Nov. 11 (UPI) — The Indiana man accused of killing two teenage girls in a wooded area near Delphi was found guilty on Monday and faces a mid-December sentencing date.
“Regardless of what the verdict is,” Special Judge Frances Gull stated as she requested the court to keep its composure prior to announcing the guilty verdict, “people will not be happy.”
On Monday, the Indiana jury of five men and seven women found Richard Allen, 52, guilty on all four charges in the 2017 murders of Abigail “Abby” Williams, 13, and Liberty “Libby” German, 14.
The Delphi resident and ex-CVS clerk was convicted of two counts of murder and two murder while kidnapping counts.
He’s due in court for sentencing at 9 a.m. local time on Dec. 20. Allen is looking at a virtual life sentence of 90 and 130 years in prison.
The verdict arrived after a four-week trial in Allen County. On Saturday, the 12-person Indiana jury concluded its second full day of deliberations without reaching a verdict.
Jurors — which include a nurse, a seminar professor, a school counselor, a stay-at-home mother and a transportation director — heard from dozens of witnesses over 17 days of testimony after four days of deliberating.
The two teen girls and best friends vanished Feb. 13, 2017, along a trail near their hometown of Delphi, about 60 miles northwest of the state’s capital, Indianapolis. Their bodies were found the next day in a wooded area.
He had pleaded not guilty and was formally charged and taken into custody by Indiana State Police at the end of 2022, nearly five years after the 2017 slayings of the two middle school girls that rocked the small town.
A gag order remained in effect after the verdict, according to local reports.”This isn’t over at all,” Allen’s wife said tearfully, WTHR reported.
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