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 dive headfirst into the twisting labyrinth of the Richard Allen trial,

where new forensic revelations, courtroom maneuvers, and confessions collide.

We begin with a bloodstain expert called to the stand to untangle a web of evidence,

as puzzling as it is grim. He's got two decades of experience, and he's trained cops at the

Indiana State Police Academy giving seminars on the science of blood spatter. You'd think with a resume

that long, and the testimony would be airtight.

But as it turns out, science isn't always as clear cut as we'd like. Here's the thing. Blood

behaves predictably. It's measurable, repeatable. Yet in this case, every piece of forensic evidence

seems to do anything but follow those rules. According to this

expert, one victim, Libby, left a distinctive upside-down L mark on a tree, supposedly created in a

moment of agonizing injury. Her arm, he says, slid against the tree to stabilize herself after being

slashed. If that

sounds clear enough, wait until you hear what happens next. The expert paints a picture of a

violent scene, a large pool of blood, spatter patterns on leaves and branches, but here's the

problem. No drag marks. None.

And yet he claims that Libby's body had to have been dragged either by her arm or her feet to the place where she was found.

Two competing theories, each with its own set of contradictions and neither one fitting perfectly.

Now, picture the jury trying to make sense of that mess.

And there's more.

The expert goes on to say that there were blood stains on the bottom of Libby's heel

and the back of her calf, which he suggests might mean she stepped into her own blood.

...