Liberty “Libby” German, Richard Allen, and Abigail “Abby” Williams. (Images of the victims via the FBI. Image of the suspect via the Indiana State Police.)
Defense attorneys for Richard Allen, the man accused in the high-profile Delphi murders case in Indiana, early Monday morning dropped a massive memorandum claiming that law enforcement investigating the killings of Abigail Williams and Liberty German withheld exculpatory evidence, lied about the investigation while under oath, and ignored evidence that the victims may have been “ritualistically sacrificed” by a white nationalist cult.
Attorneys Andrew Baldwin and Brad Rozzi filed the 136-page motion seeking to appear in court and have the presiding judge conduct a Franks hearing to determine whether police knowingly or recklessly lied to obtain the search warrant that ultimately led to Allen’s arrest last year.
According to the filing, Allen’s defense team has amassed “overwhelming evidence” showing that “members of a pagan Norse religion, called Odinism, hijacked by white nationalists, ritualistically sacrificed Abigail Williams and Liberty German.”
Allen is facing two counts of murder in the twin 2017 slayings of Abigail “Abby” Williams, 13, and her friend Liberty “Libby” German, 14, whose bodies were discovered in a wooded area just off of the Delphi Historic Trails system.
Abby and Libby vanished while walking the Monon High Bridge Trail near Delphi, Indiana, on Feb. 13, 2017. The trail traverses an abandoned stretch of what was once the Monon Railroad and crosses an old trestle over a small river or creek. The girls were found dead the next day in an area near the trestle and their deaths were determined to be homicides.
The filing also appears to provide details about the crime scene that previously had not been released to the public.
“Odinism is the pagan religion referenced above, and its followers are called Odinites. Odinists are enamored of Viking/Nordic culture. Evidence supports that at the crime scene, these murdering Odinites left behind obvious signatures, symbols in the form of runes. These runes were (1) formed with sticks, (2) fashioned with tree branches and (3) painted using the blood of Liberty German,” the document states. “Sticks and tree branches were deliberately, carefully and proficiently placed on each girl in a certain arrangement mimicking certain runes. At least one of the branches appeared to have its end cut off cleanly by some type of tool like an electric saw, providing proof of a preconceived plan. Additionally, the blood of Liberty German was used as the paint to mark a tree with a rune that looks similar to the letter ‘F’.”
The filing also claims that prosecutors in May 2023 received a letter from a former assistant police chief, Todd Click, who worked on the case before his retirement, notifying them about his concerns over the lack of evidence against Allen in comparison to the evidence he and other investigators amassed when looking into “Odinist” followers in the area.
“The information that [Click and the other investigators] had gathered during their investigation connected men who practiced Odinism in or near Delphi with another group of men who lived in Rushville and then connected both groups of men to the murders,” the memo states. “Click was concerned that for some reason the leadership of the investigative team had failed to share with [prosecutors] the evidence gathered by [Click and the other investigators]. Click’s concerns led him to seek out a lawyer to assist him in the drafting of a letter.”
Additionally, according to the filing, Click included in his letter to prosecutors “the Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) of the FBI determined that the individual(s) responsible for the homicides were involved in Nordic beliefs.”
“This was news to the Defense as no member of [law enforcement] in charge of the investigation revealed this information to the Defense during recent depositions,” the filing states. Among those who did not reveal the aforementioned information to the defense included at least one investigator who allegedly abandoned the theory without sufficient investigation. That investigator then testified during a deposition “that he didn’t remember if the FBI’s BAU unit determined one way or the other whether those with Nordic beliefs had been involved in the murders,” per the filing.
In support of this theory, Allen’s attorneys assert that another person of interest in the murders was the father of a boy one of the victims had been “dating” prior to her death. That person is also allegedly an Odinist and made posts on social media that prosecutors say were “mimicking the very runes found at the crime scene — a crime scene unreleased and unknown to the general public even to this day.”
Allen’s attorneys also suggested another “Odinist” may have killed the girls because one of their parents was in a biracial relationship.
Finally, the attorneys requested that Allen be immediately removed from Westfall Prison, claiming that at least two of the guards accused of monitoring, intimidating, and abusing Allen “are also members of the Odinite cult” who openly wore Odinist patches on their uniforms until recently.
“Due to either incompetence or a concerted intentionality, those in charge of the investigation refused to arrest or even properly investigate these obvious suspects,” the filing states. “While the prosecution has been holding on to this exculpatory evidence, Richard Allen has been living in hell.’”
Special Judge Fran Gull in July denied Allen’s request to be moved to another facility.
Should a Franks hearing be granted and the judge finds in Allen’s favor, all of the evidence collected as a result of that warrant will be inadmissible in the murder case.
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