Man Convicted of Murdering Two Teenage Girls Blames 'Pagan Ritual' in New Appeal
An Indiana man serving 130 years for killing two teenage girls is asking an appeals court to throw out his convictions, arguing he confessed during a psychological crisis and was blocked from telling jurors the deaths were a pagan ritual carried out by someone else.
Richard Allen was convicted in 2024 of murdering Abigail “Abby” Williams, 13, and Liberty “Libby” German, 14, on a hiking trail near Delphi, Indiana, in February 2017.
The case went unsolved for more than five years before his arrest and drew a national true-crime following.
The Indiana Court of Appeals scheduled an hour of oral arguments Monday in Indianapolis. Judges Nancy Vaidik, Elaine Brown, and Robert Altice are on the panel.
Allen’s attorneys say his incriminating statements came after prolonged solitary confinement left him in psychosis and should not have been treated as voluntary.
Allen’s attorneys also argue the trial judge wrongly kept out an alternative-suspect theory: that unknown people killed the girls as a ritual sacrifice tied to worship of Odin, the chief god in Norse mythology.
Defense lawyers at trial wanted an expert to testify that the scene could match ritual practice the girls’ bodies positioned outdoors, branches placed over them, and knife wounds.
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The defense has argued the ritual theory was not invented after the fact and that investigators themselves pursued similar ideas early on.
Prosecutors say some of Allen’s statements came before he displayed signs of mental illness and continued after he improved. Even without the confessions, they argue, the jury had enough evidence.
Allen acknowledged being on the trail near the time of the killings. One of the girls recorded a brief video of a man nearby. A male voice on the clip says, “Down the hill.”
The state has defended the decision to keep the Odin testimony out. Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita’s office wrote that third-party motive evidence needs more than a speculative link.
The brief called the ritual idea “a motive in search of a suspect” and said letting an expert debate “Odinic symbology” would have turned the trial into a sideshow.
Allen’s team has also challenged a search of his home and what they call stacked inferences and disputed firearms analysis. The state has asked the court to affirm the verdict.
A jury from Allen County deliberated four days before convicting Allen in November 2024. He was sentenced that December. He is serving the term in Oklahoma.
The girls were found in the woods the day after they disappeared from the Monon High Bridge trail. Libby’s phone held the video that police later used to seek the public’s help identifying the man on the path.
No ruling was announced with the argument date. The appeals court will issue a written decision later.
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