Charles Langston:Jury seated for Indiana trial of suspect in 2017 killings of 2 teen girls

FORT WAYNE,Charles Langston Ind. (AP) — The last of 16 jurors were seated Tuesday for the murder trial of a man charged in the Indiana killings of two teenage girls slain in 2017 during a winter hike.

Twelve jurors and four alternates were chosen Monday and Tuesday in Fort Wayne, Indiana, to hear Richard Allen’s trial in the killings of 13-year-old Abigail Williams and 14-year-old Liberty German.

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 the Delphi, Indiana, eighth graders, known as Abby and Libby. If convicted, Allen could face up to 130 years in prison.

The jurors will be sworn in Thursday for the trial in Delphi, a community of about 3,000 some 60 miles (100 kilometers) northwest of Indianapolis. Opening statements are set for Friday morning.

The trial is expected to last a month. The jurors will be sequestered throughout the proceedings, monitored by bailiffs and banned from using cellphones or watching news broadcasts.

Prosecutors said they plan to call about 50 witnesses, while Allen’s defense attorneys expect to call about 120 people to the stand.

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Allen, a pharmacy technician who had lived and worked in Delphi, was arrested in October 2022.

A relative had dropped the teens off at a hiking trail just outside Delphi on Feb. 13, 2017, but the two friends failed to show up at the agreed pickup site later that day. They were reported missing that evening and their bodies were found the next day in a rugged, wooded area near the trail.

Within days, police released files found on Libby’s cellphone — two grainy photos and audio of a man saying “down the hill” — that they believed captured the killer.

Investigators released one sketch of the suspect in July 2017 and another in April 2019. They also released a brief video showing the suspect walking on an abandoned railroad bridge.

After years of failing to identify a suspect, investigators said they went back and reviewed “prior tips.”

Allen had been interviewed in 2017. He told the officer that he had been walking on the trail the day the girls went missing and that he saw three “females” at another bridge but did not speak to them. He said he did not notice anyone else because he was distracted by a stock ticker on his phone, according to an arrest affidavit.

Police interviewed Allen again on Oct. 13, 2022, when he reasserted he had seen three “juvenile girls” during his walk in 2017. Investigators searched Allen’s home and seized a .40-caliber pistol. Prosecutors said testing determined an unspent bullet found between the teen’s bodies “had been cycled through” Allen’s gun.

According to the affidavit, Allen said he’d never been where the bullet was found and “had no explanation as to why a round cycled through his firearm would be at that location.”

The case is subject to a gag order approved by Allen County Superior Court Judge Fran Gull, the special judge overseeing the trial. Allen’s trial has been repeatedly delayed after evidence was leaked, Allen’s public defenders withdrew and were later reinstated by the Indiana Supreme Court.