Indiana State Police
Giancola said he did not perform life-saving measures as it was clear that both teens were dead upon his arrival.
“Both had large lacerations on their throat,” Giancola recalled. “They both had a substantial amount of blood on their person and underneath.”
Jason Page of the Indiana State Police crime scene investigation unit also testified Monday. His time on the stand included photos he took of the crime scene including the slashed throats and bloody faces of both teens.
The families of both girls, as well as Allen, let out audible gasps when the photos were displayed. News 8 reports much of the courtroom struggled to look at the images. German’s mother cried while her younger sister looked away from the brutal site. Her grandparents held hands.
AP Photo
The outlet also reports that Allen’s mother cried upon seeing close-ups of the girls.
No phones or videos are allowed in the courtroom during this trial. Due to the intense media coverage surrounding this case, jurors were selected about 100 miles away in Fort Wayne. Composed of eight women and four men the jury was taken back to Delphi and will be sequestered through the month-long trial.
On Sunday, Allen’s defense filed a motion asking the judge to bar the infamous video from German’s cell phone that appears to capture Allen muttering the words, “down the hill.” The previously released video captured the true crime fans’ interest as the girls were found dead at the bottom of the hill the day after the video was taken.
Allen’s lawyers, however, argue that the words and sounds on the video are “speculative.”
J. Kyle Keener/AP Photo
“Allowing a witness to speculate as to the words and sounds on the recordings would put ideas in the jurors’ heads that would be confusing and misleading,” the motion reportedly states.
Last week, Special Judge Frances Gull sided with prosecutors and banned the admittance of police-issued sketches of Allen into evidence, agreeing that the drawings were based on witnesses describing the facial features of the alleged suspect but noted they did not see the person long enough to be certain.
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