The local man charged with the 2017 Delphi murders of Libby German and Abby Williams was involved in a “domestic incident” less than two years before the brutal slayings, it has emerged.
On 18 June 2015, deputies with the Carroll County Sheriff’s Office were called to the home Richard Allen shared with his wife Kathy in Delphi, Indiana, to a report of a “domestic”, according to police records.
The records, obtained by Fox 59, revealed that officers arrived at the property – less than five minutes’ drive from the wooded area where Libby and Abby were found murdered – at around 3.30am that morning to find Mr Allen drunk.
Mr Allen’s wife then took him to a local hospital for a medical evaluation.
Carroll County Sheriff Tobe Leazenby told the local outlet that law enforcement was there to “keep the peace” and and took no further action, with no arrests made and no charges filed.
It is not clear who initially called 911 to the property or what the nature of the domestic incident was.
It is also currently unclear what treatment Mr Allen was given at the hospital.
Less than two years later, he is accused of brutally murdering the two teenage best friends.
Prior to his arrest last week in connection to the 2017 murders – which had gone unsolved for more than half a decade – online records show the 50-year-old married father has no prior criminal record.
Mr Allen was taken into custody on Wednesday before being formally charged with two counts of murder on Friday, Indiana State Police announced in a press conference on Monday.
He pleaded not guilty to the charges and is being held without bond ahead of a trial slated for March.
On 13 February 2017, Libby, 14, and Abby, 13, set off on a hike along the Monon High Bridge Trail in their hometown of Delphi.
During the walk, Libby posted a photo of her best friend walking along the Monon High Bridge. It was the last known photo of Abby before she was killed.
Later that day, the teenagers were reported missing when they failed to return to a spot where a family member was picking them up.
The next day – Valentine’s Day 2017 – their bodies were discovered in a wooded area around half a mile off the trail.
Their cause of death has never been released.
Investigators have long been searching for a man captured on Libby’s cellphone before she died.
A grainy video shows a man dressed in blue jeans, a blue jacket and a cap walking along the abandoned railroad bridge.
Investigators released a still image from the video and a chilling audio of the man telling the two girls: “Go down the hill.”
Two police sketches have also been released over the years – one in 2017 and one in 2019. The images bear a likeness to Mr Allen.
In a chilling photo, posted by Mr Allen’s wife Kathy on Facebook in December 2021, Mr Allen is seen smiling alongside his wife in a local bar in Delphi. On the wall behind him is the 2019 police sketch.
The disturbing December 2017 selfie of Mr Allen had been posted the same month that investigators issued a fresh appeal urging members of the public to come forward with information about an online catfishing account thought to be tied to the murders.
On Monday, Libby and Abby’s families spoke out about the sudden arrest in the case and how they learned the suspected killer had been “hiding in plain sight” the whole time.
Mr Allen worked in the local CVS store and often went into the local pub with his wife.
Libby’s grandparents Mike and Becky Patty told reporters that they remembered Mr Allen serving them one time in the CVS store.
The family was printing photos of Libby and Abby for their funerals at the store when Mr Allen, a trained pharmaceutical technician, assisted them in processing the photos. He didn’t charge them for the images when they went in to collect them.
Aside from that, the family members said they didn’t know Mr Allen but – in a close-knit town of just 3,000 people – had likely encountered him on other occasions over the last five years.
While the arrest of the local man has sent shockwaves across the community, law enforcement officials are not ruling out the possibility that other individuals may also have been involved in the teenagers’ brutal murders.
Officials are continuing to urge the public to submit tips about the case.
Back in December, Indiana State Police made a fresh appeal urging anyone who had communicated with, met, or attempted to meet the individual posing in a fake online profile named @anthony_shots to come forward with information.
The fake online profile had been used to communicate with at least one of the victims around the time of their deaths.
The profile was used from 2016 to 2017 on platforms including Snapchat and Instagram and used photos of a known young male model – who has no ties to the account or the case.
Investigators said the person behind the account was Kegan Anthony Kline, 27-year-old man with addresses in Kokomo and Peru, close to Delphi.
Kline admitted to authorities that he used the account to groom underage girls online and get them to send nude photos and their addresses and try to get them to meet him. He allegedly admitted to receiving about 100 sexual photos and about 20 sexually explicit videos from around 15 underage girls.
Kline was arrested on 30 felony charges including child sexual abuse images and child exploitation in 2020.
According to an affidavit, Indiana State Police and the FBI had executed a search warrant at his home in Peru on 25 February 2017 - less than two weeks after Abby and Libby were murdered.
Kline denied any knowledge or involvement in the two teenagers’ deaths and he has not been charged in the case.
Prior to this, police had zeroed in on local man Ronald Logan, according to a search warrant application filed in 2017 before being obtained by podcast The Murder Sheet and shared with The Independent this May.
The partly redacted document reveals law enforcement wanted to search Mr Logan’s home which was just 1,400 feet from where the girls’ bodies were found.
Mr Logan had allegedly lied about where he was at the time that the teenagers disappeared, claiming he was out of the area with a friend when cellphone location data actually placed him in the area around the trail.
Mr Logan was never charged and he died in 2020.
