Opening statements and initial witness testimony were delivered Friday as a double murder trial in connection with the brutal slayings of two teenage girls seven years ago got underway in Indiana.

Jurors in the murder trial of Richard Allen, the man charged in the 2017 killings of two teenagers who vanished while hiking in Delphi, Indiana, will hear opening statements Thursday.

Richard Allen was armed with a gun when he came across teenage friends Abigail "Abby" Williams and Liberty "Libby" German near a hiking trail in Delphi, Indiana, in February 2017, then used "power and the fear" to force them "down the hill" before slitting their throats,