DELPHI, Ind. (AP) — Jurors heard opening statements Friday in the trial of a man accused of murder two teenage girls Terrible deaths occurred in a small community in Indiana Unsolved for five years before investigators arrested a pharmacy employee who lived in the same city.

Prosecutor Nicholas McLeland told jurors they would see photos of the crime scene: a rugged wooded area near the Monon High Bridge Trail in Carroll County. He said 13-year-old Abigail Williams and 14-year-old Liberty German had their throats slit.

Richard Allen, 52, who lived and worked in Delphi, population 3,000, is charged with two counts of murder and two additional counts of murder in the commission or attempt to commit kidnapping. If convicted, he could face up to 130 years in prison.

McLeland said incriminating statements from Allen would be part of the evidence against him.

The jury was selected this week in Fort Wayne, nearly 100 miles away, and brought to Carroll County. They are being held for a trial that could last a month, are not allowed to watch the news and have limited use of their phones to call relatives under the supervision of bailiffs.

When it was his turn, defense attorney Andrew Baldwin told the jury that there were many reasonable doubts about the case against Allen. He asked questions about hair marks and said he believed the girls may have gotten into a vehicle at some point.

The case has attracted a lot of attention from true crime lovers. There have been repeated delays, some related to the disclosure of evidence Withdrawal of Allen's public defenders and theirs Reinstatement by the Indiana Supreme Court. It's that too Subject to a silence order.

Judge Fran Gull bans news media from reporting directly from the courtroom using electronic devices.

The teenagers, known as Abby and Libby, were found dead on February 14, 2017. They went missing the day before while hiking this trail outside their hometown. Within days the police were fired Files found on Libby's phone They believed they had captured the killer's image and voice – two grainy photos and audio recordings of a man saying “down the hill.”

Investigators also released a sketch of a suspect in July 2017 and another in April 2019. They also released a short video showing a suspect walking on an abandoned railroad bridge called the Monon High Bridge. After more years passed without a suspect being identified, investigators said they went back and reviewed “earlier leads.”

Investigators discovered that Allen had been interviewed in 2017. He told an officer he was on the trail the day Abby and Libby went missing and saw three “women” at a bridge called the Freedom Bridge but did not speak to them, an affidavit states.

Allen told the officer that as he walked from that bridge to the Monon High Bridge, he didn't see anyone but was distracted and “watching a stock ticker on his cell phone as he walked.”

Police questioned Allen again on October 13, 2022, when he said he saw three “juvenile girls” during his walk in 2017. Investigators searched Allen's home and seized a .40-caliber handgun. Prosecutors said tests showed that an unspent bullet found between Abby and Libby's bodies “passed through Allen's gun.”

According to the affidavit, Allen said he had never been at the crime scene and “had no explanation as to why a bullet that passed through his gun would be at that location.”

The judge has ruled that prosecutors can present evidence of dozens of statements Allen made to correctional officers, inmates, law enforcement and relatives. That evidence includes a recording of a telephone conversation between Allen and his wife in which, prosecutors say, he confesses to the murders.

Allen's defense attorneys tried to argue that the girls were killed in a ritual sacrifice by members of a pagan Nordic religion and a white nationalist group known as the Odinists.