DELPHI, Ind. — It's been more than seven years since the bodies of Abby Williams and Libby German were found near the Monon High Bridge in Delphi. Richard Allen, the man accused of killing the two teenagers, will stand trial for the fourth day Tuesday.
The trial began Friday, Oct. 18.
Sixteen Allen County residents were selected to serve on the jury. Twelve of those people (eight women and four men) began the trial as jurors with four (two men and two women) serving as alternates.
From opening statements to verdict, 13News will be at the Carroll County courthouse every day of the trial to explain what happened inside the courtroom.
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Follow along with the latest updates from Tuesday below:
We learned that the defense file a motion related to how jurors will hear and see the video and audio recovered from Libby German’s cellphone on Sunday, Oct. 20.
The motion does not try to prevent jurors from seeing and hearing the recordings, but the defense does want to create guidelines about how the jurors hear the recordings and what questions can be asked of witnesses on that topic.
In court, jurors were shown sometimes graphic images of the crime scene where the bodies of Abby Williams and Libby German were found.
At one point, a juror put their hand over their mouth as they were looking at the photos, and the mothers of both girls were crying.
Carroll County Sheriff's Office Detective Darron Giancola was the state's first witness of the day.
"Both had lacerations to the throat," Giancola said. "Both had a substantial amount of blood on their person and underneath."
Sgt. Jason Page, a 24-year Indiana State Police veteran, was the next witness.
Page said the day after the girls' bodies were found, the area was "saturated still with a large quantity of blood" on the ground.
Duane Datzman, who spent 20 years as a crime scene investigator with Indiana State Police and now works for the Benton County Sheriff's Office, was also called to the stand.
Datzman said he was working at ISP's Lafayette Post when he was notified he was needed at the Delphi crime scene. He arrived shortly after 1 p.m. on Feb. 14, 2017 and took photos of the scene on the ground and from a helicopter.
Jurors saw 117 photos, about half of them extremely graphic. 13News reporters who were in the courtroom say some jurors and family members were visibly shaken. The pictures showed the injuries to both girls' throats and blood on both of the girls.
Datzman described his crime scene photos to jurors, including photos of the victims in the woods, the girls' bodies, a close-up shot of Abby's neck injury and blood on the ground underneath Libby's foot and leg.
Abby's mom looked away and Libby's mom kept her head down and was crying during this part of the testimony Monday, 13News senior investigative reporter Bob Segall noted in the courtroom.
Datzman described how investigators found a .40-caliber cartridge under the leaves near the girls' bodies, the only cartridge found at the crime scene. The cartridge was collected by ISP Sgt. Brian Olehy, who also testified Monday.
Olehy and Datzman both spoke of limbs and branches that were "placed on the bodies." Datzman said he and two other investigators determined the sticks had no evidentiary value, so they did not collect DNA from them.
However, Datzman said he returned the next day, Feb. 15, 2017, and collected the sticks, taking crime scene photos with him to identify the correct sticks. He then took them to the ISP Lafayette Post.
The defense has maintained - but is not allowed to bring up - that the sticks indicate the deaths were part of a ritualistic sacrifice. The defense also pushed back on how investigators collected a bullet cartridge from the scene, one prosecutors say matches a gun owned by Richard Allen.
The defense asked investigators how the bullet cartridge was handled and why there are no pictures or video showing it being removed from the crime scene. They suggested to the jury that there were lapses in the chain of custody to protect the integrity of that evidence.
Legal expert analyzes Day 3 testimony
13News legal expert Katie Jackson-Lindsay kept close watch on the Day 3 proceedings in Delphi, including the collection of sticks found on the victims' bodies.
"They really highlighted that one, that was a piece of evidence that was found and, two, that it wasn't originally collected and they even got the witness to admit that they didn't collect it initially because they didn't think it was pertinent," Jackson-Lindsay said. "But someone must have thought it was pertinent, because they went back to get it later."
She also focused on photos brought into evidence by defense attorneys.
"When you see the defense admitting photos that either the state has already admitted a second time or they're admitting photos that the state did not admit, that really says to the jury, 'We need you to focus your attention on this particular angle that maybe the state didn't show you,' which is letting them know that there is something else they want to highlight."