This is a true crime in real time update from True Crime Today and the Hidden Killers podcast.

I'm Tony Bruske, and today we find ourselves deep in the heart of a small town trial.

A town that stood silent for years haunted by the unsolved murders of two young girls

suddenly finds itself staring at a man.

Many believe committed the unthinkable.

But the evidence? It's tangled in a web of missed leads, old wounds, and courtroom twists,

and the latest, a bullet unspent but telling cycles the story back to one man, Richard Allen.

It wasn't just another day in court. The seventh day of

testimony brought us firearms expert Melissa Oberg, who spent 17 meticulous years studying the forensic

details of guns. Oberg's testimony made clear that a single cartridge found lying between the bodies of

Abby Williams and Libby German was cycled through Allen's Sig Sauer, a 40-caliber pistol,

a bullet that wasn't fired, but as it turns out, might be the most damning piece of evidence

yet. Why does that matter? Because legally speaking, a fingerprint might fade, but the marks left on a cartridge

don't lie. Or do they? The defense, sharp as ever, wasted no time drilling into the reliability

of firearms testing. They hammered home the uncomfortable reality, even the best science isn't perfect, with a 2% error rate hanging over the proceedings like a storm cloud.

What makes this story even darker is how Alan managed to remain unnoticed for five long years.

Five years of family dinners trips to the the grocery store, and blending seamlessly into the

fabric of the community, all while two grieving families waited for answers.

How could that happen?

According to Sheriff Ligget, it was human error.

A tip sheet Allen submitted himself reporting that he was on the trail the very day of the murders got misfiled.

Wrong name, wrong place.

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