DELPHI, Ind. — Attorneys for Delphi murders defendant Richard Allen said they are not getting to see the state’s evidence against their client in a timely manner, and they now want the judge to set a firm deadline for the Carroll County prosecutor to turn over all evidence to the defense.
Monday afternoon, Allen’s lawyers filed a motion requesting that prosecutor Nick McLeland and the state of Indiana “produce all evidence in its possession immediately and also that the Court set a Nov. 1, 2023, deadline to do so.”
The defense team pointed to an overwhelming amount of discovery recently provided by the prosecutor in making the deadline request.
According to defense attorneys Brad Rozzi and Andrew Baldwin, between December 2022 and June 2023, the state turned over 16 hard drives, four flash drives and one disc of information related to the murders of Abby Williams and Libby German.
But they said in just the past three weeks, the prosecutor sent the defense team an additional 14 hard drives, five more flash drives and three more discs — a vast amount of new material that greatly increases the information defense attorneys must review prior to the upcoming trial.
The defense team said they anticipate conducting at least 30 to 40 more depositions in the coming months to prepare for trial, and they want to know what evidence the state has prior to conducting those interviews.
“The Defense is concerned that there will be a continual drip, drip, drip of evidence (much which could be exculpatory in nature) unless a discovery deadline is set by the Court,” the defense attorneys wrote in their seven-page motion, which was obtained by 13News a short time after it was filed in Carroll County Circuit Court. “Without a firm discovery deadline, it is impossible to expect Defendant Allen to be fully prepared for trial.”
In their motion, the attorneys also claim discovery materials recently released by the prosecutor include more evidence to support their position that Allen did not commit the murders of the two Delphi teenagers in 2017.
They claim some of the newly-provided information from the state — including interviews, a letter and search warrants — supports their alternative theory that the two girls were killed not by Richard Allen, but instead by other individuals as part of an Odinistic ritualistic sacrifice.
The attorneys claim one such piece of information involves “several search warrants signed by Judges in Marion County pertaining to certain internet and phone records, including at least one unknown person who admitted to killing the girls, even providing details unknown to the general public of the crime scene such as the fact that he used a knife in a way consistent with the manner of death and also claiming that he used a gun but never fired it.”
The defense attorneys said they are still waiting for at least five “particularly important” items that may support the defense theories of who murdered the girls, including several police reports and multiple audio recordings from interviews conducted by investigators.
Allen’s trial is scheduled to begin Jan. 8, 2024.