Richard Allen and the Six Words Indiana Did Not Want to Hear

Tony Brueski (0:00)

This is The Big Breakdown, a long look back at some of the biggest stories we're covering for you at the Hidden Killers Podcast and True Crime Today. This is Hidden Killers With Tony Brueski.

Tony Brueski (0:20)

So on September 21st to 26th, Deputy Attorney General Ellen Meilaender stood inside the Indiana Supreme Court Room, defending what happened to Richard Allen almost as if she was a seventh grader that was late getting back after lunch into class. I've got all these excuses. I got a hall pass. I had to use the bathroom, but then my cat ran away, then I needed to get this. This is how she delivered her arguments. If you watched it, it was uncomfortable. It was just like it was like it reminded me of like being in high school or like ninth or tenth grade or whatever and getting back to class late. And you know, some people, they just they have their excuse for everything. And they just rattle it off one after another in some meandering way that doesn't really connect the dots very well. But in their mind, it's checking the boxes, although it's really not communicating well out here.

That's how her testimony went or her arguments went.

She was defending what happened to Richard Allen, to three appeals judges. Judge Nancy Vaidik looked right at her and asked her if she'd actually watched the cell videos. Then Vaidik pressed her, was it really the state's position that Allen was treated the same as or even better than the other men housed at Westville? Now Meilaender, as she's getting through all this, doesn't hesitate.

Tony Brueski (2:10)

Yes, she says.

Tony Brueski (2:14)

Then came the follow up from the bench. Is that still the state's stance for a pretrial detainee, a man who legally speaking is presumed innocent?

Meilaender's answer. Her name really is kind of reminiscent of how she speaks, just meandering with her words. Meilaender's answer. He was put there for his own safety, and under Indiana law, those kinds of conditions don't count as coercion. Let's see, one of the judges fired back with the words that hit like a hammer. You protected him into psychosis.

Well, it was kind of a visible silence in the room.

Stacey Lehman (3:03)

Well, there's that.

Tony Brueski (3:06)

Why do you bring those things up? Think about that protection. That's the official word from the state of Indiana. That's what they use for the 13 months Richard Allen spent locked in a maximum security segregation cell, I'm just going to say shell, but it's really a cell before he'd ever been convicted for a single crime. So how does the state call that protection? Turn around and tell three judges it doesn't even need a single word. He uttered in that cell to keep him locked away. Let's go back to how all of this started. And as you know, we've been covering this extensively on this channel for years. So if you are new to this and you want to get into it, dig away. There are a ton of conversations and interviews on this, hundreds of them on this channel. Because this is such a ridiculous case of a miscarriage of justice and the system railroading a man. It is criminal, in my opinion. The people who are involved in this case that have put Richard Allen behind bars, I believe should be criminally prosecuted. And I hope we get there at some point in time. Because it goes beyond just looking the other way or not looking at all. There's something deeper and darker at play here. What it is, I don't know.

Why it is, I don't know. But there is a reason Richard Allen is away in prison. And the people who have every reason to probably be put away, who have all of the evidence pointing in their directions as being involved with these young girls who were murdered, who were murdered, predators.

Some have been charged, some have not.

Allegations of predatory behavior against some. It's insane. It is utterly insane how the state of Indiana looked at Richard Allen, the CBS employee. Meanwhile, there's this giant cast of characters from central casting of villains that all played a role in this ecosystem of these little girls. But none of them have anything to do with it. Now it's the CVS guy who raised his hand and said, hey, can I help? Allen was arrested on October 26, 2022 Just eight days later, the Carroll County Sheriff asked a judge for a safekeeping order, a mechanism in Indiana that lets a county move an inmate to a state prison if the county jail can't handle him. The sheriff claimed his jail couldn't guarantee Allen's safety. On November 3, Judge Benjamin Deener signed off on it. Safekeeping makes it sound like they were doing him a favor. But for Richard Allen, it meant getting thrown into his cell in one of the most absolute, harshest facility the state operates. John Galapo, a former warden at Westville, described that unit as a prison inside a prison. It's a segregated maximum security block designed specifically for men convicted of murder and crimes against children. In 28 years with the Department of Corrections, he said he'd never seen another pretrial detainee housed there. Indiana took a local pharmacy tech with zero criminal history and dropped him right into the hole built for the worst offenders in the state and called it protection. And apparently some in the state with authority still do call it that. Even when the Supreme Court judge is like, you protected him into psychosis. The cell was 12 by 8 feet, a bed bolted to the floor, a toilet, a camera overhead and lights burning 24 hours a day. Because he was on S-Watch guards and at times other inmates stood outside his door in shifts, writing down every single thing he said and did every 15 minutes. Everything that came out of his mouth in that room over the next 13 months was treated as evidence. And here's why that matters. The state broke its own rule to do it. Back in 2012, a federal judge ruled that IDOC violated the Constitution by isolating mentally ill prisoners. That led to a 2016 settlement where the department agreed not to keep seriously mental ill inmates in restrictive housing for more than 30 days. Under that agreement, if a man breaks down in isolation, he's considered seriously mentally ill. That standard was still in IDOC's 2023 policy manual. Yet the state's attorney stood before an appellate judge, three appellate judges, and argued that Allen was kept there past the 30-day limit because he wasn't safe anywhere else. So the state's argument is that they violated their own policy for his own good and that the conditions were totally ordinary.