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Anya Cain
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Kevin Greenlee
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Anya Cain
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Kevin Greenlee
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Anya Cain
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Kevin Greenlee
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Anya Cain
Applies content Warning this episode contains discussion about the brutal murder of two girls as well as topics around mental health, including suicide.
Kevin Greenlee
Well, it was another interesting day in the ongoing trial of Richard Allen for the murders of Abigail Williams and Liberty German. The trial, of course, that is taking place in Carroll County, Indiana in the town of Deli, and we will tell you everything that happened in just a moment.
Anya Cain
My name is Anya Cain, I'm a.
Kevin Greenlee
Journalist and I'm Kevin Greenlee.
Anya Cain
I'm an attorney, and this is the Murder Sheet.
Kevin Greenlee
We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting, interviews, and deep dives into murder cases. We're the Murder Sheet.
Anya Cain
And this is the Delphi Murders. Richard Allen on trial day 17, the rebuttal. So, before we get into some housekeeping, I wanted to note, to not leave you in any suspense, we. We got both sessions covered today. We got the afternoon and the morning session. We divided and conquered, much like one Julius Caesar, although we didn't declare ourselves dictator and then get assassinated by a bunch of angry dudes in togas. That'll be tomorrow. But for today, we got in, and Kevin took most of the morning. I took more of the afternoon. So we'll be kind of piecing that together.
Kevin Greenlee
But housekeeping.
Anya Cain
Housekeeping.
Kevin Greenlee
Respect must be paid.
Anya Cain
You said the word right the other day. People were impressed.
Kevin Greenlee
Homage.
Anya Cain
Homage.
Kevin Greenlee
Homage.
Anya Cain
Not homage. Homage. All right, so thank you so much to Joe and Amanda. You all are Murder Sheet lifesavers, and we love you. Like, thank you so much for doing this. They came out and they sat in line for us, and they're super nice, and we really appreciate them.
Kevin Greenlee
And I suspect that in the days to come, I will have another reason to be grateful to Joe, because he said this morning, and I assume I'm authorized to repeat this information, although I certainly never bothered to ask him, he said to me, I understand. I'm paraphrasing. I understand you're a gentleman who likes seafood. And he gave me a recommendation that I have been salivating over ever since. A place called RDM Shrimp, which sells, according to their website, the freshest, cleanest shrimp for 600 miles. He showed me pictures of this shrimp. It looks incredible. We're going to make a special trip out there at some point and get a bunch of shrimp to take home and cook in a variety of ways. So I'm going to be grateful to Joe for that murder. Sheep people have very astute recommendations, so I'm sure that everything he said about this place is accurate.
Anya Cain
I agree.
Kevin Greenlee
Shrimp, shrimp, shrimp. We've got shrimp to look forward to. Thanks to the wise advice and experience experience of Lifesaver Joe. And while we're talking about businesses and such, I have been very much looking forward to going to a new business in Delphi called Buttermilk Biscuit Company and Coffee Shop. But because of the hours of the trial and stuff, it hasn't worked out. Everybody raves about this place, and we thought we'd be able to make it in today. And we were very, very excited about it because, again, people rave about it, but because of some line sitting drama, we weren't able to make it into my deep, deep regret, to be clear.
Anya Cain
Not drama with the line sitters, Amanda and Joe or any other line sitters, just more of that. The rules changed again. And essentially due to election day, the line had to form in a different perspective. And it was the whole. It was a whole thing. It was a whole thing. And I will shout out one person who I.
Kevin Greenlee
Let me. Let me. Let me. Let me do the lead in.
Anya Cain
Do it.
Kevin Greenlee
We don't talk about politics on the show, but Anya mentioned it was election day, and I suspect if people in the Line today could have voted, the president of the line would have been this person that Anya is about to mention.
Anya Cain
Yes. Thank you to Marv. Marv is a YouTuber and she did an amazing job sort of taking a. Taking a list, writing everyone's name down, holding everyone to it, holding everyone accountable. It was the kind of organization we have really needed throughout this entire process. And I was just like, shout out to Marv. She did an amazing job.
Kevin Greenlee
So there were all sorts of rumors today that the defense would be resting, and people made comments. People were predicting that they would offer a handful of final witnesses and perhaps rest.
Anya Cain
Around noon, I had a prediction. My prediction was that they would at least bring some of the investigators of the case on to kind of beat up again. You know, like, beat him up a bit. And then maybe, like, I wasn't really sure with Kathy Allen.
Kevin Greenlee
A lot of people were expecting to see Kathy Allen on the stand today.
Anya Cain
I didn't really necessarily think that because that feels like it could have been a huge risk for that. Mean, like, high reward for a character witness, but also high risk. And I was kind of like, not sure. But I think you and I were both in the camp where we certainly expected something to happen today for the defense. Right.
Kevin Greenlee
But instead, we. We walk in, all the players come in. Richard Allen appears to have gotten a haircut, for whatever it's worth.
Anya Cain
Yeah.
Kevin Greenlee
All the players walk in, and Brad Rosie says, after court opens, the defense rests.
Anya Cain
And that's it, they're done.
Kevin Greenlee
And I think it's fair to say that, at least to me, both Judge Gull and the members of the prosecutorial team seemed a bit taken aback.
Anya Cain
I was taken back. I wrote, whoa. Didn't expect that. Really good note taking passed Anya.
Kevin Greenlee
And one sign of the fact that the prosecutorial team did not expect that was they had some rebuttal witnesses. Scheduled, but they weren't scheduled to come in until around noon, a few hours later. So that this meant there was a bit of a break.
Anya Cain
Quite a, quite a lot of a break.
Kevin Greenlee
The break started with Judge Go raising the issue of jury instructions. What, what are jury instructions? What do we mean when we talk about jury instructions?
Anya Cain
I feel like you're better to explain this, but I would say that I. Isn't it essentially the judge saying what the jury can and cannot consider when they're deliberating? So like, you know, one example that came up, they talked a lot about jury instructions around the fact that defendant Richard Allen never testified. And what I took from this is that the instructions are meant to include things like, hey, I mean, I'm boiling it down in layperson's language. But hey, you can't judge a guy for not testifying. That's not fair. You can't consider that when you're deliberating. You can't got up in there in the deliberation, say, well, I don't know, but I mean, Richard Allen really should have told us what he was really doing that day and like should have gotten on the sand and explained himself. So I'm going to convict based on that. Is that, I mean that's, that's basically it.
Kevin Greenlee
The one thing that's important to remember is that in a court, the judge is the ultimate arbiter on what the law is and the jury is the ultimate arbiter on what the facts are. So what the instructions are is Judge Go, with input from both sides, is going to say, okay, here is what has been charged. And the law says if you want to find a person guilty of these things, you can only do so if you find the following sorts of facts, and if you don't find these following sorts of facts, then you can't find that person guilty, you must find him not guilty. So it's not telling the jury what facts to decide. It's telling the jury, okay, once you decide what you think happened, once you've figured out what the facts are, look at this. And it's a road map as to how to apply the law to those facts. Does that make sense?
Anya Cain
It does make sense. And Judge Gull again, Kevin mentioned, was caught off guard. She said, she said somewhat, kind of a little bit like annoyedly I thought, like quote, I didn't receive any juror instructions from either side, kind of giving side eye to both the sides. And then she also said, quote, I wasn't anticipating having this discussion quite just yet, end quote. She didn't seem unhappy about it happening, though.
Kevin Greenlee
She was just. She was just taking.
Anya Cain
She was just like, okay, like, seem.
Kevin Greenlee
To be taken by now.
Anya Cain
We got to go. And also, get me your things. The other thing the defense mentioned. So the state didn't have any sort of additions or things that they wanted mentioned in the jury instructions, but the defense also had something about prior inconsistent statements from Allen or possibly the incriminating statements they wanted that got into. And what followed was essentially sort of a very. What felt like a very long psychological experiment, because I think you pointed out aptly that it made us watching the jury watch videos look like just riveting.
Kevin Greenlee
Courtroom drama, because we were all sitting in this room. And I should note that prior to the opening of court, some of the deputies came in and they relayed some information. And this information was that, I believe the judge has been upset. The people have been whispering to one another in the courtroom. And so if anyone was caught whispering to one another in the courtroom, that person would be tapped on the shoulder and asked to leave and never return. And so that's pretty serious. So that meant during this. This long break, we couldn't. No one could talk to one another. And Judge Gold was still on the bench, but she wasn't really doing anything, and nothing was happening. So we were all just in a very quiet courtroom staring at each other.
Anya Cain
But can I just say my. My next bunch of notes are literally you and me writing back and forth. Can I just. As for an example, I wrote, still closing tomorrow or afternoon. Kevin writes back, depends how many witnesses, how long they testify. Best guess, tomorrow, but who knows? So this is.
Kevin Greenlee
This is the kind of insight you are missing because you're not sitting next to me in court. You're missing me saying, well, I don't know.
Anya Cain
Then I wrote down, yeesh, didn't expect that. And then unbearable silence, because that's how I felt. And you wrote, non zero chance. There are closings and verdict today. What do you think? So this is. This is what we end up doing. Like, it was very, very boring. I mean, I. I got to the point where it was a really exciting thing when one of the. When. When, like, one of the lawyers would get up, leave, and then come back, it was like, oh, is something happening?
Kevin Greenlee
You were carefully noting all of this.
Anya Cain
I was like, oh, here, There goes Jennifer. O.J. what's. Oh, no, she's coming back. It's like, that was pretty much like, that was the experience.
Kevin Greenlee
And while we're in this break that we're discussing this is as good a time as any to discuss some of the line drama, because the line to get in, we've alluded to this in the past, has become more and more contentious and more and more issues. A much smaller number of people were allowed into the morning session. And our plan had been that I would attend the morning session and then Anya would attend the afternoon. She just immediately get into line. But even if she'd left the line immediately at 9am or 8am it was too late. It was too late. And then as soon as the defense arrested and it was confirmed that there would be opening, or it was confirmed there'd be closing statements tomorrow, Anya began getting concerned that if we wanted to make it into those closing arguments, she would need to immediately leave court, like at 9:30 in the morning in order to secure seats for us for tomorrow morning. And so during this period, at some point before witnesses began, you left.
Anya Cain
I did, although I will go over a few things that I did write down beforehand because I think I was there for some of the stuff. I think at one point the attorneys came back in, talked about, talked a little bit more about jury instructions and then order of argument, and they talked at that point about the. The length of the arguments would be two hours to two and a half hours. And at one point, Gull said she wanted to give them a lot of leeway, but, quote, I might be clicking a pen, hey, can we wind things up here? Almost. So she's. She's indicating that she's going to give them some leeway, but. But maybe there's a limit to that.
Kevin Greenlee
So. So then you leave. You leave. You leave me alone in the court and you go out and you step into your own little psychodrama that I, I am not privy to this because I'm sitting in court having pleasant discussions with normal people, like one of the. Some of the personnel in court and other people, as I was having a fine time. You were not?
Anya Cain
No. So I go outside and people are already kind of preparing to get lined up for the following day. So I kind of get in, get in the mix on that. And we put our chairs down and whatever, and one of the reporters is kind of taking a list, as had been done the previous day, just to kind of keep things fair, make sure no one's cutting. I thought that seemed reasonable. He does that. There's a lot of, you know, people rushing and putting their stuff in and whatnot. It's pretty chaotic. But eventually the list gets compiled and then that reporter sort of basically leaves it with me the list right? So I'm like okay, yeah, like do. I had a bit of a bad feeling about it but I was like, whatever. What's the worst that can happen?
Kevin Greenlee
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Kevin Greenlee
I y-o.com what's the worst that could happen?
Anya Cain
Well, I forgot I was in Delphi. So then there's, you know, there's, you know, there's a contingent.
Kevin Greenlee
You forgot that you were in amongst this particular online community that was at Delphi. That's true. Because to be fair, the bad things that you're about to describe did not involve any natives of Delphi.
Anya Cain
That's correct. So I'm sitting there and you know, and it's becoming clear that some people who didn't basically get there fast enough are very annoyed. Even though they're like on the line and have a very good shot of getting in, they're very mad because they're not going to be able to save seats for all their best buddies who they need to get in there for reasons that are between, you know, who knows? And it's like, whatever, that's not really my problem. And also I didn't even write up the list. I'm just, you know, I'm just holding it at this point. So this woman comes up to me and says, can I see the list? And I said, sure. And I sort of angled it toward her while still holding. And I said, you know, you can take a Picture of it. That's what everyone's been doing. She's grabbing a pen and kind of going to write for it. So I kind of like pull it back a little bit. Like I'm. You can see the list in where you are, but you're not going to like alter it at this point. Not without at least talking to the guy who originally authored it. If you talk to that person and he says, oh, I made a mistake, of course you're number nine, then fine, I don't have an issue with that. But like, I'm not going to let somebody just start writing, you know, all of their best buddies who they have parasocial relationships with, you know, all over the friggin, you know, no, absolutely not. That's not fair to everyone else. And this woman literally snatches this legal pad from my hands. This is, this is a, how do I say this? This is an adult woman. Very much an adult woman. This is not a child, this is not a teenager. This is an. This is a woman who was raised, you know, and apparently thinks that that kind of behavior is okay in public to just randomly snatch things from other people's hands that do not belong to her. That's how she was raised. So kudos to her parents. But I'm just sitting there, like, what I mean, like, I'm standing at this point and I'm just thinking, what the heck am I, like even doing here? But I grabbed it right back because I'm like, no, I look like you could probably shove me in a locker, but. And you probably could most days. But, like, don't try to push me around. Like, I don't, I don't react well to people trying to bully. And this is, this is one of these people who goes around and basically, you know, if she and her, her friends hustle up their way to the top of the line, then she's yelling about how no cutting. And, but if, but if she, you know, she doesn't get to the point where she can bring all five of her best friends in or whatever, then suddenly it's the world's greatest tragedy. She was going up and down the line making threats about like, well, you know, I'm going to cause such a problem that no one will get in. So, like, that's how she views this. And it's like, I'm not intimidated and I'm not impressed. So I just grabbed it right back from her. The deputies had to come out and basically say, like, none of this, you know, like, you guys are all adults. You can't do this. So she skulks off with her little minions and it's just like, you know, you know, what's upsetting about some of this is that, like, I feel that I've seen, you know, there's, there's, there's these people who are doing this right? But then like, they're like, there's almost like factions that have formed where they're also getting aid and comfort from people, I would argue, who should know better and who should know not to be associating with people like this because this is just unacceptable behavior. This is not something that emotionally regulated adults should be doing. Okay, like, and I'm just like, I'm, I'm not a confrontational person and I don't enjoy being put in situations where suddenly I'm having to play keep away because someone's having a hissy fit because their little best buddy, you know, might not get first in line or whatever the heck it was like. And I just, that's not my problem. That's not anyone else's problem, and get over it.
Kevin Greenlee
And meanwhile, everybody in that line, or at least most people in that line, I'm sure, have been having no sleep, very hungry, just exhausted. And so tempers are framed.
Anya Cain
Well, I'm just going to say this. We missed out on, on a, on a time yesterday. Other people have missed out on times. It would never even cross my mind to lay hands on someone or, or grab something from somebody because I was brought up properly. So, like, the fact that people think that's okay in any context is baffling. I understand that it's frustrating. Oh, I want to go see closings. I want to get in line. Listen, I get it. Tempers, tempers are what they are, but don't freaking touch me. So, yeah, that was an interesting experience. I was upset, but now I'm just like, whatever.
Kevin Greenlee
And meanwhile, Anya is, is going through whatever that is her own little bizarre low budget action film. And I'm upstairs in the courtroom just having pleasant conversations with.
Anya Cain
You're like, sipping tea and oh, high te with the lords and ladies.
Kevin Greenlee
During this break, I, I had lovely conversations, particularly with two different people. I, I don't know if I have permission to say who, but I enjoyed it.
Anya Cain
It was very pleasant, like violin music playing. Meanwhile, I'm like fighting off like five.
Kevin Greenlee
YouTubers outside and, and it. It one. At one point, I also thought it was nice. I, for whatever reason, the seating in the courtroom completely rearranged today with completely new rules the day before the end of the trial. Yeah, that makes sense. So I'm sitting two rows behind where the Allen family in the defense is sitting. And I'm just sitting there wondering, well, how much longer is this break going to be? And is if on cue, Jennifer O.J. goes up to the Allen family and says loudly, It'll be about 30 more minutes. And someone behind me says, oh, thank you for saying that so we can all hear. And so it. And she, Jennifer, Jose kind of smiled. So I'm getting the information I need.
Anya Cain
Yeah.
Kevin Greenlee
Talking to people.
Anya Cain
I will say this. A lot of people in the line were very nice and supportive. And I think, like, it wasn't. I don't want to make it sound like it was. It really was. You know, a few very bad actors and then a lot of people who are just trying to get by. So a lot of people were very nice about it and witnessed this and understood that it was not okay.
Kevin Greenlee
Right.
Anya Cain
And, you know, kind of like law enforcement saw what happened as well. So, I mean, they're aware.
Kevin Greenlee
They.
Anya Cain
I mean, people know what happened. But I don't want to make it out to be like, I was literally fighting off five YouTubers. Mostly YouTubers in line are very lovely people.
Kevin Greenlee
So law enforcement knew what was happening. I didn't. I'm just relaxing, like, doodling just while my wife is bleeding in the gutter.
Anya Cain
No, I was. Okay. It was upsetting.
Kevin Greenlee
So then after this long break ends, the prosecution says, okay, our witnesses are here. They are ready. The. The first witness for the rebuttal period of the prosecution is called by Stacy Deener. And this is Brianne Wilbur. She, of course, provided testimony earlier in the case about seeing someone who she indicated was Bridge Guy. And also she provided some Snapchat photos that were timestamped of various points of her journeys that day on and around the trails. And these timestamp photos from Snapchat help confirm the times she was there, which is always relevant when you're trying to build a timeline. And today she brought in some Snapchat pictures of Freedom Bridge that she took on that day. And she took those pictures at around the time she first arrived because. Yeah, yeah. And those pictures were timestamped at 12:25pm and she said she walked from the Freedom Bridge to the Monon High Bridge. And she saw, as she walked, she saw no girls and she saw no other man who resembled Bridgecott.
Anya Cain
Okay. So it's like you can kind of tell the prosecution there is. Who is doing the direct on that.
Kevin Greenlee
Stacy Diener.
Anya Cain
Okay. You told me that. Sorry, you could tell the prosecution's almost like trying to dot its eyes and cross its T's, make sure there's no room for confusion on any of this.
Kevin Greenlee
And Andrew Baldwin did the very brief cross examination. He, he wanted to know, did you have these Freedom Bridge pictures and did you supply them to Stacy Diener prior to when you testified? And it turned out she did. And that was, that was pretty much it for the cross examination.
Anya Cain
Big deal.
Kevin Greenlee
I guess he was trying to suggest, well, if you had these pictures earlier, maybe you should have introduced them earlier. But he didn't really pursue that then. I, I don't think it's a big deal.
Anya Cain
Okay.
Kevin Greenlee
The next witness was presented by prosecutor Nick McLeland. And this is Brian Harshman. Brian Harshman. You remember who he is? Of course. He is the master trooper. He's one of many master troopers.
Anya Cain
He's the only one.
Kevin Greenlee
He's a master trooper with the Indiana State.
Anya Cain
I don't know why that's funny. Go ahead.
Kevin Greenlee
We're very, very tired. I'm so happy that we're gonna be getting more sleep soon. He's a master trooper and a detective with the Indiana State Police. He's been working on this case for a while. His primary responsibility, as we understand it, is to monitor. To monitor all of the various recordings that are being made of Richard Allen. While Richard Allen is incarcerated, he's often under video surveillance for one reason or another. And of course, when you're in prison or when you're incarcerated, all of your phone calls are monitored. And so he's been monitoring all of that. He indicated that when Richard Allen was in Westville, he was in what they call a one man cell. When he was transferred to Wabash, he was also in a one man cell. And now that he is in the Cass County Jail, he remains in a one man cell. I think what they're trying to say there is the defense has been trying to paint a picture that supposedly at Westville and perhaps at Wabash, his conditions were so awful and they're so much better now. I think they're trying to suggest they're very similar now to what they were before. He mentioned at Cass. He actually has less human contact than he did at the other facilities. Apparently when he was at Westville, for instance, he would be able to have conversations with people who were incarcerated near him. He is no longer able to do that at Cass. And the question arose, has he caused any behavioral difficulties at Cass the way he did at other facilities? And Brian Harshman began to answer that. Question. And he said, well, yes, we've had issues at Cass. He makes threats to the staff. And then. Sidebar. Sidebar. And then the lawyers go off and have a sidebar. We know. We think we know.
Anya Cain
Yeah, we think we know.
Kevin Greenlee
We think we know what this is referring to. I'm sure you think you know what this is referring to, but in case you don't, Anya, tell us what this is referring to. You weren't even there, but tell us what you think is referring to.
Anya Cain
Right, but it's come up before. So what we believe this is referring to is that there appears to be some kind of footage out of Cass County Jail that shows Richard Allen behaving extremely poorly, threatening, threatening staff members and saying he's going to kill people or whatnot. And basically, this puts a wrinkle to the idea that somehow his treatment in Westville or Wabash Valley was somehow instrumental behind his sort of bizarre behavior and statements. Because if he's still behaving in outlandish ways in Cass county, which, frankly, the defense, over time sort of portrayed as the land of milk and honey, where, you know, Richard Allen would be very safe and happy and everything would be wonderful, then, you know, that's. That's important. So the prosecution was very much trying to get that footage in so the jury could see it, and the defense, understandably, was very much trying to keep that out. Is that a summary? Yeah.
Kevin Greenlee
And so today the. The defense succeeded, and Judge Goal agreed with the defense and basically said, no, Go. I assume that's what she said, because there was a sidebar, and at the conclusion, the sidebar, Judge Go came out and said, okay. Objection. Sustained. Jury, you know, that remark they. That Trooper Harshman just made, Disregard it. And that's the end of him.
Anya Cain
I have. Not the end of him. He just stopped testifying. He's fine.
Kevin Greenlee
That's the end of him in this trial.
Anya Cain
I have a question for you, Kevin. So, you know, we've heard a lot from. From people with certain perspectives, that Judge Gull, who you and I have roundly criticized on this program many times, is somehow, like, completely in the bag for the prosecution. How do decisions like that perhaps add a wrinkle to our understanding of this?
Kevin Greenlee
Judge, I think it's pretty clear that the prosecution very much wanted to play this video, and Judge Gold wouldn't let him do it. And I think there's other. And on. Just on the topic of videos earlier, the defense played a lot of videos that the prosecution did not want to be played, and Judge G allowed them to be played. So I, I think it is unfair to say that Judge G is in the bag for the prosecution. I think she's made a number of decisions against the prosecution.
Anya Cain
And I'm going to say this. When people act like, well, she handcuffed the defense by not letting them present Odinism. The Odinism theory fell apart in the three day days of hearings this summer. Okay, if people weren't there to see it, I get being confused on that, but it fell apart like tissue paper in the rain. I like, I don't know how else to it. It was not a good theory. They did not do a good job presenting it. They did not put it together in a way that was at all compelling. And to me, not letting them use it should have been a gift to them. Now did they take advantage of that gift? I guess time will tell, but I don't. When people are saying, shouldn't they be allowed to do whatever? No, that's not what the trial rules say. There are certain thresholds of evidence that need to be met here if they're going to be accusing other people of a crime. And they did not even come close in my mind. So that's not her being biased against them or her taking away their toys and being mean. That is her as a judge following the rules, which is sort of what she's there for. I think there's plenty of room for criticism on Gull on this. I just think when people are kind of going on about Odinism at this late date, it's like either you haven't been paying attention or you don't care.
Kevin Greenlee
That's fair. So as I said, that was the end of Harshman as a witness. He's still going on to enjoy a full and healthy. Full and healthy life. It's the end of him as a witness. He's still.
Anya Cain
Weird phrasing.
Kevin Greenlee
It is the end of him as a witness. He's still going to go on to enjoy a full and healthy life.
Anya Cain
What did you do to him? Like, what is like. You're so ominous over there. Okay, let's just move on.
Kevin Greenlee
Next witness is Dr. John Martin. And before we get into what he had to say, I think in some ways I just want to give an overview here. In some ways, he reminded me a bit of one of the final defense witnesses. Dr. Is it Grassian?
Anya Cain
Oh, yeah.
Kevin Greenlee
Dr. Stuart Grassian in that this is an academic person. I guess this guy isn't an academic, but he has something in common with academics in that he's an expert in A particular area. And he likes to explain that area in perhaps more detail than may be needed in a court of law that's not particularly discussing some of the intricacies of these matters. In other words, he tended to give really long answers. The defense would frequently object, say, relevance. He's not answering the question. And much the same way. I think some of the prosecutors made similar objections the other day when Dr. Grassian was testifying. So that was my, my take on him. I also want to mention that the acoustics in this courtroom are very bad. And he spoke very, very quietly.
Anya Cain
Yes, I, I know because I saw the cross. But yeah, direct. You said direct.
Kevin Greenlee
I saw the direct examination by Stacy Deener. So who is Dr. John Martin? He is a psychiatrist who worked with Richard Allen when, when Richard Allen was moved to Westville for his safety. And he first met Richard Allen in November of 2022. He talked about, he would meet, he had several meetings with him, some of which he discussed in a bit of detail. And after these meetings, he would make some sort of notes which he would then enter into an electronic system that was secured. He mentioned that Richard Allen was on Prozac at the time he entered the correctional facility at Westville. He also had a history of depression. And he mentioned that he knew that Richard Allen was what they call a safekeeper. And again, when someone is a safekeeper, that means they have been moved into the correctional system or at least into particular section of the correctional system to keep them safe. So it's literally a safekeeper. And this is because typically a pre trial detainee like Richard Allen would be held in the, the jail in the county in which the offense occurred. But the sheriff of Carroll county indicated that he felt he would not be able to keep Richard Allen safe in the Carroll county jail. And so that is why he was moved to the prison system. So he was treated in his mind. He, he was treated in such a way that they really wanted to try to protect him. He has, he mentioned that he has treated other safekeepers during the course of his career working with prisoners. Those safekeepers are often kept in general population. Richard Allen was not. Richard Allen was kept in this one man cell, which is another. Other people, he says, could almost call that solitary confinement. He said Richard Allen had done nothing wrong to merit punishment at this point. And so he said, quote, in a way that was not right, that he was kept in a one man cell. And I saw some defense people practically high fiving themselves at that moment. But he did stress that even though in a Way, it was not right because solitary is seen as a punishment. They had to do this to keep him safe because the nature of his alleged offense is such that other prisoners would want to do him serious harm. And so it was necessary to keep him isolated from those prisoners so he would not get injured or even killed. And he did say that there were times when they would have meetings about Richard Allen where they would try to figure out what can we do to make his conditions a little bit better without endangering him. We don't want to punish him, we don't want him to be in the equivalent of solitary confinement. We want to make things as easy on him as we can without negatively impacting his safety. And the result of those meetings where they would do things like they made sure he had wreck periods, they made sure he was able to make calls, he had access to a television, he had access to an electronic tablet which would give him the ability to access the outside world. So these were things they were trying to mitigate the effects of solitary. Okay, out of breath.
Anya Cain
You're doing a lot of the heavy lifting right now.
Kevin Greenlee
Well, you're going to do some in a bit. He did say that there were times when Richard Allen injured himself and so, or talked about injuring himself. And so because of that, it was necessary on those occasions to put him on suicide watch. And he said, quote, we did what we could to see that he remained safe. And that includes not just protecting him from others, that includes protecting him from himself.
Anya Cain
Yes, because this has been mentioned before, but the priority with the safekeeper is to keep them alive, right? Yes, that's, that's obviously number one. And, and then everything else kind of follows from that. Because they are alive.
Kevin Greenlee
Yes. If a person is killed, it doesn't really matter what their emotional health is, because, again, they're dead.
Anya Cain
Yeah. If you give them a bunch of stuff in their cell that they can kill themselves with and die by suicide, then, you know, that's not, that's not the, that's not the outcome that is sought. So it seems like that kind of had to come before all things, even though that, it sounds like, could certainly exacerbate people's mental issues.
Kevin Greenlee
Brad Rosie objected and wanted to stress that in his mind in a question. He asked for a foundational question. I believe he said, you only met with Richard Allen eight times over 13 months. You didn't review videos. How can you really be in a position to make these conclusions? But the fact is he, he was there, and sometimes he was present when some of the videos were actually being shot. So he first saw Richard Allen. Let's talk about some of these meetings. He first saw Richard Allen on November 8, 2022. At that time, he could see no real behavioral issues with Richard Allen, so no reason to be concerned about his mental health. He indicated that Richard Allen, as mentioned before, did have a history of depression and anxiety, but he didn't. He wasn't really manifesting any current symptoms of those conditions.
Anya Cain
Right.
Kevin Greenlee
So he met with Richard Allen again on November 29, and again, everything seemed fine. And the next time he met with Richard Allen was on January 24th of 2023. And at this point, he had Richard Allen sign a consent form for the prison to give him his medication. And he got into a bit of a digression here about the importance of informed consent. They tried to get prisoners to sign these consent forms apparently about once a year.
Anya Cain
Okay. Okay.
Kevin Greenlee
So he wasn't scheduled to see him again for a few months, but then he got a call from someone, and there's all sorts of legal rules here. You. You can't say, oh, I got a call from someone, and they told me, Richard Allen is freaking out. You gotta come here and see what's going on. Because that would be considered hearsay. But you can say, oh, I got a call from someone. And as a result of that call, I became concerned and wanted to go and visit with Richard Allen. So he got a call from someone, and this call prompted him to make a sudden unplanned visit to Westville to see Richard Allen.
Anya Cain
Because he had been up in Michigan City at the Indiana State Prison, Right?
Kevin Greenlee
Yeah.
Anya Cain
So that's where he primarily is. But he had to deal with some Westville stuff because it was a backlog.
Kevin Greenlee
Yes. So he gets this call. He makes this on the sudden unplanned visit. And that occurs on April 13, 2023. He looks into Richard Allen's cell at that time, and Richard Allen was naked on a mattress. There was feces smeared on him, and there were. Was brownish fluid coming from his mouth, which indicated to the good doctor that Richard Allen had been consuming his own feces. He wanted to have a consultation with Richard Allen. And so officers carried Richard Allen to the shower. They hosed him down and gave him one of these suicide gowns. The doctor determined that Richard Allen was acting psychotic and they needed to give him an antipsychotic. Now, the problem was because Richard Allen's judgment was so impaired at this time in the doctor's mind, because he was in a state of psychosis, he was not in a state to consent to receiving this medication, this medical intervention. And so he called a meeting with some of his superiors, and they discussed the situation, and they determined that they should go ahead and give Richard Allen this Haldol, which is an antipsychotic. And so they did end up giving him a small dose of Haldol. It was given, I believe, on April 18, 2023. At this time, Richard Allen still presents the symptoms of being psychotic. The doctor returns on April 25, 2023, and he sees some improvement in Richard Allen, but he is still presenting these psychotic symptoms. But you ask, well, what kind of improvement? Well, he's no longer smearing feces. He seems to recognize the doctor, and he understands that he is in prison and he's doing things like asking for his wife. On May 2, 2023, he sees Richard Allen lying on his mattress. At this point, there is no evidence whatsoever that he's in a state of psychosis. He visits again on May 8th of 2023. Richard Allen is wearing his suicide gown. He seems to be coherent. He's eating and sleeping relatively well. And again, there is no evidence of psychosis. About a week later, or on May 18, another visit. No evidence of psychosis. May 30, 2023, another visitor. No evidence of psychosis. And then we have this meeting on June 20, 2023. Again, there's no evidence of psychosis. And so the doctor decides to stop the medication. And what is interesting during this meeting, where, again, Dr. Martin indicates there was no evidence of psychosis, Richard Allen is said to have made a comment to the effect that he wanted to apologize to the families of his victims. And so that is a point that I think should not get lost, because the defense is trying to make the claim that the confessions only occur when Richard Allen is in a state of psychosis. And here we have him making what appears to be an incriminating statement during a time when he is not exhibiting any such symptoms.
Anya Cain
Right. That's a pretty big deal, though. You know, that is a pretty big deal.
Kevin Greenlee
So there was more talk about Haldol being an antipsychotic. And did they.
Anya Cain
Can I ask a question? Did they get into. Can Hal Doll? Is it one of those drugs that can make someone just start saying wild stuff?
Kevin Greenlee
It's an antipsychotic, so.
Anya Cain
Right.
Kevin Greenlee
So, no, that would kind of defeat the purpose.
Anya Cain
This is something we've heard again and again from medical professionals who listen to the show and have often reached out to us saying that's not. That's not how Hal Dol works. So that's something to note.
Kevin Greenlee
So that was the end of the direct examination. And Judge Gull indicated, well, this has taken so long. Why do we take a lunch break? So I leave the courtroom and I'm expecting that neither Anja or I will be able to return. And then Marv, who we mentioned at the top of the show, the president of the line, she says, kevin, I have an opportunity for you to get in in the afternoon if you want, because there's a line sitter for me and I don't want to go in. And I, I know Anya, so I, I suspect that it would probably be good for Anya to get out of whatever line situation she's in and into court. So I said, let's give it to Anya.
Anya Cain
Meanwhile, I'm like, get a helicopter to take me out of here, please.
Kevin Greenlee
So I, I go outside and I say, any get in that courtroom. So what happened?
Anya Cain
Well, yeah, and also the deputies are super nice about it. So I just, I, I leave the war zone and I go to the line. We go up and then I get to sit in for the afternoon session, which was mostly comprised of Brad Rosie's cross examination of Dr. Martin. And I was, you know, so we started off where I think, you know, often with the, with the expert witnesses, they sort of the, on direct, they really bolster their cv and then on cross they tear it down. So Rosie started off by doing that saying, you know, you didn't receive a traditional B.A. your, your medical degree was like international, I believe. He said he, Dr. Martin may have earned it in India perhaps, although it was a little bit difficult to hear the responses for me. And he also talked about how he had many jobs over the past 30 years. He started to mention one in Broward County, Florida that was terminated. Something about a lawsuit involving inmates. And there was like some specific case that the name I unfortunately did, it was like Oscar something. Did not catch it. And then there's a, so there's a sidebar. So then they come back. So, so Diener objects as a sidebar. Then Brad Rosie starts in on a deposition that he did with Dr. Martin in October. He talked about 2022. You know, he was asked to go down to Westville from the state prison in Michigan City because there was such a backlog. He also asked about like, what is what a serious mental illness to you? And the answer, you know, kind of getting into schizophrenia, bipolar disorder. Diener objects and asked Dr. Martin, do you know the specific Department of Correction definition? Because what we've learned is that serious mental illness is not a clinical term. It is a term that has been used in prison. There might be a clinical equivalent of it. But when we're talking about serious mental illness, we're talking about in the context of a prison. And there's been a lot of debate about whether or not major depressive disorder, which is what Richard Allen has been diagnosed with, counts as a serious mental illness. Frankly, I find a lot of this very beside the point of the actual facts of the case, because, I mean, I don't feel like it really explains some of the things that he included in his confessions. But that's neither here nor there. That's why they're. They're arguing about this. And Dr. Martin indicated that he did not know the definition under the DOC in 2022, 2023. So Diener objected based on that. And they. They talked about solitary confinement. You know, he. He indicated that, yes, that can exacerbate mental illness. Let's see. And then talked about how humans can move in and out of things like psychosis. He talked about. It's funny. You said eight different meetings with Richard Allen. I wrote down 18. I think you're probably correct because Rosie said it away like, it's not that much. So 18's certainly a larger number. So I think we should go with 8. Talked about how the longest meeting was half an hour. And they also mentioned that the first assessment that they did with Richard Allen, there were two other officers present. There were two officers present with Martin and Allen. And then also Rosie said that from January 24, 2023, I think I have these dates right. January 24, 2023, to April 1, 2023, he had no contact with Allan. He kept on pushing him to see if he agreed that, you know, if he agreed that Dr. Walla's notes would be a better source on Allen's behavior. And. And because she was seeing. And he also, again, asked him about, you know, you never watch the cell videos, although. Or the camcorder videos, although it sounds like, again, he was in some of them. So they went into, like, at one point, I. I thought this was funny. I wish I'd written down in more depth. But there was one point where I think things got kind of confused between the lawyers and the judge. And they were talking about, like, there was some record that they wanted. And, like, Diener was like, like, do I have that? And Gull's like, are you asking me? But it was. And she's like, no, no, I'm asking Rosie. So there's, you know, she objected because there was no record of a specific document they were talking about. They Talked about on April 13, they administered HAL$. It seemed like they were kind of doing kind of short terms of that. But then later in April, May and June. On April, I believe, 18th, May 18th and June 16th. I think I have those days. Right. They were giving him 30 day shots that would like, last a while with the HAL doll. They talked about how he had major depressive disorder. Again, that could be exacerbated. Also could be exacerbated by poor treatment by the other inmates. This again, kind of gets confusing because it's like, honestly, the, the yelling and screaming by the other inmates kind of indicates why Richard Allen was a safekeeper because people in prison hate people that they perceive to have harmed children at the same time. You know, like. Yeah, it's kind of confusing there. Now this is, this is weird. They got into this. This is what Martin said that Alan was kind of conveying to him at one point in a sort of paranoid way, quote, one of his lawyers is a good cop, one of his lawyers is a bad cop.
Kevin Greenlee
That's, that's interesting. Can you tell us more?
Anya Cain
Well, there again, it's so frustrating because it was so hard to hear this guy. But Brad Rosie said, quote, any opinion you can generate. He basically called it pure speculation. Whenever he was saying about the lawyers, it sounded like Richard Allen was telling people that, you know, there's the good cop, bad cop routine. We all know that, right? The one, we all know that the one cop's your buddy. Oh, he's your friend. He understands what you, what you want. And he's, he's here for you. And like, he's just, you know, just tell him, you know, we're buddies. And then the bad cop is yelling at you and punching a wall, and I know you did it. I'm going to get you. And so, like, I guess Allen was comparing his attorneys to that. I think I know who's who.
Kevin Greenlee
I think I do, too. Do you want to say it?
Anya Cain
I think Rosie would be the bad cop and Baldwin would be the good cop. Baldwin's all over Allen all the time. He's putting his arm around him. He's actually, when Allen came in today, I saw him pat Baldwin on the back. They're buddies. They're more like the, you know, that's more of the affectionate relationship. Rosie has more of an edge. So I would speculate. This is speculation. I don't know this for a fact, but I would speculate if he. If he perceived one of them as kind of the bad cop, maybe telling him news he didn't want to hear or being a little bit harder on him in some capacity. That would be Rosie. But it's interesting that, like, one thing the attorneys have gotten very defensive about over the course of this trial is whenever it's alluded that he's really. His behavior amps up in terms of bad behavior immediately after his attorney visits, or in this case, where he's seemingly maybe complaining about his attorneys or saying things about them that could be perceived as problematic. They're very defensive about that, maybe understandably so. What do you think about that? What do you think about him calling his attorneys good cop, bad copy? Because it almost like the cops are trying to get you. They're trying to put you in prison.
Kevin Greenlee
The police are doing it to manipulate you.
Anya Cain
They're manipulating you. They're getting you to do what they want and say what they want by, you know, doing a little pantomime for you, doing a little show that will then prompt you to behave in a way that's good for them.
Kevin Greenlee
And in, in, in theory, the attorneys should be giving Richard Allen a full accounting of what's going on and what his options are at different points and not necessarily trying to manipulate him into choosing particular courses of action. Unless they believe for some reason that he is not capable of arriving at a decision on his own because of some sort of mental impairment.
Anya Cain
At which point they should be filing motions around that. Correct?
Kevin Greenlee
Yeah.
Anya Cain
That's not something you just, like, limp along with behind the scenes. Oh, gosh. Our, our. You know, he's not capable in assisting with his defense. He's not capable of standing trial. There should be competency evaluations at that point. So, yeah, I'm concerned. This concerns me, the fact that he had that perception. But then again, you know, he was having a lot of issues, so maybe it was all in his mind. It was just interesting. So then we move, we breeze right along to, you know, Rosie claimed that it's more common to gain weight in prison than lose it. So Martin acknowledged that he was concerned about his weight loss. There was a more discussion. And this is interesting. You can maybe fill in the gaps here, but have you ever treated a pretrial detainee? And then Diener objected, but then Rosie said, well, previously it said he had. And, yeah, I don't, I don't. I didn't really catch, like, what the upshot of any of that was, because it was hard to hear. So I don't know where that went, but, you know, there was a lot of irrelevance from Diener in terms of, like, you know, she's. She's irrelevant.
Kevin Greenlee
When you say.
Anya Cain
I don't mean Diener just started going on a monologue. No, Diener kept on objecting based on irrelevance and, like, we're kind of going far afield from the direct examination.
Kevin Greenlee
Right.
Anya Cain
And, you know, he. He was asked if Richard Allen's situation was unique. He mumbled an answer. They talked about how he would sometimes, like, look at stuff for Westville from a computer at isp, I guess, to indicate, like, always, he doesn't know what he's talking about. And there was a, you know, threat to his safety. There was some mention of Richard Allen at some point saying he. He used alcohol socially, although it sounds like he was also in some cases claiming to have had a. Alcoholism or some. At least some kind of drinking problem. At one point, they were talking about, like, the meetings you mentioned where they were talking about making Richard Allen more comfortable. And he said, Rosie kind of was like, aha. And like, quote, you acknowledge that the circumstances he was enduring would be extremely uncomfortable. And then Martin countered that, you know, yes, uncomfortable. He might take the extremely out. And he said that he, the Warden Walla and other prison officials tried very hard to help Richard Allen do better. They would have all these meetings to try to figure out how to make life better for him in prison, make him more comfortable. And that does seem to be something that's coming out where, like, they did try to bend over backwards for him. Although obviously it's still prison. It's not, you know, obviously can still have a negative effect. Obviously. You know, they talked about why he became a safekeeper. Again, Diener objected, saying, like, Dr. Martin's not the one who made him a safekeeper. That was. That's above his pay grade. He's just dealing with the effects of it. It's not, you know, not relevant. There was. They then played a video. I actually got to see one of the videos.
Kevin Greenlee
Tell us about it.
Anya Cain
Now, unfortunately, Stacy Diener was standing kind of right where in the center of the screen for me. And then at different points, I felt like other people were standing there. So I missed some of it, but I just didn't really have a very good angle on it anyway, in fairness. So it seemed to be Richard Allen seated in some kind of medical facility, almost kind of greenish walls. He's shackled. He's like. It's almost like he's just Wearing a white T shirt on top, from what I could tell. And keep this all with a grain of salt because I did not get a very good view. He sort of sitting still. People are doing stuff to him. I don't know whether they're prepping him from some sort of medical thing or whatnot, but he's sort of slumped over, looking sad and out of it. And this plays, plays for a while. And there was some deliberation between the judge and the parties beforehand of like, have we already seen this video? Has the jury already seen it? And I think the determination was yes, but there was also like, but are we seeing the same parts? Because previously Rosie would just kind of jump around through these things.
Kevin Greenlee
So I'm curious, was the Richard Allen that you saw in this video, was it similar to how you saw Richard Allen in some of his pre trial hearings? Because he was having pretrial hearings during this period. I remember he would seem kind of dazed at those.
Anya Cain
He seemed more dazed here, I would say. It was like, you know, it was like someone really, really zoning out right now. I saw, I saw kind of glimpses of it. So I don't feel like I got a good view. So keep this with a grain of salt. It felt like the sort of thing that, you know, could be very much real, that someone is having either a psychotic episode or, you know, having some issue or that someone's just could be just choosing to do that. It didn't like, there was nothing in it that was like, wow, this has to be psychosis for me. But I'm also not a trained medical professional or a mental health professional. So, you know, he's just kind of sitting there from what I saw. Maybe there were other portions of it that got blocked off for me that were really like, whoa. But he's kind of just sitting there. He's kind of, his head is slumped to the side. He's not reacting to the people around him. There seem to be medical personnel at times. There's no audio too, so you can't really contextualize anything. But he's not really reacting to them. He's not reactive. The Richard Allen we would see in pretrial hearings was often very reactive in my view. He'd be like looking around and kind of nervous. But this is like, it's a lot more. Although sometimes I guess he would be kind of out of it. So hard to say. But we saw the video. Diener then did the redirect. She asked, did staff record conversations in their interactions with Richard Allen in his cell. And like, when did your, where did your conversation with him occur? And the answer was in his, in his housing, I believe. Most of the time they talked about how would they, how would he communicate with him? Like on sort of in his, in his check ins and he'd be like, ask him questions and sort of note his responses. Yeah, there was, there was something terms of like, so the, so the, the video, in the sal. The video, I think what they were showing was from June 20, 2023.
Kevin Greenlee
And the significance of that is that that was the date when Dr. Martin had that conversation with Richard Allen that I referred to earlier, where Richard Allen says, I, I want to apologize to the families.
Anya Cain
So he seemed very out of it. So what the defense is basically saying here is like, hey, you know, you say this guy gave a confession that day, but like, does this guy look like he could give a confession that day? Look, he's really out of it. And Diener essentially asked like, you know, you met him for a few minutes that day. Was he, was he very different than what you saw in the video? And then Rosie objected. Deener asked to rephrase what she did. And then, you know, like, why, why would he look different almost? And what was it Martin responded with, like, something like, well, if I could speculate. And Diener immediately is like, no, I don't want you to speculate. You know, she asked him, does that, does that video make you question your record about what you had, you know, that, the confession you got that day? And he said no. And, you know, she, she asked again, when you first met with Richard Allen, did he have existing depression and anxiety? You know, that's his baseline condition and it's yes. And they, she asked after they treated him with medication for psychosis, did he return to that baseline? Answer is also yes. He felt he returned to it as of May 2nd of 2023. I think that was the date that he cited. That seemed kind of early to me given, like some of the behavior that we've heard about, but that's what I wrote down. I apologize if I got that wrong. And she asked him, why were you continuing to treat him with Haldol after that? The answer was, quote, I wanted to make sure there wasn't a recurrence. So he observed him over seven weeks. No evidence of psychosis. The medication stops. Rosie recross. We go Back to the June 20, 2023 video. Rosie said he was spontaneous. You said he was spontaneous that day. And quote, did any or not quote, but did anything in that video look spontaneous? To you and or did it make you question your assessment? I think he said yes. So I guess it did make him question his assessment. Jury questions came next. So one was doctor, did the oral Hal doll continue post six 20 2023? He needed the records to check that. Rosie handed it over and the answer was yes, no questions from the attorneys. Then next was what time did you meet with him on June 20, 2023? And he said at first I don't remember, it was early in the morning. And then he specified I thought I caught 6am or somewhere in the six hour but it was very hard to hear. No further questions on that. Next was based on the video because his presentation be consistent with feigning. I couldn't hear the friggin answer on this one at all which was like annoying. Then the next one was is there anything about his behavior that almost like definitely indicates psychosis in the video? And the answer was no. And oh, I'm sorry, no, that's. That was a question from Diener. So Diener, after that one had a question. It was anything about his behavior that you know, definitely equals psychosis. Martin said no and then started to go into more detail and she just is immediately like thank you. And then another juror asked, can you be in and out of psychosis in 24 hours? And the answer was I believe yes. No other rebuttal witnesses. So then Judge G kind of broke down some housekeeping, much like we do at the top of the murder sheet. So she said, before we call it a day, the next steps are going to be basically arguments, instructions, deliberation. And she dismissed the jury and said have a peaceful afternoon. Then she talked with Rosie and McLeland about the jury instructions. They had some kind of back and forth. They talked a lot about patterns when it comes to jury instructions. Kevin, Pattern, pattern instruction, yeah. What does that mean?
Kevin Greenlee
Well, a pattern jury instruction is basically just the generic boilerplate jury instruction. You know, sometimes if you want to like make out a will or something and go online and see like a basic will. And so these pattern jury instructions are just the general jury instructions for particular offenses or what have you. Oftentimes you can imagine that both the defense or the prosecution may want to change them a bit. The prosecution would want to make it easier for a conviction to happen and the defense naturally would want to finesse it to make it harder for a conviction to happen in this situation.
Anya Cain
There's a lot of discussion from Rosie and McLeland about something I think that was like either the stranger case, perhaps it was talking about admissible confessions and there was back and forth on that and, yeah, more pattern talk. And then things got a little weird. So everyone was done. There's some, you know, like Rosie and McLean were like, yeah, nothing further. Judge and then Baldwin gets up and he says, actually, I do have something further. It's an, again, offer of proof for the third party suspects. An offer of proof, of course, is not. That's not part of the trial. But they are essentially making a record for future appeals courts to review what the defense's theory was around Odinism or potentially other suspects and determining whether Judge G. In keeping that out. So fine. Previously, when can you describe Baldwin's previous attempt with the Jerry Holman incident? The other day.
Kevin Greenlee
The other day he said, well, I'd like to do an offer of proof where I want to go up and ask Jerry Holman under oath if Richard Allen said the sort of things that Elvis Fields said, wouldn't you want to include that in the trial? And Nick McLean had all sorts of objections that we discussed it like an earlier episode.
Anya Cain
Yes. So today. But like, I guess in other words, it went nowhere. And it was kind of weird.
Kevin Greenlee
It went nowhere because you almost would.
Anya Cain
Think, okay, there's going to be something more substantive here. Well, today Baldwin talked about how he wanted to possibly bring in. I don't know exactly what he said, but, like, someone named Davis, D.C. davis, I don't know if I misheard that. And then James Haas, I had a lot of trouble hearing people today. James Haas, of course, is the guy who went around trying to sell his story to every reporter who had listened about how Ron Logan was doing sexual acts to himself while muttering about the crimes. We've, we've talked to him.
Kevin Greenlee
We don't consider Haas's story to be credible.
Anya Cain
He's not credible. He's one of the types you find a lot where it's like, oh, listen to my story of whoa. About this case that everyone is interested in. And also, can you help me out? It's like that he's not credible, in my view. Don't know what this Davis situation is. And McLelan sort of got up and was like, well, wouldn't this have been better to, like, do during, like, their case in Chief, like, as opposed to now? And then somehow this came some. Then this turned into. There was talk of, I don't know if I got the D.C. davis thing wrong, so I apologize if that's wrong. But, like, just keep that in mind. Like, it was really hard to hear. McLean got sorry. Baldwin talked about wanting an arrest warrant signed for Elvis Fields. The reason being.
Kevin Greenlee
This ought to be good.
Anya Cain
The reason being that he didn't respond to their subpoena. Now he has been deposed by them, it sounds like. But he didn't respond to their subpoena to show up in court, perhaps, or something like that. So he wanted him arrested. And, gosh, let me see. Then he said it was properly served. He's disregarding the court's orders. He want. And what he came out is he wanted to put Elvis Fields on the stand. And Judge G was kind of like, what for? And he was like, basically he wanted them, like, to, like, break down on the stand and, like, reveal some important clue. So what? He what? Like, it sort of felt like Baldwin was sort of like, just like suddenly, like getting into some, like, weird fan fiction situation where he puts on Elvis feels. And Elvis feels is like, well, I was there, but I didn't do it.
Kevin Greenlee
You got me.
Anya Cain
You got me. Like, that's what he wanted. He's like, wouldn't that have been compelling? Like, okay. And quote, you have to. And then so Judge G said, quote, you have to know what someone's going to say for a legitimate offer of proof. And, you know, she had already ruled that Elvis Fields would not testify because she threw it out. She also said to Baldwin, quote, it seems like we're talking in circles. And she also noted again that she believes that there is no nexus, you know, like, with these people and the crime. And then Baldwin again said, you know, quote, who knows what. Who knows what he might say that could open the door? End quote. Yeah. So that kind of went nowhere. I don't think Elvis Fields is going to be arrested. And she asked if the parties were ready to go promptly at 9am tomorrow. And they said, yeah. What do you make of that Elvis Field situation? Are you surprised that she wouldn't issue an arrest order?
Kevin Greenlee
No. It feels like a desperate move that was bound to go nowhere. And it did. So tomorrow, closing arguments, probably the beginning of jury deliberations. I would not be surprised or shocked if we had a verdict before the beginning of the weekend. How about you?
Anya Cain
It's a possibility. Yeah. It's all coming. Coming down now.
Kevin Greenlee
If I was on this jury, I would not want to spend another weekend in a hotel.
Anya Cain
No, I would not. I would want to get out of there also. You know, they've already missed Halloween. They missed election day. They have families, they have jobs. This has been going on for a while, and I imagine it's been difficult for them.
Kevin Greenlee
So, I mean, how could it not be?
Anya Cain
I imagine that they're eager for this to be over, as are we. And that doesn't mean it's going to necessarily be a quick deliberation. There's a lot of information for them to process, so I'm not necessarily confident that it's going to be that quick. But I also do think that there's got to be something in their minds where it's kind of like, okay, let's wrap this up. But, you know, you could. All you need is one person to tie it up, so that's something to remember.
Kevin Greenlee
You're well known for your pessimism.
Anya Cain
Keeping it real. All right, so we. We done here?
Kevin Greenlee
Are we done here? When I said that with Brian Harshman.
Anya Cain
No, you said like, oh, what? Like, oh. And that was the end of him. It was like, what did like, huh?
Kevin Greenlee
We have.
Anya Cain
Is he okay?
Kevin Greenlee
We have full, happy lives ahead of us, but we are done with this particular program. Program.
Anya Cain
When you say it like that even sounds more ominous. Kevin.
Kevin Greenlee
Okay, we're done with this particular episode of the program. There will be future episodes of Murder Sheet and our sister podcast mystery.
Anya Cain
Oh, gosh, geez. Why are you doing that? Okay, like, okay, well, we'll end it there on that sad note. Anything else you wanted to say?
Kevin Greenlee
Nope.
Anya Cain
All right, well, see you guys tomorrow.
Kevin Greenlee
Bye. Thanks so much for listening to the Murder Sheet. If you have a tip concerning one of the cases we cover, please email us@murdersheetmail.com if you have actionable information about an unsolved crime, please report it to the appropriate authorities.
Anya Cain
If you're interested in joining our Patreon, that's available at ww patreon.com/murder sheet. If you want to tip us a bit of money for records requests, you can do so at www. Buymeacoffee.com murdersheet. We very much appreciate any support.
Kevin Greenlee
Special thanks to Kevin Tyler Greenlee, who composed the music for the Murder Sheet and who you can find on the web@kevintg.com if you're looking to talk with.
Anya Cain
Other listeners about a case we've covered, you can join the Murder Sheet discussion group on Facebook. We mostly focus our time on research and reporting, so we're not on social media much. We do try to check our email account, but we ask for patience as we often receive a lot of messages. Thanks again for listening. Thanks so much for sticking around to the end of this Murder Sheet episode. Just as a quick post roll ad, we wanted to tell you again about our friend Jason Blair's wonderful Silver Linings handbook. This show is phenomenal. Whether you are interested in true crime, the criminal justice system, law, mental health, stories of marginalized people overcoming tragedy, well, being like he does it all, this is a show for you. He has so many different conversations with interesting people, people whose loved ones have gone missing, other podcasters in the true crime space. Just interesting people with interesting life experiences. And Jason's gift, I think, is just being an incredibly empathetic and compassionate interviewer where he's really letting his guests tell their stories and asking really interesting questions along the way, guiding those conversations forward. I would liken it to, like, you're kind of almost sitting down with friends and sort of just hearing these fascinating tales that you wouldn't get otherwise, because he just has that ability as an interviewer to tease it out and really make it interesting for his audience.
Kevin Greenlee
On a personal level, Jason is, frankly, a great guy.
Anya Cain
Yes.
Kevin Greenlee
He's been a really good friend to us. And so it's. It's fun to be able to hit a button on my phone and get a little dose of Jason talking to people whenever I want. It's a really terrific show. We really recommend it highly.
Anya Cain
Yeah, I think. I think our audience will like it. And you've already met Jason if you listen consistently to our show. He's been on our show a couple times. We've been on his show. He's a terrific guest. I. I say this in one of our ads about him, but I literally always. I'm like, oh, yeah, I remember when Jason said this. That really resonated. Like, I do quote him in. In conversation sometimes, because he really has a good grasp of different, complicated.
Kevin Greenlee
She quotes them to me all the time.
Anya Cain
I do. I'm like, remember when Jason said this? That was so Right. So, I mean, I think if we're doing that, I think. And you like us, you. You. I think you should give it a shot, give it a try. I think you'll really enjoy it. And again, he does a range of different topics, but they all kind of have the similar theme of compassion, of overcoming suffering, of dealing with suffering, of mental health, wellness, things like that. There's kind of a common through line of compassion and empathy there that I think we find very nice. And we work on a lot of stories that can be very tough, and we try to bring compassion and empathy to it. But this is something that almost can be like, if you're kind of feeling a little burned out by true crime. I think this is kind of the life affirming stuff that can can be nice to listen to in a podcast.
Kevin Greenlee
It's compassionate, it's affirming. But I also want to emphasize it's smart people. Jason is a very intelligent, articulate person. This is a smart show, but it's an accessible show. I think you'll all really enjoy it. Yeah.
Anya Cain
And he's got a great community that he's building. So we're really excited to be a part of that. We're really, we're fans of the show. We love it. And we would strongly encourage you all just check it out, download some episodes, listen. I think you'll, you'll understand what we're talking about once you do. But anyways, you can listen to the Silver Linings Handbook wherever you listen to podcasts.
Kevin Greenlee
Wherever you listen to podcasts. Very easy to find.
Anya Cain
Absolutely.
The Delphi Murders: Richard Allen on Trial: Day Seventeen – The Rebuttal
Released on November 6, 2024, by MurderSheet, hosted by journalist Áine Cain and attorney Kevin Greenlee, this episode delves deep into Day 17 of Richard Allen’s trial for the brutal Delphi murders.
The episode opens with a content warning at [01:57], alerting listeners to discussions surrounding the gruesome murders of Abigail Williams and Liberty German, alongside sensitive topics related to mental health and suicide. Hosts Áine Cain and Kevin Greenlee segue into the core of the episode, focusing on the day's rebuttal phase in Richard Allen’s trial held in Carroll County, Indiana.
At [02:09], Kevin Greenlee sets the stage by highlighting the significance of the day’s proceedings. Both hosts attended different sessions—the morning and afternoon sessions respectively—and collaborate to piece together the day’s events. Áine humorously references their strategic coverage: “we divided and conquered, much like one Julius Caesar” ([02:43]).
Prosecutor Stacy Diener introduces Brianne Wilbur ([24:13]), who revisits her earlier testimony about observing a man resembling Bridgecott near the Freedom Bridge. At [25:57], Wilbur presents timestamped Snapchat photos taken at 12:25 pm, confirming she saw no other girls or men resembling Bridgecott as she walked from Freedom Bridge to Monon High Bridge.
Presented by prosecutor Nick McLeland, Master Trooper Brian Harshman ([27:02]) discusses his role in monitoring Richard Allen’s behavior across various correctional facilities. Harshman details Allen’s accommodation as a safekeeper, explaining the necessity of his solitary confinement to ensure his safety. He notes, “[He] has treated other safekeepers… but Richard Allen was kept in a one-man cell” ([27:08]).
During cross-examination, Harshman’s testimony is curtailed when Judge Gold sustains an objection regarding the relevance of a sidebar discussion about potential behavioral issues Allen exhibited at Cass County Jail ([30:27]).
Dr. John Martin ([33:31]), a psychiatrist, provides an in-depth look into Richard Allen’s mental health history. He outlines Allen’s treatment for depression and anxiety, his placement as a safekeeper, and the administration of Haldol—an antipsychotic medication—due to signs of psychosis on April 13, 2023 ([34:51]). Dr. Martin emphasizes that post-treatment, Allen exhibited no evidence of ongoing psychosis by May 2, 2023, challenging the defense’s stance that confessions were made under psychotic influence.
At [45:53], Áine underscores the significance of Allen making incriminating statements during a period free from psychosis, stating, “the defense is trying to make the claim that the confessions only occur when Richard Allen is in a state of psychosis. And here we have him making what appears to be an incriminating statement during a time when he is not exhibiting any such symptoms.”
Throughout the rebuttal, the hosts observe Judge Gold’s handling of jury instructions and the strategic exchanges between prosecution and defense. At [09:02], Áine explains jury instructions as guidelines the jury must follow when deliberating, ensuring they base their verdict solely on presented facts and legal parameters.
Kevin notes potential tensions, “[Judge] seemed a bit taken aback” by the defense’s unexpected decision to rest without presenting additional witnesses ([08:04]). This move surprised both the hosts and the prosecutorial team, indicating possible strategic shifts.
Additionally, defense attorney Baldwin attempts to introduce “third-party suspects” like Elvis Fields through an offer of proof ([69:58]), which Judge Gold denies, maintaining the trial’s focus on Richard Allen as the primary suspect.
Outside the courtroom, Áine recounts the contentious environment among line sitters awaiting trial proceedings. At [14:39], she describes a confrontation where a woman aggressively attempts to alter the seating list, leading to tensions and law enforcement intervention. Áine remarks, “I feel that I've seen…unacceptable behavior. This is not something that emotionally regulated adults should be doing” ([21:55]).
Kevin contrasts his calmer experience in the courtroom with Áine’s on-the-ground challenges, highlighting differing perspectives on courtroom ambiance ([22:43]).
Throughout the episode, Áine and Kevin provide critical analysis of courtroom strategies and Judge Gold’s rulings. Áine defends Judge Gold against claims of prosecutorial bias, arguing that the judge upheld trial rules by restricting the defense’s Odinism theory, which she describes as “not a good theory” ([31:19]). Kevin concurs, pointing out instances where Judge Gold has sided against prosecution demands, such as limiting the use of certain videos.
The hosts also dissect the implications of witness testimonies, particularly focusing on Dr. Martin’s statements about Allen’s mental state and the defense’s attempts to undermine them. They express skepticism about Baldwin’s efforts to broaden the narrative with additional suspects, viewing them as “desperate moves” unlikely to succeed ([70:38]).
As the day concludes, Judge Gold outlines the next steps: closing arguments, jury instructions, and deliberations ([66:00]). Both hosts anticipate a potentially swift verdict, although they acknowledge the complexity of the case and the jury’s responsibility in weighing the extensive evidence presented.
Áine and Kevin reflect on the emotional toll of the prolonged trial on both the legal teams and the jury, emphasizing the human aspect behind the courtroom proceedings ([73:57]).
Áine Cain on Jury Instructions:
“[Judge] is the ultimate arbiter on what the law is and the jury is the ultimate arbiter on what the facts are” ([10:41]).
Kevin Greenlee on Judge Gold’s Neutrality:
“I think it is unfair to say that Judge G is in the bag for the prosecution. I think she's made a number of decisions against the prosecution” ([31:49]).
Áine Cain on Defense Strategies:
“The defense is trying to make the claim that the confessions only occur when Richard Allen is in a state of psychosis” ([45:59]).
Kevin Greenlee on Potential Verdict Timing:
“I would not be surprised or shocked if we had a verdict before the beginning of the weekend” ([73:37]).
Hosts Áine Cain and Kevin Greenlee effectively navigate the complexities of a high-stakes trial, offering listeners a comprehensive overview of courtroom maneuvers, witness credibility assessments, and the human dynamics at play. Their insightful commentary ensures that even those unfamiliar with the case can grasp the critical elements and anticipate the trial’s potential outcomes.