Clerk Error Stalls Delphi Murders

The murders of teenagers Abigail Williams and Liberty German in Delphi, Indiana, went unsolved for years after a clerk accidentally marked one of the suspects as cleared. In a tip filed three days after the 2017 killings, Richard Allen told authorities he had been on the Monon High Bridge Trail the day the girls disappeared, but his last name was recorded incorrectly, and the report was misfiled as resolved. Years later, a volunteer file clerk discovered the error and brought the forgotten tip to investigators, prompting a fresh review that led to Allen’s arrest in October 2022 and finally broke open the long-running case.

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