DELPHI — The jury has been given the case in the Delphi Murders Trial, however, they failed to reach a verdict Thursday afternoon and returned to their sequestered hotel rooms after about two hours.
PREVIOUSLY: Delphi Murders Trial: Day 18 | Jury hears closing arguments from prosecution and defense
They will return to the Carroll County Courthouse to resume deliberations at 9:00 a.m. Friday.
Jurors must determine if Richard Allen kidnapped and killed Abigail Williams and Liberty German on February 13, 2017.
Closing arguments started Thursday morning as the prosecution outlined its case to the jury.
Carroll County Prosecuting Attorney Nicholas McLeland worked 58 minutes to summarize and outline the state's case for the jurors.
He said all they had to do was to figure out who Bridge Guy was. They say they proved it was Allen, and McLeland asked the jury to find him guilty on all charges.
He said in addition to the evidence pointing to Allen's guilt, the defendant confessed to killing the girls on dozens of occasions.
Defense attorney Brad Rozzi told the jury the prosecution is desperate to prove its case, and he worked to demonstrate numerous problems with evidence presented by the state.
Rozzi told the jury there are four themes when it comes to the prosecution's case: a broken timeline, what he called bumbling ballistics, false confessions, and digital forensics/data.
He told jurors, "What is most important is what they (the prosecution) don't want you to know, what we had to tell you time and time again. We had to do their job."
After a final rebuttal by the prosecution after lunch, Special Judge Fran Gull told the jury to begin its deliberations. She instructed them to continue until 4:00 p.m.
She said if they chose to extend their discussions, that was fine, but they will be sequestered back to their hotel rooms when the deliberation sessions are finished each day.
