DELPHI, Ind. >> A man charged with killing two teenage girls in a small Indiana community forced them off a hiking trail before cutting their throats, a prosecutor said Friday, telling jurors that the evidence includes images and audio recorded on a victim’s phone.

“The last thing the girls saw was Richard Allen’s face,” Carroll County prosecutor Nicholas McLeland said.

And they heard his “chilling words: ‘Girls, down the hill,’ “ McLeland said. “Out of fear the girls complied.”

Richard Allen, 52, is charged with two counts of murder as well as two additional counts of murder while committing or attempting to commit kidnapping.

Allen, a local pharmacy technician, was arrested in 2022, five years after the deaths of 13-year-old Abigail Williams and 14-year-old Liberty German, a case that had vexed police and inspired much speculation by true-crime enthusiasts.

The jury will be sequestered for what could be a monthlong trial, banned from watching the news and allowed only limited use of their phones to call relatives while monitored by bailiffs.

In his opening statement, McLeland described the crime scene: a rugged, wooded area near the Monon High Bridge Trail, just outside the town of Delphi in Carroll County.

He said an unused bullet discovered at the scene came from a gun that belonged to Allen, and that his grainy image and voice were captured by Libby on her phone. One video showed a man walking behind her on the abandoned railroad bridge.