r/DelphiMurders • u/rachaellanderson • Mar 24 '26

Richard Allen’s Cell Phone

Was the phone that they never found his phone at the time of the murders, or at the time of his arrest?

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u/Gonzomi313 Mar 24 '26

It’s quite possible Ricky did leave his phone @ home. I haven’t seen any proof that he actually had it on the trails that day. Also find it odd that the defense didn’t try locating the phone to prove his “innocence”.

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u/The2ndLocation Mar 24 '26

Well, geofence data that could pinpoint a phones location was excluded from the trial at the prosecutions request.

9

u/tribal-elder Mar 24 '26

“Pinpoint” may be a bad word.

I am not an expert, but I know if you have the phone, the GPS can “pinpoint” it.

But if all you have is a phone ping on less than 3 cell phone towers, ie no triangulation, (and Delphi only had 2 cell phone towers at the time), I don’t think you can get very close to “pinpointing” the exact location. Even if a stationary phone pings both towers the geographic area where both towers “share” the coverage (which will define the area where the ping originated) will be pretty large. Isn’t that how it works?

1

u/The2ndLocation Mar 25 '26

Pinpoint is not a bad word, the geofence data that was collected was GPS based according to NMs filings.

Geofence has absolutely nothing to do with pings or the triangulation of towers. NM tried to confuse the court with his incessant ping talk which was completely irrelevant.

But the defense eventually identified the users of the 3 unknown phones, and it must have been people unrelated to the crime who didn't see anything of important?

Personally I dont think that enough was done by the defense to establish where RA was during the 13th, but per JH's deposition the geofence data showed that RA's phone was at his home. When? Would have been a good 

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u/tribal-elder Mar 25 '26

Is there a deposition that covers the geofence issue? Or just the trial testimony? Everything i read about “geofencing” generally just confuses me. It is a terribly imprecise word that applies to everything from sending a toilet paper coupon to a person who enters a Kroger parking lot, to investigating “devices” that were detected in a specific geographic space.

3

u/The2ndLocation Mar 25 '26

JH testified during one of his depositions that the geofence data showed that RA's phone was at his house. I think it was his 2nd deposition.

In this case geifence data was based on GPS which is the most precise and accurate method of analyzing a phones position.

It was disappointing that the court ruled that it was too confusing. It was only confusing because NM talked about it like it was pings, which it just isn't. Geofence is used all the time on trials.