Jury selection underway in the trial of a man accused of killing 2 teen girls in 2017
- by Associated Press
- Oct 14, 2024
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Decorated stones bearing the names of Abigail Williams and Liberty German, who were killed in February 2017, are placed at a memorial along the Monon High Bridge Trail in Delphi, Ind., Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
. The Delphi killings remain the subject of rampant speculation and theories by true-crime enthusiasts.
Allen County Superior Court Judge Fran Gull, who is overseeing the case, issued a gag order at prosecutors’ request
in December 2022, two months after Allen’s arrest. It bars attorneys, law enforcement officials, court personnel, the coroner and the girls’ relatives from commenting on the case, including on social media.
Gull has banned cameras from the courtroom during Allen’s trial.
In August this year, she ruled prosecutors can present evidence of dozens of incriminating statements they say Allen made in conversations with correctional officers, inmates, law enforcement and relatives. That evidence includes a recording of a telephone call between Allen and his wife in which, prosecutors say, he confesses to the killings
. The judge’s ruling was “a real blow to the defense,” said Hal Johnston, an adjunct criminal law professor at Indiana University who is not involved in the case.
“The incriminating statements are going to be extremely persuasive because that’s what the jury wants to hear,” Johnston said.
Allen’s attorneys had hoped to present evidence the girls were killed in a ritual sacrifice
by members of a pagan Norse religion and white nationalist group, but Gull ruled against that, saying the defense furnished no “admissible evidence” of such a connection.
She also blocked Allen’s attorneys from arguing the killings may have been committed by others, including the late owner of the property where the teens’ bodies were found.
Prosecutors have not disclosed how Abby and Libby were killed. But a court filing by Allen’s attorneys in support of their ritual sacrifice theory states their throats had been cut.
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