The stepfather of Delphi murder suspect Richard Allen was reportedly caught snoring during testimony tying his stepson to the scene of the brutal killing of two teen girls.
On Friday, jurors endured more than seven hours of dense, technical testimony by Melissa Oberg, a former forensic firearm examiner for the Indiana State Police, who explained how she determined that an unused bullet found near the corpses of Abby Williams, 13, and Libby German, 14, was connected to a handgun found at Allen’s home.
Allen’s stepfather was heard snoring and seen shutting his eyes during the dry discussion, despite being nudged awake, The Daily Mail reported.
Oberg explained that she fired and cycled through several rounds of the 40-caliber Sig Sauger handgun recovered from Allen’s home during an October 2022 search.
She concluded the “tool marks” left on the bullets she fired were similar to those on the unspent cartridge found at the crime scene.
Allen’s defense attorney, Bradley Rozzi, tried to sew doubt in jurors’ minds about the accuracy of the firearm evaluation during his cross-examination.
He also pointed out that Oberg reached her conclusion by comparing the bullet to spent rounds, not unused ones that had merely cycled through the gun without being fired.
Prosecutors alleged Allen followed the teenage girls while they were hiking near their hometown of Delphi on Feb. 13, 2017, before forcing them at gunpoint off the Monon High Bridge Trail into the woods, where he slit their throats.
Defense attorneys have insisted that Allen is innocent, arguing there is plenty of reasonable doubt in the prosecutor’s evidence.
The 52-year-old was hit with two counts each of murder and murder while kidnapping the girls, and faces up to 130 years in prison if convicted on all four charges.