← 13th Juror Podcast
13th Juror Podcast
Beyond the Jury Box: Richard Allen w/ Bob Motta
01:14:48
The verdict may be final, but the unanswered questions are not. Brandi and Bob Motta (Defense Diaries) revisit the Delphi case through the lens of what jurors were barred from hearing, especially the third-party culprit evidence and the Odinism defense that never reached the trial. Decide for yourself what’s compelling… and what’s troubling.
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Transcript70 lines
- [00:00]
A
Hi, everyone. I'm investigative journalist and park enthusiast Delia d'. Ambra. And every week on my podcast, Park Predators, I take you into the heart of our world's most stunning locations to uncover what sinister crimes have unfolded in these serene settings. From unsolved murders to chilling disappearances. Each Tuesday, we dive deep into the details of cases that will leave you knowing sometimes the most beautiful places hide the darkest secrets. Listen to Park Predators now. Wherever you listen to podcasts.
- [00:35]
B
Last week you heard the defense's case. And although compelling, it wasn't enough to convince 12 jurors to find Richard Allen not guilty. Today, we're going outside the jury box to unpack some of the things that the jurors didn't get to hear in the courtroom, like discrepancies in the sketches, pagan rituals, and suspicious individuals connected to the girls. The prosecution says it's justice served. The defense says it's at the expense of an innocent man. But it's the jurors who have the final say. This is the 13th juror podcast where we break down real court cases and put you in the juror's seat. Two sides, the same evidence. You decide what to believe. I'm your host, Brandy Churchwell. Today's episode is Indiana versus Richard Allen, Part three, Beyond the jury box.
- [01:58]
C
Hi, everyone. I'm Ashley Flowers, creator and host of Crime Junkie, the go to crime podcast for the biggest cases and the stories you won't hear anywhere else. So whether on your commute, studying, or while you work, let us keep you company with new episodes every Monday. It is truly a crime junkie's dream. So join me, my best friend Britt, and our entire Crime Junkie community right now by catching up on hundreds of episodes and by listening to a new case every Monday on Crime Junkie, available wherever you listen to podcasts.
- [02:34]
B
Joining us in the conversation today is criminal defense attorney and host of the podcast Buried Inside the John Wayne Gacy Investigation, Bob Mata. Bob is no stranger to true crime. In fact, it's practically in his DNA. His father, also a defense attorney, represented serial killer John Wayne Gacy at trial. Bob's upbringing eventually inspired him to follow in his father's footsteps and become a lawyer himself. He has practiced for over two decades. In 2022, Bob began following the Delphi case closely and was actually inside the courtroom every day during trial. So let's dive in and see what he has to say. Welcome, Bob.
- [03:13]
D
Hey, Brandi.
- [03:14]
B
Hi.
- [03:15]
D
It's awesome to see you.
- [03:17]
B
It's awesome to see you. I'm so Glad to have you here. I knew that when we started talking about this case, I knew that I wanted to talk to you because there are few people in the world who know as much about this case as you do. So I appreciate you coming in and hanging out with me for a little bit, because I have a lot of questions for you.
- [03:33]
D
My pleasure. My pleasure.
- [03:34]
B
Okay, so first of all, tell our listeners how you got involved in this case.
- [03:39]
D
So initially, when the homicides happened in 2017, we live in the Chicagoland area, so we're about two, two and a half hours away from Delphi. So we were getting some coverage over in Illinois about the case, and obviously, two little beautiful girls had been killed. So it was one of those cases which quickly kind of caught fire in terms of national media, especially when the recordings and the short video of the bridge guy came to be out in the public. But I wasn't really covering it at all because I wasn't really a content creator at that time. I was still practicing law at that point. And then shortly after, I started the Defense Diaries podcast in October, when the arrest is made and the PCA doesn't come out in terms of they seal it, I'm like, that's weird. So, like, that. That first thing that kind of really got me interested in wanting to cover the case was the fact that the PCA was sealed, the PCA being the probable cause affidavit. That's unusual. That's, you know, part of what makes our criminal justice system great in this country is the transparency. The public has a right. These are public trials. We are supposed to keep our, you know, our government on a short leash. We want to know what they're doing in the courtroom. So right there, they kind of put up, like, a little bit of a red flag. And then I end up hearing that Judge Der, who was the original judge who had issued the arrest warrant, was recusing himself from the case, and he had made this weird statement that the bloodlust surrounding the case was just too much for him to be involved with it. So those two things really kind of, like, had me thinking, like, what. What's the deal with this. This particular case? There were no cameras in the courtroom. So that was the thing in terms of. And I felt that it was important to try to get this thing out to the public. And so I was a boots on the ground cover guy for that entire thing. So that's really how I got involved.
- [05:42]
B
So the no cameras in the courtroom thing has been one of those issues that has, I think, kept so much speculation around this case going. I want to talk to you a little bit about that, because criminal defense attorney yourself for so long and now covering these cases, you know as well as I do that's kind of a big part of it, having light shed on what's happening. So talk to me a little bit about how that worked with the rulings from the judge about keeping it out and how all of that played out.
- [06:12]
D
Yeah, I, I felt that ultimately, because it was a case that. And I know that we're going to start talking about, know the Franks memo at some point, but when that particular document dropped and it was made public and people started kind of digging into it, and much like the Karen Reed case, where you had this divide between people that felt that she was guilty and you had people that felt that she was innocent and it was based or not guilty and she was. That was strictly based on the filings, those two cases, both Karen Reed and this had this unusual thing happen, which is where the defense is putting out their entire theory of defense ahead of trial. Typically, in things that we watch and cover, you don't hear about the defense that they're going to employ at trial, because frankly, that's the one thing that defense attorneys can kind of like hide up their sleeve and has, you know, and, and only tell the state what their theory of defense is going to be at trial. So when you had that happen and you saw divide happen, at that point, I was really hoping that there would be cameras in the courtroom because as you said, that's the disinfectant. You know, I mean, we want to try. Sunlight is always going to disinfect everything. And we want to, to try these cases in the public, because then you're left with people having to go through, you know, other people to relay information. And if you've got people on both sides, they're going to start attacking the people that are relaying the information, saying that you're not being truthful about it. And, you know, for me, my coverage was read all the filings from both the state and the defense and ultimately go to all the hearings and do the best that I could to relay from my notes what happened in court that day. So, you know, for me, it was a thing where I really was pretty upset because the thing that really set me off is, and I know we're going to talk about this too, is, is when she removed or when the attorneys, Richard Allen's attorneys, withdrew from the case. And I'm using finger quotes for those listening on audio that was the one time that she approved cameras in the courtroom.
- [08:27]
B
Right.
- [08:28]
D
So we knew they, they have the availability to do it in Indiana. It's, it's allowed. And she decided to do it on that one day and that one day alone, which to me spoke volumes about how she was running that case. But I, I just think if, if we would have had cameras in there especially for the trial, that that would have really helped shed light on this case. Because otherwise you have to do what you did, which is read the transcripts to figure out what happened in that courtroom. And that's not just for trial, that's for all the pre trial hearings. So you know, what she ruled on and how she ruled because that's what dictates what's going to come into evidence at trial. So for me, the loss of not having the cameras in there created a nightmare scenario surrounding this case, to be honest with.
- [09:16]
B
And I want to bring something up too that you just mentioned. There's a big difference in what the public is allowed to see and what the jury is allowed to see. And going through the first two episodes that we did on this case was everything was straight from the transcripts, so everything that the jury got to hear from the prosecution's side and everything they got to hear from the defense's side. But there's a huge, huge case that the jury never got to hear. And I want to kind of go through some of that. I want to start with Keegan Klein slash Anthony Schatz. Can you talk about who that is?
- [09:52]
D
Yeah. So Keegan Klein was a guy that, and he's, I think he's in his, probably in his late 20s, maybe early 30s now. But he had created this social media profile under the kind of the moniker or the screen name of Anthony Shots. And he was using that in order to really try to groom underage girls is what he was using it for, frankly. I mean, there's no other way to put it. And just so you have an understanding, Anthony Schatz. So he had stolen a picture from, you know, a male, young male model, real good looking guy. You know, obviously the kind of guy that's going to like, girls are flipping through, they're gonna be like, oh, well, this guy's pretty hot. Like I'm gonna chat with this guy. So he goes about using this profile to communicate with all kinds of underage girls. So In February of 2017, like a couple of weeks after the, the homicides took place, they end up doing a raid of, of Kagan Klein's house and they effectuated a search warrant at his place in Peru, Indiana. And it's during that interview where he essentially admits that he was behind the, the Anthony Shots account. All right. And when you see what Kagan Klein looks like, I mean, he's, he's pretty overweight. I'd say he's somewhere in the 350 to 400 pound range. He's a. He's a very big guy. So in terms of whether or not it was him out at the bridge, you know, you had to question whether or not he would have been physically capable of it. So ultimately they, they, as part of that search, they end up seizing all of his devices. They go through everything which included his phones, a tablet, and I think he had an iPad. But ultimately they find explicit, sexually explicit images of children. And then he, you know, he goes on to say that he's received, you know, around over 100 sexual pictures from underage girls over the time. So they don't end up charging him, though. And in the Delphi case, and when we kind of get into a little bit deeper talking about the third party culprit stuff, when we talk about that a little more, because I feel like it'll be out of place, the defense ended up putting on some pretty, pretty insane testimony regarding Kagan Klein and some of the things that he was saying. He essentially threw his father, like under the bus, saying that his father was responsible for the killing of both Abby and Libby. And this came out at that hearing and, you know, he went so far as to say that, you know, we had driven in my father's red truck down there and we had taken the access road. My dad got out of the truck and he ends up getting back in the truck an hour later, and he's bloody. And we leave the area and at that point we throw, you know, a weapon and a phone out of the truck into the Wabash river, which frankly sparked. And after Richard Allen's arrested, they then conduct this search of the Wabash River. They drag the river. You know, they have scuba teams in there. So it was just. He's one of those guys who's a really weird piece the puzzle. And I, I don't know where he fits in, to be honest with you.
- [13:28]
B
Right now. There were. He was charged in 2020, I think, with unre charges unrelated to this, basically to the. The material that they had found on his devices when they went in. One of the things that I thought was really interesting too is reading some of the depositions that I read with this case. I think it was Lieutenant Holman. When they were asking Holman about this, he said that they did listen to his communication to them about, you know, his dad doing it, but I think at one point he had said that it was his dad and a friend from Delphi. So they were trying desperately to find a communication between Richard Allen and Tony Klein, is that correct? They were trying to basically make the Richard Allen evidence still fit in with this and find some kind of connection, but they were unable to do that. Is that right?
- [14:19]
D
Yeah, that's. That's pretty accurate. I mean, because I. Depending on who you believe, early on, it was pretty clear that law enforcement thought that there were multiple culprits involved with this just because of what they believed was the kind of difficulty in being able to achieve this crime as an individual. So I think that they were always of the mindset that this was two or more people had committed this. So, yeah, they were definitely trying to make a connection between Alan and Klein without question.
- [14:54]
C
Hi, everyone, I'm Ashley Flowers, creator and host of Crime Junkie, the go to crime podcast for the biggest cases and the stories you won't hear anywhere else. So whether on your commute, studying, or while you work, let us keep you company. With new episodes every Monday. It is truly a crime junkie's dream. So join me, my best friend Britt, and our entire crime junkie community right now by catching up on hundreds of episodes and by listening to a new case every Monday on Crime Junkie, available wherever you listen to podcasts.
- [15:29]
B
Now, I want to talk about another kind of figure that has come up in this that the jury did hear about, but didn't hear everything about. And that's Brad Weber.
- [15:39]
D
Yeah.
- [15:39]
B
Now, there was information that I remember reading about him where there were other witnesses who had seen a light colored sedan that was entering his private drive around 207 and then turned around and left. But Brad, we know that he wasn't there because he had just clocked out from work. There's also the information about him driving his van, potentially going straight home. And Richard Allen, this is the one that investigators said they saw the van or he saw the van and he panicked and that's when he killed the girls. But then there was also testimony where he told the FBI investigators that he did not go straight home, but he is actually one of the ones who. There was a lot of online speculation about him as well. And the defense also pointed out during the trial that his gun was never officially ruled out as the one that used the bullet. So what Else did the jury not get to hear about him?
- [16:33]
D
They didn't really get to hear too much about him changing his story. So the way that it played out at trial is that there was a fed that had gone to interview him and, like, had gone and knocked on his door and he had made a statement. And that's the statement that you were referring to, that he wasn't, you know, he didn't go right home because he owned a bunch of ATM machines. And he had made a statement that that day after work that he had gone to. To collect money out of his ATMs before he ended up coming home. And his testimony was one of the kind of like the bombshells. So when the state called him, I believe he was their last witness, if I remember correctly. And so when Weber ends up coming into the courtroom, and it was a very combative cross examination between Andrew Baldwin and Brad Weber. Weber got very, very defensive when Andy started asking him questions about, you know, these ATM machines and that you had made a different statement to law enforcement. And Weber just denied it. He said, I never made any other statement. So that became a situation from the legal perspective where they had to impeach him. And the only way that they were going to be able to impeach him was to be able to get that FBI agent out to Delphi in order to put him on the stand as an impeachment witness. The problem was, is that FBI agent had a medical condition that did not allow him to fly. So the defense makes a motion, and this is all during the trial wherein they're saying, hey, you know, your honor, this is. This is evidence that this agent has a medical problem and he cannot travel. So we know it's unorthodox, but we're asking if we can have him appear via Zoom, and the judge ends up denying that. So they end up not getting anybody on the stand to testify that he had, in fact, changed his statement, which. And it was huge because it went right to the timeline.
- [18:42]
B
I remember reading all of that in all of the sidebar conversations where they were trying to have him. I think he was out in Texas doing security for the election, and they were wanting to have him appear via Zoom, which is something that we've seen in plenty of trials before. So this is not, you know, a brand new thing that's never happened. And when I read that she denied it in the transcripts, I was a little bit surprised because I didn't quite understand the reason why. I know that they had gone back and forth in the transcripts about the proper way to impeach him and how it would have to be with that witness. But then that witness was denied. So from a legal point standpoint, can you kind of explain that process or why he wasn't allowed?
- [19:26]
D
It was, it was her discretion. It's that simple. Like, like there, there was no legal basis in the law as to why she didn't allow it. Like, that is simply a decision that a judge. It's completely up to their discretion. Now, we know now at this point that the, the appellate brief is being prepared, and it's going to be filed imminently. I don't know when this is airing, but, you know, that is supposed to be filed on December 10th. They've asked for an extension of time until the 17th of December, but we'll see if that's an issue that comes up, because I wasn't surprised just based on her conduct in terms of how she was ruling on things for the entirety of the process, like, she was just denying things that, in my estimation as an attorney, I think violated Allen's rights to a fair trial. I mean, she really. And I know, I know we're going to talk about all this stuff, so I don't want to jump ahead, but. But that thing was shocking to me. You know, like you said, despite the fact that she had ruled in certain ways without really ever giving a legal reasoning or rationale behind why she was ruling on any of the things that she ruled against the defense on, other than to just kind of give a generic statement, she wouldn't cite any precedent. She wouldn't. She wouldn't put out any kind of lengthy orders explaining her reasoning as to why she would just say, you know, I'm denying it without hearing, and that's it. You know, so in this, kind of felt the same in considering it was during the trial, I wasn't surprised, obviously, that she didn't prepare some kind of lengthy order, but she didn't really give a reason. Like, if you, like, you're reading a transcript, she doesn't say why she's denying it. She just says, motion denied. I'm not going to allow for him to appear via Zoom now. I mean, there's an argument that can be made, you know, and as a trial attorney, when Covid hit and Zoom became a thing for lawyers and we started doing Zoom Court, which I love, for statuses, you know, like, where I don't have to drive to court for, you know, 45 minutes, if it's a county that's a little further away. And I'm in there for 30 seconds because it was a status. And the judges says, okay, what's the status of discovery? State says, well, we still got a few things to tender. We're working on it. And I say, yeah, that's true. We've received X, Y and Z, and we're just waiting on this. And it just says, okay, here's another 30 day date and then we're done. I loved being able to just hop on Zoom and not have to drive and waste my time or my client's money in terms of, you know, charging them for the travel time. So there were benefits. But when it comes to witnesses on the stand, I was always very concerned that they had to be in person because, you know, watching the demeanor of a witness on the stand is really, really important. And the thing that you worry about specifically with Zoom is, is somebody standing behind the camera that they're on with, say, like note cards, you know, I mean, like, you can't see what they're doing. So there is the ability for them to be able to do things that they wouldn't otherwise be able to do on the stand. So from that perspective. But she didn't give any kind of rationale like that. You know what I mean? Like what was going through her mind in terms of why she denied it. In terms of a case where, you know, a guy's life is on the line and this is clearly very important rebuttal evidence. Like, there really was no workaround because they, they couldn't. You can't put police reports into evidence. That's because they're hearsay and they're. They don't fall under a hearsay exception either. You know, reports don't fall under police reports don't fall under business records. So you're going to be barred from putting those in. So how do you get that in? You don't. Which is essentially what happened. So you have Weber sitting up there and he tells this tale, you know, that now he's changed his timeline as to when he's driving his white van down that access road, which happens to coincide exactly with when Dr. Walla, who was the prison psychologist or psychiatrist, I can't remember which one she is, had claimed that Richard Allen had told her this detailed story of the day of the crime. And that's where that story comes out. It was. There's no evidence that Richard Allen actually said it, which, you know, if you're listening to this and you know nothing about the case, you're like, oh, well, the prison psychologist Said it, so it must be true. Well, the problem is we don't have her notes and this is just something that she typed up and I don't know if we're going to get into Walla at all. Thing. Yeah, yeah. You know, so like, like. But her story is that thing that you were talking about that Richard Allen allegedly tells her that I, I was with the girls, I was going to sexually assault them and that I saw this white van drive down this access route and it spooked me. So I took the, took the girls down and you know, crossed the, cross the creek, Deer Creek, and then I committed the homicides. And so that timing was exactly at the same time that they're claiming that now Brad Weber drives his van. By now, fortunately the reality has come out after the fact because of post filings, post conviction filings. Specifically it was the motion to correct error where work had been done that showed that the video was pretty clear that his van didn't, didn't pass that area until I believe it was 3:44, which is 12 minutes after they're claiming that he would have driven there because they're building their timeline through Libby's phone. Like that's what they use to kind of build their timeline in terms of when they believe things that happened. So I mean it was another kind of devastating thing that happened during the course of the trial. And it was really the last thing that was left in the jurors minds before the defense starts their case in chief. And as we're going to get into that too, they were very limited with what they could put on in terms of their defense. So it was a pretty big blow to the defense that particular scenario.
- [25:33]
B
And I think that footage you mentioned too, that, that 2:44pm where he's actually seen on the footage, I think I want to remind listeners too who, because this was in one of the first episodes, that phone stopped moving at 2:32. And in order to make that confession, that part of the confession work it was, he saw this van and then that's what made him panic and kill the girls. And the phone was found under one of the girls and the last movement they said that was recorded was at 2:32. So if the van didn't come by until 12 minutes later, 12 minutes might not seem, might not seem like a lot. But in order to make that part of the. Because that was the only part of the confession that they said was an independent detail. So in order to make that independent detail actually fit, it just doesn't fit with the actual evidence that they said came out later. So that part was kind of a big deal. And as far as the van goes, let's go ahead and get into Dr. Walla, too, because the van part came from a confession to Dr. Walla. Now, I want to talk about Dr. Walla because one of the things when I was reading these transcripts, I started kind of. I was reading that she is into true crime. She admitted she's into true crime and that she followed this case. And in the court transcripts, when they are talking about cases that she. Or podcasts and things that she followed, she. They specifically mentioned your podcast as one of the ones that she had followed. So I know that she was following this closely, and she admitted that there were things that she saw online and heard through coverage that she had talked to him about. So I want to talk a little bit about her and kind of her role in this and the things that the jury never got to hear about her, because normally when you have a doctor come in or anybody with those kinds of credentials, you. You know, the jury gives a lot of weight to that. But there are a lot of things that they didn't get to hear about her and about the white van potentially being something on social media and all of that. So what can you tell us that the jury didn't get to know about her?
- [27:39]
D
Yeah, I mean, in terms of Walla. And I got to hear it because the first time that she testified was during a safekeeping hearing, which was in June of the preceding year. And that was the first time Rosie. Brad. Rosie, who was one of Richard Allen's other attorneys, had her on the stand. And it was a extremely unusual testimony in terms of the way that he did it, because the first half of the testimony, it was as if she was a friendly witness. And then the second half of it, he really. He really turned on her and really started attacking her with all these things that you were just talking about. The fact that she was a true crime buff, the fact that she had been out to the bridge and that she had been accessing. She had been accessing files in terms of arrest records from the system that she has access to in the prison in order to do, you know, research on other potential suspects. And.
- [28:42]
B
And that's a big deal.
- [28:43]
D
You know, when you're sitting here, that's a big deal. It's such a big deal, and it's so disturbing. There was questions that came up as to whether or not she had advised her supervisors that she knew about the case, that she had been heavily researching this case. And, you know, I think there was some kind of answer that she gave, some kind of generic response that, you know, I made them aware that I like true crime, you know, but it certainly wasn't anything to the extent of, you know, I've been digging into the Delphi case for years. And so after that hearing on the. I believe it was June 14, I happened to come home and I got a notification that. That she had joined our Facebook group on that day. So the day after that hearing, she ends up joining our group, which I just thought was so weird in retrospect. And, you know, and to talk about kind of the van story and how that had never been on, you know, on online or in social media or out there for public consumption, it's just not true. I mean, you can just do like a search. And a guy named Gray Hughes, who has a relatively big YouTube channel, unequivocally was talking about a white van. You know, I mean, it was like a whole thing. It was like insider intel. I don't know where he got it. One can only speculate. But, like, that was out there, you know, so this concept that. That didn't exist in the world was simply not true. And again, you've got this woman who is a professional and who is, for all intents and purposes, an expert and a doctor who, like you said, is going to typically garner some respect from the jury in terms of, oh, she knows what she's talking about. Oh, I can trust her. Again, the defense is pretty limited in terms of what they're able to bring out in order to kind of mitigate that and rebut what she's saying and impeach her. So they're kind of left thinking, okay, well, Allen made this pretty compelling confession to her, and it's the only one where it's not like, oh, I did it. I think I did it. You know, I may have done it. You know, those types of things. It's where he gives some details that only the killer would know. And that van thing is the one thing that the state leaned into so heavily in saying this is the one thing that only the killer would know. And then when you coincide it with Brad Weber getting on the stand and saying that he drove past at that certain time, you know, simultaneous to the phone stopping at 2:32, I mean, it created their entire case for him. You know what I mean? It was like a thing where, you know, like, I mean, how are you supposed to overcome that? You know, because, look, let's Just have the truth come out. Like, I think that's what the point of these things is. It's not about a conviction. It's about trying to get to the truth. And, you know, I like. It's pretty. It's evident. And I am a defense attorney, so, you know, I do look through everything through the. The lens of a defense attorney. It's how my brain is trained. That's never going to change until I die. That's how my brain operates. And I. I couldn't stop it even if I wanted to. So. But from a. An intellectually honest perspective, the things that I saw during that trial and everything leading up to it were. Were so disturbing to me that, you know, it really got me to the point where I'm like, man, this guy just didn't get a fair trial.
- [32:19]
B
You know, Somebody else that the jury didn't really hear about is Ron Logan. Can you talk a little bit about who he is and why he was such a big figure in the beginning of this case?
- [32:32]
D
Ron Logan was a huge figure. So if you're talking about the Monon High Bridge, okay, so it's a. It's a trail system and it's a park that is connected to private properties. Okay. So. And Brandy, I don't know if you're going to be throwing graphics up, but when you. You look at the Monon High Bridge, it's what they call an old railroad trestle that, like, it's a train tracks that are a bridge that go over a body of water, which is Deer Creek. So Ron Logan's property happened to be on the side of Deer Creek, wherein the girls were eventually discovered. The remains were discovered, and it so happens that they were discovered on Ron Logan's property. Okay? So the story has always been. At least the state's theory has been that, you know, the killer had led the girls down the hill and that he forced them to cross through the creek in February. That was probably somewhere between two and a half, three feet. Freezing cold water, even though it was a mild day. You're coming out of winter in the Midwest, so the water's not going to be warm under any set of circumstances. And then ultimately the homicides take place there. So Logan's property in the crime scene are about. And I'm talking about his house proper are about 1400ft away from where the girls were discovered. Okay. And his family had owned that property, or Ron had owned that property for 50 years. All right? So he was a long timer. That was his land. The things that are disturbing about Ron Logan. So obviously law enforcement is looking at him pretty heavily initially, right? They go in again, there's another FBI search warrant. And the problem with Logan is his license had been suspended, but he was, he was always having the issue of having a suspended license, which means you can't drive. So on the day of, he ends up going to a facility wherein he's throwing some trash out. Okay. And he drove and there's a camera there. I don't know whether or not he's actually aware that there's a camera there. But he then turns around that day knowing this is his story or this is the story that came to be, that he had had his cousin say, hey, I need you to lie for me and tell me that, or tell law enforcement that you had been driving me out to this fish store, you know, in order to get some fish for my aquarium, at or around 2 to 2:30 in the afternoon. And so that was a lie. Like he, he had been driving. I don't think that his cousin is the one who drove him out there, I think, because he did go out there, but it was later in the afternoon. It was like it at 4:30, I think 4 to 4:30. It's like there's so many facts, I'm bound to, to get a few of them wrong. And I, I don't like doing that. But if you know me to be incorrect on a, a time or a date, just let me know. But like, so he's ultimately out in Lafayette, which is again, Lafayette is where Brad Weber worked at the Subaru plant. It's about a 20 to 25 minute drive from Delphi. Okay, so that turns out to be a lie. He ends up saying, okay, well the only reason I lied about it is, is because I knew that I had been committing a crime in the sense that I was driving when my license was suspended and I didn't want to get jammed up on it. So, you know, so you've got that kind of thing sitting there with Ron Logan. And then it gets even weirder with him because really, the thing that really is disturbing about Ron Logan is that his cell phone data in terms of the tower, said that he was in the area of the Monon High Bridge on the afternoon of the 13th. Okay. And then.
- [36:26]
B
So I'm outside of his home, right? I think it's specified he was outside of his home.
- [36:31]
D
Yeah, he's outside of his residence and in the proximity of the murder scene. Yeah, so that, that's. And again, you know, we can argue all day about you know, the, the actual accuracy of tower pings and trying to geolocate somebody to a specific area. And there's, there's not many towers in deli. So you know, had that come in, had he been allowed to have been introduced as a third party suspect and the defense, if they would have tried to introduce that evidence, that would have been highly debated at trial in terms of the accuracy of his location. But that's, that's what the facts are, you know, you know, that he was pinging off that tower. It showed that he was outside of his residence and he was close to the murder scene at around time the girls were killed. So.
- [37:19]
B
And I think something interesting about him too, he was actually named in some of the tips. When people would see the man on the bridge and call in tips. He was actually named out of 14,000 tips. There was not one of Richard Allen, but there were some, there were multiple saying that it was Ron Logan. So I think that's kind of interesting as well.
- [37:38]
D
A lot of them, there were a lot of tips like tipping Logan in and I mean his ex girlfriend and you could take it for whatever you think it's worth, give it whatever weight you want to. You know, is she a woman and scored a bit her ex, who knows? But I mean she was very clear that when she saw the video, she was absolutely confident that that was Ron Logan and that, you know, that he had threatened to kill her on, on at least one occasion. And she had said that he had always carried a gun in this little fanny pack that he had that he carried on his waist. Now nobody ever like, it's one of those things that people never seem to talk about. It didn't come up at trial but, and I know that I'm sure you've looked at the video a million times. It looks to me that the person in that, that video has some kind of leather pouch that's sitting below on his right side. I mean I, I've never heard anything about that either pre trial or during the trial itself, which is always very curious to me. Yeah, but you know, so ultimately they end up not arresting Logan for this either. And then ultimately, you know, they, they had said that his voice didn't match the down the hill recording, which, you know, unless I've seen some kind of actual professional voice analysis, I mean, I just don't know how they're seeing that. And I'm sure you read in the transcripts in terms of that you have this, this, this guy who Harshman, who was listening to all the Audio of Rick's calls. He literally sits on the stand and he says, oh, yeah. After having listened to Rick's voice for so many hours over and over and over, I can confidently say that that's his voice in the video. I'm like, what? I couldn't believe that that was admissible in court. It was. It was insane. So ultimately. And then Logan dies in 2022, you know, and, you know, he just kind of fades away into the. You know, into the ether, and that's it, you know.
- [39:43]
B
Now, something else I want to talk about are the sketches. The sketches are something that I think is very interesting because the sketches were kept from the jury as well. Right. I'm pretty sure. I remember they were not allowed to. I know they weren't introduced as evidence. They weren't allowed to see the sketches and how different they were. I know that they were allowed to question on different things about, you know, with Betsy Blair saying that she saw a younger man and with poofy hair and things like that. But the actual sketches were not introduced as evidence, and the jury didn't get to see them. But those sketches are very, very different from each other and from Richard Allen. There were. There was some drama over the first ones that were released, and then Betsy Blair's wasn't released, and then she said it was a 10 out of 10, but it doesn't look anything like the other one. So can you kind of give a. A cleaner, better breakdown than of what happened with the sketches than I just did? Can you kind of explain that?
- [40:39]
D
Yeah. So essentially, the first sketch that is released to the public looks, like you said, way different than the sketch that Betsy Blair's description ended up being. So when Betsy had given her sketch to the composite artist or her details, she had said that he was. And she was 50ft away, like, so she. She. In terms of the person that she saw out on the first platform of the bridge, she had an excellent view of him, and she specifically was making eye contact with this guy, and she said that he turned and kind of looked at her and made a weird face. You know, so there was something about this guy that was out there that. That caused her pause and made her remember kind of that entire brief interaction in terms of them kind of looking at one another. And her description was that he was young or youthful, that he was in his early 20s, maybe early 30s, that he was. He had brown, poofy hair. Rick Allen has always, from every picture I've ever seen, has always had a buzz cut. So he's had very short hair and that. And he's of average height. Now, Richard Allen is somewhere between 4 5, 4 and 5 5. Like, Richard Allen is an incredibly small guy. Like, when I first went to the first hearing, I had no idea what Richard Allen looked like. I mean, I had seen, you know, news. News footage and camera footage of him being led around. I. I didn't really get a sense of how small or how big he was, you know, because I don't know how tall the. The guards are with him that are. You know what I mean? So you don't really have any kind of scale to know how big he was. When they brought him out from the back where they were bringing him into the courtroom on the first. The first time that he was in court, it literally took my breath away. Like, when I turned around, because I could hear him clanging because of his shackles. When he was coming back, all of us in the courtroom turned around. I could not believe how small he was. And because when you look at all of the witness descriptions and not one person mentions, the fact that he's short is a huge red flag for me. I mean, he's so short that in my estimation, there would be not one person that wouldn't start with the fact that he was really short. And not one person out of anybody that described, anybody that they saw that day said that the guy was really short. He's that short. Like, if you. If you know a man that's like 5, 5, 5, 5, 4, and you're saying, okay, you're going to meet my buddy. He's going to meet you. You know, you're going to beat me. You're telling. You're talking to another friend. You're saying, yeah, you know what? Like, I'll be there about 15 minutes late, but my buddy is going to be there. And your friend says, okay, well, describe what they look like. And you'll say, well, he's a guy. He's got dark hair and he's. He's really short. And that is like a descriptor where, you know, when your friend gets there and they see a dude that's five inches shorter than every other guy in the bar, they're gonna be like, oh, that's the guy. You know, so the fact that nobody ever gave that descriptor of him was. Was really something that. That put me on this whole thing that I'm like, this is not the dude. Richard Allen is not the guy that these people saw, any of them, any of the descriptions that we've ever seen. So. So at any rate, you've got the, you've got the first sketch from Betsy Blair, but that's not the one that they released. Okay. The first one that they release is this heavyset man with kind of like jaws. He's got a scruff, he's got kind of like this Irish hat, I would call it. And he looks like to be in his late 30s, mid-40s, looks nothing like this youthful poofy haired guy that the second sketch is. And what happens in this case is when they are, they release the original sketch and that's the person they're saying is the guy that they're looking for. They think that that is the person that committed the crime. They're saying that to the public. This is the man that we're looking for. This is the man that we think is bridge guy. And then a couple of years later, they bring out this thing in 2019 of Betsy Blair sketch, and it looks nothing like the first guy. I mean, nothing like they are completely different people and they've already been saying, look, this is the guy that we think committed the crime. This is the guy we're looking for. So. And you know, by the time, and there's never an answer for it from law enforcement, there's never like, it's always been a thing. They've just kind of like pretended like the first sketch wasn't out and that this is the thing, this is the guy. And it's like, I don't know, it's one of those things that just sits in your craw and just like there's something off about it. I don't know why they do that. And in terms of allowing the sketches in, I mean, that's not necessarily unusual for a judge not to allow a sketch to come in because essentially they're gonna have the witnesses that gave the information to the composite artist testifying. Right. So, you know, from the perspective of like, okay, how much help is the sketch going to be to the jury in terms of looking at it? Well, from the defense perspective, it's very helpful because Richard Allen doesn't look like either of those sketches.
- [46:17]
B
Right.
- [46:17]
D
You know, and so that not coming in didn't surprise me. But again, you know, it hurt the defense that they weren't able to get the sketches in. The defense certainly tried to get them in, you know, and Gull just denied it. And you know, the defense was relying on the fact that they thought that they'd be able to get them in, especially with the fact that they had changed Course talking about law enforcement two years into it, you know, or they're switching course completely and saying, okay, forget that first sketch. We were just kidding about that. This is the sketch, this is the guy that we think it is. Yeah, I mean the composites were just another one of those things where, you know, it was, it was frustrating. And then during trial itself, we thought from, from the lawyers that were sitting in the courtroom, we thought that the door had been opened because Betsy Blair had mentioned the sketches when she's testifying, which the defense was, are you okay? You know, because she was a state witness, she said she brought up the sketches. So that means that she's opened the door. We have to be able to address what, what sketches she's talking about because otherwise it's going to leave the jury wondering, well, what, what sketches do they mean? And of course Gull denied that. So those don't get in. And you know, ultimately it's left to the eyewitnesses. None of which, none of which identified Richard Allen as the person they saw out on the trails that day. None of them.
- [47:43]
B
Something else that I think that wasn't allowed in, which is, I mean it's the elephant in the room. It's the big one. It's, it's the Odinism. I'm going to be honest. When I first heard about this and I told you, you and I talked about this a couple years ago, you know, when I was, I think when we saw each other in Orlando, right. And I was, I think we were talking about this, about. I was really heavy into covering the Karen Reed. You were really heavy into covering this. And I think it was after, right after we left, or maybe it was while we were there is when the big motion dropped. And so I know you and I talked about this a little bit, but when I first heard about the Odinism angle, I was like, okay, you know, defense attorney's gonna, defense attorney, you know, like that, that's what they're gonna do. Like, you know, they're gonna look for anything that they can that could potentially cause doubt. And that was my thought going into it. As I was going through all of this stuff, I, I stayed completely away from all of the attention on it, all of the media, all of the, the transcripts, the pre trial hearings, everything. I wanted to read everything with the trial first and read the transcripts first and form opinions and then get into this, which is exactly what I did. Reading over all of the Frank's motion stuff and all of the Odinism stuff blew my mind yeah. And I was honestly shocked that this was withheld from the jury because the way that I heard all read, I should say read all of the testimony and evidence that was being presented. I had opinions, you know, one way or the other, and I had questions and I had all these things going on in my head. But when I read this and I saw the pictures and saw how everything lined up, it. It's one of those things that I can't imagine being a juror and not knowing this when I'm deciding fate on somebody else. So I want to spend a little bit of time talking about this because it's one of those things that I'm going to be honest, I kind of dismissed it like this. This sounds really far fetched, right? But then going through it and seeing how, how intense, what was 136 page document, I think that was filed, seeing all of the information from there and even more that's come out since then, I think it's one of the most important things that the jury didn't get to hear. So I want to spend some time talking about that. So can you tell us a little bit? I know there's a lot in the Odinism umbrella.
- [50:18]
D
We could spend three hours just talking about that motion. But the bottom line, it's like you said, I've been practicing for a couple of decades and I had never seen a filing like this ever. Like, especially in terms of a Frank's memo. So a Frank's memo, or when you're asking for a Frank's hearing, just so your audience has an understanding, it's essentially where you're going in in front of a judge and saying, okay, look, judge, they got a warrant either for arrest or for search, whatever the case may be. And when law enforcement came in, they were either untruthful or they were omitting facts in order to secure that warrant. So essentially what happened here is they're going through, and they're, I'm referring to the defense attorneys, they're going through the 15 terabytes of discovery, okay. And there, which is all the evidence that they're starting to get that all comes from the state. Okay? So. And that's one thing that I kept trying to tell people, you know, because it was like I, you know, I was covering the case pretty heavily and I was getting that pushback, like, oh, this is complete fantasy. This story's ridiculous. Odinous. Oh, yeah, a bunch of Viking, you know, everybody dismissing it as nonsense. And I'm like, all right, look, but here's the Thing, like I hear what you're saying. It sounds crazy satanic panic type, but I get it. Here's. Here's where it gets interesting, is that everything that's contained within that, Frank's memo came from the evidence that was tendered to the defense by the state. Okay. This wasn't some theory that was cooked up by the defense, okay? So when they're going through, and ultimately I think it was one of the investigators, Matt Hoffman is the one who ran into this 12 page Odin, Odin report that was prepared by law enforcement, okay? And he hands it over to Andrew Baldwin. He's like, you got to look at this thing, man. And Baldwin's like, ah. He's like, I got a million things to do. I don't want to leave. I don't have time for it. And he's like, andy, I think you really need to look at this thing. And so Baldwin grabs it, starts reading through it, and he's like, what is going on here? So this 12 page report was produced by. There were three cops, okay? And it was Todd Click, a guy named Greg Ferency, who is deceased at this point. Rest in peace. He had been shot dead outside of a federal building about two years into the investigation of Delphi. Allegedly, like, not, not related. We have no idea what, what it was having to do with, if it had anything to do with Delphi or any of that. And then a third cop named Kevin Murphy. And all of these guys are long in the tooth, highly decorated, highly well respected cops. These aren't like a bunch of Barney Fifes, right? Like, these are guys that are legit cops. And I mean, Ferency was with the FBI task force, okay? You know, Todd Klick was an assistant police chief. You know, like Murphy's just like a, like a stone cold cops cop who's one of those guys that's just out there doing the job the way that it's supposed to be done. He's as truthful as the day is long, you know, I mean, these guys have no, no horse in the race to be creating any kind of information that's not related on things that they've uncovered in their investigation. So early on, the investigation with the Unified Command, which is the task force that was put together to do all the investigation as far as the Delphi case, okay? And then you had these guys who were. Not necessarily. They weren't involved with the Unified Command in and of itself, but these three guys were conducting their own investigation because early on it was thought by law enforcement, well, this is an unusual looking crime scene. This seems to be a crime scene that was left to look the way that it does intentionally as opposed to just somebody trying to hide the bodies. There seems to be meaning behind these sticks that were placed on the girls. And just the way that the bodies were posed. There's something, you know, think True crime or True Detective season one like that, that's like, that's the vibe that this particular crime scene gave law enforcement to the extent where they go out to Purdue and they find a professor that you know, is, is learned in the ways of Norse paganism and religion and symbolism and all that kind of stuff. And so you know, ultimately something, something gets them off of wanting to continue through that line of investigation. And I'm talking about the unified command. These three guys continue to investigate that angle up until Greg Ferency is shot and killed. And at that point that's when they stopped the investigation. So during this time they start uncovering all these different suspects. You've got a connection to Odinism which they were looking at as a potential source of a lead initially but for whatever reason they decide to abandon it. And so, you know, I'm going to these hearings early on and there was a, a set of three days where the judge did never held the hang the Franks hearing. So they, they were never granted the Frank's hearing. The only time that we ever heard this evidence is when she, she being Judge Gull decided to hear Nick McClelland's motion to bar any third culprit party evidence from coming into trial. The one that really just blew my mind more than anybody was this, this guy. So you've got this situation where you've got Kevin Murphy had picked up for an interview. Now this interview was spurred on by the fact that sister, one of his sisters had called law enforcement and said look, I, I don't, you know, I don't even know what to do with this. But my brother is sitting here telling me that he had something to do with the two, you know, the two girls that were just killed. He's claiming that he was out there, that he was part of it, he was present when the girls got killed and that he was really excited because he, he has brothers now and that he's a part of something, he's part of a gang. And he admit he had admitted to me that he was out there that day and that I don't know what to do with it. But I felt compelled to call you and call you being law enforcement and let you know that this is what he said. They end up pulling her in. They conduct a polygraph on her. Not to see if she's lying about anything, but to see if she's telling the truth about what she is saying that her brother told her. So she passes that polygraph that spurs Kevin Murphy to go have this interview with them. He has the interview with them. They're checking his alibi, seeing where he's saying that day. So all the things that, that, you know, he ends up saying that day in the interview after the fact turn out to be not true. So Murphy's dropping him back off at his trailer. Okay? He gets out of the car and he's walking away. And then he turns around and he looks at Murphy and he says, hey, can I ask you something? And Murphy says, yeah, sure. He's like, if I spit on one of the girls but could explain it away, would I still be in trouble? And when I read that in the thing and I'm talking about the Frank's promo, my mind just explodes. I'm just like, what, what is going on? You know, like, there's so much there in terms of what I believe is a nexus. And that is ultimately what Judge Gull kept saying, that she didn't find that there was a nexus between these third party suspects and the crime. She's like, you can't place these guys at the crime scene. I'm like, what does that mean? Like, are you, are, do you, are you expecting them to, to be able to place these guys at the crime scene with DNA? Well, they didn't place Richard Allen at the crime scene with DNA. They put Richard Allen at the crime scene because he had volunteered that he was out at the bridge that day because they were asking everybody that was out at the bridge that day to come forward, and he did. And so I, like, I'm just at a loss as, as this thing's progressing and like, we could talk about this thing forever in terms of the.
- [59:15]
B
I know.
- [59:15]
D
It's, it's just, it's. It's a lot.
- [59:18]
B
The, the thing about the statement too, that, that is the part that blew my mind when I read it. And I could not help but think if that statement had come from Richard Allen, it would be over. There's. There was nothing else that they had placed him there. So, so the fact that that statement came from somebody else and then. And there was. Correct me if I'm wrong, I remember in the transcripts there was unidentified male DNA found on the girls. It was not, it was not a law enforcement.
- [59:51]
D
Yeah.
- [59:52]
B
Yeah, right. So. So having unidentified DNA at that point and then having this statement to a police officer, that was another thing. This, this comment is made to a police officer if my, if my spit is found on her. But I can explain it. If that had come from Richard Allen, it. That would have been the end of the story and there would have been nothing else that needed to be said and done. Yeah, but the fact that it came from somebody else and then it. The jury wasn't allowed to hear that, that really shocked me.
- [60:21]
D
I, I mean, everything about it is because, like, I'm not sitting here rooting for a child killer. You know what I mean? Like, this is a case where everything about this thing, the way that they tried it again in the dark, just doesn't seem on the up and up. You know, it would be one thing, like, if she would have allowed this to come in and the jury would have come back and said, you know what? We listened to all the evidence and we're still convinced that Richard Allen's the guy. I mean, you have to accept it.
- [60:50]
B
Right?
- [60:51]
D
You know, and I always accept a jury's verdict. Do I agree with it? No, but I accept it. I mean, that's what I'm trained to do. So, you know, I'll let the appellate, the appellate case take its course and we'll see where that thing lands. But, you know, everything about this case was just like. Like, how does a judge look at that type of evidence where you clearly have a nexus. Why would Richard Allen's psychotic ramblings in terms of his confessions in jail when he's been in solitary at that point for six months and cut off from his absolute life source, which is his wife Kathy, and he's literally eating his own feces. He's smashing his head against his cell wall, and he's saying things like, I did it. I think I did it. Maybe I did it. Hey, Mom. You know, like, how can those be considered to be reliable confessions?
- [61:45]
B
How, How.
- [61:45]
D
You know what I mean? It's like, how can one confession seem to be, you know, something that the jury can. Can hear and rely on? But this guy who claims that he was at the scene, who claims he left DNA on the girls, and, you know, and it all goes back to. And I don't know how much you got into the investigation and how poorly done it was, but I, I mean, if you ask law enforcement, like, on their own account, they're going to tell you it was not a great investigation. Like, they're not, you know, at least they're they're upfront with the fact that it just wasn't a well done investigation at all, you know, but like, how do you not collect the sticks? Yeah, you know, I mean, like, somebody had to use their hands to put the sticks on the girls. You don't think there's any potential forensic value to those sticks? Like, like there's so many things that weren't done in terms of testing that it was like, you know, this, this finger that was, or this hair that was wrapped around Libby's finger, which nobody had heard about until, like, I think we're in the first or second day of trial and everybody in the courtroom's like, what? You know, and they end up not testing that until they get the results. I think during the, during the trial or days before the trial, I'm like, how didn't that take place years ago? Yeah, but it was just one of those things that was symptomatic of everything that went on with this investigation. And again, like, I'm not rooting for somebody to not be guilty of a crime. The girls deserve justice. The families deserve justice. I want that for them. But justice doesn't mean we just get a conviction of a guy who didn't do the crime. Justice is when we get the right culprit or culprits, and, and, you know, the people that think he's guilty, God bless them, you know, I mean, there's no changing their minds. They're going to feel the way they feel. And, you know, and I don't spite them for that. I mean, people are allowed their own opinions, whether or not they're factually up to date on everything that took place in that trial, whether they've done what you've done, which is read transcripts. I, I'd like to frankly ask you a question going into it after. And I love the way that you did it. I love that you read the transcript and work backwards. When you read the transcript, where were you on. On guilty. Not guilty.
- [64:03]
B
I still would have said not guilty because of the lack of evidence and the, with the defense that was put on. I felt like it wasn't enough for me personally to be able to justify taking a person's freedom. I felt like, could it be a possibility that he did it? Yes. But I would not feel comfortable taking away a person's freedom over a possibility. A possibility means that that's reasonable doubt. So for me, I still landed at not guilty. It is always heartbreaking for me to land at a not guilty verdict because you want to believe that the right person is there, there's enough evidence, and this is going to be, you know, the proper outcome. I didn't land there. And I know, like you said, everybody has different opinions. That's why I always say, you know, you know my saying, like, that's why there's 12 jurors and not one. So I, I understand that personally, I still landed at not guilty. I just felt like there, there wasn't enough evidence. There were too many questions, too many unanswered questions. And then when I went through all of the pre trial, you know, and even post trial stuff, that, that blew my mind. I know I've kept you for so long and we'll, we'll wrap up. But there's one more thing with the Odinism that I really want to touch on because I think that this is one of the most important, surprising things to me too, and that's the Westville corrections officers with the Odinism. So one of the things that shocked me with them is I read about the defense attorneys who had gone in. Now, this is before they ever mentioned the Odinism defense angle. This is before they had mentioned anything to Richard Allen or to his wife. They were going in to visit him at Westville Correctional Facility where he was being housed at the time in solitary confinement. And the two officers, two of the officers who were continually transporting him back and forth and remained within earshot during the majority of their visits were actually had Odin patches that said, that said in Odin we trust on their uniforms.
- [66:01]
D
When I read that, shoot, government uniforms, they've got their own, they've got their own little patches on there. It's.
- [66:07]
B
Yeah, I thought there's no, there's no way this could be true. And I thought, I thought there's. This is, this is like when you read fiction. This is a thriller novel. This is not, this is not something that's actually in a court document. And they said that it was after that the Odinism defense was first brought up during one of those pre trial motions. One week later, they went back and the patch had been removed. Yep, that blows my mind. And I think that that's one of the things that also the jury, which I wanted to bring up for this episode because the jury never heard that, because it kind of gives. Not kind of. I think it really gives a lot more weight to this Odinism angle because here he is being housed in Westville, which is the place where he is being. You know, he's in solitary confinement for. You're only supposed to be there 30 days tops. He's in there for 13 months. He is.
- [67:02]
D
Don't be afraid to say he was psychologically tortured. He's definitely what was happening.
- [67:06]
B
Yeah, that is. That is absolutely what it is. Yes.
- [67:09]
A
No question.
- [67:09]
B
And I feel like it when I read that one part of it, specifically where here he is going through this part in this facility, and here's these two guards who have Odin patches, and this is when he's making his confessions. That, to me, gave a lot more weight to that theory. And as a defense attorney, I want to ask your opinion on if. If this had been your case and you were not able to tell the jury all of the things that come in when you start reading into this and hearing how. How crazy this sounds, but how it all seems to, you know, kind of seems to add up. There is. So for me, as just a juror, it seems to me like there is so much more evidence that points towards third party culprits than there is the actual defendant. So as a defense attorney, tell me your thoughts on that. I need any. Any thoughts you have on. On how do you handle that.
- [68:10]
D
You're devastated. You're absolutely devastated. You know, and it's, you know, I developed a friendship with the defense attorneys in that case. I was covering it. You know, there's kind of a. There's a colleague side of defense attorneys in terms of defense bar lawyers always, you know, we kind of feel like we're in the fight together, you know, because it's like, you know, people love to hate defense attorneys, so we always feel like we're the underdog, and we are, you know, so in terms of what you do in that situation, you sit there and you're just devastated, you know, I mean, essentially what. What the judge did was she cut them off at the knees from being able to put any defense on. Brandi, not only could they not bring up the third party culprits at all. No Keegan Klein, no Ron Logan, none of the Odin dudes. They couldn't. They couldn't refer to the crime scene at all as looking unusual? Like, they could not challenge what the crime. Like, I've never heard of a case. In all the cases you've covered, have you ever heard of a case where what the crime scene looked like couldn't be brought up and challenged by the defense?
- [69:21]
A
No.
- [69:22]
D
Like, she would. Like she was on high alert. Like, if. If either the lawyers or any of the three lawyers from Alan's team would have accidentally uttered something about the sticks creating formations and the. It looked like some kind of ritual thing. Like, she would have. She probably would have declared a mistrial, like, or it would have been on her radar to do it because she barred them from being able to discuss other alternatives as to why the crime scene looked the way that did. They weren't allowed to bring it up. They had an expert, Don Perlmutter, who was going to come on and she was going to give her testimony. Let the jury decide whether or not they are going to give her any weight. Let the jury decide whether or not they're going to believe what she's saying in terms of how she viewed that crime scene, when she looked at the crime scene photos, as to whether it was telltale signs of some kind of. Of Norse paganism being involved and whether she thought that those were runes or those are just sticks or sticks. You know, those are just some sticks that somebody threw upon, like, to, you know, to cover the kids. And like, I mean, to me, when you look at those things and then you compound it with everything else in this case, the way that it went down and you've got the. The Odin thing where it then bleeds into the prison and you're barred from being able to bring any of it up. And you're stuck with really just trying to create reasonable doubt by saying, okay, you know, you're saying this unspent casing, which means that it was just racked out of the gun, it was ejected, it wasn't fired. You know, this. This casing is a match to a round that you found or, you know, to Richard's. Allen. Richard Allen's gun, which they found during the search of his house prior to his arrest. You know, but it comes to. To be learned during the trial that she couldn't make a match by just ejecting it. Instead, she had to fire the round. And then she claims that. That there's significant agreement. Okay, that there's a match. Okay. And, you know, you're sitting there like, okay, that's apples and oranges. Like, the amount of pressure that is created when you know that the pin hits the. The round and the gunfire explodes and it creates pressure, it's going to create a different marking. So, like, how are you comparing those two things? And you've got this same expert who's saying, you know what? You know, I don't even want you guys to look at the pictures. Just trust me, bro, like, I've never been wrong. Like, you literally have Melissa Oberg, who was their. Their. And I'm talking about the state's forensic gal for you know, the round and the match, you know, just saying, like, believe me, I've never been wrong. Like, that is not how this thing is supposed to work.
- [72:06]
B
Yeah.
- [72:06]
D
I want to feel. It's like you said, when you have two beautiful little girls that lost their lives, whoever's sitting in that defendant's chair is going down. As a general proposition. I could count on one hand the amount of alleged child killers that have been found not guilty. And, like, frankly, the only one I can come up with off the top of my head is Casey Anthony. When you are. Somebody is paying for that crime, and when it's. It turns out to be Richard Allen sitting in that chair, and then the judge has cut them off the legs in terms of putting any defense forward, like, if you're gonna try the case, if you have the evidence to convict him, let's have the trial. Let's make it fair. That way, the family is not going to be exposed to the potential of having to sit through the nightmare of another trial, which is exactly where I think they sit right now.
- [72:58]
B
Yeah.
- [72:58]
D
Like, you know, I mean, can you imagine, like, having to sit through a second trial? Like, the hardest thing that you've ever had to do in your life, aside from learning that your loved ones have been killed, is to sit through that thing, you know, and imagine having to do it again. I mean, that's why you want to get it right the first time. Because you can have two things be true. And in this case, you can have somebody who's been denied a fair trial. Right. And you can also have somebody that's been denied a fair trial that is guilty. But you can also have somebody that's been denied a fair trial who's not guilty. And I happen to be of the mindset that this guy, irrespective of guilt or innocence, was not given a fair trial. But I also happen to believe that he is the wrong guy. I think he has been wrongfully convicted. And that's based not on feelings. That is based on the evidence that I have seen throughout the course of this entire thing is I don't have any confidence in that verdict that they got the right person. You know, and that's just where I land on it. You want to be able to trust a verdict. Right. Because I'm like you. You know, it's like, people tend to think, because I'm a defense attorney, I think everybody's innocent, which is absurd.
- [74:16]
B
You don't. Yeah, we've talked about this before.
- [74:18]
D
Yeah. I think most people that they end up up arresting I think they get it right most of the time. I think most people that go to trial are typically guilty like that. That's the reality of it. It's, it's pretty rare when, when I'm watching a trial and I'm like, man, like, I, like, I don't think this guy did it. Brian Walsh, that guy killed his wife. Like, there's, I have zero doubt in my mind, Brian Coburger, that guy killed those four kids. Like, I have zero doubt. Like, I had zero doubt before he pled guilty. Like, you know, you and I had never had any kind of in depth conversation about this. I didn't plant any seeds, not one seed in Brandy Churchwell's head. Like, everything that you've come to think, you've come to think on doing what you do. So, like, I mean, to me, that's a huge thing for me and being able to talk to you knowing that, like, I had zero impact on the way that you landed on this case. You know, I don't know, we'll see how it goes, man. It's one of those cases where, you know, I'm going to continue to follow it, obviously, and I'm glad that you elected to take a look at it because it adds credence to it.
- [75:25]
B
Yeah. Well, we'll definitely get together again and talk about it, especially when all of the new documents come out and the appeals and all of that. Bob, thank you so much for being with us today and giving your unique perspective. It been a pleasure. Make sure to check out his podcasts, Buried and Defense Diaries, wherever you get your podcasts. Thirteenth Juror is an audio Chuck production hosted by Brandy Churchwell. Ashley Flowers is excellent executive producer and you can follow 13th Juror on Instagram @Thirteenth Juror podcast. I think Chuck would approve.
- [76:19]
C
Hi everyone, I'm Ashley Flowers, creator and host of Crime Junkie, the go to crime podcast for the biggest cases and the stories you won't hear anywhere else. So whether on your commute, studying or while you work, let us keep you company with new episodes every Monday. It is truly a crime junkie's dream. So join me, my best friend Britt, and our entire crime junkie community right now by catching up on hundreds of episodes and by listening to a new case every Monday on Crime Junkie, available wherever you listen to podcasts.