30-07-2025
Exclusive: Richard Allen's wife defends 'innocent' husband in Delphi murders docuseries
On Nov. 11, 2024, a jury convicted Richard Allen of murdering Abigail "Abby" Williams and Liberty "Libby" German. The girls, 13 and 14 respectively, didn't return from their afternoon hike on Feb. 13, 2017, in Delphi, Indiana, about 70 miles northwest of Indianapolis.
After deliberating for 18 hours, a jury of five men and seven women decided on Allen's guilt, but a new docuseries from ABC News Studios airs doubts that police apprehended the right man. The three-part "Capturing Their Killer: The Girls on the High Bridge" premieres on Hulu Aug. 5.
"Richard Allen is guilty and always will be," Libby's grandfather Mike Patty declares in a trailer shared exclusively with USA TODAY.
"I'm grateful that we got justice when we did," says Abby's mom, Anna Williams. Libby's mother, Carrie Timmons, also appears in the docuseries, which revisits the crime and capture of Allen and includes interviews with the victims' family and friends, as well as Sarah Nelson, a public safety reporter for The Indianapolis Star, a part of the USA TODAY Network.
Allen's wife, Kathy Allen, remains unconvinced that her husband is responsible, and has chosen to speak out for the first time in "Capturing Their Killer."
"I want true justice for Abby and Libby," Kathy Allen says in the preview running more than two minutes. "But it should not be at the expense of an innocent person."
In interrogation footage included, a cool Richard Allen says, "You're not going to find anything that ties me to those murders, so I'm not really that concerned."
The case against Allen relied largely on an unspent round found between the girls' bodies that investigators alleged had been cycled through Allen's Sig Sauer, Model P226, .40-caliber handgun and on the dozens of confessions Allen made while awaiting trial in prison.
Another key piece of evidence that prosecutors focused on is the 43-second video that Libby took moments after she and Abby vanished from the trail. The video showed a man known as "Bridge Guy" tailing Abby as she crossed the high bridge. Toward the end of the video, the man told the girls to, "Go down the hill."
"We know this 'Bridge Guy' took the girls," Libby's grandmother Becky Patty says in "Capturing Their Killer," "and they proved Richard Allen was 'Bridge Guy.'"
Defense attorneys countered that Allen is an innocent and mentally fragile man whose months of isolation at Westville, Correctional Facility, drove him to psychosis and to giving false confessions. In his closing argument, defense lawyer Bradley Rozzi urged jurors to recognize the dubiousness of the yearslong investigation into the girls' deaths.
The defense also suggested the victims were murdered by cult members, a theory seemingly explored in the docuseries.
"Was this a satanic-type killing?" someone asks off-camera. "A symbol on the tree done in the victim's blood," says another.
Allen is currently serving out his 130-year sentence.
Contributing: Kristine Phillips, Ron Wilkins and Sarah Nelson, USA TODAY Network
