Found Deceased IN - Abby & Libby - The Delphi Murders - Richard Allen Arrested - #159

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I keep seeing people say this and from what I understand this isn't true, from the very start of this investigation we know there was at least one other adult male on the trails who was referred to as Flannel Shirt Guy. He spoke to one of the girl's dads when he was there to pick them up.

BTW, this is my first comment on this site, I've been reading along for years. Some of the insight on here is excellent.
The timing is what is in question.
No one reported another male before or at the point that the girls recorded the man that approached them on the bridge.
DG and FSG crossed paths about an hour later.
 
I agree.

But my presumption, which I believe is not contradicted by the PCA or anything shared by LE, is that LE had almost all the information in the PCA in 2017 within days of the crime, and they did not have probable cause for a search or arrest or they would have done so. (I do not believe they missed or forgot the information provided by RA and witnesses that were provided in the first days following the crime.) Obviously they had the bullet, and the recording in which one of the girls said "gun", plus RA's admission he was on the bridge and most likely a very good idea that he might have been BG.

So last month, following the second interview, it's reasonable to think he said something revealing that could provide probable cause to search his property or his cell phone records, the probable cause they did not have for 5 years. That may have been as simple as whether he even owned a gun, especially if he finally told them he owned the Sig with the same bullets as the one found at the crime scene. That would add enough to finally have probable cause for the search. And upon finding his gun and matching it to the bullet at the crime scene, they would finally have probable cause for an arrest, consistent with what I gleaned from reading the arrest warrant.

(I do not believe LE withholds evidence from an arrest warrant trying to have just enough for an arrest. They explain all the evidence they have that could contribute to probable cause for the arrest. Anything they did not include in the PCA was probably just too weak to bother with, not super strong evidence they want to hide.)

Some of the above could be wrong, but if it is correct then the bullet is THE key piece of evidence that justifies the probable cause for the arrest which they presumably did not have for five years. It seems to be the only thing that puts him at the scene of the crime.

Otherwise all they had was suggestive evidence that he was on the bridge. Walking on the bridge is not a crime. Seeming creepy or intimidating is not a crime. Saying "Down the hill" is not a crime unless there was also a threat or provable attempt to force them to do so. The girls saying "gun" makes it seem like they were saying he had a gun, but it's not a slam dunk like if they said "do what he says he's pointing a gun at us" - just for argument sake they could have seen a bulge in his jacket or just worried he had a gun because of his tone. If there was clear evidence of a crime on the bridge (kidnapping) and probable cause that RA was BG, they could have easily gotten a search warrant that we know they did not get (or failed to get) for five more years.

So my question is, just how big of a coincidence is it that a bullet was found at the crime scene? Are the woods in Indiana full of bullets? When I go hiking I hear gun shots all the time, and many people I meet have guns and ammunition. I don't assume anything about whether a bullet near the crime scene is just a coincidence because they are everywhere, or highly unusual like finding murder victims thus clearly something the murderer left behind.

The rest of the case against RA is compelling but circumstantial, not so strong that LE stopped investigating others. They switched to focusing on RL and later KAK as prime suspects. You could argue of course that they were just being thorough by investigating everyone, but the RL warrant says LE believes RL was the murderer, not that he was the second best suspect.

The bullet, I contend, is the difference. So it is critical to know how unusual it is to find a bullet anywhere in that part of the country, how unusual it is to match RA's gun, how strong the forensics are that match the bullet to the specific gun. It would be fairly easy to scour a square mile of the park away from the crime scene and determine that no other bullets were scattered randomly on the ground. Or if I were on the defense I might go out and see if I could find hundreds of them no where near crime scene. With so much riding on that bullet (imo), I'd want to know everything about it.

For those who believe the bullet was just another contributing factor to the probable cause, it would be interesting to know whether a search warrant or an arrest warrant for RA was attempted and rejected by a judge prior to the bullet/gun connection to RA. I suspect that failed attempts at warrants are never public, but maybe they are public records or fair discovery once a successful warrant clears? Does a lawyer on this forum know the answer?
In my experience, finding an unspent round of anything at all is very rare. I've stumbled across an unspent .22 cartridge maybe twice. For context, I've lived all but about 20 of my 73 years in the Appalachian Mountains where guns abound and the .22 is absolutely dirt-common as firearms go. It's in a lot of rifles and a lot of handguns. Dates from the 19th century. The only thing that might give it a run for popularity is 12 ga. I've never found an unspent 12 ga or any other round.

By comparison, the .40 is a newfangled thing, pretty much handguns only. People may be carrying them concealed, but you can't just whip them out and start popping off with them in any old woodsy spot. States tend to forbid discharge for non-emergencies in town and/or near highways. People may suspect hunting out of season, reckless endangerment, drug crime, or other such mischief and call the gendarmes upon hearing gunfire in unexpected places.

Odds of you finding a .40 round laying unfired out in the woods are something like astronomical, if you could calculate them at all. Then figure "in a murder scene between the bodies and the suspect developed by other evidence owns a .40." Then figure the forensic report returns a (false?) positive for a match.

The guy is damned unlucky.
 
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In my experience, finding an unspent round of anything at all is very rare. I've stumbled across an unspent .22 cartridge maybe twice. For context, I've lived all but about 20 of my 73 years in the Appalachian Mountains where guns abound and the .22 is absolutely dirt-common as firearms go. It's in a lot of rifles and a lot of handguns. Dates from the 19th century. The only thing that might give it a run for popularity is 12 ga. I've never found an unspent 12 ga or any other round.

By comparison, the .40 is a newfangled thing, pretty much handguns only. People may be carrying them concealed, but you can't just whip them out and start popping off with them in any old woodsy spot. States tend to forbid discharge for non-emergencies in town and/or near highways. People may suspect hunting out of season, reckless endangerment, drug crime, or other such mischief and call the gendarmes upon hearing gunfire in unexpected places.

Odds of you finding a .40 round laying unfired out in the woods are something like astronomical, if you could calculate them at all. Then figure "in a murder scene between the bodies and the suspect developed by other evidence owns a .40." Then figure the forensic report returns a (false?) positive for a match.

The guy is damned unlucky.
unless he argues it happened on another day he was there, possibly, though he didn;t say it on questioning?
 
In my experience, finding an unspent round of anything at all is very rare. I've stumbled across an unspent .22 cartridge maybe twice. For context, I've lived all but about 20 of my 73 years in the Appalachian Mountains where guns abound and the .22 is absolutely dirt-common as firearms go. It's in a lot of rifles and a lot of handguns. Dates from the 19th century. The only thing that might give it a run for popularity is 12 ga. I've never found an unspent 12 ga or any other round.

By comparison, the .40 is a newfangled thing, pretty much handguns only. People may be carrying them concealed, but you can't just whip them out and start popping off with them in any old woodsy spot. States tend to forbid discharge for non-emergencies in town and/or near highways. People may suspect hunting out of season, reckless endangerment, drug crime, or other such mischief and call the gendarmes upon hearing gunfire in unexpected places.

Odds of you finding a .40 round laying unfired out in the woods are something like astronomical, if you could calculate them at all. Then figure "in a murder scene between the bodies and the suspect developed by other evidence owns a .40." Then figure the forensic report returns a (false?) positive for a match.

The guy is damned unlucky.
Totally agree. I have never, in fact, after thousands of hours in the woods, come across an unspent round. Seen lots and lots of casings
 
He professes to be utterly baffled how it could have got there.
That's what makes it so weird!
What excuses could he have come up with easily without having had to ponder too deeply?
I don't know enough about guns or the circumstances under which this type of a discharge can occur to call it.
 
RA said he’s never been to the spot, doesn’t know the landowner, & has never let anyone else use the gun…. I mean IMO dude is just guilty as sin & has confessed to everything, Strong cases make boring debates….
 
I agree.

But my presumption, which I believe is not contradicted by the PCA or anything shared by LE, is that LE had almost all the information in the PCA in 2017 within days of the crime, and they did not have probable cause for a search or arrest or they would have done so. (I do not believe they missed or forgot the information provided by RA and witnesses that were provided in the first days following the crime.) Obviously they had the bullet, and the recording in which one of the girls said "gun", plus RA's admission he was on the bridge and most likely a very good idea that he might have been BG.

So last month, following the second interview, it's reasonable to think he said something revealing that could provide probable cause to search his property or his cell phone records, the probable cause they did not have for 5 years. That may have been as simple as whether he even owned a gun, especially if he finally told them he owned the Sig with the same bullets as the one found at the crime scene. That would add enough to finally have probable cause for the search. And upon finding his gun and matching it to the bullet at the crime scene, they would finally have probable cause for an arrest, consistent with what I gleaned from reading the arrest warrant.

(I do not believe LE withholds evidence from an arrest warrant trying to have just enough for an arrest. They explain all the evidence they have that could contribute to probable cause for the arrest. Anything they did not include in the PCA was probably just too weak to bother with, not super strong evidence they want to hide.)

Some of the above could be wrong, but if it is correct then the bullet is THE key piece of evidence that justifies the probable cause for the arrest which they presumably did not have for five years. It seems to be the only thing that puts him at the scene of the crime.

Otherwise all they had was suggestive evidence that he was on the bridge. Walking on the bridge is not a crime. Seeming creepy or intimidating is not a crime. Saying "Down the hill" is not a crime unless there was also a threat or provable attempt to force them to do so. The girls saying "gun" makes it seem like they were saying he had a gun, but it's not a slam dunk like if they said "do what he says he's pointing a gun at us" - just for argument sake they could have seen a bulge in his jacket or just worried he had a gun because of his tone. If there was clear evidence of a crime on the bridge (kidnapping) and probable cause that RA was BG, they could have easily gotten a search warrant that we know they did not get (or failed to get) for five more years.

So my question is, just how big of a coincidence is it that a bullet was found at the crime scene? Are the woods in Indiana full of bullets? When I go hiking I hear gun shots all the time, and many people I meet have guns and ammunition. I don't assume anything about whether a bullet near the crime scene is just a coincidence because they are everywhere, or highly unusual like finding murder victims thus clearly something the murderer left behind.

The rest of the case against RA is compelling but circumstantial, not so strong that LE stopped investigating others. They switched to focusing on RL and later KAK as prime suspects. You could argue of course that they were just being thorough by investigating everyone, but the RL warrant says LE believes RL was the murderer, not that he was the second best suspect.

The bullet, I contend, is the difference. So it is critical to know how unusual it is to find a bullet anywhere in that part of the country, how unusual it is to match RA's gun, how strong the forensics are that match the bullet to the specific gun. It would be fairly easy to scour a square mile of the park away from the crime scene and determine that no other bullets were scattered randomly on the ground. Or if I were on the defense I might go out and see if I could find hundreds of them no where near crime scene. With so much riding on that bullet (imo), I'd want to know everything about it.

For those who believe the bullet was just another contributing factor to the probable cause, it would be interesting to know whether a search warrant or an arrest warrant for RA was attempted and rejected by a judge prior to the bullet/gun connection to RA. I suspect that failed attempts at warrants are never public, but maybe they are public records or fair discovery once a successful warrant clears? Does a lawyer on this forum know the answer?
As an exercise, I'll make a Devil's Advocate argument (putting myself in the shoes of RA's defense team):

The "off the end of the bridge down the hill" spot is what amounts to an unofficial local gun range. It's in a little canyon eroded by the creek in otherwise flat country. Sometimes people who don't want to spend the bucks to go to a real gun range go down there to do some shooting. It's got a safe backstop and a degree of isolation, and yet it's conveniently close to town. Somebody was shooting down there, dropped a round, couldn't find it, and gave up on it. Prove me wrong.

Do I buy that? In my misspent youth I did some shooting once or twice in such improvised circumstances, not incredibly removed from civilization. That part happens, or used to. But perhaps that was in another time, another America. Wouldn't try it now, anywhere.

The girls and the round were located at a spot you have to wade the creek to get to. You get all muddy if not bloody. Going "down the hill" is described as a difficult traverse, even after the trail must have been well-worn by all the cops, volunteers, and crime scene techs who beat it down going to and from that taped-off spot. Not the road well-traveled.

I carry my expensive and troublesome to replace large caliber handgun rounds to the range in the box they came in. If I drop one while loading, I pick it up pronto.

Nah!
 
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That's what makes it so weird!
What excuses could he have come up with easily without having had to ponder too deeply?
I don't know enough about guns or the circumstances under which this type of a discharge can occur to call it.

Imo...He thought the police were lying to him about the bullet. Why else would he not come up with any story about walking through that area? He makes everything else fit. He admits everything else. Except the actual incriminating things. He denies seeing the girls at all and denies being in that area where the bullet was found. But he also denies loaning the gun to anyone. He may not have realized it ejected during a struggle, or possibly may not have thought it could be traced since it wasn't fired out of the gun.
 
I am just fine with most of the details. He himself says he was on the bridge at the time of the crime. I think the stock market may be a cover for something else he may have been doing with his phone ( only a theory I am trying to sort).
so he happens to be wearing the same outfit as BG ..then by sheer coincidence his bullet is found between the girls bodies.
he is a twisted psychopath and was trying to insert himself Into the case. It is just biazzaro what he did...

watching fish from the bridge? what fish? they are not directly over the water on the bridge..maybe a small stream?
was he going too shoot the fish from the bridge? he wasn't there to go fishing so I'm not sure I understand.

but I am with all in thinking and wondering what Mr. twinkletoes was doing before he murdered these children? what kind of
materials were recovered from "Rick's" house?

we also know there are shoe prints of a specific size...no doubt smaller than usual. mOO
 
Well, a bullet is the little piece of metal that goes flying through the air when a gun is fired.

My understanding is that what was found at the scene of the murders was an unspent round. That’s a casing that encloses a bullet and the gunpowder, primer, everything that’s needed to fire a shot.

When someone says that a bullet was found, it implies that he fired a shot, (and I believe that there’s no evidence that he did.)

When LE says that they found an ‘unspent round,’ there’s no implication that a shot was fired.

MOO
If it is still traceable to his gun, that is what matters. We still don't know how the girls were killed. Why would there be an unspent round that matches his gun right there? If it was right near the bridge where he says he was walking, then maybe I could believe he just happened to drop it. Right between bodies? No way.
 
just adding..I believe RA should have been brought into the station the minute he admitted being on that bridge, period.

and maybe he should have been arrested. He could prove himself out of it if he was in fact innocent. the idea that
someone took his info and had no problem with RA walking is just beyond anything and everything I've ever heard ..and my
grandmother was a cop and detective..I know laws have changed, but once he was allowed to skip away all the rules for

discovery change and everything is about getting the warrants etc., with out a warm body in the hot seat.If they would
have just brought him in , they could have ripped him to shreds...my jaw just drops at this whole thing. mOO
 
I can’t help but wonder what the case against RA would be like if he had been investigated in the beginning. What physical evidence would have been found in the first few days? Blood, hair or fibers on clothes, boots, or in the car that have since been cleaned or discarded? Would witnesses have identified him in a lineup before their memories faded? Would RA have cracked under pressure if he had been properly interviewed right after the murders? Or, conversely, the lack of evidence back then would have built a stronger defense.
 
As has already been discussed, it's impossible for RA to have been on the bridge when Trail Woman saw him, and then have headed back on the trail to a bench without seeing L and A, since we know Trail Woman saw them on her way back while RA was still on the bridge. This is not a lot of distance that we're talking. RA had to have left the north end of the bridge shortly after Trail Woman was gone and waited around hidden until the girls were halfway across the bridge. Or, he was on the bridge and they passed him, but he left and hid at the north end before L took her first photo. Or, he had walked to the south end and was hidden from her second photo, then did the whole u-turn scenario. Or, possibly, the girls and RA did see each other on the trail after Trail Woman passed, but before the girls got to the bridge. The latter could explain why L began filming him...because he had already come from the bridge, so why was he walking back?
 
As an exercise, I'll make a Devil's Advocate argument (putting myself in the shoes of RA's defense team):

The "off the end of the bridge down the hill" spot is what amounts to an unofficial local gun range. It's in a little canyon eroded by the creek in otherwise flat country. Sometimes people who don't want to spend the bucks to go to a real gun range go down there to do some shooting. It's got a safe backstop and a degree of isolation, and yet it's conveniently close to town. Somebody was shooting down there, dropped a round, couldn't find it, and gave up on it. Prove me wrong.

Do I buy that? In my misspent youth I did some shooting once or twice in such improvised circumstances, not incredibly removed from civilization. That part happens, or used to. But perhaps that was in another time, another America. Wouldn't try it now, anywhere.

The girls and the round were located at a spot you have to wade the creek to get to. You get all muddy if not bloody. Going "down the hill" is described as a difficult traverse, even after the trail must have been well-worn by all the cops, volunteers, and crime scene techs who beat it down going to and from that taped-off spot. Not the road well-traveled.

I carry my expensive and troublesome to replace large caliber handgun rounds to the range in the box they came in. If I drop one while loading, I pick it up pronto.

Nah!
I wonder if RA knew RL was dead. If he had known, then he could have said, "I don't know. I've practice fired my gun a couple times down there, with the owner's permission." Or something along those lines. It's not like RL was alive to contest it. I think RA just didn't know what to say...
 
I wonder if RA knew RL was dead. If he had known, then he could have said, "I don't know. I've practice fired my gun a couple times down there, with the owner's permission." Or something along those lines. It's not like RL was alive to contest it. I think RA just didn't know what to say...
I'm sure they asked him if he knew RL, or had visited his property, before they showed their hand. It's a good thing.
 
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