MIAMI COUNTY, Ind. — Indiana State Police released information in their investigation into the Delphi murders Monday night, appealing to the public for tips about a person tied to a social media account, but the account’s link to the case remains unclear.
ISP appealed for information about a social media profile with the name “anthony_shots,” saying only that it had been used on Snapchat and Instagram to contact juvenile females to solicit nude photos. The profile used images of a male model who portrayed himself as wealthy. The account, in addition to soliciting photos, also attempted to get addresses and arrange meetings, police said.
The profile was active in 2016 and 2017. State police have not provided any obvious link between the “anthony_shots” account and the Delphi case, saying only that the male model whose image was used was not a person of interest.
But it appears a person tied to that account was in custody in a case Indiana State Police were already investigating. On Feb. 25, 2017, ISP and FBI investigators executed a search warrant linked to the “anthony_shots” account. Their investigation led them to Miami County, according to court documents that have been heavily redacted.
They eventually found a man identified as Kegan Anthony Kline, who is currently 27 years old. Kline told police he’d used social media accounts to talk to underage girls, contacting both people he knew and didn’t know. He told police he would find girls on Instagram and then ask them to talk to him on Snapchat.
According to Kline, he exchanged messages with more than a dozen underage girls and received pictures from them. Kline said he had about 100 pictures from underage girls that were sexual in nature, in addition to about 20 sexually explicit videos.
“That’s fairly typical of someone who is seeking a particular group of kids, in this case, young females, and getting their attention and building a rapport with them,” said Don Whitehead of the Howard County Prosecutors Office.
“They have a sexual motive in that they’re trying to get videos or pictures or an opportunity to meet with these girls.”
As part of the investigation, authorities seized numerous electronics, including an Apple iPhone 4, Apple iPhone 3, Samsung Galaxy S5, Samsung Galaxy S4, a Nextbook Tablet and an iPad Touch. They also examined an iPhone 5c that Kline turned in later.
Police found videos and photos showing underage girls posing nude/partially nude or engaging in sex acts. Some of the files were saved on electronic devices while others were shared in a Dropbox account.
Investigators also recovered full and partial transcripts of online chats through services like Kik and Facebook Messenger; Kline often used a pseudonym “emilyanne45” for some of the exchanges, according to the redacted court documents.
The iPhone 5c, the device that Kline had turned in later to police, had much of its data deleted, according to court documents. The web browser history on the Safari app had been erased as well, although investigators were able to recover some information.
“… the user of the Apple iPhone 5c deleted multiple items off the phone before turning it into law enforcement,” according to the probable cause affidavit. Police executed the search warrant on Feb. 25, while Kline didn’t turn that phone in until Feb. 27.
A digital forensic report showed the user had uninstalled and deleted several apps, including MeetMe, Snapchat and Instagram. In an interview, Kline admitted to using the applications to chat with underage girls.
“The evidence contained in these applications was destroyed when the user delated them from the device before turning it into law enforcement,” according to court documents.
A Samsung Galaxy S5 had been factory reset on Feb. 23, 2017. Investigators recovered some chat messages that referenced “meeting people in Las Vegas and prostitution,” according to court documents.
In August 2020, Kline was charged with 30 felonies, including possession of child pornography, child exploitation, obstruction of justice, child solicitation and synthetic identity deception, according to online court records.
The court documents in Kline’s case are heavily redacted, with information such as internet search history and chat transcripts blacked out. There appears to be no mention of the Delphi murders or any information linking Kline to the case.
Abby Williams and Libby German were found dead on Feb. 14, 2017. Indiana State Police and the FBI executed a search warrant in the Kline case on Feb. 25, 2017—more than a week later.
“If the time frame fits now, its certainly worth looking into,” said Whitehead. “Anyone that had contact with this person at any point in time could possibly still have information on their computer that would be helpful to the investigation. He may have shared inadvertently or intentionally revealed some personal information that could be valuable. There might be embedded information in the communications that would be helpful to the investigators also.”
“Anyone who may have been contacted, met with or knows something about the ‘anthony_shots’ profile is asked to contact law enforcement,” Indiana State Police said in a statement released Monday night.
We spoke with a former FBI agent who believes there is more to this case than investigators are releasing to the public.
“This is a mystery to me, and certainly there has to be more to this story than what is being made public,” says former FBI agent Doug Kouns who now is the CEO of the private investigation firm Veracity IIR, “I’m sure there is good reason for that.”
Before he left the FBI, Kouns says investigators were getting increased push back from companies who were trying to protect a user’s privacy. Without a court order, he says investigators often need the victim’s account and password just to look at private conversations. Any posts that are public remain fair game for police to pursue. He adds that there are tools that law enforcement can use to track down public information even if it was posted years ago.
“There are programs that will search someone’s social media account for inappropriate pictures, keywords, hate speech, drugs, alcohol, that kind of stuff,” explains Kouns, “To get info from a deleted account, you have to get that from the provider.”
