MIAMI COUNTY, Ind. — A judge has approved Kegan Kline's request for a continuance in his child pornography case.
The motion was filed Wednesday and comes two days after a judge agreed to dismiss five charges against Kline.
The prosecutor had requested the dismissal, claiming there was insufficient evidence to prove those five charges. Kline had been facing 30 counts ranging from possession of child porn and exploitation to obstruction of justice.
According to court records, Kline admitted to creating the fake, online "anthony_shots" profile to meet underage girls and receive explicit photos.
Kline has been held at the Miami County Jail for more than two years, awaiting a jury trial that was originally set for Jan. 18, 2023.
The trial is now scheduled to begin May 10, 2023.
Background of charges against Kline
The 30 child pornography and exploitation charges stem from a search of Kline's 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 of 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 of 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 May of 2015, contained sexual images of girls around the age of 14. The geo-location 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 of 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 November of 2016.
The tablet was last used in March of 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.
13News wants to make it clear Kegan Kline has not been named a suspect in the Delphi murders. In Fact, ISP issued the following statement to 13News about Kline:
The Indiana State Police do not confirm or deny anyone who is or is not a suspect in any ongoing investigation. At this time, we are looking for any information about the “anthony_shots” profile and anyone who may have had contact with that profile. The case that you are referring to is a separate child pornography case.
Kegan Kline's court appointed public defender, Andrew Achey, released the following response to 13News.
My client had nothing to do with the unexpected, untimely and unfortunate passing of the girls in Delphi.