Delphi murders: Convicted killer to face victims’ families at sentencing
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(NEW YORK) — When convicted Delphi, Indiana, killer Richard Allen returns to court for sentencing on Friday, he’s expected to come face-to-face with the victims’ families.
Last month, a jury found Allen guilty on all charges in the double homicide: felony murder for the killing of 13-year-old Abigail “Abby” Williams while attempting to commit kidnapping; felony murder for the killing of 14-year-old Liberty “Libby” German while attempting to commit kidnapping; murder for knowingly killing Abby; and murder for knowingly killing Libby.
Allen faces a sentence of 90 to 130 years in prison.
A gag order has prevented the families of Abby and Libby from commenting during or after Allen’s trial. But at sentencing, they’ll get their chance to address Allen through victim impact statements.
When Allen was arrested in 2022 — five years after the 2017 murders — Libby’s grandparents and guardians, Becky and Mike Patty, told ABC News they were grappling with the news that the suspect was living among them in their small town.
“How can somebody do that and then just go on living life like nothing happened?” Mike Patty said.
Law enforcement, prosecutors and defense attorneys have also been under the gag order and have not yet commented on the verdict.
Abby and Libby were walking along a Delphi hiking trail when they were attacked on Feb. 13, 2017. Their throats were slit and their bodies were dumped in the nearby woods.
Moments before the murders, Libby posted a photo of Abby on Snapchat showing her on the Monon High Bridge. After crossing the bridge, the girls saw a man behind them — who became known as “bridge guy” — and Libby started a recording on her phone, according to prosecutors.
As police looked for the suspect, they released footage from Libby’s phone to the public: a grainy image of “bridge guy” and an audio clip of him telling the girls to go “down the hill.”
Allen, a husband and father who worked at the local CVS, was arrested in 2022. He admitted to police he was on the trail that day, but he denied being involved in the crime.
The prosecution’s key physical evidence was a .40-caliber unspent round discovered by the girls’ bodies. Police analysis determined that unspent round was cycled through Allen’s Sig Sauer Model P226, prosecutors said.
Another major focus of the trial was Allen’s multiple confessions in jail and his mental health at the time. The defense argued Allen was in a psychotic state when he confessed numerous times to his psychologist, corrections officers and his wife.
(NEW YORK) — The FBI has interviewed multiple individuals about Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth’s personal life as part of its background check investigation, asking questions about alleged extramarital affairs, his relationship with alcohol and his character, according to sources familiar with the matter.
As part of the background investigation, the FBI reached out to people in Hegseth’s past, including individuals Hegseth has known much of his adult life, according to multiple sources familiar with the FBI’s outreach and other sources briefed on the process.
Sources tell ABC News that Hegseth sat for an interview with the FBI in recent weeks. The Armed Services Committee is expected to hold Hegseth’s confirmation hearing on Tuesday, ahead of President-elect Trump’s inauguration.
On Friday, the top Senators on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., were briefed on the results of Hegseth’s FBI background investigation by a representative from Trump’s transition team, according to sources familiar with the matter. The background investigation materials were also made available for Wicker and Reed to review if they chose to do so. At this point, the FBI’s findings are only being shared with Wicker and Reed, according to sources familiar with discussions between the committee and Trump’s representatives.
A spokesperson for Reed declined to comment to ABC News, and a spokesperson for Wicker did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The extent of the traditionally thorough FBI background check is an indication that the Senate could be provided with more information about Hegseth’s personal life, amid reports, disputed by Hegseth, about alleged infidelity and personal behavior that some senators have found concerning.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who described her December meeting with Hegseth as a “good, substantive discussion,” told reporters last month that she “pressed” Hegseth “on both his position on military issues as well as the allegations against him.”
The Maine Republican said she would wait for the FBI review to help her determine how to vote.
“I, obviously, always wait until we have an FBI background check, and one is underway in the case of Mr. Hegseth, and I wait to see the committee hearing before reaching a final decision,” Collins, the chair of the Appropriations Committee, said in December.
Other Republican senators have downplayed some of the reports as “anonymous” allegations.
“If people have an allegation to make, come forward and make it,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said in an interview on “Meet the Press” on Dec. 15. “We’ll decide whether or not it’s credible.”
As part of the process, the FBI has spoken to individuals in Minnesota, Hegseth’s home state, according to sources familiar with the outreach.
The FBI declined to comment on the details and focus of its inquiry. A spokesperson for Hegseth declined to comment. The Trump transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The New York Times has also published a 2018 email from Hegseth’ s mother, Penelope Hegseth, to her son, in which she said he mistreated women for years, amid his divorce from his first wife. She later told the newspaper that she regretted her original sentiments and expressed regret to her son in a follow up email. ABC News has not obtained or reviewed the email.
The Monterey Police Department released a report last month detailing how a woman told investigators in October 2017 that she had encountered Hegseth at an event afterparty at a California hotel where both had been drinking, and claimed that he sexually assaulted her.
No charges were filed, although Hegseth subsequently paid the woman as part of a settlement agreement, which Hegseth’s attorney said was only because Hegseth feared his career would suffer if her allegations were made public. The agreement stated that Hegseth made no admission of wrongdoing in the matter.
Hegseth, who has previously said he welcomed the FBI’s work, has denied the allegations against him, writing in the Wall Street Journal that “the press is peddling anonymous story after anonymous story, all meant to smear me and tear me down.”
“It’s a textbook manufactured media takedown. They provide no evidence, no names, and they ignore the legions of people who speak on my behalf. They need to create a bogeyman, because they believe I threaten their institutional insanity,” he wrote in the op-ed.
As ABC News previously reported, the Senate Armed Services Committee, which will review Hegseth’s nomination, has also reached out to the Monterey County, California, district attorney regarding the 2017 sexual assault allegations, and to the conservative veterans’ organization Hegseth once ran following a New Yorker report about alleged financial mismanagement, alcohol abuse and sexist behavior, which Hegseth has denied.
Hegseth has denied claims of alcohol abuse, and said in a podcast interview that he won’t drink if confirmed by the Senate.
“This is the biggest deployment of my life, and there won’t be a drop of alcohol on my lips while I’m doing it,” he said last month in an appearance on “The Megyn Kelly Show.”
(NEW YORK) — Police are questioning 26-year-old Luigi Mangione in Altoona, Pennsylvania, as a person of interest in connection with the brazen Midtown Manhattan murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson last week, according to authorities.
Mangione, from Maryland, has been arrested by Altoona police on unrelated gun charges, according to authorities.
He was on a Greyhound bus traveling through Altoona on Monday morning, sources said, when he got off and walked into a McDonald’s where a witness recognized him from the images of the suspect circulated by police.
Mangione was sitting and eating when a McDonald’s employee reported him, and “because of that, we believe we have a strong person of interest,” New York City Mayor Eric Adams said at a news conference Monday.
“He matches the description of the person we are looking for,” Adams said.
Mangione had a ghost gun capable of firing a 9 mm round and a suppressor, police said.
Mangione was in possession of a handwritten document “that speaks to his motivation and mindset,” NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said.
“It does seem that he had some ill will toward corporate America,” police said.
Authorities are going through his writings more thoroughly to understand his motive.
He was also in possession of a fake New Jersey driver’s license similar to the one the suspect used to check into a hostel in New York City before the shooting, she said.
Tisch praised the “good old fashioned detective work” of the NYPD and the “power of the public” that led to the arrest.
Police said it appears he acted alone.
Police said they’re working to trace his movements from New York City to Pennsylvania.
Police said they did not have his name before now.
Meanwhile, new video obtained by ABC News shows the killer waiting for Thompson moments before the shooting.
The video shows others pass by, and then, when the masked gunman sees Thompson, he runs across the street and opens fire. The video, which has not previously been seen publicly, appears to support the police narrative that the shooter targeted Thompson because he loitered while others wandered by.
On Wednesday morning, the masked gunman shot Thompson at point-blank range outside the New York Hilton Midtown, where Thompson’s company was holding an investors conference. Tisch described the attack as “brazen” and “targeted.”
Right after the shooting, the suspect fled by bike through Central Park to the Upper West Side. He then took a taxi to the Port Authority bus facility at 178th Street and boarded a bus out of New York City, according to police.
On Sunday, members of the New York Police Department’s dive team searched underwater in Central Park near the Bethesda Fountain.
The suspect’s backpack — with a jacket and Monopoly money inside — was found nearby in Central Park.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
ABC News’ Bill Hutchinson, Jon Haworth, Ivan Pereira and David Brennan contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Natalya Gudin and her husband, Alexandr Kirsanov, who coached two young figure skaters aboard American Airlines Flight 5342, had a choice to make before the plane took off: Who would go and who would stay.
The couple decided Kirsanov would fly to Wichita, Kansas, to accompany their skaters at the National Development Camp for figure skating, Gudin told ABC News in an interview.
On Wednesday night, the Bombardier CRJ700 regional jet and Black Hawk helicopter both crashed into the icy Potomac River after colliding in midair, launching a desperate overnight search and rescue mission. No survivors are expected, officials said.
“I lost everything. I lost my husband. I lost my students. I lost my friends,” Gudin said.
The last time she spoke to her husband was on Wednesday afternoon, when Kirsanov was at the gate at the Wichita Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport.
“It’s time for boarding,” Gudin said her husband told her on the phone. They were supposed to talk again when he landed at the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Virginia.
That call never came.
Instead, Gudin said she heard from the mother of one of the other figure skaters aboard the flight that there was a crash. Gudin said they should “immediately go to D.C.”
Just before 9 p.m., while on its final approach to the airport, the regional jet carrying 60 passengers and four crew members collided midair with a U.S. military Black Hawk helicopter with three people aboard. Dive teams and other first responders worked through the night in the frigid waters of the Potomac River, where the aircraft had crashed.
Gudin said she stayed up through the night, hoping for good news.
But by Thursday morning, she learned her husband and their students had likely died. Officials said on Thursday that what began as a rescue rescue mission had become a recovery mission.
Authorities had recovered 30 bodies from the jet and one body from the helicopter as of Thursday afternoon, National Security Adviser Michael Waltz told ABC News. D.C. Fire and EMS Chief John Donnelly said they do not expect any survivors.
On Thursday afternoon, Gudin was at a hotel in Virginia waiting for more information about Kirsanov’s remains.
“I need my husband back,” Gudin said. “I need his body back.”