Delphi double murder trial: Richard Allen's defense team rests case

DELPHI, Ind. -- Richard Allen's defense team rested its case after calling 20 witnesses to the stand on Wednesday.

It marks 17th day of the double murder trial for Allen who is charged with killing Libby German and Abby Williams.

The girls were killed in February 2017 while out on a walk along the Monon High Bridge.

The defense rested not long after court was called to order.

Judge Frances Gull met with the prosecution and defense to discuss jury instructions and the order of arguments.

The state is expected to call some rebuttal witnesses this morning before jury instructions are finalized.

The judge said both sides would receive between two and two and half hours to present their closing arguments.

The defense spent most of their time casting doubt on the state's case against Allen, calling into the question the quality of the murder investigation, the science used in the case and the forensics presented to the jury.

The video in the player above is from a previous report.

On Tuesday attorneys aggressively tried to cast doubt on the state's argument that Allen murdered the girls..

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Former FBI forensic examiner Stacy Eldridge was the defense's 21st witness to testify. She told the court she spent 65 hours going over digital information in the case.

Eldridge's testimony agreed with several aspects of what state police experts said they found. She did criticize investigators for not doing a better job of extracting data from German's phone, which could have led to better findings.

The biggest moment of her testimony came when Eldridge said at 5:45 p.m. on Feb. 13, 2017, a phone call came into Libby's phone and within "milliseconds" a headphone jack was inserted.

Eldridge went on to say the headphone jack was removed nearly five hours later at 10:32 p.m. She said, "I cannot think of any explanation that doesn't involve human interaction."

Prosecutor Nick McLeland asked if plugging in a headphone would have made the phone log a movement.

Elridge responded, "It could; it could not."

He followed up by asking if the phone would log movement if it was picked up and carried through the woods. She answered, "Yes."

Eldridge also conceded there was no data to show the phone was ever turned off.

Jurors had several questions including if Eldridge ever created her own timeline using the data from German's phone. She answered, "no."

Another juror asked if Eldridge could tell if the phone was on silent or vibrate. She said she didn't know.

Eldridge was then asked if water or moisture on the phone could register as movement.

She also said she did not know.

State police experts Brian Bunner and Chris Cecil were called back to the stand. The defense pressed them on their lack of reporting about the headphone jack data.

Cecil responded by saying he Googled the jurors' question about water or moisture on the phone. He said he read a headphone jack could register as being used if water or dirt is in the port.

The defense quickly countered by asking Cecil, "Do you normally Google search when conducting research in a criminal investigation?"

Cecil responded with "not normally, no." He said normally he uses peer-reviewed research.

Defense attorney Jennifer Auger then pressed further by saying, "You and the state have had seven-and-a-half years to research?"

Cecil responded, "That's correct."

Auger then said, "and you came in here with a Google search?"

Cecil said, "That's correct."