Abigail Williams, 13, and Liberty German, 14, had the day off school on February 13, 2017, and decided to explore the Monon High Bridge, a weathered railroad crossing over Deer Creek that locals knew as both beautiful and a little dangerous. They never made it home. By the next day, the girls’ bodies were discovered along the north bank of the creek, just half a mile from the bridge. We now known the investigation into their deaths and the subsequent murder trial as the Delphi Murders, a tragic series of events that stretched on for five years, with grainy photographs, muffled audio, and endless speculation filling the void where answers should have been.
Abigail and Liberty Filmed Their Killer
From the start, it was clear the girls had fought to leave behind a trail of clues. Libby German had the presence of mind to record a man approaching them on her phone. The image, showing a figure in a jacket with his head down, became infamous. And the three words captured on audio—“down the hill”—chilled everyone who heard them. Those fragments, released by police, were both a lifeline for investigators and a cruel reminder of how close the victims had come to identifying their killer.
Police Spent Years Looking For “Bridge Guy”
For years, tips poured in, composite sketches shifted, and the reward fund grew. Detectives insisted the man they called “Bridge Guy” was hiding in plain sight, someone who knew Delphi well. But each lead fizzled, and the families of Abby and Libby were left to wait, hoping for a break that seemed increasingly unlikely. That break finally came in 2022. A misplaced tip—filed under the wrong name years earlier—was rediscovered by chance. The tip pointed to Richard M. Allen, a local pharmacy technician who lived in Delphi who told police, just days after the murders, that he’d been on the trails that afternoon. Once investigators revisited Allen, the pieces began to fit together. A bullet found between the girls’ bodies matched a gun registered to him. Witnesses described a man covered in mud and disheveled, wearing clothes like the ones Allen admitted to owning.
Richard Allen Confessed To The Murders More Than 60 Times
Allen was arrested in October 2022 and charged with two counts of murder. What followed was a long, contentious legal process: gag orders, defense team shake-ups, trial delays, and a torrent of public interest that made it nearly impossible to separate fact from rumor. In October 2024, the case finally went to trial. Prosecutors presented Libby’s video alongside expert testimony linking Allen’s voice to the recording. A firearms examiner testified that the unspent bullet bore unique markings from Allen’s gun. Most powerfully, jurors heard how Allen, while in prison, confessed more than 60 times—to his wife, his mother, prison staff, and fellow inmates. He admitted to leading the girls “down the hill” and cutting their throats before trying to cover their bodies with sticks.
Was Justice Served?
The defense pointed to Allen’s mental health struggles and argued that his confessions were unreliable due to the depression and stress of the trial. The jury was unmoved. On November 11, 2024, Richard Allen was convicted of both murders. He was later sentenced to 130 years in prison—65 years for each life taken. Even with a conviction, the case continues to cast a long shadow. Delphi is a small town, the kind where people know one another, and the idea that the killer had lived among them for years is hard to reconcile. Families still grieve what Abby and Libby lost—high school graduations, first jobs, the chance to grow into the women they were becoming.
