Delphi's former police chief and two other men who were part of search parties in the hours after Abigail "Abby" Williams and Liberty "Libby" German went missing testified Saturday during the second day of Richard Allen's murder trial.

Allen is accused of killing the teens, who went missing Feb. 13, 2017, and were found dead the next day. In 2022, officials arrested Allen, of Delphi, who faces two counts of murder and two counts of murder while kidnapping the girls.

On Saturday, jurors were back to the courtroom in Carroll County to hear testimony from the man who was Delphi police chief when the girls were killed and from two men who played key parts in the following day's search for the girls — including one who found their bodies in the woods.

Journalists from the Indianapolis Star and the Lafayette Journal & Courier will cover the case as it moves through the judicial system.

Former Delphi Police Chief Steve Mullin, a lifelong Delphi resident who was named chief in 2014, worked his usual shift and went home the day of Feb 13, 2017. It had been a "routine day" that ended around 5:30 p.m., he said.

"When I arrived home," Mullin testified Saturday in a crowded courtroom, "I began hearing radio traffic concerning two missing girls."

The girls had been dropped off at the Monon High Bridge trails earlier in the day and couldn't be found after 2 p.m. Soon search efforts were underway, led by Carroll County Sheriff Tobe Leazenby. The first search ended just before 2 a.m. Feb. 14, Mullin said.

"We had no idea anything nefarious had happened to the girls," Mullin said about the end of the first day's search. "At that point, I still believed that, given time, they would return home. I just couldn't imagine that someone would do harm to them."

Delphi murders trial day one: Relatives remember teens as attorneys offer dueling narratives

The search resumed after 7 a.m. the next day, with searchers mostly looking around the Monon High Bridge and farther downstream of Deer Creek, which flows from east to west south of Delphi.

That morning, Mullin gave his phone number and instructions to searchers at a fire station in downtown Delphi. Among the searchers was another lifelong Delphi resident, Patrick Brown, who had called off work Feb. 14 to help search for the girls.

Brown said during Saturday's third and final testimony that he was a longtime friend of Libby's grandfather, Mike Patty, and had learned the two girls were missing from a Facebook post made by Mike's wife the previous night.

Following an unsuccessful search that night near the Morning Heights Cemetery, Brown returned to that spot on Feb. 14.

Among those searching along with Brown was Jake Johns.

"My wife had come home and told me they had been missing," Johns said of the girls. The next day his boss at Pearson's, a propane delivery company in Delphi, asked if he and a co-worker would be willing to help with the search. "We said 'absolutely,'" Johns recalled.

Johns said he had never heard of the Monon High Bridge. He and his colleague parked at Riley Park, just south of downtown, around 8:30 a.m. Saturday and walked upstream, to the east, along the southern bank of Deer Creek. It took them nearly four hours to reach the high bridge, he said.

After passing the bridge, Johns saw a flash of yellow, pink and blue against the otherwise barren February landscape. Libby's tie-dye shirt was caught on branches in the water near the creek's northern bank, Johns testified. The cemetery was farther north, up a hill beyond the creek.

Looking toward the Monon High Bridge, "you could see where the rocks and dirt had been disturbed, absolutely," Johns said. He also noted shoeprints his colleague saw during the search. Prosecutors allege that Allen walked the two girls down from the old wooden bridge, which they had traversed on Feb. 13 while taking Snapchat photos, to the creek bank while holding a gun.

Soon after, Johns said, he heard Brown's voice from the other side of Deer Creek. Brown was yelling out "we just found the bodies," Johns recalled.

"At first, I thought they were mannequins," Brown said of stumbling upon the two girls' corpses.

A soft-spoken older man, Brown choked up and his voice began trembling. After asking for a minute to collect himself in court, he recalled: "I turned around and I yelled out we had found them."

Prosecutors say the two girls' throats were slit. Libby's body was found naked and covered in blood, prosecutors say, while Abby was wearing some of Libby's clothes.

Brown stood there facing away from the girls' bodies, never approaching within 5 feet of them, he said. He called Mullin, the police chief, and told him what he'd seen. Police officers soon parked at the cemetery and began walking through the woods toward the bodies.

While Brown recounted his encounter with their corpses, Becky Patty, Libby's grandmother, leaned forward from her chair in the courtroom. Libby's older sister, Kelsi Siebert, sat to her grandmother's left and bit her lower lip.

Mullin, the former police chief, said he went to a business north of the Monon High Bridge trails called Hoosier Harvestore after the girls went missing to view security footage of the road that runs to the south, County Road 300 North. In the 2022 probable cause affidavit for Allen's arrest, prosecutors repeatedly mention Hoosier Harvestore's video.

The trial resumes in Delphi early Monday.

Here are a few moments from Friday, the first day of the trial.

People lined up to get into courtroom for Richard Allen's trial. Not everyone got in.

The line of people outside the Carroll County Courthouse in the wee hours of Friday morning camped there for hours hoping to get seats to Friday’s opening statements. More than half of the people in line didn’t get in. Even those who arrived at 2:30 a.m. didn’t get a spot in the 72-seat courtroom.

Cameras confiscated outside Delphi courthouse

Cameras of journalists outside the courthouse were confiscated shortly after jurors arrived Friday morning, including from Gannett photographer Alex Martin. He said he put his camera on his hip and set the second camera on the ground when he saw jurors arrive at the courthouse to adhere to the court's rules.

Jury won't see Delphi suspect sketches

Richard Allen’s attorneys filed a motion arguing sketches released in the aftermath of the 2017 killings of teenagers Liberty German and Abigail Williams should be shown to jurors. The judge ruled Friday that the sketches will not be admissible, according to Fox59.

▶ State v. Richard Allen: Reports say Delphi judge rules suspect sketches will not be permitted in court

Hair evidence not tied to Richard Allen, defense says

During his opening statement Friday, defense attorney Andrew Baldwin said hair found in Abby Williams' hand had a root and was able to be tested. Tests showed it belonged to a female — not to Abby or Libby, but likely a relative of Libby’s. Baldwin said there should be more tests to know whose hair it was.

Opening statements in murder case against Richard Allen

During opening statements, Carroll County Prosecutor Nicholas McLeland alleged that Allen was following Libby and Abby to the famous Monon High Bridge. He outlined the prosecution's timeline, saying Allen used a gun to control the girls and describing how it was linked to the crime scene.

▶ Friday, Oct. 18 updates: Delphi opening statements at Richard Allen's trial

Defense attorney Andrew Baldwin painted Allen as an innocent man ensnared in an investigation that he said “was messed up from the beginning.” He challenged the state's timeline, saying Abby's phone connected to a cellphone tower after Allen had left the trail on Feb. 13, 2017.

“After 4 p.m. (on Feb. 13), human hands handled that phone,” Baldwin said. “Richard Allen was at home and never came back.”

Libby German and Abby Williams' family members testify

Becky Patty, Libby's grandmother; Derrick German, Libby's father; and Anna Williams, Abby's mother, all took the stand on Friday, giving emotional testimony. They described the last times they spoke with the girls and the frantic search after they realized they were missing.