UPDATE 7/28/23 6:16 P.M. PST: Well, at least this creep won’t be anywhere near children for, probably ever.
Kegan Anthony Kline was, surprisingly, cleared of the murders of Libby German and Abby Williams despite admitting having catfished them with photos of a young male model. However, during that years-long investigation he was charged with a number of other crimes unrelated to the infamous Indiana slayings.
Related: Delphi Murders Suspect CONFESSED On Prison Phone Calls, Reveal New Docs
Kline was found to have reached out to many other underage girls online, sometimes soliciting nude photos. He ultimately pleaded guilty to 25 counts of various crimes — including child exploitation, child solicitation, possession of child pornography, identity theft, and obstruction of justice.
In court Thursday, per WRTV, the convicted sex criminal apologized to his victims, saying:
“I was depressed and lonely. I knew it was wrong but I liked the attention. I’m truly sorry to each and every one of them.”
It doesn’t seem to have garnered him much sympathy. He was sentenced to 43 years in prison total, with three years of that being suspended — as he gets credit for the time he’s already spent behind bars. Per WTHR, Kline plans to appeal the sentence. But we wouldn’t hold our breath for any judge taking it easier on him considering his crimes.
Kline will be nearly 70 years old by the time he sees the light of day, assuming he serves the full bid. So at least he’ll be off the streets, even if he wasn’t the one who killed the girls.
[Warning: Potentially Triggering Content]
The Delphi murder case is one of the most disturbing unsolved crimes in recent memory. But exactly how close have investigators gotten to the truth??
In case you’ve never followed updates on the case before… The day before Valentine’s Day 2017, 14-year-old Liberty “Libby” German and 13-year-old Abigail “Abby” Williams were dropped off by Libby’s older sister at the Delphi Historic Trails in Delphi, Indiana. They posted one photo to social media from the Monon High Bridge Trail and then vanished. After a brief, harrowing search, their bodies were found about half a mile away on the bank of Deer Creek.
Determining quickly that this was a homicide investigation, police released a grainy photo of a man walking towards the girls, as well as a muffled audio clip in which a man’s voice can be heard saying the phrase, “down the hill.” Investigators revealed these came from Libby’s phone — she apparently saw the man and thought to snap a photo and start her phone recording just in case.
Related: Teen Female Gang Member Lured Boys Into Woods & Had Them Brutally Murdered
Police later revealed they have more evidence but are keeping it secret so as not to “compromise” the eventual criminal prosecution. Authorities have still to this day never released any information about how the girls were killed. Ever since then, many homes in Central Indiana sport orange lights on their front porches, at the request of Libby’s mother, as a reminder that the crime has not been solved.
Cut to December 2021 when Indiana State Police began asking around about teens having contact with an Instagram user with the profile name anthony_shots from 2016 to 2017, citing an unspecified connection to the murders. It turned out the man behind this account was using photos of a male model (above, left) to catfish underage victims. Police discovered that man is Kegan Kline (above, right) from Peru, Indiana.
(NOTE: Police have made clear the model has never been a person of interest in the case and has nothing to do with this at all. In fact, he actually became a police officer!)
Kline is currently in prison already, awaiting trial on 30 charges including child exploitation, possession of child pornography, and child solicitation for sexual intercourse. Kline was apparently first questioned by the FBI just 11 days after the girls’ bodies were discovered. According to an affidavit from Miami County, obtained by WTHR, the 27-year-old admitted to using the IG account to find underage girls then begin conversations with them on Snapchat. He said he had received an estimated 100 sexual photos and videos from about 15 different underage girls. He claimed the girls were 15 years old at the youngest. But files obtained on his phone showed pornographic images of girls as young as 3. Disgusting.
But he isn’t charged with any crime relating to Libby or Abby?
Not as of yet. His public defender said in a statement to the press at the time:
“My client had nothing to do with the unexpected, untimely and unfortunate passing of the girls in Delphi.”
But on Friday, the Murder Sheet podcast dropped a bombshell: a leaked transcript of the police interrogation with Kline in which he admitted to contacting Libby!
In the 194 page transcript (which you can find in full HERE), police reveal the reason they connected the anthony_shots account to the murders in the first place: they had evidence that Libby had been interacting with the account during a sleepover (presumably with Abby) the night before her disappearance. The officers interpreted from what they saw that the 14-year-old was “completely enthralled” by the fake persona he was using online. Kline said he did not receive photos from Libby but did admit to getting photos from one of her friends who was also at the sleepover.
Though he admitted to contacting her, he claimed he did not recall anything about setting up a meeting at the Monon High Bridge Trail. Police, however, said they had evidence one of the girls at the sleepover had contacted the anthony_shots account again after the teens’ bodies were discovered to ask him if he knew what happened to Libby, and that he had responded:
“OMG what happened”
“Yeah, we were supposed to meet but she never showed up.”
Kline insists he never wrote that message — and then claimed multiple people had access to that account. He specifically named his father as one of those men. (In another interview, Kline also mentioned that his father liked “younger women” and had recently had sex with a 17-year-old.) Investigators do apparently believe anthony_shots is at least two people, based on different ways of speaking.
Finally, in the shocking transcript, officers dropped two more huge pieces of information: first, they said Kline had actually failed his polygraph test on the questions about knowing anything about the Delphi murder investigation.
Second, they claimed to have evidence that after his first interview, he went home and deleted the Instagram and Snapchat accounts that day — and then did a search of “how long does DNA last?”
Whoa.
How do they not have enough to arrest this man yet?? Unfortunately proof of lying is not proof of murder… And the investigation seems to have a long way to go to find that.
Kline is due back in court on April 14. We hope this leak leads to more information as investigators search for the truth.
Anyone with new information on the case should contact the Indiana State Police at [email protected] or call 765-822-3535.
[Image via Indiana State Police/Miami County Sheriff’s Office.]
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