INDIANAPOLIS — Investigators have never charged Kegan Kline with any role in the murders of Abby Williams and Libby German below the Monon High Bridge east of Delphi in 2017, but they sure have looked hard at the child pornography and child exploitation defendant for a possible connection.
The State has unveiled its list of potential witnesses for the May 10 trial of the Peru man who investigators claim communicated with Libby via social media the night before she died.
”This witness list is basically not a final product. There may be other people called who are not on the list and also its not even a guarantee that everybody who is on that list will actually be called,” said Kevin Greenlee, host of The Murder Sheet, an Indianapolis-based podcast that has investigated the Delphi killings extensively.
Several law enforcement investigators are included, as expected, on the witness list, but so are a reporter, Kline’s father, two former friends, an alleged victim and an Alaska State Trooper whose photographs investigators said Kline appropriated so that he could create a fake social media persona named Anthony Shots to communicate with young girls before the Delphi killings.
Those social media messages have resulted in 30 counts of child pornography, child exploitation, identity deception and obstruction of justice.
”Barbara MacDonald, of course, is a reporter from CNN/HEADLINE NEWS,” said Greenlee. “She did an interview with Kegan Kline in which Kegan Kline said some frankly unflattering things about his father.
”In the interview he admits that he’s the one who created the account and Kegan Kline also suggests that his father could have also had access to his account.”
It was during MacDonald’s interview with Kline inside the Miami County Jail in December of 2021, 16 months after he was arrested, that the accused man alluded to the possibility that his father could have used his social media account to communicate with juvenile females.
Greenlee speculated as to what might happen should father and son square off in the courtroom.
”I’m curious as to what it would be like in the room with Kegan Kline and Kegan Kline’s attorney when the attorney shows him a piece of paper that says, ‘Hey, your dad is going to testify against you,’ and I wonder if that will change Kegan Kline’s thinking on whether or not to take a deal.”
Aine Cain, The Murder Sheet co-host, said she has been unsuccessful in convincing Kline to sit for a jailhouse interview.
”He basically indicated that he wanted to be compensated for any interview to the tune of several hundred dollars and refused to discuss much more beyond a possible payment,” said Cain. ”We tend to feel he’s more interested in getting money from people than sharing his side of the story.
”He’s not really credible at this point for a lot of people who are following this case.”
That credibility may be called into question when Kline’s Las Vegas roommate Derk Hayes is called to the witness stand to dispel any claims Kline made about his residence in Nevada in the year after investigators first raided his home and seized electronic devices days after the Delphi killings.
”Kegan attempted to throw his friend under the bus for the accusations going against him, so I think Derk will be there basically to share his side of the story and push back against that,” said Cain, recalling Kline’s claim that his friend may have used his social media account. “Kegan’s strategy seems to be to say, ‘No, I didn’t do it on my phone, somebody must have stolen my phone and did these things.’”
When Kline was arrested and charged in the summer of 2020, investigators claimed he victimized 15 young females.
Only one witness, referred to as “Juvenile 10,” is on the prosecutor’s list to testify.
”It is a bit surprising because you would think that of all this whole material, this cache, that they would be bringing in multiple people,” said Cain. ”It makes you wonder exactly what happened with those other witnesses or if they just feel like one is enough.”
Kline’s court dates were delayed in 2021 as his attorney continued to negotiate with prosecutors and tips allegedly supplied by the defendant led Indiana State Troopers to search the Wabash River in Peru.
Cain said she’s seen no evidence that any purported leads from Kline played a role in assisting detectives investigating the Delphi killings.
Carroll County Prosecutor Nicholas McLeland and ISP Superintendent Doug Carter have said that Delphi defendant Richard Allen, the only person charged in the murders, may not have acted alone.
The podcasters said if Kline is thinking about a guilty plea to reduced charges in the Miami County case, his only hope might be to supply information to Delphi detectives that moves the double murder investigation forward.
”They believe that there may be other actors involved in the Delphi murders,” said Cain. “If they are thinking about Kegan Kline in relation to that still, that has not been sort of ruled out and we imagine that any sort of deal that would be made would have to involve that. They’re not necessarily gonna let somebody off the hook if they still feel that he has answers about Delphi that they want which leads to some sort of slap on the wrist, so, that could also be impeding any sort of deal making in our view. But at the same time if they’ve sort of ruled him out or they have moved away from that line of thinking, the Anthony Shots account isn’t involved or they can prove that, then I think there may be more likely to strike some sort of deal in our view.”
The stiffest penalty Kline faces for conviction on one count in Miami County is a maximum of 12 years.
By the time he comes to trial, Kline will have waited 33 months behind bars and, if convicted of multiple charges, likely would face concurrent sentences with suspended time.
