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The highly anticipated trial of a man accused of killing two teenage best friends in 2017 finally began with jury selection Monday.

Allen, 52, is charged with two counts of murder and two counts of murder while committing or attempting to commit kidnapping in the killings of Abigail “Abby” Williams, 13, and Liberty “Libby » German, 14 years old. If convicted, he could face up to 130 years in prison.

The case became known as the “Delphi Murders” and it took years before police arrested Allen. For years, a blurry screenshot was the only image the public knew of the suspect in the case that became popular among true crime enthusiasts.

Allen sat at the defense table at the Allen County Courthouse on Monday, wearing a light purple button-down shirt and khaki pants, his first appearance without a jail jumpsuit since his 2022 arrest.

Jury selection moved at a rapid pace despite Judge Frances Gull setting aside three full days for the process.

So far, seven women and five men, including a school counselor, a transportation director and a stay-at-home mom, will be tasked with deciding Allen’s fate, according to WTHR.

More than 50 potential jurors were summoned on the first day of jury selection, and among those dismissed was one person who said he was a medium and another who said he had a family member murdered in California.

There were 12 jurors and two alternates selected before the end of the court day. Two other alternates are expected to be selected when court resumes Tuesday.

Once the 12 members and four alternates are selected, they will be taken to Delphi, a town of about 3,000, where they will be sequestered during the trial, monitored by bailiffs and prohibited from using cell phones or watching the news. .

Gull also banned cameras from the courtroom during Allen’s trial, and reporters are prohibited from taking electronic devices inside the courthouse.

If jury selection is completed Wednesday, jury instructions and opening statements could take place Friday morning. The trial is expected to last a month.

Allen, a pharmacy technician who had lived and worked in Delphi, was arrested in October 2022, nearly six years after the girls known as Abby and Libby were murdered in 2017. Their bodies were found near the bridge Monon High.

Prosecutors told potential jurors in a mini opening statement that “the bridge guy … brutally murdered Abby and Libby, then casually returned to his car and drove home.”

They claimed that this “bridge guy” had left behind a clue, referencing a bullet found at the crime scene, and that they would prove that Allen was the “bridge guy.”

Allen’s defense team told jurors in their statement that their client had confessed to a crime he did not commit and noted that months before the confession he was “languishing” in solitary confinement in prison and a psychologist will tell you “those are the ingredients for a false confession,” WTHR reported.

Andrew Baldwin, one of Allen’s defense attorneys, placed his hands on his client’s shoulders and asked potential jurors: “You guys, look at this man here.” Is it really possible that he is innocent of this crime?

Allen smiled at the jury, who looked at him in turn.

“I need you to look into your hearts and minds,” Baldwin told them.

The Delphi murders case has been shrouded in mystery and plagued by delays, shifting narratives, controversies, chaotic developments and evidence leaks since that fateful day in February 2017.

The first major break came in October 2022, when Allen was arrested and charged with the teens’ murders, a shocking turn more than five years after the killings.

He admitted to investigators that he was on the bridge trail the day the girls disappeared, but he has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him.

Allen’s lawyers had hoped to present evidence that the girls were killed in a ritual sacrifice by members of a pagan Norse religion and a white nationalist group known as the Odinists, but Judge Gull ruled against this, saying the defense “failed to produce admissible evidence” of such a connection.

She also blocked Allen’s lawyers from arguing that the killings could have been committed by others, including the late owner of the property where the teens’ bodies were found.

Prosecutors say they plan to call more than 50 witnesses, and the defense has listed more than 120 witnesses.

The state has not released how Abby and Libby were killed. But a court filing by Allen’s lawyers in support of their theory of Odinism states that their throats had been slit.