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Delphi murder trial continues with more information on white van

Pabio November 5, 2024

Defense lawyers at Richard Allen’s murder trial at Delphi continued to argue their case Monday at the Carroll County Courthouse.

Allen, 52, is accused of murdering two teenagers who went missing on February 13, 2017 and were found dead the next day. He was arrested in 2022 and faces two counts of murder and two counts of murder during a kidnapping in connection with the death of Abigail “Abby” Williams and German Liberty “Libby”.

Journalists from Indianapolis Star and the Lafayette Journal & Courier continue to cover the case as it moves through the court system.

The latest courtroom confrontation between Allen’s defense attorney, Andrew Baldwin, and Brad Weber, who owns property near the site where the girls were found dead, ended with Weber yelling at Baldwin following a series of questions about what he did after his shift on February 1. 13, 2017.

“I was upset because you were trying to tell me what I did… when I was leaving work,” Weber said in response to Baldwin’s first question Monday afternoon asking him to explain his outburst .

Baldwin drew jurors’ attention to a discrepancy in what Weber said to various police officers after his morning shift Feb. 13 at the Subaru plant in Lafayette.

On Feb. 19, Baldwin said, Weber told police he had quit his job and performed routine work on some of the approximately 35 ATMs he owned in central Indiana.

Two days earlier, on February 17, Weber told police what he said in court and what the prosecution thought he did. On Feb. 13, Weber said, he worked from 5:41 a.m. to 2:02 p.m. at the Subaru plant. He drove his white van to work, which was unusual and only happened because he was hauling a trailer. He then went straight home and arrived around 2:30 p.m., using a private driveway that passes under the far east side of the Monon High Bridge over Deer Creek.

When Weber got home, he said, he took a nap. He woke up around 5 p.m. when he heard a knock on his door. Once he responded, a deputy with the Carroll County Sheriff’s Office told him two girls were missing and asked him to search Weber’s property. The officer did not look inside Weber’s home or three outbuildings that evening, but officers searched the interior of all four sites in the following days, prosecutor Nick McLeland noted during of his cross-examination.

“I was stopped on (County Road) 625,” Weber said of an encounter with police on the private driveway leading to his house, “and they searched my car and my house and took me take a lie detector test.”

Baldwin attempted to establish that Weber’s ATMs would have needed repair because Weber was on a trip to Arizona the previous week and returned on February 12, the day before the girls disappeared.

But Weber maintained he was wrong during the Feb. 19 police interrogation.

“On the day in question,” Weber said of Feb. 13, “when I got off work, I went straight home.”

Jurors wanted to know more about how Weber clocked in for his shift at Subaru and his usual routine for maintaining the ATMs, of which he now has about 15. Weber said he clocked in with a badge that unlocked a turnstile and allowed him to pass. He said he would have used County Road 625 to get home that day.

“Do you usually go home before servicing your ATMs?” » asked a juror.

“Usually… no,” Weber replied.

Weber told Baldwin that he typically would not have driven his pickup truck to service the ATMs, but rather his black Subaru.

During a spring 2023 conversation with his psychologist Monica Wala, Allen claimed to have seen the white van drive under the overpass after accosting Abby and Libby. Frightened by her presence, Allen told Wala that he had abandoned his plan to sexually assault the girls. Then, prosecutors say, he killed them by slitting their throats.

Jurors heard from Allen’s sister and daughter, each of whom testified briefly that neither of them had ever been molested by Allen. While Allen was at the Westville Correctional Center, he confessed to assaulting his sister and touching his daughter. The testimony appears to be an attempt by the defense to establish that Allen confessed to things that never happened because he was in the midst of a mental health crisis.

“Has Rick ever touched you in a sexual way?” defense attorney Jennifer Auger asked Jamie Jones, Allen’s older sister.

“No, he didn’t,” Jones replied.

“Do you love your brother?” » asked Auger.

“Yes,” Jones replied.

“Do you want to lie for him?” » asked Auger.

“No,” Jones said.

Brittany Zapanta, Allen’s daughter and his wife, Kathy Allen, was asked the same questions and gave the same answers. During her testimony, Zapanta appeared to be trying to hold back tears as she stared at the ceiling, her hands pressed together.

Jurors also briefly heard from two other witnesses, including Steve Mullin, an investigator with the Carroll County Prosecutor’s Office, who was again called to testify.

During a difficult exchange, defense attorney Andrew Baldwin questioned Mullin, who was Delphi police chief when the girls were killed, about an apparent discrepancy in his testimony about whether he had drawn up a list of people whose interviews had disappeared.

“We’ve been trying to list the names of people whose interviews have gone missing,” Mullin said.

Baldwin, raising his voice, said this contradicted Mullin’s earlier testimony. Baldwin also later questioned whether Mullin was aware of the “dozens” of social media posts mentioning a white van, implying that Dr. Monica Wala, Allen’s therapist in Westville, could have seen those posts and talking to Allen during one of their sessions.

“It would be important to know if she could give him information about a van, wouldn’t it?”

The existence of a white van was a crucial point for the state. According to previous testimony, Allen confessed to Wala that he had kidnapped the girls and planned to rape them, but he was startled by a white van driving nearby. Brad Weber, who lives near the trail, testified that he returned home around 2:30 p.m. on Feb. 13, 2017 — around the time the girls were allegedly forced into the woods — in his white pickup truck.

During cross-examination, Carroll County Prosecutor Nicholas McLeland asked Mullin if Allen’s confession to Wala was the first time the investigator had heard of the white van.

“That’s right,” Mullin said.

Jurors got a glimpse of Allen’s life in his cell at the Westville Correctional Center.

Condensed videos taken on April 12, 2023 and May 25, 2023 were shown to jurors over the State’s objection. One juror frequently looked away from the screen as a video from April 12, 2023, played. Others took notes.

As the videos played, Max Baker, who works for defense attorney Bradley Rozzi and compiled the videos, testified. During cross-examination, Carroll County Prosecutor Nicholas McLeland asked Baker if he cherry-picked the worst videos to imply that Allen was a victim.

Baker acknowledged that Allen was not a victim in this case and said he chose videos that would show aspects of Allen’s life in prison. These included eating his feces and banging his head against the wall.

Regarding the redirected portion of Baker’s testimony, Rozzi asked:

“Did you choose these videos to show the jury the truth?”

“Yes,” Baker replied.

One of the jurors asked Baker if defense attorneys had asked him to compile the worst videos. Baker said he had discretion over which videos to choose.

Dr. Polly Westcotta Carmel-based neuropsychologist, testified Monday that Allen did not fake or exaggerate his bizarre behavior while he was in the hospital. Westville Correctional Facility. Instead, Westcott told jurors, the prolonged isolation and lack of meaningful contact with his wife exacerbated his mental illness.

Allen arrived at Westville Correctional Center with depression and anxiety, Westcott said. He also has a dependent personality disordera mental health problem that involves an excessive need be cared for by others. Westcott said that after months of isolation and distance from his wife, on whom he depends most, his depression became much more pronounced and escalated into psychosis.

Westcott said she watched all of Allen’s prison videos, listened to his calls from prison, met separately with him and his wife and reviewed suicide diary notes. She also said tests she performed on Allen showed he was not faking symptoms, contradicting the testimony of Dr. Monica Wala, Allen’s therapist in Westville.

wala had testified earlier about Allen’s history of depression and anxiety. She also said he showed signs of dependent personality disorder, but she also said she believed Allen was pretending his strange behavior. This involved eating his feces and flushing a Bible down the toilet.

The defense noted during Westcott’s testimony that, unlike Wala, she had conducted objective tests on Allen.

During cross-examination last week by defense attorney Bradley Rozzi, Wala acknowledged that she followed Allen’s case with interest in her free time, even while treating him, a fact she mentioned to his superiors. But Wala, a true crime fan, also said she follows other cases and is able to separate her personal curiosity from her treatment of Allen.

Westcott, who also reviewed Wala’s reports of his sessions with Allen, noted that Wala’s notes were written in a story-telling manner, with a beginning, middle, and end. This, Westcott told jurors, is inconsistent with Allen’s actual behaviors during sessions with Wala, videos of which Westcott said he reviewed.

Westcott was called not only to contradict Wala’s testimony, but also to establish that Allen’s dozens of confessions were made in the midst of a mental health crisis. Allen made more than 60 incriminating statements to Wala, the warden, inmates and guards monitoring him while he was on suicide watch, and in several calls with his wife and mother.

During cross-examination, Stacey Diener asked whether Allen’s dependent personality syndrome could cause him to transfer his attachment to someone else if his wife was not around. Diener noted that at one point, Allen begged Wala not to leave him and told him, “You’re like my wife.”

Westcott said this did not mean Allen transferred his attachment to Wala, although he considered her a confidante. Westcott also said that what a person sees while experiencing psychosis is not consistent with the world around them, although she acknowledged that she can still make accurate statements.