ACCUSED Delphi murderer Richard Allen has allegedly confessed to killing two teen girls more than 60 times since his arrest in 2022, but questions have been raised over why he hasn't taken a plea deal.
Áine Cain and Kevin Greenlee, the couple behind The Murder Sheet podcast, told The U.S. Sun they believe Allen's family could be the motivating factor in preventing him from certifying his confessions in court.
In a three-day hearing last week, prosecutors revealed that Allen confessed at least 61 times to the 2017 killings of Libby German, 14, and Abigail Williams, 13, in Delphi, Indiana, during various remarks to his wife, mother, other inmates, and prison staff since he was arrested in October 2022.
Carroll County Prosecutor Nicholas McLeland told the court Libby and Abby were found lying in pools of blood with their throats cut, branches laid over their bodies, and with Abby wearing items of Libby's clothes.
Brian Harshman, a longtime detective with the Indiana State Police, listened to all video and phone calls concerning Allen while the accused killer was incarcerated at Westville Correctional Unit, a state-run prison.
Harshman testified to hearing Allen make dozens of confessions to family members during more than 150 hours of conversations.
He alleged that some of those confessions included specifics about the killings only the actual murderer would know, as well as motivations for the crimes.
The detective further testified the stream of confessions began in March 2023 after Allen started reading a bible in his prison cell, proclaiming to have "found God."
Describing Allen's purported spiritual awakening as a "come to Jesus moment", Harshman said Allen expressed a wish to atone for what he'd done to the two girls.
Many of Allen's confessions were made directly to his wife and mother, who both reacted initially with "disbelief and shock," Harshman said.
As time progressed, Harshman said that Allen continued to make incriminating statements to his family, who refused to hear it, telling him, "They're messing with your mind," or, "Stop talking about it."
Indiana State Police Lieutenant Jerry Holeman also testified that Allen had confessed directly to him, as well as to other fellow inmates.
In one such confession, Allen allegedly told an inmate he'd killed the girls with a boxcutter and later disposed of the weapon outside the CVS where he worked.
Kenneva Mapps, a lead investigator at Westville, testified that her staff logged two confessions that Allen made while inside the prison, and Dr. Monica Wala, a prison psychologist who met regularly with Allen, testified that she also heard Allen confess to the murders.
Allen's defense has long argued their client's confessions were false, attributing them to his poor mental health.
The defense claims Allen was suffering from a case of stress-induced psychosis that was triggered by being treated like a "prisoner of war" and unjustly locked in solitary confinement in a state prison ahead of his trial – despite not being convicted of any crimes.
Allen's lawyers have asked the judge to dismiss his incriminating words as evidence in his forthcoming trial.
They have maintained their client's innocence, seeking instead to lay blame on a handful of other local men they sensationally claim killed Libby and Abby as part of an "Odinist" sacrifice.
Cain and Greenlee, who were both present in court throughout the three-day hearing, said the testimony concerning the sheer number of Allen's confessions was overwhelming.
The pair came away with the feeling that Allen started confessing after his purported enlightenment because he believed repentance would give him a chance to go to Heaven and be reunited with his family in the afterlife.
However, when his family began shunning him on Earth for admitting his role in the murders, Allen's attempts at atonement were hastily abandoned, said Greenlee and Cain.
"The confessions went into not only why he committed the crime, but also why he was choosing to confess, and that's because he'd found Jesus, and this led him to be concerned about the status of his soul," said Greenlee, an attorney.
"He expressed being concerned that he wouldn't be able to go to Heaven but he was going to try, because he felt there was a good chance he would not be reunited with his family on Earth, but he could possibly be reunited with them in Heaven.
"And it was this realization that started him to go on this spree of confessing."
During his testimony, Harshman said Allen expressed fears that his family would no longer love him after the trial, particularly after seeing graphic photos of the girls' bodies.
He added that Allen's wife was "extremely upset" with Allen during his confession calls.
Allen's confessions lasted throughout 2023 and into 2024, per state testimony.
Cain said she found the timing of Allen ceasing to confess particularly interesting.
"The confessions apparently ended after he essentially said he wanted his wife and mother to tell him they'd still love him, even if he had done these things to these girls," explained Cain, an investigative journalist.
"So he wanted to present them with the information in his confessions, then get assurances they'd continue to be there, continue to love him, and continue to support him, and what the state's witness said was that Richard Allen's wife and mother's reactions were quite negative.
"The wife told him to stop talking, that she was going to call Brad [Rozzi, his defense attorney] and his mother told him they were messing with his mind.
"He would get hung up on and, at a certain point, his family stopped communicating with him, presumably because they did not want to hear what he had to say about these crimes.
"Eventually, he apparently told someone he felt he had to choose his family over God because his family was rejecting him. So he chose their emotional well-being over atonement."
Allen’s defense team, meanwhile, claims the confessions fall within the timeframe of Allen’s severe psychosis diagnosed by prison psychologists.
Dr. Monica Wala, the lead psychologist at Westville who had therapy sessions with Allen, testified that Allen's mental health began to deteriorate in April 2023, days after his first reported confession.
According to Wala, Allen started expressing suicidal thoughts and feelings of hopelessness.
Guards reported seeing Allen banging his head on the wall to the point that his face was severely bruised, Wala testified.
Allen was also reported to have consumed his own feces.
Wala further added that Allen's thoughts appeared disjointed, he claimed to be suffering from memory loss, and, during some sessions, he would tremble and his eyes would twitch.
Allen's attorneys pointed to Wala's testimony as evidence their client was in the throes of a mental health crisis when he confessed to killing Libby and Abby.
One of his lawyers, Bradley Rozzi, cited the conditions under which Allen was placed, saying it amounted to coercion by the state because the "actions of the state" drove Allen to make those statements.
Such actions included placing other inmates and guards outside his cell to record his statements, constantly videotaping his behavior and movements, and monitoring all of his texts and phone calls, said Rozzi.
In a typical case, if one side gets routed as much as Richard Allen's defense team got routed last week, I wouldn't even expect a trial. I would expect a plea deal to be worked out behind the scenes
Kevin Greenlee
Rozzi charged that the measures resulted in multiple violations of Allen’s civil rights, including his right to due process, his right to legal counsel, his right against self-incrimination, and cruel and unusual punishment.
Because he believes the confessions were essentially coerced, Rozzi wants the judge to suppress all the confessions during Allen's trial in October.
However, prosecutors argued that the confessions should be allowed to remain because there had been no attempts to force Allen into confession.
Stacey Diener, a member of the prosecution, said Allen's remarks were not made during "custodial interrogations" and he was "fully aware that his statements were unsolicited."
Further, Dr. Wala also expressed concerns that Allen may have been faking some of his psychotic symptoms.
Diener pointed to Wala's notes in which the doctor seemed to question whether Allen was purposefully behaving bizarrely.
Wala acknowledged there were times she was not certain whether Allen was legitimately going through a mental health crisis or feigning psychotic behavior.
Detective Harshman also testified that prison guards assigned to keep an eye on Allen when he was on suicide watch did not believe his symptoms were real.
"Yes, they believe he was faking," Harshman said.
Despite the defense's claims regarding Allen's mental state, at no time has a competency test been ordered by his attorneys or the judge to assess the severity or legitimacy of his reported psychosis.
When asked why, Cain said that's the "million dollar question" in this case.
"I would think in normal circumstances, where you have a vulnerable client who is suddenly behaving erratically and is making statements that you feel are not true but damaging to his case, one would think that a competency order would be one of the first things you would be looking into," she said.
"[But] a lot of people have serious questions about whether or not he's actually psychotic, and whether or not he's actually dealing with a condition that is prompting him to even have these outbursts. There has been a lot of talk about him possibly malingering.
"So, reading between the lines, I think there are questions about whether he even is psychotic, it's possible the defense didn't want to open that can of worms, but I still think it would've been helpful for them early on to say, 'there's a problem here', rather than leaving him to his own devices for months and months."
Greenlee believes Allen's attorneys' efforts to omit their client's confessions at trial are likely doomed to fail.
In their argument to the judge, Allen's team issued a blanket claim that every one of his confessions was the result of custodial interrogation and the "coercive" environment in which he was being held.
The issue, Greenlee says, is many of the confessions were made to his family, which makes it hard to prove they came as a result of "coercion on the part of the police."
"Frankly, I think it may have been more convincing if they were able to point to a specific confession or two and say, 'Well, the circumstances of this particular confession can be called into question because of this, let's take this one out and this one out.'
"I think the judge would've been receptive to dealing with these confessions on a case-by-case basis, but they decided to do it on a wholesale basis, which may have been a mistake."
Cain concurred, sharing she viewed the defense's request to throw out all of the confessions without specification as a desperate measure.
She said she believes Allen's confession calls to his family were him pushing to be heard, despite the fact his wife and mother "didn't want him to confess to them", rather than coerced statements.
"He wanted to be heard, and even when it comes to the prison staff, much like his family, he got a pretty similar reaction: that they didn't want him to confess to them," said Cain.
"He confessed to his psychologist who repeatedly admonished him for talking about the case instead of talking to his attorneys [...] she really didn't want to hear this. She wanted him to speak with his attorneys and not to random people in the prison.
"The former warden of the prison, John Gallup, also talked about how he received a letter from Allen, asking if he could come to see him so Allen could confess to him [...] but he didn't go to hear him confess because that's not the proper role of a warden.
"Although on several occasions, when the warden was making the rounds, Allen was apparently, essentially, yelling out of his cell saying what he did.
"So you have a situation where Allen is desperately trying to tell others what he says he did, but he isn't being heard.
"And that really undermines the argument that he's somehow being coerced here."
Cain and Greenlee said they have genuine concerns about whether or not Richard Allen even wants to go to trial, considering the evidence they heard last week.
Summarising their thoughts, Cain said: "I believe it's possible that he confessed a lot and then turned around and said, 'You know what? I still want my family to love me, so I will continue to profess my innocence to achieve that because that's the most important thing right now.'
"I think that's highly possible, but if there's any possibility this man has been dragged through this process because others want him to go through the process when he doesn't, that's an absolute travesty and his wishes are being violated.
"And given that his defense team has not filed anything about his competency, we have to imagine they believe him competent.
"So if he's competent, he should be allowed to say, 'Here's what I want to do' – and I sincerely hope his wishes are being heard and followed."
Allen's legal team has not yet responded to a request for comment.
They spoke at length in court about their client's innocence and their belief the murders of Abby and Libby were carried out by a group of local men with ties to the Norse pagan religion of Odinism in a ritual sacrifice.
To prove their sensational theory, defense attorney Andrew Baldwin called multiple witnesses, starting with Dawn Perlmutter, an author who identified herself as an expert in ritualistic crime scene investigations.
After reviewing a small sample of crime scene photos and other evidence in the case, Perlmutter told the court, "In my opinion, this was a textbook ritual murder.”
Perlmutter said the way the girls were killed, how their bodies were positioned, where they were found, and the symbolism present at the crime scene all point to Odinist killers.
When asked if she has any doubt that the girls were sacrificed as part of a ritual, she said, "None at all."
Richard Allen's attorneys first shared their Odinism defense in a bombshell 136-page filing in September last year.
In the document, Allen’s attorneys made a series of sensational claims and shared intimate alleged details about the crime scene for the first time – following years of silence from law enforcement.
In the filing, Allen’s team reaffirmed his claims of innocence and alleged that the girls were instead murdered by members of a pagan Norse religion, called Odinism, which in recent years has been increasingly infiltrated by white supremacists.
The attorneys claimed that two groups of Odinists, one from the Delphi area and one from the Rushville area in southeastern Indiana, were investigated for their involvement in the crimes.
Those alleged Odinists were identified in the documents as Johnny Messer, Brad Holder, Elvis Fields, Patrick Westfall, and Rod Abrams - none of whom has been publicly named as a suspect or charged with any crimes related to the murders.
Allen's attorneys claimed that various Odinist iconography was left at the crime scene, including runes made out of sticks and blood.
Across dozens of pages, the attorneys outlined Messer and co.'s alleged ties to Odinism and pointed to what they call glaring evidence linking the men to the murders, which they alleged was "recklessly ignored" by prosecutors during their pursuit of Allen.
When approached by The U.S. Sun to share his side of the story last year, Messer refused to comment on the specific allegations made by Allen's defense team but said he is considering legal action against them and spoke of the emotional toll their claims have had on him and his family.
"As much as I would like to defend my name, I respectfully decline to [speak] at this time," Messer said in a written statement.
"I am seeking legal action[.] This has turned my life upside down and has taken a huge toll on my family and mental health."
He added: "I just don’t want to say anything to jeopardize my legal action that I’m going to take."
Messer's sister, when contacted by The U.S. Sun, said she would "love" to speak and help clear her brother's name but she has been advised by legal counsel not to do so at this time.
Attempts to reach the other four men named in Allen's attorneys' filing were unsuccessful.
In their memorandum, Allen's legal team called the links between the Delphi murders and Odinism "confounding."
They alleged that Holder's son was dating Abby at the time of her death and that Holder posted a series of "Easter eggs" to Facebook in the aftermath - including apparent images of runes and other photos mirroring elements of the crime scene - which they claim were uploaded to taunt police about his alleged involvement.
Allen's attorneys claim that investigators failed to vigorously pursue the "obvious links" between the crime scene and Odinism.
Prosecutors, meanwhile, say Allen's team lacks concrete evidence linking any of the men to the crime scene.
Prosecutor McLeland pushed back on Perlmutter's claims, highlighting that she shared the same opinion about the Delphi murders on Court TV last year, even before she reviewed any actual crime scene evidence.
McLeland further pressed, without stating exactly what Allen said in his purported confessions, what Perlmutter's response would be if she learned the defendant “said that the intent was a sexual assault,” and “said that the branches were there to cover the girls’ bodies,” not an example of symbolic runes.
The defense called upon Kevin Murphy, a retired Indiana State Police officer, who worked on the case for two years, who said he believes there's an "undeniable link" between the Delphi murders and an Odinist cult operating in the nearby town of Rushville.
Murphy said investigators believed two to six people were involved in the murders, and he was tasked with focusing on one of the alleged cult members, Elvis Fields.
Murphy told the court Fields' sister gave "very specific" information that only someone at the crime scene would know.
The sister confronted Fields in a recorded phone call, asking, "Elvis, why did you kill those girls?"
Fields denied the accusations to police, but Murphy said he asked them if he would get in trouble if his spit was found on the girls' bodies.
Another suspected Odinist accused by the defense is Brad Holder, the father of Abby's boyfriend.
His ex-wife Amber Holder testified that Holder told her a third alleged cultist, Patrick Westfall, confessed to killing Abby - but said Holder was drunk when he relayed the story to her.
She claimed Holder told her "to keep my mouth shut and if I didn't, they'd kill me."
[Allen] wanted to be heard, and even when it comes to the prison staff, much like his family, he got a pretty similar reaction: that they didn't want him to confess to them
Áine Cain
Allen's attorneys have not been able to place any of the alleged Odinists at the center of the defense in the area where Libby and Abby were killed on February 13, 2017.
Prosecutors have asked Judge Fran Gull to throw out all testimony regarding Odinism, because they say the defense lacks evidence to support their claims and the testimony will confuse the jury.
While the motion is yet to be ruled on, Cain and Greenlee believe last week's hearing was the "death knell" of the Odninist theory.
The couple suspects the judge will either forbid all mentioning of Odinism or only allow the defense to reference it within very limited confines.
Should that be the case, Allen will likely be forced into taking a plea deal, they surmised.
"When it comes to the Delphi, expect the unexpected because it's a fool's game to make predictions in this case," said Greenlee.
"But in a typical case, if one side gets routed as much as Richard Allen's defense team got routed last week, I wouldn't even expect a trial. I would expect a plea deal to be worked out behind the scenes.
"The defense really had their hats handed to them last week, and it's difficult to imagine a path to victory for them."
Cain added, "Their hats weren't just handed to them, they were stomped on the ground in mud and then handed to them.
"It was honestly embarrassing. I'm shocked by the lack of a defense they've provided for their client up until now.
"I agree with Kevin, in a normal case, these attorneys would be sitting down and figuring out a plea deal in this case [...] because, as it stands, the defense has a mountain to climb."
Perhaps the most graphic emotional testimony from Allen's three-day hearing came from Patrick Cicero, a blood specialist and forensics expert from the LaPorte County Sheriff's Office.
Cicero was asked by prosecutors to review crime scene photos, autopsy reports, diagrams of the Delphi crime scene, and clothing worn by the victims.
Contrary to Perlmutter's testimony, Cicero said blood splatter found on a nearby tree was not an Odinistic symbol but rather a "transfer stain", likely from one of the girls' hands.
Cicero's descriptions of the crime scene and the conditions of the girls’ bodies upon discovery the day after they disappeared reduced members of the victims' families to tears.
One retired detective grew emotional on the stand as he viewed a photograph of the crime scene and said, “There’s sticks on Abby,” and, “It sucks.”
Richard Allen was arrested in October 2022 after an unspent .40 caliber round discovered at the crime scene was allegedly determined to have been cycled through a handgun he owns.
In various interviews with police, Allen admitted to being in the vicinity of the murders on the day Libby and Abby were killed and described wearing almost identical clothing to a man captured by Libby on video moments before their deaths, ordering the girls to go "down the hill."
Very little evidence has been shared by investigators since 2017.
Much of the prosecution's evidence remains under seal and a strict gag order has been put in place by a judge, preventing families, officials, and attorneys from sharing what they know with the media.
Last week's hearing ended in a win for Richard Allen.
After 19 months in maximum security state prisons, he will now be detained in a county jail, per his wishes.
The move was approved by Judge Gull on Thursday night, and Allen was seen smiling as he left the courtroom.
His family was absent for the announcement, having left earlier to avoid Cicero's graphic blood splatter testimony, Greenlee and Cain said.
Allen's murder trial is slated to begin in Carroll County on October 14.
The trial is expected to last for four weeks.
