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I'm Kevin and In this episode we are going to hear directly From Carroll County, Indiana prosecutor Nicholas McCleland, the attorney who got justice for Abby and Libby at the Delphi murder trial. Along with his team of James Luttrell and Stacy Deener, he's going to be weighing in on Andrew Baldwin's complaint against him.
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Content Warning this episode contains discussion of the murder of two girls. So we just spent two episodes going through 57 frivolous pages of Andrew Baldwin's complaint against Nicholas McCleland. Now we'll hear from McClelland himself. He'll respond to Baldwin's general allegations and talk about why this is all, frankly, so weird. As a reminder, on February 13, 2017, Richard Allen abducted and brutally murdered 14 year old Libby German and her friend 13 year old Abby Williams on the trails of Delphi Indiana in Indiana's Carroll County. Allen was arrested for this crime in 2022 and he was prosecuted by McClelland, the Carroll county prosecutor, along with his capable team of Stacy Deener and James Luttrel. The team was amazing at trial. We know, we saw them. We watched. We wrote a book about it. Shadow of the Bridge, the Delphi Murders, and the Dark side of the American Heartland.
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Allen's defense team had lead counsel Brad Rosie, as well as Jennifer, O.J. and Andrew Baldwin. To be frank, they did not do so well and we also wrote about that. Unsurprisingly to anyone who was paying attention to the details of this case. Richard Allen was convicted on November 11, 2024 by a jury of his peers. Now, over a year after that, we exclusively reported that Baldwin filed a ridiculous complaint against McClelland over the summer with Indiana's Disciplinary Commission. They are a body tasked with disciplinary complaints against lawyers. We talked about that complaint itself, all 57 pages of it. In some detail as well as frivolous complaints filed against me in our previous episodes.
A
We believe this is part of a larger strategy or tactic by Richard Allen truthers to attempt to punish their perceived enemies using frivolous complaints or frankly, whatever other means possible. Today we're going to hear from McCleland himself. He's going to weigh in on the complaint and this experience as a whole. My name is Anya Cain. I'm a journalist.
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And I'm Kevin Greenlee. I'm an attorney.
A
And this is the Murder Sheet.
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We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting, interviews and deep dives into murder cases. We're the Murder Sheet and this is the Delphi murders. Baldwin's complaint, part three. Prosecutor Nicholas McClelland responds.
C
It.
B
I guess I'll start with a big question, a big picture question. What is your overall impression of this complaint?
C
I think I'm in agreement with the disciplinary commission that it doesn't really raise any substantial question of misconduct. It's kind of the same thing that Mr. Baldwin was complaining about during the trial. He filed several motions during the trial for I can't remember if it was contempt or motion to show cause. I can't remember how he captioned those, but he filed those motions during the case and those were all denied by the judge. This is kind of reinforces the commission has kind of reinforced what the judge ordered. And so I think that's frivolous, frankly, in its entirety, and it's kind of a rehashing of what he complained about during the trial.
A
Are these kinds of complaints common between attorneys within trials?
C
No, this is the first complaint I've gotten from another attorney. I've gotten complaints from defendants I've gotten complaints from.
When a case comes in, I have to evaluate whether or not I can prove the elements. And there's some cases that I don't file because I just don't have enough evidence to go forward. And so I've had two or three complaints from victims families, you know, wondering why I didn't go forward and filing a complaint against me to say, hey, it's inappropriate, he didn't go forward with these charges. And, you know, I want to know why not and I want to know why he's not being held accountable for not going forward. So the majority of complaints I've had have been from victims families who want to know who upset why I didn't go forward. But I've also had almost an equal number of amount from defendants who are upset about the conviction and the sentence they got.
A
I would Imagine that's pretty commonplace with, you know, the people who are the non attorneys maybe doing most of these complaints.
C
For most people, those are all. I've never gotten a complaint from another attorney or from a judge or from anybody else in the legal profession. I guess I'll say I've never gotten a complaint, not even from a staff member of another attorney or another judge or anybody involved in the legal justice system in the professional capacity I never got the complaint from.
A
Were you surprised by the tone in which this complaint was written?
C
Oh, gosh, at first I was. But then as you get into complaint, it just. It reads very much like an Andrew Baldwin type of motion, type of any kind of paper that he's filed that I dealt with with the Richard Allen case. He has the same amount of tone, he's very accusatory. And so it just kind of read. I was kind of surprised at first, but once you get past the first or second page, it just is written very much in his style.
B
You mentioned there, after you get past the first or second page, another question laypeople might have. In your experience, is it typical for one of these complaints to be over 50 pages?
C
No, the complaints I've received, again, they're from lay people who are filing these complaints. They tend to just be one or two pages at the most. They have a form that you can fill out. The disciplinary board has a form you can fill out. Typically it's just that form filled out and it may be one extra page kind of explaining what the complaint is about. But I've never. I've never seen one ever that more than 50 pages long. Now, gotta couch that with. I don't think a lot of attorneys are bringing their complaints to me to see either. So I haven't seen a lot complaints other than ones that have been filed against me. But I've never heard, you know, just in water cooler talk and talking to other attorneys and other prosecutors. I've never heard of a complaint 50 pages long either.
B
And as I recall, you didn't even hear about this until you got a letter saying it had been basically dismissed. What was your reaction when you discovered that this complaint had been filed against you?
C
Yes, it's not uncommon for the attorney to. To be unaware of the complaint being filed. The complaint will be filed. The attorney, at least my experience is I never get notice. The only time I know that a complaint's been filed is when I get a letter from the disciplinary commission saying, hey, this has been dismissed on its face because it doesn't raise a Substantial question of misconduct under the professional rules of conduct. And so I never really know when a complaint is being filed until I get the letter from the board. Now, this, this letter, the complaint, it looks like he dated it August 19th of 2025. And I got the letter from the disciplinary commission on November 14th of 2025. I was actually in the middle of a trial, and my staff opens my mail here because I've directed them to do that, because all the mail that come from this office comes directed towards me. And a lot of it is motions and various filings. Not so much now that we have e filing, But I've directed them to open my mail in case there's something important like medical records or records we requested so we can get those to the defense as soon as possible. And they opened this while I was in trial, but they didn't give it to me while I was in trial because they just knew that it would take my mind off of what was going on in trial. So they gave it to me the week after trial. And so I didn't get it until a week after, after it came into my office. And I was really surprised at first. And then as you kind of let it sink in, it kind of said, okay, this is. This is par for the course.
B
It certainly seems like it's been par for the course in this case in particular. I'm curious, is this unusual in your experience throughout this entire trial, the defense really, frankly, they vilified you, they vilified law enforcement. Is that level of character assassination? That's my words, not yours. But is that level typical is to what you'd expect to see in a criminal trial?
C
No, when I say par for the course, I mean par for the course for this case and dealing with Mr. Baldwin, that is not typical in any other case I've done or any other defense attorney that I've dealt with. This is atypical, if that's the right word. I hope I'm using that word correctly. And so just the personal attacks to me personally is very uncharacteristic of any case I've dealt with. I think I had one other attorney personally attack me in the middle of a trial during closing statements. And that's the only other case I can remember. But, yeah, where they personally attack me instead of the state of Indiana, it's me specifically. That's very unusual. And then just all these accusations of corrupt.
Corrupt acts and personal attacks and corrupt acts against law enforcement. That is very unusual. Now, again, I'm in my own little bubble. Here in northern Indiana, I've worked here and then in surrounding counties. And so maybe that's more common in the bigger cities like Indianapolis, Fort Wayne, South Bend, those kind of cities. Maybe that's more common to attack police and vilify the prosecutor's office and the prosecutor specifically and police. But it's very uncommon in the cases that I've worked.
A
Right. And I mean, I imagine also there's a bit of a line between, you know, attacking someone's performance in the courtroom or the job someone does versus saying someone's deeply involved in some corrupt conspiracy. Is that fair to say?
C
Yeah, that's fair to say. We've always been cautioned as attorneys that if you're going to. And I'll use it in the realm of a judge, if you're going to accuse a judge of being corrupt or doing something bad or in violation of the rules of professional conduct, you. You better be damn sure you've got good evidence to back that up, because that is not something that's taken lightly. And so we as attorneys have always been told that if you're going to attack a judge in that way, you better make sure you have solid evidence to do so. And this seems to attack law enforcement and me personally. Without that solid evidence, just b. Just the attack is based on theories and ideas with no real evidence to back it up. But that goes hand in hand with the same accusations that were made during the trial.
A
Yeah, it really did seem in many ways like a rehash of things that either came up in trial, but really mostly pre trial. And I mean.
C
Right.
A
The thrust of the complaints seems to be you're hiding evidence. And. And it was. Is that fair? Is that kind of what you took away from it?
C
Yeah, that's exactly. That was the majority of what I saw in the complaint. And again, everything that we hashed in pretrial. And again, I didn't see anything new in the complaint that wasn't already discussed. And whether it be an emotion or in a hearing during the pretrial phase of the case.
A
And what's your response to that accusation that you were corruptly hiding evidence all over the place in this Delphi case?
C
We never hid. I think it's false. We never hid. Or I know it's false. We never hid evidence. There is an incredible amount of discovery in this case, and I've said it a million times, we only have to turn over what is exculpatory or what is direct evidence that we plan to use in trial. I chose in the beginning of this case, to hand it over everything. I just decided, look, we're going to hand over everything that we have to the defense, and they can go through it and decide what's exculpatory and what's not. Typically, it's up to the prosecutor to decide that and hand over that evidence. We, like I said early on, decided to hand over everything, and there's a ton of evidence. And early on, the defense would say, hey, we can't find X, Y, or Z. And we would go on the hunt for them, and we would try to find that forum and then send that separately to them in an email. And it got to be a commonplace where they said, hey, we can't find this. And we'd say, okay, we found it. Here it is. It got to the point where the defense would start accusing us of, well, you just sent that to us. It wasn't in discovery, when in fact it was in discovery. I think you saw this play out a little bit in the trial when they said they didn't get something. And I was able to produce a document where they signed where they had received it. And so it got. We got to be the scapegoat. When I say we, I mean the prosecutorial team got to be the scapegoat. When they couldn't find something, they would just say, hey, it's not in there. And then if something like the recordings that were recorded over in 2000, either 17 or 18, I cannot remember, you know, we would then get blamed for intentionally deleting those things in an effort to protect these other people, which is just so ludicrous to me that we would protect people who had killed two girls. I, I, I, I still can't wrap my mind around that. In an effort to frame Richard Allen, I, I. That concept I can't get my mind wrapped around. But, yeah, that became a theme early on, that they couldn't find stuff. And I understand, you know, we've been dealing with this and working with this evidence for five years, and then they're dumped with 26 terabytes of information all at once. It is hard to find stuff.
And so we were happy to help them where we could, but it got to the point where if they couldn't find it, they would just accuse us of not turning it over.
A
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It is so annoying.
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A
Yeah, I remember that distinctly. I think it was the first day of the three day hearing when they were complaining about specific things they didn't have. And you were able to run downstairs during a lunch break and come back with signed receipts. And it was pretty striking.
C
Yeah, and that's, that's why we started. I don't typically have defense attorneys sign receipts for discovery, but it became apparent early on in the case that if we didn't do that, they were going to claim that they didn't get it. And so we started to have them sign receipts fairly early on to say, okay, we've gotten this discovery. And so that way we could go back just like that very instance, to go back and say, well, yeah, you got it, here it is. And it was just a way to kind of COVID our butt so that we could ensure that we had given them that stuff and that they had received it.
A
A lot of the tenor of that sort of angle of complaint that continued through the pretrial and then is now kind of reflected here in this complaint. It always struck us as like, you know, the expectations being that almost the prosecution team and you would be going and holding their hands through getting everything from discovery, which, I mean, you were a defense attorney. Is that, is that something that defense attorneys tend to expect from prosecutors?
C
No. Now it's not standard for a case to have, you know, this much discovery and, and to be an open investigation for this long. So this is a unique case in itself that there was so much discovery here.
We tried to assist the defense in any way we could. If they asked for something, they couldn't find it, the investigator, Steve Mollen or myself or another part of the team, Stacy, would go, you know, search for it and try to give that to them and try to help as much as they we could. But yeah, at some point it did get a little frustrating where they seem to want us to put all the evidence in.
In a way that they could read easily without knowing what way that was. That's kind of a convoluted sentence. But it seemed to be that the defense wanted us to organize the Evidence for them in a way that was easy for them to go through without knowing what organization pattern that would look like. What's easy for us to organize or search through may not be easy for them. And so it was this little. It was a little frustrating at some points to say, you know what? You have it all. You've got to. You just got to go through it. It sucks. It's not fun. But we had to do the same thing, and we organized it in a way that works for us. You're going to have to do the same thing and organize it in a way that works for you. We're happy to assist if you can't find something, but I also don't want to give you something and then be accused of not turning it over or trying to hide it. And that became a common theme throughout the case.
A
Yeah.
B
And I was struck. Not only did they seem to have trouble going through the discovery, but there was some sort of implicit suggestion that you also didn't know what was in discovery. Because in this complaint, Baldwin talks about, oh, In August of 2023 at these depositions, Nick McClelland had no way of knowing that we already knew about the Odinism theory. And then on another page, he says, oh, we found out about the Odinism theory because there was a report on it in some discovery that he gave us.
C
And things like that.
B
Just, I don't know what my question is. I had trouble understanding a lot of the logic of this complaint.
C
I mean, I guess I don't understand that either. I mean, they. I've said this several times. They didn't go out and investigate and find the Odinism theme. It is something we investigated thoroughly and ran down every lead involved with that, just like any other lead that we had. And we gave that to them in discovery. The reason they knew about the Odinism is because we gave that to them in discovery. Now, he's correct in saying, I had no idea that that was going to be the crux of their argument. I thought.
I wouldn't have gone that way with an argument because I didn't think the odism theme carried any water or held any weight. And so I was surprised, I suppose, that that was going to be their main argument. I thought that we had done a very thorough investigation of it and proven that, hey, this doesn't lead anywhere. None of those people were in Delphi at the time of the merch. And so I guess I was surprised by that. But to make the statement that, you know. And again, he doesn't say the Prosecutor, he says, Nick McLellan, he points me out specifically to say that I had no idea that they, you know, Odinism was a possible defense in this case. Well, that's not true. We, we gave you the information about it. And so, yeah, I agree with you, Kevin. That kind of, you know, it's saying, hey, I had no idea of knowing, but we knew because the state gave us the information. I don't know how you have it both ways.
B
Yeah, I really, reading this complaint gave me a massive migraine because there were so many logical inconsistencies. He also complained that, oh, it took us a couple of weeks to get Turco's name, but he had Turco's name over a year before the trial. And after Turco was identified, Turco basically blew a hole through the defense and pointed out some serious problems with the defense. So I'm not even sure I understand why he keeps on trying to litigate that issue.
C
I don't know either, you know, if he didn't get Turco's name until halfway through the trial, maybe, but he had, he's complaining that he didn't have this information. He had all this information before trial. The complaint seems to be, well, you didn't get it to me quick enough. That, that seems to be the complaint. Not that I didn't get it, but you didn't get it to me quick enough in his opinion. And, and that it's a really weird argument. Even when he complains about the click report. He got that. He got it well before trial.
He got the Turco report well before trial. Even had an opportunity to pose Turco where Turco said, hey, I don't agree with your characterization of my report. He's saying this to the defense and even had an opportunity to call Turco as a witness at the three day hearing and chose not to. If he really, if Turco is really this, you know, key element to his defense, why was Turco never put on the stand at any point? I don't get that. And so I don't quite understand the complaint. Hey, I got the evidence, I just didn't get it as soon as I wanted it. That seems to be the complaint. But again, I don't want to put words in Mr. Baldwin's mouth, I guess.
A
Are you surprised that, I mean, I don't know, are you surprised that some of these issues came up again in a complaint against you? Because as, as you mentioned, these were all, all of them extensively litigated through the pre trial phase and then they're kind of Morphing into something where it's not a legal matter for the case, where it's like an attack against you.
C
Personally, I was surprised about the complaint in its entirety. I was surprised when the staff said. Came in and said, hey, Nick, you know, we got to give you something. We wanted to give it to you after the trial. And I saw it, and you kind of have this moment of, are you kidding me? Really? And then once you get into the play, nothing really surprised me because it was all a rehashing of what we had already argued. And so the complaint itself surprised me. But once you get into it, it's just kind of the kind of same old drumbeat that Mr. Baldwin has been preaching about since day one, and nothing's changed.
B
Some of the stuff that he brought up, on some level, I'll confess, it surprised me. I don't know if it's Ricky Davis or Richie Davis, but he brings up this Richie Davis stuff. And this is a man who wrote in a letter that Mr. Baldwin's client, Richard Allen, committed the murders or was involved in the murders. He also claims that Mr. Baldwin tried to suborn perjury. So I'm not even sure why he thinks that's a winning issue.
C
Yeah, I guess that part surprises me. I. I don't know what happened to the second letter that Ricky Davis or Richie Davis said he sent. I don't know if he actually sent it. I don't have it. I'm not hiding it back. It doesn't have, you know, I don't have some letter locked in the vault that has, you know, incriminating evidence against somebody else. The letters I have, I gave over to them. To claim that those letters are exculpatory against Richard Allen. That's laughable because they accused Richard Allen of committing the crime. You know, if they. Again, if they thought Ricky Davis was this huge witness, you know, let's depose Ricky Davis. He's available. He's there. Mr. Baldwin seems to want to pick and choose the facts out of every single scenario that support his case. So he wants to pick the part of the Ricky Davis letter that supports his theory, but wants us to ignore the rest. Where they accuse not only Mr. Baldwin of being inappropriate, but also accused Richard Allen of committing the crimes. Todd Klick, he wants to pick and choose. Toxic theory is not that the girls were killed by a ritualistic manner. His theory is that the girls walked upon the people having a ceremony and made fun of it and were killed for that reason. And so he wants to pick and choose out of all these different things, hey, I want you to. This part supports my theory, so you should believe this. The rest I just want you to ignore.
A
Yeah, no, it's. It. It. It's definitely shocking in, in terms of the, you know, one point that kind of surprised me a little bit was throughout the document, Mr. Baldwin keeps on having weird, I guess, asides where he's sort of writing out quotes that he thinks that you in particular should have said, like, sorry, Mr. Baldwin, I guess we messed up. Like, did that strike you as kind of oddly personal?
C
It didn't because of what he put in the Franks memo. He did kind of the same thing with the Frank's memo, where he kind of has these own conversations in his head and he puts those on paper. You know, in the Frank's memo, he said, well, had Richard Allen said XYZ or had the guard said this to our client, our client would have responded. He has like these kind of sidebars almost that he puts down on paper. And so it wasn't unusual to see that in this, because he did that in the Franks. Now, again, I think that's unusual to put an emotion or a complaint of any kind to say, well, if the client would have said this, he should have responded in this way. And it kind of. It's just odd in itself to write motions and complaints like that, at least in my experience.
A
Yeah, he's like writing a weird, like, dialogue with you, but it's not really you. It's just his idea of you. It's, It's a very. It's. It's. It's unusual. And I guess the other thing is, at one point, I believe Kevin and I were kind of struck by this. He refers to Richard Allen as his client. But of course, you know, the case is over. It'll go to appeal. That's a, That's a separate thing. But for you, as. As a former defense attorney coming in with that experience, is that. Is this, Is it unusual to be, I guess, you know, still doing things like this after a trial has ended for a defense attorney to be doing that?
C
No, there's. In terms of if there was a post conviction relief or if there's a motion to reconsider, it wouldn't be unusual for the defendant to reach out to their public defender and say, hey, can you help me with this? And it's not unusual to refer that defendant as your client even after the case is over. Again, I've never had a defense attorney file a complaint against me personally like this with the Disciplinary board. And so that part is very unusual. But to kind of stay on as a, I guess a public defender for a defendant, that's not unusual. It wasn't unusual for a defendant to call me after they were sentenced and I'd withdrawn from the case to say, hey, you know, I want to file a petition to reconsider, or I want to file a petition for early release. You know, do you do that for me? And it wouldn't be unusual for me to go to the judge and say, hey, judge, so. And so I represent them at the trial level. They want to do this, and I refer to them as my client. You know, do you want me to assist with them with that? You know, what do you want me to do? So that part, talking to the defendant after the trial is over is not unusual. Referring to them as your client is not unusual. Filing a complaint like this against the prosecutor, in my experience, is unusual.
B
Now, of course, during the pre trial and the trial process, you were neck deep in getting this kind of abuse, not only from the defense attorneys themselves, but from their online acolytes. Now that the trial is over, that that's changed somewhat. And, you know, recently at CrimeCon, you were even given an award for your good work, your excellent work, frankly. How does it feel to be being praised for stuff that you were being criticized for by the nuts a year ago?
C
Well, before I was really hesitant to go to CrimeCon, Jerry Holman had to do a lot of legwork to talk me into going because I was fearful that I was going to. It was going to kind of be like the online world where everybody was heckling you. And it just. I was fearful it was going to be a bad experience where I was just going to be kind of chastised the whole time and question about why I did this and why I did that. And, you know, when I. I finally agreed to go and crimecon had a Facebook page and I. I didn't know much about CrimeCon, so I went on to CrimeCon to kind of learn about what it was and what they did. And they had a post on there about Jerry and I going to speak there. And the comments underneath the post were very much akin to what I had received throughout the trial. And so I got cold feet a couple days beforehand. I said, jerry, I just don't know if I want to do this.
I don't want this to be like what I'm seeing online. And inevitably I went and it was a great experience. It was the complete opposite of what the online experience Was everybody was friendly and everybody was appreciative, and it was just a. A really nice, I guess, convention to go to. And it was nice to talk to everybody and meet everybody, and everybody was just very, very complimentary and. And very nice. And so it was night and day difference. It was really odd for me to be at Crime Con. I was really awkward at times on how to answer when somebody said, good job because you're so used to everybody criticizing what you did. And I got sucked into that online world a little bit, and you kind of live in that bubble, and so it was very different. It's very different to go to something like that and hear all the compliments and all the praise and all those kind of things. The whole team heard it locally because everybody locally was in support of us and was very kind. It was just that when you get sucked into that online, like Reddit world or Facebook or whatever the platform is, is when you hear all that negativity and personal attacks against me personally and Jerry Holman personally and just the whole team. And so, yeah, it was a very, very different experience at CrimeCon and something that I had never experienced before in this case, outside the local market.
A
Yeah, yeah.
B
Frankly, obviously, you deserved it. You and your team did outstanding work, and at the end of the day, you put a double child murder behind bars for the rest of his life. You got justice for these girls, and that's something you and your team should be celebrated for.
A
I agree.
C
Yeah. I'm very proud of our team. Stacy and Jim, I mean, I couldn't have done that, any of this without them. But also, you know, just the whole law enforcement team, my staff, I mean, everybody, Kathy, Shank, I mean, for Pete's sake, everybody had a hand in doing something in this case and helping us get to the finish line. And I don't think we could have done it without all those pieces working together. So they're all equally as important. Just because my name is on the motion that we file or on, you know, whatever kind of filing that we have, doesn't mean that it didn't take a village to get that filing completed and to reviewed and filed. And so.
I'm very proud of everybody on our team. I wish I could give awards to everybody in our team. I wish I had that power. I think they all should be recognized as equally as I am, because just I couldn't have done any of it without them.
A
Yeah. I just want to know for the listeners, I think most of them know this, but when we're talking about Online abuse, like, it goes way beyond just like, oh, they did a bad job, or I don't think they got the right person. It goes into like very highly personal attacks and harassment and this kind of constant drumbeat. And we know that firsthand because we've gotten that too, to probably a lesser extent than you. But it's, it's something that, you know, it's very pervasive.
C
It is. And if it's just somebody compliment commenting on, you know, hey, I did a bad job at my job, that stuff, you know, you're gonna have that stuff in whatever you do. But we've, it's gone to the extent where, you know, they've downloaded pictures of my kids and, and it just gets so personal. And they personally attack. You know, what if this happened to your two little girls, Mr. McLeland? What if some, you know, it just gets so personal, which I don't understand.
But yeah, when it crosses that line like that, it does become offensive. I mean, you know, I've gotten one line emails, you know, that it just said, you're an asshole. And that's all it says. I can't tell who it's from, has no signature, and they'll just personally attack me. You know, you're corrupt and everything that you did is going to come back threefold on your family. I mean, I get emails like that not as often now, but during the trial, you know, multiple times a week.
A
Jesus. Yeah, it's, it's. These people have too much time on their hands. And, and of course, I mean, obviously this isn't a one word email, but I feel like this 57 complaint kind of fits into some of that in terms of being this just sort of pointless, very personalized, sort of nonsensical, illogical attack against you. So did it bring any up? I mean, just on a personal level, how did you feel getting this? Just not as a lawyer, not as someone analyzing it logically, but just in terms of, just as a person.
C
I just found myself saying, come on, really? You know, every page that you read, it's like, really? Are you kidding me? This is so stupid. And I don't know, I say that a lot when I read something, you know, that I, that is so frivolous as this, but I found myself saying that out loud as I'm reading through it page by page. Like, really? I mean, we already talked about this. What? This is so silly. This is a waste of paper.
A
And then, you know, we're kind of going a little bit more broad, but, you know, we're coming up on the one year anniversary of the sentencing. How has it been for you now that we're a year out past this experience of going through the trial and you, you know, you trying Richard Allen, how are you doing a year after that.
C
You know, I mean, things haven't changed much. We're so busy here because there's only Stacey Deaner and myself prosecuting cases. I mean, I've done another murder trial since the Richard Allen trial. I just got out of a shaken baby case that was two weeks long. I've done a rape case since then. I've done aggravated batteries. And so, you know, I have about one trial a month and they typically last a week or two. And so I haven't had a lot of extra time. And on top of that, dealing with the appeal for Richard Allen and trying to stay current with the filings that are going on with that and continue to stay in touch with the AG's office to continue to work on that. We're hopeful that the defense is going to have their brief in soon and then the real work for us will start to draft our reply. And so I don't know that things have changed much. I'm still working a ton of hours a week just on various different cases. I am anxious to get the. I am anxious to read the appellate brief and I'm anxious to get the reply and I'm anxious to get this to the court of appeals so they can review everything and make their decision. And so the, the case has never left my mind. It's still, you know, on the forefront of my mind. But I'm just anxious now to get through the process of the appeal so we can get an opinion from the Court of appeal. Once that's in, I'll probably have a different mindset. Whichever way it goes.
A
That makes sense. Is there anything that we didn't ask you about, about this whole complaint or anything else that you wanted to mention or you think it's important for people to understand?
C
No.
I'm kind of with you. The complaint to me, the complaint didn't have anything new in it that he didn't complain about during the pre trial phase of the trial.
I don't want to give the complaint too much credence because I don't think it deserves that. And obviously the disciplinary board didn't think that either. They dismissed it on its face. I didn't have to file any kind of reply or answer in any way that it sent me a copy of the complaint with a cover page that says we found this to be frivolous and found it to be to not raise the central question of misconduct and they dismissed it on its face. And so.
I think that letter in itself tells you everything you need to know about the complaint that it didn't even reach the bar to require me to respond. It was so frivolous that they just dismissed it on its face.
B
Well, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us about this today.
A
We really appreciate it.
C
Not a problem. Anytime.
A
Thank you so much to Nicholas for taking the time to speak with us for the Murder Sheet. We really appreciate it.
B
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A
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B
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A
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B
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Episode: The Delphi Murders: Baldwin's Complaint Part Three: Prosecutor Nicholas McLeland Responds
Date: December 3, 2025
Hosts: Áine Cain (A), Kevin Greenlee (B)
Guest: Nicholas McLeland, Carroll County Prosecutor (C)
In this episode, hosts Áine Cain and Kevin Greenlee sit down for an exclusive interview with Carroll County Prosecutor Nicholas McLeland. The focus is McLeland's response to a 57-page disciplinary complaint filed against him by Andrew Baldwin, former defense counsel for Richard Allen—the man convicted in the infamous Delphi murders of Libby German and Abby Williams. The conversation addresses the substance, tone, and context of the complaint, situating it within broader patterns of hostility faced by involved legal professionals during and after the trial.
On the nature of the complaint:
“I think I’m in agreement with the disciplinary commission that it doesn’t really raise any substantial question of misconduct. It’s…a rehashing of what he complained about during the trial.”
— Nicholas McLeland (06:46)
On complaints from other attorneys being rare:
“This is the first complaint I’ve gotten from another attorney… I’ve never gotten a complaint from another attorney or from a judge or from anybody else in the legal profession.”
— McLeland (07:32–08:58)
McLeland describes Baldwin’s tone as “very accusatory” and states the complaint matched the style of courtroom filings brought by Baldwin in the Allen case (09:03).
“I was kind of surprised at first, but… it just is written very much in his style.”
— McLeland (09:03)
On the length:
“I’ve never seen one ever that’s more than 50 pages long... Never heard of a complaint 50 pages long either.”
— McLeland (09:45)
“It’s not uncommon for the attorney to be unaware of the complaint being filed… The only time I know that a complaint’s been filed is when I get a letter from the disciplinary commission saying, hey, this has been dismissed.”
— McLeland (10:47)
The defense’s tone went beyond typical adversarial conduct:
“This is atypical… Just the personal attacks to me personally is very uncharacteristic of any case I’ve dealt with.”
— McLeland (12:54)
He clarifies that while challenging a professional’s work is part of legal practice, accusing them (or law enforcement) of corruption without evidence is serious and rare:
“If you’re going to attack a judge in that way, you better make sure you have solid evidence… This seems to attack law enforcement and me personally without that solid evidence.”
— McLeland (14:32)
McLeland stands by the office’s transparency:
“We never hid... or I know it’s false. We never hid evidence. There is an incredible amount of discovery in this case… In the beginning... I just decided, look, we’re going to hand over everything that we have to the defense...”
— McLeland (16:07)
He describes practical hurdles, like the size of the evidence (26 terabytes), leading to defense confusion, but reiterates that the prosecution repeatedly assisted:
“Early on, the defense would say, ‘Hey, we can’t find X, Y, or Z.’ And we would go on the hunt for them… At some point, if they couldn’t find it, they would just accuse us of not turning it over.”
— McLeland (16:07–18:24)
Signed discovery receipts became necessary due to recurring defense claims:
“I don’t typically have defense attorneys sign receipts for discovery, but it became apparent early on in the case that if we didn’t do that, they were going to claim that they didn’t get it.”
— McLeland (22:04)
On the Odinism theory and discovery:
“They didn’t go out and investigate and find the Odinism theme. It is something we investigated thoroughly… and gave that to them in discovery. The reason they knew about the Odinism is because we gave that to them in discovery.”
— McLeland (25:25)
Disputes over the timing or completeness of certain pieces of evidence (e.g., the Turco and Klick reports) are characterized as stretching for complaints:
“He had all this information before trial. The complaint seems to be, ‘Well, you didn’t get it to me quick enough.’ That seems to be the complaint. Not that I didn’t get it, but you didn’t get it to me quick enough in his opinion. And… it’s a really weird argument.”
— McLeland (27:26)
On selective quoting and unusual commentary within the complaint (such as imagined apologies or side quotes attributed to McLeland), McLeland notes Baldwin “puts those on paper… it’s just odd in itself to write motions and complaints like that, at least in my experience.” (32:12)
“It’s gone to the extent where, you know, they’ve downloaded pictures of my kids and, and it just gets so personal… I mean, I get emails like that not as often now, but during the trial, multiple times a week.”
— McLeland (39:26–40:20)
“It was a really nice… convention to go to. And it was nice to talk to everybody and meet everybody, and everybody was just very, very complimentary and very nice. And so it was night and day difference.”
— McLeland (36:26)
On the overall feeling toward the complaint:
“I just found myself saying, come on, really? You know, every page that you read, it’s like, really? Are you kidding me? This is so stupid... This is a waste of paper.”
— McLeland (40:49)
On his team’s effort:
“I’m very proud of our team… I couldn’t have done any of this without them… Just because my name is on the motion… doesn’t mean that it didn’t take a village… They all should be recognized as equally as I am.”
— McLeland (38:08)