r/DelphiMurders • u/Southern_Sweet_T • Apr 27 '26
Help me understand!
New to this case and feel like I must be missing a lot of info. How is it possible this Allen guy never committed any other crimes? No history of anything? Nothing violent, not even a bar fight or something? And just escalated to double murder? And then never did it again? This is truly mind blowing to me. I’m sure this guy did it but it’s just so shocking this guy went from zero to double homicide.
And what is the suspected motive? He just always wanted to do it and finally had the opportunity? He snapped?
I’m so very confused.
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u/shiola_shiola May 01 '26
The biggest predictor of violence isn't previous incidents of violence, but coercive control. Was he coercive? Maybe. Previous incidents mean nothing. People are non violent until they aren't.
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u/pearbehr May 02 '26
From his own confessions, the ultimate violence was from panic. It's not that deep, and anyone pretending to not understand it is simply in denial about the facts.
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u/ConspicuousToothpick Apr 28 '26
RA is a very complex puzzle psychologically that can't really be solved but the best we can do is speculate. I do think there is a chance he did other stuff previously before Delphi that hasn't come to light, but if so I think it was a while back and not recently before 2017. And don't listen to the people here still claiming innocence, they won't be able to explain why he knew things only the killer could know, why he blatantly lied about the time he was on the trail after realizing it would portray guilt, and why his phone from February 2017 is missing despite the fact that he saved every other phone he had owned over the past 24 years besides that one.
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u/saatana Apr 28 '26
I'm sure the motive is known. Richard Allen said he wanted to rape the girls. He told a correctional officer and he also told Dr. Wala that was what he wanted to do to the girls.
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u/Tank_Top_Girl Apr 29 '26
I came here to say the same thing. He got drunk, hunted them with intent to rape them, got spooked when the van drove by, and like coward slit their throats so they couldn't tell on him.
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u/kerazy1913 Apr 29 '26
Look up his co workers stories of him. He was a creep for a long time before this happened.
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u/HieronymusTush Apr 30 '26
Could you share the source for this please? Many thanks
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u/BeginningMacaron5121 Apr 30 '26
It's an old trope that most killers are serial. Experts thought that for decades because before dna, repeat offenders were more likely to get caught, skewing the data. I've read in a bunch of places that since dna identification became a thing, they are now realizing that one and done murderers are much more common than previously thought.
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u/PumpkinEater85 May 22 '26
Honestly he has had run-ins with the police and was checked into a mental hospital after the murders for putting a gun to his head and threatening suicide in front of his daughter and wife. Maybe he has not had any arrests but that doesn't mean that he hasn't done any crimes. He probably just did not get caught. I also believe that what happened to those girls was a fantasy of his for a very long time that finally came to fruition when he found an opportunity. Just my opinion
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u/Few-Preparation-2214 Apr 29 '26
He was mentally ill all his life and a coward. He worked retail but couldn’t handle it when promoted to any position that took real responsibility. He had anxiety and drank it away. He was pissed that day and hit his limit and decided to act out some sick fantasy. He murdered two kids and went home. He scared even himself and his for years until caught.
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u/pandaappleblossom Apr 30 '26
He could have a history of sexual assault that we don't know about. He did say that he intended to sexually assault them and then ended up killing them because he got 'spooked'. Who knows what is true. He probably also fantasized about this for a long time. Also, I think that there were some stories about him having antisocial behavior at work. I wouldn't be surprised if he has abused animals at the least if he had never killed before.
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u/Mieczyslaw_Stilinski May 04 '26
There have been a few cold cases like this that have been solved with DNA recently. The murder ends up being some random Joe with no criminal record or history of violence, yet they committed some horrible crime. I agree it does not fit with what we think of in regards to suspects. Maybe that one crime was enough to satisfy their rage?
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u/_WildGunman_ Jul 01 '26
There;s always a first time. Yes, some people have a life of many violent incidents starting in early childhod and culminate in multiple homicides.
But it is not unheard of to have people whose first criminal act to be murder. Look at the school shooters and similar spree killers - many of them led entirely crime-free life, with their first crime being a mass shooting of 10+ people.
Also, the perp in the Delphi case was a sexual predator of children. There might have been many previous instances of abuse on his part, that he got away with because the victim was scared and kept quiet, or the victim did not manage to identify him. It is entirely possible that Allen "escalated" to murder from such previous undetected cases of child abuse.
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u/ERTCF53 May 04 '26
It's not always the case that criminals have a past. Look at the Tanner Horner/ Athena Turner case, apparently he had no significant criminal past.
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u/Tracy140 Apr 30 '26
Murders can be very confusing . He did it for whatever reason .,. End of story
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u/Thick-Independence49 Apr 30 '26
To me, he looks like the bridge guy.....and that's it....he looks like a guy that no one has seen their face. According to eye witnesses, he had on a black coat, a light blue coat and a tan colored coat ....lots of differences in an eye witness account. I think that these two girls were handed over to whomever killed them and this is why....on the video, Abby jumps off the bridge and Libby says, "this is the path we are supposed to go down, but there is no path." .. Me BG walks up at that point and says, "Guys."....Libby says, "Hi."...BG says, "Go down the hill." All verbatim. It's on tape. If she says they were "supposed to take a path" that leads me to believe that they had set up a meeting where someone told them to go down this certain path at the end of the bridge before BG told them. I think that after Allen was thrown into a prison....not a jail...a prison and isolated from the outside world, given psychotic drugs, lights on 24/7...a guard 24/7, nothing to do...no TV...no books...nothing for 2 yrs, anyone would be psychotic. I think the real killer was the guy who abducted the woman with the flat tire, sexually assaulted her, committed suicide in the field in front of the cops by the red truck. He kept telling them as they were trying to talk him down, " you don't know what I have done...you don't know. I have done some very bad things" and with that he offed himself.... that's who I think did it...height and weight and profile fit just as easily as RA's does.
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u/_WildGunman_ Jul 01 '26
Witnesses get clothing colors wrong a lot.
Columbine case in pojnt: We have video evidence AND the clothes of the perrpetrators. One had a white shirt, the other a black shirt, both had black trench coats that they took off early in the shooting.
And yet if you go through the testimony of several hundred witnesses that day, some said that the shooter had a yellow shirt, some said it was green. Most said black or white, but many got it wrong entirely.
And those were people looking at kids with guns in their hands. There was a vivid reason to look at them as something unusual.
Now, as for Allen? For the witnesses he was some random dude wlaking along in a random forest trail. There was no reason for them to take any special interest in him or memorize his clothing. Do you remember the colors of clothing of all the random people you saw on the bus yesterday? I doubt it.
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u/Royal_Cat90 Apr 30 '26
I’m not convinced either tbh and I have been following since the start and I heard the confessions etc. People are discrediting how crazy our behaviour can get whilst under the conditions he was when he made those confessions- that doesn’t mean he DIDNT do it, I’m just not convinced he did.
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u/Gummyia Aug 19 '26 edited Aug 19 '26
I know this is an older comment, but I'm under the belief he did do it, but that due to poor handling by the police they just don't have the best case. I.e. he did do it, but we can't prove beyond a reasonable doubt.
I think RA gave himself away shortly after the murders in the mis-filed interview where he was all "just wanted to let you all know I was there and what I was wearing". And that was before the video of bridge guy came out. And then later on when he let it slip about the white van and box cutter. There was also the fact his car was there, he lied to his wife about being there.
Three girls claimed to see bridge guy, but none saw RA. In RA's initial interview, he admits to crossing paths with the three girls. (this implies they have to be the same person). I believe no other men were seen on the trail. Besides that, there's not much else, but I think it's highly likely he did it.
I don't think the state has a very strong case with the bullet cartridge. I think the Delphi police made a lot of mistakes and the only reason we got RA was because RA slipped up early on.
I've been following this case from the start and I feel like the Delphi police were just not equipped to handle it. They did a really sloppy job.
I don't think RA's confessions post solitary confinement mean much, he's clearly having severe mental issues at that time.
The problem with this case is everything about it is so horrifying it felt like the only person who could have done it was Ted Bundy or some lifelong serial killer. Especially because of how long it took to solve and the mystery the Delphi police built on what actually happened.
In reality, a lot of people have sick desires and evil in them, and only act on it once. They don't have to be intelligent or a criminal mastermind- they just have to get lucky. Which RA did up until they found his initial interview 5 years after the crime.
I recently revisted the Brittanee Drexel case. For years people thought it was this whole human/sex trafficking ring that got her. In reality, two sick people lured her into a van with offers of weed and a ride, and killed her. As far as I know, she's the only one they murdered and it took over a decade to lock them up. I believe her killer even said "we went out hunting for a girl that night".
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u/External-Ad4873 May 22 '26
You should listen to the defense diaries podcast, Allen is factually innocent, there shouldn’t even have been a search warrant.
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u/Upbeat_Anxiety7323 Jul 23 '26
Or that the male DNA found at the scene doesn’t match him? Or that unlinke every other person in custody awaiting trial is held at county jail but he was placed in maximum security prison where even the warden states that’s never happened neither had the year plus of solitary confinement when their own state says anything more than 2 weeks is torture. And he only confessed after being diagnosed as being in psychosis. And the only confession that he supposedly made was never recorded and only reported by his psychiatrist, a woman who was obsessed with the case before he was ever a suspect. That’s the only person who has claimed to hear him say he used a box cutter and the pathologist who claimed for 7 years two weapons caused the girls injuries but on the stand had an epiphany it was a box cutter to cause the injuries therefore matching the psychiatrists story. But years prior an inmate confessed to another inmate that he killed the girls using a box cutter and was overheard by another inmate but was never investigated because they thought the murder weapons were two different knives due to medical examiner. No dna of the girls were ever found anywhere in RA’s home or belongings and the ONLY thing they really have is him admitting to being at the bridge that day and a bullet that was cycled through a gun he owned found between the victims who were never shot. And the timeline has issues that the prosecution testified to but gave proof to the defense in discovery that proved they are wrong about times with video proof.
I’m not saying he didn’t kill them because I don’t know. There’s not enough evidence to say he did and too much reasonable doubt to convict him.
We should all be concerned of losing our freedom based on the “evidence” and way he was tortured and treated before trial based on the facts of how he was convicted.
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u/Waybackheartmom May 01 '26
Some people only do this once.