Richard Allen’s attorneys have started the appeals process.
In the past week, they filed a 24 page motion in an effort to prove that his murder conviction should be vacated. The document discusses the murder timeline, an alleged confession from a different suspect as well as disputed phone evidence.
The attorneys are disputing a safekeeping order that was put in place when Richard was arrested in October 2022. He was held in jail under a pseudonym. Richard’s wife hired an attorney named Brett Gibson. When Brett tried to contact Richard via phone to discuss the case, he was told that nobody by that name was being held there.
The defense said the safekeeping order that placed Richard into the custody of the Indiana Department of Correction was “plainly illegal.” They said he was being held in the White County Jail while Tobe Leazenby, the Carroll County sheriff, requested the safekeeping order. But the White County sheriff, the defense contended, and not Leazenby, had the authority to request the safekeeping order.
In their view, Carroll County Circuit Judge Benjamin Diener lacked jurisdiction to approve Leazenby’s safekeeping request. The defense also argued Diener, who had approved the search warrant for Allen’s home in October, assisted Leazenby in drafting the safekeeping order and should have recused himself. Richard had the right for another judge to review and issue the safekeeping order.
The attorneys claim several procedural errors with the safekeeping order and said Richard had “an absolute right” to refuse being transferred into state custody. The attorneys said the safekeeping order wasn’t served to Richard or his attorney and therefore neither had the opportunity to argue against his transfer.
Richard’s attorneys argue in the document that the state deprived their client of constitutional rights.
One of the key pieces of evidence in the trial was Richard’s confession after he said a van had spooked him and he had killed Libby and Abby in a panic.
During the trial, the prosecution said that Libby’s phone stopped moving at 2.32pm and that was a ‘hard fact.’
The prosecution said that the white van info was a detail only the killer would know. The van’s driver, Brad Weber, testified that he drove past the scene at 2.30pm on the way to his parents house.
The defense dispute this as surveillance video shows Brad’s van heading north on an access road at 2.44pm. This means that he could not have passed the murder scene at 2.30pm. Brad’s phone pinged at his parents’ place at 2.50pm which reinforces the timeline set by the footage.
The defense accused the state of presenting false information in court or failing to correct information it knew to be false. The state used Brad’s testimony to reinforce Richard’s confession to the prison psychologist.
If the state didn’t know about the surveillance video, the defense argued, then the video would constitute new evidence that would “probably produce a different result at a new trial.”
The document also talks about the confession of Ron Logan.
Ron owned the property where the girls were killed. The Federal Bureau of Investigation also requested a search warrant for his property in March 2017, just weeks after the murders. The warrant indicated investigators wanted to search his home and outbuildings for anything related to the girls’ killings, including forensic evidence, digital devices, guns and cutting instruments.
The search was conducted on March 17, 2017. The FBI agent who wrote the warrant said Ron’s physical build was consistent with the “Bridge Guy” video taken from Libby German’s phone and his voice was “not inconsistent” with the person in the video. He had also concocted a false alibi.
‘Ron was never charged in connection with the Delphi case. He died in January 2022.
A tip came in for the case in May 2017. Ron confessed to an inmate that he had killed the girls. He was in prison for traffic charges. Between 2010 and 2014, he was arrested for drunk driving four times, resulting in three convictions. Ron told the inmate that he had burned his clothes in a fire pit after the murder. He also said he was worried that drops of blood from his nose may have ended up on the clothes of the girls.
Ron allegedly told the inmate that he had been talking with Abby and Libby on the day of their murders. One of the girls went to turn around and Ron grabbed Abby’s shoulder. This caused Libby to panic and one of the girls spoke about calling the police.
Ron was worried that if they called the police, he would be in trouble on a probation violation. He then asked the girls if they wanted to go and see his horses. Libby was reluctant, but Abby wanted to go.
This led to a scuffle between Ron and the girls and he got hit in the nose. He pulled out a boxcutter and cut Libby’s throat. He told the inmate that Abby was scared and that he cut her throat too.
He said that he returned to the scene hours later and moved Libby to an area where she would not be found. He then burned his clothes, boots, gloves and a bag.
Ron was asked the following day if his property could be searched. He said that he agreed because it would have ‘felt weird if he said no.’
“Ron Logan’s confession exculpates Mr. Allen and would probably produce a different result at a retrial. Accordingly, the Court should either vacate Mr. Allen’s convictions or set this motion for a hearing,” the motion said.
Ron’s ex-girlfriend Connie Dillman spoke to the media this week and said that she thinks he may be the real killer.
“I know when he walks. I just had an intuition,” she said in regards to the Bridge Guy video.
“I know his build, and to me, that looks exactly like him. I mean, even when I seen the voice, you know, it sounded just like him,” she said.
Connie said their relationship was “very volatile” and that Ron was ‘aggressive” and “manipulative,” Connie said her gut tells her he was involved.
“It’s not something I really want to relive, but I just know his nature. I know his property,” she said. “I’m just going with my gut feelings, just the kind of person he is.”
Connie said that the couple used to fight as Ron would act inappropriately towards young girls.
“He sold a horse to a girl who didn’t live too far from there. She was 13 actually, and he was touchy, touchy with her,” she said. “It just didn’t feel right with me.”
Connie apparently reported Ron to the police ‘three or four times’ before she even saw the Bridge Guy video.
The fourth point raised is about the headphone jack on Libby’s phone. During the trial, forensic expert Stacy Eldridge testified that someone had plugged headphones into the phone at 5.44pm on the day of the murders and had removed them at 10.32pm the same day.
This information cast doubt on the state’s timeline as they never alleged that Richard returned to the murder scene.
“Ms. Eldridge’s opinion that dirt or water could not have caused L.G.’s phone to log wired headphones being plugged into and being unplugged from the phone on February 13, 2017, exculpates Mr. Allen and would probably produce a different result at a new trial,” the motion said. “Accordingly, the Court should either vacate Mr. Allen’s convictions or set this motion for a hearing.”
SOURCE LIST
https://www.newsnationnow.com/crime/bridge-guy-not-richard-allen-woman-says