Wife of man convicted in ‘Delphi murders’ speaks out for the first time: ‘My husband’s not a monster’
The wife of Richard Allen, the man convicted of killing two teen girls in Delphi, Indiana, in 2017, has broken her silence on the horrendous double murder, claiming her husband is not what people portray.
“My husband’s not a monster. He’s not the monster that people think he is,” Kathy Allen said.
Allen received the maximum sentence of 130 years in December after he was found guilty of four counts of murder and kidnapping in the deaths of Abigail “Abby” Williams, 13, and Liberty “Libby” German, 14. The case was dubbed the “Delphi murders” and became a focus for true crime fanatics. Before his arrest, one of the only clues was a grainy cell phone video of a man near the girls shortly before they were killed.
The two teens went missing on February 13, 2017, while taking a walk along a hiking trail in their hometown of Delphi. The next day, their bodies were found by the trail with their throats slashed.
His wife, Kathy Allen, opened up about her reaction to the killings and defended her husband for a new ABC News Studios series, “Capturing Their Killer: The Girls on the High Bridge.”
“The whole town was devastated,” Kathy Allen said of learning about their vicious killings. “I felt so badly, especially for the mothers.”
The day the teens went missing, Richard Allen had off from his job at a local CVS. When he and his wife learned of their disappearance while watching the news, he told her he was on the trail earlier, but hadn’t seen the girls, she recalled.
“Ricky called the police department to speak to the officers – he was more than willing to help,” Kathy Allen said. After meeting with an officer, they “heard nothing.”
Five years later, police interviewed her husband again and conducted a search warrant on their home.
“Ricky said something like, ‘Well, it’s over, it doesn’t matter anymore,” she said.
He was arrested in October 2022 after admitting to being on the trail that day, though he denied being involved in the killings. His wife believed him.
The case went unsolved for years, until a volunteer helping police with the case flagged Richard Allen’s statement, which had been misfiled.
He had been interviewed by police because he was also on the trail the day of the killings, but his file had inadvertently been marked “cleared.” Weeks after the information was flagged to police, he was arrested. During his 2024 trial, prosecutors honed in on multiple confessions he made in jail to his psychologist, corrections officers and to his wife.
In one call, according to testimony, he told his wife, “I did it. I killed Abby and Libby.”
“No, you didn’t,” Kathy Allen responded. He then replied, “Yes, I did.”
“Why would you say that?” she asked. “I know you didn’t. There’s something wrong.”
In November 2024, Richard Allen was found guilty on all four charges following 17 days of testimony. That December, he was handed the maximum sentence of 130 years.
In February, when Richard Allen began his life sentence, his wife was still claiming his innocence.
“I want true justice for Abby and Libby, but it should not be at the expense of an innocent person,” Kathy Allen said, according to ABC News.
“I’m very hopeful for an appeal,” she said. “It was definitely our dream to grow old together, and it still is. I’m looking forward to that. I’m not giving up.”
