Delphi murders: Richard Allen 'racked gun to scare' Liberty German and Abigail Williams, FBI agent says

Keenan theorizes that the round may have left the chamber after Allen racked the weapon to frighten them. "What I think happened is he was giving the girls orders to do something, whether it was getting on the ground or whatever; he was giving them orders to do something and they weren’t following them. Maybe they decided they wanted to fight or run, and in order to intimidate them, the attacker wracked a round or recycled a round through the gun,” Keenan told The Sun, adding, “He may not have realized there was a round in the chamber when he cycled it, it may have just popped out and landed on the ground. He either didn’t know it happened or he couldn’t find it after the murders. That’s my guess.”

Keenan believed that the gun may have unintentionally malfunctioned or misfired when Allen tried to pull the trigger. "Racking a gun to scare someone is something that's done in the movies, it's not really done in real life, but I assume it would be enough to scare girls of that age," he said, adding, "I think it would scare anyone, actually."

Allen has entered a not-guilty plea. Although no kidnapping charges have yet been brought against him, the prosecution accused him of killing two people while holding the girls captive. He is being charged with two counts of criminal murder. The eight-page affidavit that led to his arrest includes a plethora of circumstantial evidence that places Allen at the crime scene on the day and at the time the girls were slain.