Attorneys for Richard Allen have renewed their efforts to have jurors hear their theory that Liberty German, 14, and Abigail Williams, 13, were murdered by multiple people as part of an Odinist ritual.
In court documents, filed Wednesday and obtained by DailyMail.com, Allen’s attorneys claim that the door has been opened to allow the evidence that Judge Frances Gull had previously excluded because of testimony already head in court.
Allen is charged on four counts in relation to the murders of the girls – two of felony murder, which means murder during the act of another crime, in this case kidnap, and two of murder.
Richard Allen is charged on four counts in relation to the murder of Libby German, 14, and Abigail Williams, 13, in Delphi, Indiana, in 2017
Allen’s defense attorneys filed a motion to admit evidence to support their theory that Libby (left) and Abby were killed by a group of people for the purpose of an Odinist ritual rather than by Allen
If convicted the 52-year-old married father-of-one faces a maximum penalty of 130 years in prison.
His lawyers had previously attempted to have their Odinist defense heard in court filing lengthy documents and pressing their case in an August hearing.
Odinism is defined by the worship of the Norse god Odin – associated with war, death, wisdom and magic. The group is characterized as a white supremacist cult that combines those beliefs with magical elements of neo-paganism.
Now they claim that the evidence of Crime Scene Investigator Ryan Olehy, who testified across Monday and Tuesday, is grounds for Judge Gull to review her earlier decision to deny it.
During Olehy’s testimony jurors heard and saw crime scene photos that showed sticks, and in Libby’s case a large bough, arranged over the girls’ bodies.
At their August hearing, the defense presented the testimony of Dr Dawn Perlmutter who specializes in identifying ritualistic crime scenes, but the judge ruled that this evidence couldn’t be presented to the jury
The trail in Delphi, Indiana, where Abby Williams, 13, and Libby German, 14, were killed on Feb. 13, 2017
The defense argues that Crime Scene Investigator Ryan Olehy’s testimony opened the door for Judge Gull to review her earlier decision to deny it
In cross examination Bradley Rozzi pushed for Olehy to concede that there was ‘intentionality’ in the way the sticks were arranged. But the CSI officer resisted the attorney’s efforts to paint the crime scene as ‘odd’ or to find anything other than an attempt to conceal the bodies in the placement of the sticks.
But according to the defense’s new filing, ‘The State of Indiana has provided its explanation of what the sticks represent (concealment of the bodies), and Richard Allen has a 6th amendment right to offer the jury his alternative theory as to the reasons the sticks are aligned and arranged in the manner in which they are arranged.’
Rozzi also attempted to draw from Olehy a concession that blood found on a tree near the bodies was not simply spatter by a more deliberate marking. He referred to the tree as ‘the F tree’ suggesting that the letter had been written on the bark in blood.
Again, Olehy resisted his attempts and stated that, to him, it simply looked like a blood stain on the tree, roughly four feet above the ground.
The girls vanished while hiking along Delphi’s Historic Trail. The last video taken on Libby’s cellphone showed a man in a blue Carhartt jacket and jeans approaching the two teens
Law enforcement officer Greg Ferency was investigating the possibility of Odinist involvement before he was killed in an ambush on an FBI office in 2021, according to the defense
At their August hearing the defense presented the testimony of Dr Dawn Perlmutter who has trained with the FBI and worked with several local, state and federal law enforcement and specializes in identifying ritualistic crime scenes.
Now, they have reasserted, ‘After reviewing the crime scene photographs and other reports and documentation, Dr. Perlmutter’s testimony including her assessment that the sticks on the bodies, F tree, and other aspects of the crime scene were textbook signs of a ritualistic murder related to Odinism/Norse Paganism, including using sticks and blood on the tree to form runes and bind runes.’
In fact, the new motion states, law enforcement investigated the possibility of Odinist involvement as early as the second day after the girls were found, until 2021 when law enforcement officer Greg Ferency was killed in an ambush on an FBI office in 2021.
According to Allen’s attorneys, a failure to allow them to put forward their theory would be unfairly prejudicial, leaving ‘the jury with ONLY one explanation – the explanation provided by the State of Indiana.’
Judge Gull has yet to rule on the motion.
