Delphi killer Richard Allen asks judge to commute his 2 sentences

On By Littum

DELPHI, Ind. – Brad Webber arrived home 12 minutes after Delphi murder victim Libby German’s iPhone stopped moving at 2:32 p.m. on February 13, 2017, yet Carroll County Prosecutor Nick McLeland allowed Webber to falsely testify that he arrived home around 2:30 p.m.

That evidence played an important role in the Nov. 11, 2024, murder convictions against Richard Allen, his attorney argued in a motion to correct filed this week.

McLeland had the evidence, a home surveillance video that showed Webber’s van pulling into the lonely road leading to his parents’ house near the south side of the Monon High Bridge, from where Libby German and Abby Williams were abducted.

A publicly available video at shows Webber’s van with a time stamp. It is the only van on that road for hours before and after the killings.

Monica Wala, a therapist at the Westville prison where Allen was incarcerated, treated Allen and wrote his confessions at a time when psychiatrists testified that Allen was experiencing psychotic breaks with reality and had problems with his memories. Wala, a true-crime fan, followed the Delphi murders long before Allen arrived as a client.

During her therapy sessions, Wala wrote that Allen told her he saw a white van after abducting the teenagers, prompting him to force the girls to wade across Deer Creek to the north bank. There he killed the two, according to testified in his trial in October and November.

McLeland said Libby’s phone stopped moving at 2:32 p.m. on February 13, 2017, and the state’s theory is that is when Allen killed the girls.

In Wala’s report of one of Allen’s confessions, she stated that Allen said he planned to sexually assault the girls until a white van drove by him and the girls.

Libby’s video of “Bridge Guy” was shot at 14.17. Libby’s phone stopped moving at 14.32, which suggests that she was dead by then. However, Webber’s van does not pass down the road at that end of the bridge until 14.44.

Because McLeland knew Webber’s testimony was wrong and did not correct his testimony to the jury, and because it did not match the prosecution’s timeline, Andrew Baldwin – Allen’s attorney – asked Special Judge Frances Gull to either vacate the verdict or set a hearing to correct the error.

There are other reasons to vacate the sentence or set a hearing to correct errors, according to Monday’s filing.

Ron Logan’s prison confession to the murders

The girls were found on Ron Logan’s property, which was searched on March 17, 2017 – a little more than a month after the girls’ murder. FBI agents caught Logan in a lie because he called a relative in an attempt to create an alibi for the time of the murder, according to the probable cause statement for the search warrant.

After the search, Logan, who died in January 2022, went to prison for a parole hearing. While there, he allegedly confessed to another inmate on May 15, 2017. That inmate, in turn, reported Logan’s confession to the FBI’s public access line unit to report on the Delphi killings.

“Logan confessed … step by step to killing the two girls,” the exhibit filed Monday said. “Logan told … how he burned his clothes in a fire pit and where they were, used box cutters and fought with one of the girls, believing that drops of blood from his nose ended up on her clothes. (The inmate) also recommended , that (Logan) killed the older girl first.”

Indiana State Police 1st Sgt. P. Hansard interviewed the inmate. The exhibit filed on Monday has Hansard’s handwritten notes and also has the defense’s translation of the hard-to-read notes.

Logan went with the girls and told them he knew one of their fathers. When one of the girls wanted to turn around, Logan grabbed the youngest girl (presumably Abby, according to the archive) by the shoulder and told them it was ok. That’s when the elder (presumably Libby) freaked out, according to the notes from the prisoner’s recollection of Logan’s confession.

One of the girls said something about calling the police and Logan was “paranoid about probation,” according to the exhibit with the filing. He felt as if he crossed a line when he grabbed “the youngest”.

Logan told the inmate that he told the girls that he knew one of their mothers worked at a bar. He told the girls that he had horses and rabbits and offered to let them see them as they walked through the path in the woods. The “oldest paranoid, didn’t want to go,” the note says, while the “youngest” wanted to see horses.

Hansard’s notes indicate that the “eldest” approached to help the “youngest” and began kicking. Logan told the inmate that he grabbed the “elder” and was hit in the nose. He feared he was getting blood on the girls.

He pulled out a box cutter and cut the older girl, hitting an artery, according to the filing. The youngest girl was scared and he took her with him for a while, according to the trooper’s notes of the inmate’s account of Logan’s words. He said he slashed both of their throats, according to the notes.

The inmate told police that Logan left and returned later that evening after searchers looked for the girls. Logan waited until late at night and moved the “eldest” girl to an area unlikely to be found. He burned his clothes, boots, gloves and bag, according to the trooper’s notes from the interview with the inmate.

“Ron Logan’s confession exculpates Mr. Allen and would likely produce a different result at a retrial,” the motion states. “Therefore, the court should either vacate Mr. Allen’s convictions or set this motion for a hearing.”

Allen’s protective custody violated his rights

Immediately following Allen’s arrest on October 26, 2022, Allen’s attorneys allege that Allen was held in the Carroll County Jail under a false name. Allen’s wife had paid a $5,000 restitution for a lawyer, but the lawyer could not find where Allen was being held.

Allen went to his first hearing on October 28, 2022 without his paid attorney. A few days later, a hearing was held on Allen’s custody; Allen was not allowed to be heard by the court and he did not have a lawyer present. In addition, Allen has the right to refuse to be transferred to custody, according to the motion filed Monday.

When someone defended Allen’s interests, the court ordered him to be held in an Indiana jail for safekeeping. This turned into 23 months of solitary confinement, during which time he became psychotic from the solitary confinement, according to testimony at the trial.

Furthermore, then-Carroll Circuit Judge Benjamin Diener should have ethically recused himself because he advised then-Sheriff Tobe Leazenby on how to fill out the custody request to the court. This, the motion argued, was contrary to judicial ethics.

This is yet another reason why the court should vacate Allen’s conviction and set a hearing on the defense’s motion to correct errors.

Someone plugged headphones into Libby’s phone

After the defense expert testified at trial about Libby’s iPhone, indicating that someone plugged headphones into the jack between 6 p.m. Between 5:44 p.m. and 10:32 p.m. on February 13, 2017 — hours after the girls died — a state rebuttal witness Googled what could have caused it, then testified that search results suggested dirt or water damage could have caused it.

Defense expert Stacy Eldridge says in a statement that nothing from the data transfer from Libby’s phone indicated any water damage. None of the police reports from data extraction from the phone indicated dirt or water damage.

“If Ms. Eldridge’s factual expert testimony that wired headphones were plugged into (Libby German’s) auxiliary port at 5:44 p.m. on February 13, 2017 and unplugged nearly 5 hours later were credited by a jury, the State’s narrative is impossible. Anyone else than Richard Allen handled (Libby German’s) phone several times long after the State claimed Mr. Allen left the scene before 4 p.m. on the 13th. February 2017,” the proposal states.

Those factors, considered individually or together, entitle Allen to have his sentence vacated or to have a hearing set in the cases, according to Monday’s filing.

On Tuesday afternoon, according to the court records, Gull did not take a position on the case.

Allen indicated after his conviction that he plans to appeal his convictions and 130 years in prison.

Reach Ron Wilkins at [email protected]. Follow on Twitter: @RonWilkins2.