After nearly eight years of waiting, the Delphi murders trial will begin Friday. However, there are still a few legal headaches to work through.
The full jury was sworn-in Thursday morning and are now on their way to Carroll County from Allen County. The jury is comprised of eight woman and four men. There are two men and two women acting as alternates, just in case.
After that process was wrapped up, Special Judge Fran Gull turned her attention to a few court motions still undecided.
Suspect Richard Allen’s attorneys decided to withdraw their motion to have the full jury visit the crime scene area. Carroll County Prosecutor Nick McLeland argued against the motion, as expected, and said the area has changed, it’s dangerous to traverse, and it would not hold any relevance to the case of Allen’s guilt or innocence.
The defense team did get their way Wednesday as a motion to enter in the court record evidence of Odinism and third-party suspects was allowed, but that’s just for the record and not for the jury to hear throughout the trial.
Prosecutor McLeland also filed a motion to have the original suspect sketches kept out of the trial. He claims they will mislead or confuse the jury, and that the individuals involved in the creation of those sketches won’t be testifying any ways.
Judge Gull said Thursday she will make her ruling on that motion during opening statements Friday morning.
Richard Allen is charged with four counts of murder for the 2017 killings of Abigail Williams and Liberty German. The State plans to use Allen’s prison “confessions” and the unspent round found near the bodies as the main piece of evidence against Allen. The defense plans to question the timeline, call into question the credibility of that unspent round and the confessions, and also claimed this week that strands of hair found in the hand of Abigail Williams does not match Allen’s.
Trial will conclude November 15th.
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