Richard Allen, an Indiana man convicted in the 2017 killings of two teenage girls who vanished during a winter hike, was sentenced to a maximum of 130 years in prison Friday in the case that's long cast a shadow over the teens' small hometown of Delphi. Allen, 52, was convicted on Nov. 11 in the killings of Abigail Williams, 13, and Liberty German, 14, known as Abby and Libby. A jury found him guilty of two counts of murder and two counts of murder while committing or attempting to commit kidnapping, the Associated Press reports. Allen was sentenced on two of the four murder counts by Judge Fran Gull, who imposed the maximum of 65 years for each count, to be served consecutively. The sentencing hearing, which included victim impact statements from six relatives of the teens, lasted less than two hours. Allen's defense attorneys plan to seek a new trial. "Thoughts and prayers to the families of the victims. What they went through was unimaginable," defense attorney Jennifer Auger said.
When he was arrested in October 2022, more than five years after the killings, Allen was employed as a pharmacy technician a few blocks from the courthouse where he later stood trial. His weekslong trial came after repeated delays, a leak of evidence, the withdrawal of his public defenders and their reinstatement by the Indiana Supreme Court. The case, which included tantalizing evidence, has long drawn outsized attention from true-crime enthusiasts. The teens were found dead in February 2017, their throats cut, one day after they vanished while hiking during a day off school. Judge Gull came from northeastern Indiana's Allen County, as did the jury. The seven women and five men were sequestered throughout the trial, which began Oct. 18 in the Carroll County seat of Delphi, the girls' hometown of about 3,000 residents northwest of Indianapolis. Allen's defense argued that his confessions were unreliable because he was facing a severe mental health crisis while under the pressure and stress of being locked up in isolation, watched 24 hours a day and taunted by people incarcerated with him. A psychiatrist called by the defense testified that months in solitary confinement could make a person delirious and psychotic.
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