A long-awaited trial for a man accused of killing two teenage best friends in 2017 finally got underway with jury selection on Monday.
Allen, 52, is charged with two counts of murder and two counts of murder while committing or attempting to commit kidnapping in the killings of Abigail “Abby” Williams, 13, and Liberty “Libby” German, 14. If convicted, he could face up to 130 years in prison.
The case is known as the “Delphi murders,” and it took years before police arrested Allen. For years, a blurry screenshot was the only picture the public knew of the suspect in the case that became popular among true crime followers.
Allen sat at the defense table at the Allen County Courthouse on Monday wearing a light purple button-down shirt and khaki pants, his first appearance not wearing a prison jumpsuit since his arrest in 2022.
Jury selection moved at a rapid pace despite Judge Frances Gull setting aside three full three days for the process.
So far, seven women and five men, including a school counselor, a transportation director and a stay-at-home mom, will be tasked with deciding Allen’s fate, according to WTHR.
More than 50 potential jurors were brought in on the first day of jury selection, and among those dismissed was a person who said they were psychic and one who said they had a family member who was murdered in California.
There were 12 jurors and two alternates selected before court ended for the day. Two more alternates are set to be selected when court resumes Tuesday.
Once the 12 members and four alternates are selected, they will be taken to Delphi, a town of about 3,000 residents, where they will be sequestered during the trial, monitored by bailiffs and banned from using cellphones or watching news broadcasts.
Gull has also banned cameras from the courtroom during Allen’s trial, and reporters are barred from taking electronic devices inside the courthouse.
If jury selection is completed Wednesday, jury instructions and opening statements could take place Friday morning. The trial is expected to last a month.
Allen, a pharmacy technician who had lived and worked in Delphi, was arrested in October 2022, nearly six years after the girls known as Abby and Libby were killed in 2017. Their bodies were found near the Monon High Bridge.
Prosecutors told the potential jurors in a mini opening statement that “bridge guy” … “brutally murdered Abby and Libby, then casually walked back to his car and went home.”
They claimed this “bridge guy” left behind a clue, referring to a bullet found at the crime scene and that they would prove that Allen is the “bridge guy.”
Allen’s defense team told jurors in their statement that their client confessed to a crime that he didn’t commit and pointed out that months before the confession, he was “languishing” in solitary confinement in prison and that a psychologist will tell you “these are the ingredients for false confessions,” WTHR reported.
Andrew Baldwin, one of Allen’s defense lawyers, placed his hands on his client’s shoulders and asked the potential jurors, “You guys, look at this man right here. Is it really possible that he might be innocent of this crime?”
Allen smiled at the jury pool, who stared back at him.
“I need you to look in your hearts and minds,” Baldwin told them.
The Delphi murders case has been shrouded in mystery and plagued by delays, shifting narratives, controversies, chaotic developments and evidence leaks ever since that fateful February 2017 day.
The first major break came in October 2022 when Allen was arrested and charged with the teenagers’ murders, a shocking turn more than five years on from the killings.
He had admitted to investigators that he was on the bridge trail on the day the girls disappeared but has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Allen’s attorneys had hoped to present evidence that the girls were killed in a ritual sacrifice by members of a pagan Norse religion and white nationalist group known as the Odinists, but Judge Gull ruled against that, saying the defense “failed to produce admissible evidence” of such a connection.
She also blocked Allen’s attorneys from arguing the killings may have been committed by others, including the late owner of the property where the teens’ bodies were found.
Prosecutors say they plan to call more than 50 witnesses, and the defense has listed more than 120 witnesses.
The state has not disclosed how Abby and Libby were killed. But a court filing by Allen’s attorneys in support of their Odinism theory states that their throats had been cut.
