Abigail Williams

BRIDGE GUY, A BULLET AND THE BRUTAL MURDER OF TWO GIRLS.

Nick McLeland said the case against Richard Allen was about these three things – he wasn't wrong.

Allen is charged with four counts of aggravated homicide in connection with the deaths of Abby Williams and Libby German. The Carroll County teens took advantage of a day off from school to explore the Monon High Bridge Trail…they never made it home.

The state of Indiana presented 116 exhibits Monday, including graphic crime scene photos of the girls taken on Feb. 13, 2017, by ISP CSIs Jason Page, Duane Datzman and Brian Olehy.

First on site

Carroll County Sheriff's deputies Darron Giancola and Drew Yoder were the first officers on scene. The jury heard from Giancola on the first Monday.

He told jurors he had a day off on February 13, 2017. At 10 p.m. that evening he heard the news of two missing girls.

Libby German

“I came to help,” he said.

Giancola was tasked with looking into an iPad that belonged to one of the girls. When the lock screen denied access, he drove to the Monon High Bridge Trail to help search.

“I teamed up with civilians and firefighters. We looked south of the bridge and drew a line from the creek to (a private driveway that runs under the High Bridge),” he said. The group pushed north until about midnight.

During the search, Giancola said he noticed something.

“As I passed under the bridge along a large stretch of limestone and cinder brick, I saw a flood of leaves going downhill, revealing the bare ground,” he said. “It was strange.”

The bare ground was in the area described as the area where the girls went “down the hill” after being instructed to do so by a man recorded by Libby on the bridge.

When search team members discovered what they believed to be a shirt and a Nike shoe in the water on the north side of Deer Creek, Giancola and Yoder were called to investigate. As they drove down the hill, they passed a woman coming up the hill who was “extremely upset,” Giancola said.

Richard Allen

As Carroll County Prosecutor Nick McLeland began showing photos of the area's topography as well as photos of clothing found in the creek, Allen began rocking back and forth in his chair next to defense attorney Andrew Baldwin.

“After you saw the clothes, what did you do?” asked McLeland.

“One of the searchers said they thought they had found the girls’ bodies,” Giancola said emotionally. “I could see something whitish. It was the body of the deceased girl. One was naked and one was clothed. Both had large cuts on their throats and blood on and underneath their bodies.”

Giancola said he did not take life-saving measures.

“It was obvious they were deceased,” he said, estimating he was about 10 yards away from Abby and Libby.

Giancola said he and Yoder secured the crime scene and “within moments, ISP troopers showed up.”

“GROUND ZERO”

When Olehy arrived at Morning Heights Cemetery on County Road 300 North on Feb. 14, 2017, he had been told the girls had not died as a result of exposure.

“I received a call from the (Carroll County Sheriff's Office) about two missing girls that were found dead and (the department) needed assistance at the scene,” he said. Because there were two victims, Olehy said he knew it was “more than just a simple crime scene.”

“(The officer) said the two (girls) appeared to have been murdered; that they did not die from exposure,” he said. “They had been out all night.” The officer told Olehy that they “most likely suspected murder.”

As Olehy walked down the hill, he asked officers to mark the crime scene “very big and wide.”

Investigators referred to the space 20-30 feet around Abby and Libby as “ground zero.” Another area was marked 10-15 feet outside of Ground Zero. Only CSIs were allowed within these zones. The crime scene cordon was expanded to “approximately the size of a football field” to help secure any evidence that may be found.

FBI ERT

The FBI's Evidence Response Team (ERT) collected the evidence found at Deer Creek, Olehy said. The items were monitored by the Tippecanoe County Sheriff's Office Dive Team.

The ERT collected several items of clothing believed to belong to the girls. These items include a gray zip-up hoodie that Abby borrowed from Kelsi (German) Siebert, Libby's sister, and a tie-dye T-shirt that Libby wore in a photo taken of her and Abby in Kelsi's car on the way to the trails showed on February 13, 2017, a black girl's camisole, a pair of size 28 girls' jeans, a pink no-show sock, a dark blue or black no-show sock, a left Nike shoe and a white bandana or Handkerchief. The gray hoodie was completely submerged in the water.

MAGIC BALL

During cross-examination, the defense continually asked questions about whether law enforcement carried their weapon to the crime scene. Of those who did, all reported that their handguns used 9mm or 45mm ammunition.

A .40 caliber Smith and Wesson bullet was found by investigators near Libby's ankle while using a blue alternative light source (ALS). Two of the investigators wore orange goggles to check for fluid on the bodies. Page said he did not recall finding any evidence from the bodies of Abby or Libby that he considered important to the case.

While searching for clues, Datzman noticed something on the forest floor.

“I kept seeing glitter in the leaves,” he said, noting the reflection of the ALS on a ball in the ground beneath leaves. He wiped away the leaves with “very light pressure.” “Under these sheets we found a .40 caliber cartridge.”

In the crime scene photos, the intact cartridge can be seen diagonally, nose down, in the dirt.

The defense pressed witnesses on the integrity of the bullet's collection, noting that they photographed it in the ground and in the laboratory but did not document the actual collection of the evidence.

TOPOGRAPHY

Another point of contention was the topography of the area and how steep it is. The defense argues that the girls were removed from the area around 5:30 p.m. on February 13, 2017 and returned to the area shortly after 4:30 a.m. The state alleges the girls were at the scene sometime after 2:13 p.m. When Libby recorded a video of a man instructing her to go “down the hill” around 12:15 p.m. on Tuesday, February 14, 2017 , they were found.

Several exhibits showed the “steep” hills, ravines and floodplain areas. Olehy described it as not one, but two steep descents to get to where the girls were found.

A gasp

When showing the crime scene photos, the state experienced a technical problem that caused the slides to advance quickly. The images ranged from a withdrawn photo of the girls to a close-up of Abby's face and wound. When the photo was shown, gasps could be heard throughout the courtroom.

The images of the girls showed the trauma they experienced on the day they were murdered. Abby was wearing Libby's jeans and a Delphi Swimming sweatshirt with “German” written on the back. She was wearing her own shoes and there appeared to be “mud” on her shoes, clothing and sweatshirt, Olehy said. There was a pool of blood between the girls just behind their feet. Hey, both suffered injuries to their necks, but no other injuries were noted as of Monday.

Olehy said Abby's clothes were wet. “There was a streak of wetness (on the clothing), the waistband (of the pants) was wet,” he said. He also noticed wetness in the sweatshirt.

Olehy said both girls had dirt on the soles of their feet. “Most likely her shoes were taken off at some point,” he said of Abby’s Converse shoes.

Sticks were placed over the girls' bodies but were not removed from the crime scene as evidence until the first week of March, Datzman said: “I didn't see any blood or anything on (the sticks). “Some were very rough and crumbly. They had moss on them.

“In all our experience, we have never gotten DNA from anything like this. In my opinion they had no probative value.”

AUTOPSY EVIDENCE

Olehy attended Abby and Libby's autopsy in Terre Haute. He said his job at the autopsy was to observe and collect additional evidence. There were “oddities” in this case, he said.

He and Brandon Mullen, ISP CSI in Puttamville, collected and preserved the evidence.

The look forward

As the clock ticked past 5:30 p.m. on an emotionally charged day of evidence and testimony, special judge Fran Gull called a recess until Tuesday morning. The state will continue its investigation into Olehy. At the end of Monday, Luttrell said he wanted to present the evidence collected at the crime scene.

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