INFAMOUS: Delphi Murders
- Yasmin Sudarsanam
- Mar 1
- 4 min read
Trigger Warning: The following case includes depictions of acts of graphic violence and violence against minors. Please read at your own discretion.
Although constantly reading about decades-old cold cases sitting on shelves in law enforcement offices across the nation can be disheartening, every so often a breakthrough in one such case brings with it a renewed hope for the future. Just a few months ago, justice was finally reached for two families who have waited years for answers in the tragic stories of their loved ones. This is the story of the Delphi Murders.
On February 13, 2017, 13-year-old Abigail “Abby” Williams and 14-year-old Liberty “Libby” German were dropped off at a hiking trail near the Monon High Bridge in Delphi, Indiana by a family member. However, when Libby’s father failed to contact her and the two girls did not appear at their meeting spot later that day, they were reported missing. While the entire community mobilized to find these two adolescents, the search came to a tragic end soon after, when the two girls were found deceased about a mile upstream from their last known location. Immediately, investigators noticed that their bodies appeared to have been moved or staged, and they suspected foul play due to the nature of the crime scene and their injuries.
Over the coming months, police investigated thousands of leads and published multiple composite sketches of the suspect created from eyewitness testimony. In addition, they publicized two eerie clips: an audio recording from Libby’s cell phone of an unknown male directing the girls to go “down the hill” and another short Snapchat video of a man in jeans and a dark jacket walking just a few yards behind the girl, believed to be their killer.
Unfortunately, the case ran cold for years until it was reignited in 2022, when a volunteer file clerk digging through years of investigative leads discovered a misfiled tip and brought it to investigators’ attention, leading to this case being cracked wide open. In the tip, a man named Richard Allen admitted that three days earlier on the alleged day of the murders, he had been on the trails but hadn’t seen the girls when he was there. But, this led investigators to question, who was Richard Allen?
Richard Matthew Allen was born in September of 1972 and grew up in Mexico, Indiana. He was married with one daughter with his current wife, and he had relocated to Delphi in December of 2006 where he worked in a local CVS pharmacy at the time of the murders. Just days after the bodies were discovered, he had told police that he had been on the trail around the time the girls were believed to have been murdered, and he claimed to have seen three “females” near a bridge but hadn’t approached them.
After a second interview on October 13, 2022, police arrested Allen after linking an unspent cartridge found between the girls’ bodies to a pistol recovered from his home during a police search. He was then charged with two counts of murder while committing or attempting to commit a kidnapping, and prosecutors went on to add two additional counts of murder later on. Allen pleaded not guilty on all counts.
When his trial began, prosecutors emphasized Allen’s numerous and often conflicting confessions while incarcerated; he confessed a total of over sixty times in conversations with his wife, mother, psychologist, and other inmates. On the other hand, the defense claimed the confessions, played in court, were involuntary and inadmissible because of a supposed mental illness at the time. However, the most crucial piece of evidence was that cartridge which directly linked him to the crime scene, a location he claimed to have kept his distance from on the day of the murders. Richard Allen was convicted in November of 2024 for the brutal murders, and he was sentenced to 130 years in prison although he continues to maintain his innocence.
In the aftermath of these tragic murders, the Delphi community rallied around the two grieving families. In 2017, homeowners across central Indiana installed orange lights on their front porches to serve as a way to honor the girls but also warn the community of a killer on the loose. Abby and Libby’s families also created a non-profit organization, L & A Park Foundation, to “celebrate and commemorate the lives of Libby German and Abby Williams by creating a place for the appreciation of nature, art, play, and athleticism for generations to come.” The foundation received the NBA All-Star 2021 Legacy Grant in 2020. Finally, Delphi Community Middle School, where both girls had been attending at the time of their deaths, renamed the on-campus library to the “Abby and Libby Memorial Library,” forever cementing their place in the school’s legacy.
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