A volunteer clerk sorting through old tip files in 2022 noticed something off — a name spelled wrong, a report that had been wrongly marked as cleared five years earlier. That single clerical fix is what finally broke a case that had haunted an entire small town.
A Day Off From School
Delphi, Indiana, is a town of about 3,000 people, the kind of close-knit community where graduating classes often number under a hundred students. On February 13, 2017, 13-year-old Abigail "Abby" Williams and 14-year-old Liberty "Libby" German, both eighth graders, had the day off school. Libby's older sister dropped them off around 1:30 p.m. at the Monon High Bridge Trail, a popular local hiking spot, with plans for Libby's father to pick them up later that afternoon.
They never made it to the pickup. When the girls didn't show, a search began that evening, drawing volunteers from across the region. The next day, February 14, their bodies were found in a wooded area near the trail, not far from an abandoned railroad trestle. Both girls had died from injuries to the throat.
A Recording That Became the Case's Defining Image
What set this case apart from the start was a piece of evidence Libby had captured herself, in the final minutes of her life. Using her phone on the trail, she recorded a brief video of a man walking toward her and Abby on the bridge, along with an audio clip in which the man could be heard saying, "Guys... down the hill." Investigators have said Libby appears to have made a deliberate choice to start recording, aware enough of the danger to try to help catch whoever was responsible, even as it was happening.
Police released a still image from the video and the audio recording publicly within days, identifying the man — soon nicknamed "Bridge Guy" by the public — as their prime suspect. The footage, the audio, and the case's overall mystery drew enormous national attention and made it one of the most closely followed unsolved cases in the country for years.
Years of Dead Ends
The investigation initially circulated several composite sketches and pursued numerous individuals who were later cleared, including a registered sex offender found unrelated to the case in another state. In 2019, investigators released an updated sketch of a younger suspect, believing the man was likely local — someone who lived in, worked in, or regularly passed through Delphi.
What investigators didn't know, for years, was that the answer had already been sitting in their own files. Three days after the murders, a man named Richard Allen approached a Department of Natural Resources officer in a grocery store parking lot and told him, unprompted, that he had been on the trail the day of the murders and had passed three girls along the way. The officer documented it and submitted it to the investigative file. Due to a clerical error — his last name recorded incorrectly — the tip was mistakenly marked as already resolved and effectively buried for five years.
A Clerk's Catch
In 2022, a volunteer helping organize thousands of accumulated tips noticed the error and flagged Allen's report for a second look. That review led investigators back to Allen, a husband and father who had worked locally for years, most recently as a pharmacy technician at the Delphi CVS — blocks from the courthouse where he would eventually stand trial.
Allen was arrested in October 2022, more than five and a half years after the murders. He had, in the words of the Carroll County sheriff, been "hiding in plain sight" the entire time.
A Trial Delayed Repeatedly
Allen's case took two more years to reach trial, complicated by a leaked crime-scene-photo controversy that led to his original public defenders being removed from the case, then reinstated after an appeal to the Indiana Supreme Court. His trial finally began in October 2024 in Delphi, with a jury brought in from a different county and sequestered for its duration.
Prosecutors built their case around a combination of physical and testimonial evidence: an unspent .40-caliber bullet found between the girls' bodies that was matched to Allen's own handgun through markings left by its mechanism, and an extraordinary pattern of confessions Allen made while incarcerated awaiting trial — to his wife, his mother, prison psychologists, guards, and fellow inmates, totaling more than 60 separate instances by the prosecution's count, several captured on recorded calls played for the jury.
Allen's defense argued the confessions were unreliable, made while he was suffering from severe mental illness and held in what his attorneys described as genuinely harsh, isolating pretrial conditions. They also pointed out that no eyewitness definitively identified Allen as the man in Libby's video, and that no DNA or fingerprint evidence directly tied him to the scene. The defense additionally sought, unsuccessfully, to introduce an alternate theory involving a fringe pagan group, which the court did not allow to be presented to the jury.
A Verdict, After Nearly Eight Years
On November 11, 2024, after about 19 hours of deliberation, the jury convicted Richard Allen on all four counts: two counts of murder, and two counts of felony murder committed during an attempted kidnapping. He showed no visible reaction as the verdict was read.
On December 20, 2024, Judge Frances Gull sentenced Allen to 65 years on each of two murder counts, served consecutively — a total of 130 years, the maximum available under Indiana law. Under that state's sentencing rules, a sentence of this length and structure makes him ineligible for parole.
What the Families Said
A gag order had prevented Abby's and Libby's families from speaking publicly about the case since shortly after the murders. It lifted following sentencing, giving them their first real opportunity in years to address the case directly. Libby's grandmother, Becky Patty, told the court: "I can never change my choice to let Libby and Abby go to the trails that day." Libby's grandfather, Mike Patty, thanked investigators and the community: "I want to send out my appreciation that justice has been serviced for the girls. I'll always be grateful." Abby's grandmother, Diane Erskin, spoke to the years of grief the family had carried, noting she had watched Abby's friends graduate college while wondering what her own granddaughter's life might have held.
Carroll County Sheriff Tony Liggett offered a public apology to both families for how long the case had taken to resolve, while Indiana State Police Superintendent Doug Carter said the verdict marked the start of a new chapter for the Delphi community, even as it could never undo what happened.
Where Things Stand
Allen has maintained his innocence throughout, and his defense team filed notice of appeal in March 2025, arguing the investigation was flawed and that potential alternate leads were not adequately pursued. As of the most recent reporting, that appeal remains in process. Allen is currently incarcerated at Westville Correctional Facility in Indiana.
Nearly eight years after Abby Williams and Liberty German were murdered on a trail in their own hometown, the case that once defined an unsolved American mystery has reached a legal conclusion — even as the appeals process, and the deeper questions about how a documented tip sat ignored for half a decade, continue to be examined.
Sources
Murders of Abigail Williams and Liberty German — Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murders_of_Abigail_Williams_and_Liberty_German
Delphi murders trial verdict: Richard Allen found guilty on all charges — CNN
https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/11/us/delphi-murders-trial-verdict/index.html
Delphi, Ind., murders: Richard Allen sentenced to 130 years for killing 2 teen girls — NPR
https://www.npr.org/2024/12/20/nx-s1-5235362/delphi-indiana-teen-murders-sentencing-richard-allen
How Richard Allen's Confessions Led to His Conviction — A&E
https://www.aetv.com/articles/richard-allen-s-confessions-led-to-his-delphi-murders-conviction