PERU, Indiana — The man connected to the Delphi murders through a social media catfish profile was taken out of jail to meet with Indiana State Police investigators.
Kegan Kline faces child pornography and exploitation charges, but has never been charged in the murders of Libby German and Abby Williams.
Court records unsealed this week show the Miami County Prosecutor’s Office and Kline's attorney agreed to have him released into the temporary custody of Indiana State Police. The court granted the request Aug. 19. Kline was ordered to be returned to the Miami County Jail afterward. Kline has been held in the Miami County Jail for over two years while awaiting trial on the child pornography charges.
Indiana State Police would not comment on why investigators wanted to meet with Kline outside of jail or where they took him. But Kline's attorney, Andrew Achey, also asked for and received another delay in the court proceedings this week. Achey told the judge in his motion to continue that the parties are currently engaged in negotiations.
Kline faces 30 charges involving child pornography and exploitation. In court records, Kline admitted to creating the social media profile "anthony_shots" to meet underage girls and receive sexually explicit photos. Investigators say the person behind the fake profile was one of the last to communicate with Libby German before her death. Libby and Abby's bodies were found near a trail in Delphi on February 14, 2017.
Kline's next court date on the child pornography charges is now pushed back seven weeks until Oct. 20. The jury trial is still set for Jan. 18.
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Kline child exploitation case
Kegan Anthony Kline was charged with 30 counts on Aug. 29, 2020, including child exploitation, possession of child pornography and obstruction of justice.
The charges stem from a search of his Peru, Indiana, home on Feb. 25, 2017, just 11 days after the bodies of Liberty German and Abigail Williams were discovered. The FBI, Indiana State Police and Peru Police Department took part in serving the search warrant, and the investigation was focused on Kline allegedly soliciting underage girls.
According to a probable cause affidavit out of Miami County obtained by 13News, Kline created the anthony_shots account approximately six months prior to when investigators interviewed him in February 2017. He allegedly said he created the account to contact both girls he knew and girls he did not. Court documents show Kline saying he would talk to girls, even if they were under the age of 16, and that he found them on Instagram and then told them to message him on Snapchat.
Kline allegedly claimed to have received pictures from all of the girls he chatted with and had saved them.
According to court documents, while investigators talked to Kline shortly after he returned from Las Vegas. Investigators said he told them he was "f****ed and he should've left." Kline said he had planned to leave the area that day, after his dad fell asleep, according to the court documents.
In that probable cause affidavit, Kline said he received sexual photos and videos of the girls he was messaging.
Investigators seized six devices from Kline, including smartphones, a tablet and an iPod touch as part of the 2017 search warrant on the child pornography case.
The iPod Touch was last used in May 2015 and contained sexually explicit images of children, according to court documents. Locations for some of the images came back to Hammond or Royal Center, Indiana.
One iPhone, last used in May 2015, contained sexual images of girls around the age of 14. The geolocation on the images came back to cities in Indiana, including Bunker Hill, Galveston, Indianapolis, Kokomo, Monterey and Royal Center.
A Samsung Galaxy phone, last used in June 2015, contained sexually explicit images of children between 12 and 17 years old.
Another iPhone investigators found contained sexual images of children between 12 and 17, adults involved in sexual acts with children between the ages of 3 and 11, and images of drugs and Kline with a black handgun. That phone was last used in November 2016.
The tablet was last used in March 2016 and showed conversations on Facebook Messenger and the user suggesting the conversations be moved to Kik Messenger or Snapchat, according to the probable cause affidavit.
Another Samsung Galaxy phone recovered was factory reset on Feb. 23, 2017 – nine days after the Delphi murders. A factory reset essentially wipes all user data from a device. investigators were able to get information on the device after the reset. It included discussions about meeting people in Las Vegas and prostitution.
On Feb. 27, 2017, Kline contacted police claiming he had located his iPhone 5. Investigators said they found images of females posing nude, but investigators could not determine their ages. Investigators also found much of the data from Facebook, Instagram, MeetMe, Snapchat and Twitter had been deleted. A review of the phone found that hours after police released him the day they searched his home, Feb. 25, he had uninstalled and deleted Snapchat and Instagram. The following day, MeetMe was uninstalled and deleted. The browser search history had also been deleted the morning of Feb. 27 before the phone was turned in to authorities.