DELPHI, Indiana – Prosecutors in Indiana have filed new charges, including murder, against the suspect in the horrific killings of two Indiana teen girls seven years ago.
Richard Matthew Allen, 51, is accused of killing 14-year-old Libby German and 13-year-old Abby Williams while they were hiking near Delphi in 2017. New felony kidnapping and murder charges were filed against him on Thursday, according to a report.
The new charges have been filed to more accurately align the charging information with the cause’s discovery and probable cause affidavit, as stated by Carroll County Prosecutor Nicholas McLeland with the Indiana Supreme Court.
If the prosecution can prove Allen kidnapped or attempted to kidnap the girls, he can now be brought up on the two counts of felony murder since he would be linked to the killings, even if they cannot prove he was the actual killer. However, Judge Fran Gull has not yet ruled on the motion.
The accused teen killer had previously been charged with two counts of murder following his arrest in October 2022. His trial was scheduled to start on Jan. 8, 2024, before his original court-appointed attorneys withdrew from the case in October 2023 after a leak of court documents.
The bodies of the two girls were found in a rugged area near a hiking trail on Feb. 14, 2017 — one day after they vanished during a day off from school. The eighth-graders had documented some of their walk on Snapchat, and chilling grainy footage taken from German’s phone showed a man walking on a bridge near where the girls were last seen. An audio recording was also released of a man, believed to be the suspect, saying, “Down the hill.”
Allen allegedly had confessed multiple times to the murders on prison phone calls to his wife and mother, according to earlier court documents. However, his attorneys claim their client was “monitored, intimidated, and mentally abused” at Westville Correctional Facility by corrections officers who were part of the same cult the defense claims were the teens’ true killers.
Despite the new charges, Allen has pleaded not guilty to the original two murder charges following his arrest, and it remains to be seen if the new charges will affect the proposed trial date set for October 2024.
The accused teen killer now faces four counts of murder, with each carrying a possible sentencing of 45 and 65 years in prison. If found guilty of kidnapping, he will also face an additional three and 16 years behind bars, according to Indiana law.