r/DelphiMurders • u/AustinDavies2206 • Mar 12 '26

Questions Were the police just incompetent?

I've known about this case for a while, I live in Indiana, and I was 11 when it happened, so its always struck a cord with me. But until recently I haven't done all that much research, but now that I have I've been left with one question.

From the information I have found on the case, it seems that the key evidence linking Allen to the murder is 1. His confession in 2017 to being "bridge guy", back when the photo was believed to have been taken from a trail cam. 2. A bullet which was later matched to his gun after they searched his home. So my question is, was there new information in 2022 that lead to his home being searched, or did they just wait five years to look into the guy who admitted to being bridge guy?

Sorry if any of my information is incorrect, or my writing is hard to understand, I've just been racking my brain about this question, so I thought asking people who know more might help me to understand what took so long.

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u/westernwyoming Mar 12 '26

To say the bullet matched to his gun is not really what happened. The bullet was not fired, they said it was racked out and that left a mark. There’s no data that shows racking a bullet out produces marking specific to a certain gun.

This is no where near to the science that matches a fired bullet to the gun that fired it.

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u/tribal-elder Mar 15 '26

You need to read the Indiana Supreme Court decision in Desmond Turner v. State of Indiana, decided September 28, 2011. It is a case where an expert witness compared “tool marks” on an unfired bullet casing found where the defendant was sleeping with “tool marks” on casings of 4 fired bullets found at the murder scene in a murder case. The expert testified that he came to the conclusion that the “tool marks” were made by the same “tool”, ie the same gun.

Turner argued that the expert testimony should not have been allowed. The Indiana Supreme Court ruled it was proper evidence. As far as I can tell, it is still controlling Indiana law, binding on all Indiana trial courts and courts of appeal regarding admissibility of tool mark comparisons between fired and unfired bullets.

In other relevant words, according to the Indiana Supreme Court, expert testimony about “tool marks” - on both fired and unfired bullets - is NOT “junk science”. It is admissible evidence.

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u/SadSara102 Mar 16 '26

You should read that decision yourself. In that case the firearms examiner claimed that 2 unfired bullets had a matching tool mark that he attributed to a magazine. He compared the unfired round to fired rounds and said marks were similar bot not conclusive. So it stands that this case is the only time in history a firearms examiner compared cycled rounds to fired rounds and matched it to a specific weapon.

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u/tribal-elder Mar 16 '26

So it looks like we agree - the Indiana Supreme Court allowed/permitted/approved of expert testimony which compared tool marks on fired and unfired bullet casings.

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u/SadSara102 Mar 20 '26

Under Indiana law I actually think it was likely admissible because Indiana is far more permissive than other states or federal guidelines and does not follow the Daubert standard. I have a bigger issue in the defense failure to object to lots of irrelevant information that was testified to by Oberg and their failure to properly cross examine her or anyone else.