Richard Allen’s Tip Sat in a Drawer for Five Years Because of One Word

For two years, every billboard in Indiana carried the Delphi investigation’s composite sketch of the man police said killed Abby Williams and Libby German. Millions studied the face. Tens of thousands called in tips.

In April 2019, the state police superintendent walked to a podium and told the public to forget that face. He released a new sketch — a different person, a different age range, a completely different look. The first sketch was wrong. Two years of looking for the wrong person.

That was not the only thing the investigation lost. Three days after the February 2017 murders, a man named Richard Allen walked up to a conservation officer and said he had been on the Monon High Bridge trail that afternoon. The tip was written down, entered into the system, and marked with one word in red ink by a person no one has ever identified. Cleared.

The form went into a desk drawer. It stayed there for five years while the investigation chased more than forty-two thousand other tips. Allen was the only person who placed himself on that bridge at the time two girls were killed. His name was in the system from the beginning.

The FBI served a search warrant on the property owner where the girls were found, stating there was probable cause he committed the murders. The warrant was sealed. No charges were filed. The man died in 2022.

And the earliest interviews with persons of interest were erased when the Delphi police station’s recording system overwrote itself. Nobody was re-interviewed.

A retired volunteer working for free found Allen’s tip in 2022. The investigation’s own evidence was sitting in a drawer the entire time.

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This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.

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