Who is Bob Matlock? Owner of Delphi bar frequented by Richard Allen says they would 'talk about' victims
DELPHI, INDIANA: The man arrested in connection with the Delphi murders has finally been charged. Richard Allen, 50, of Delphi, Indiana, was arrested on Friday, October 28, 2022, for the murders of Abigail 'Abby' Williams, 13, and her friend Liberty 'Libby' German, 14, in 2017. He has now been charged with two counts of felony homicide.
The owner of a bar that Allen, a pharmacist, would visit with his wife Kathy, has now expressed his shock at the arrest. "I just couldn't believe it when they said they arrested him," Bob Matlock said, according to the Daily Mail. Not much is known about Matlock except that he was the owner of JC's Bar, which closed in December 2021.
READ MORE
"I said, 'Well, that can't be the Rick we know.' And then we come to find out it was," Matlock said. "There wouldn't have been any inkling to anyone that knew him that would expect him to do something like that. He just didn't seem that type of person. But… you never know," he said.
An eerie picture that surfaced after Allen's arrest showed him posing with his wife as they sat in front of a police sketch of the killer. The chilling photo shows Allen and Kathy smiling as a police drawing of the man suspected of the 2017 murders is pinned to the wall over their shoulders. It is unclear who took the photo and when. The sketch that can be seen in the photo was not released until April 2019, which was over two years after the murders.
The 75-year-old told The Daily Beast that he saw Allen and his wife as "good friends". He said that they were active in the community and the bar's pool league. "We were all sitting at the table there, we were having a pool night, and just having fun - we were snapping pictures and everything," Matlock said, speaking of Allen posing in front of the sketch.
He continued, "Every business in town had those [sketches] up. It just happened to be, he was sitting there at the time. But to me, that did not resemble Rick. My other patrons around town [would] come in for breakfast or lunch, everybody would say: 'Christ, that don't look like anybody,' or, 'It could be anybody'."
Matlock said how he and Allen would discuss the girls' murders but would not go into a lot of detail as they knew the families of the victims. "He would come in and we would always talk about the girls and everything," he said. "We would carry on conversations about it, he would say, you know, it's such a tragedy, and we'd say we felt sorry for the families and all that, but we tried not to talk about it too much because we all knew the families, and were friends with the families." However, Anna Williams, Abigail's mother, told the Daily Mail that they did not know Allen
Allen, who does not appear to have any previous criminal record, reportedly pleaded not guilty to the charges. He is being held at White County Jail without bond and is due back in court on January 13, 2023. WISHTV reported that the suspect is not cooperating with authorities. "It's a step in the right direction," Nicholas McLeland, the Carroll County Prosecutor, said of Allen's arrest at a news conference, according to the Daily Mail. When asked whether anyone else may have had any involvement with the murders, he said, "We have not closed the door on this case."
Williams and German had gone missing after they were dropped off near the Monon High Bridge in Delphi to walk on their own. Before their disappearance, German posted a photo on Snapchat of Abby walking along a railroad bridge. This marked the last time either of them were seen alive. The next day, their bloodied bodies were found in a wooded area approximately half a mile north from where they were dropped off, cops said.
During the investigation, police found an audio clip taken by German that afternoon in which a man can be heard saying "down the hill." Over the years, multiple suspects were pursued by police, including a man who was arrested for participating in the January 6 attack on the Capitol.
How the girls died remains unknown to the public, and how the bodies were discovered also remains a mystery. However, details of a search warrant eventually revealed that their bodies were found covered in blood. It was also revealed that the killer had taken a souvenir from the spot of the murders.
The warrant in question was obtained by the 'Murder Sheet' podcast and released to Indianapolis FOX59. It did not specify what the souvenir was but it did say that "the rest of [the girls'] clothing was recovered." This indicated the killer may have taken something the girls had been wearing.
The killer is also said to have "staged" the girls' bodies in a specific way after murdering them, but it is unclear exactly how. Investigators reportedly believe photos or videos of the disturbing set-up may have been taken by the killer to "memorialize" the crime scene.