PERU, Ind.–The suspect in the ‘anthony_shots’ catfishing and child pornography case won’t be back in a courtroom until next year.
On Tuesday, a judge in Miami County set Kegan Kline’s next hearing in the case for February 24, 2022. He was supposed to appear in court Thursday. Kline is scheduled to go on trial on May 9, 2022.
Police say Kline used pictures of a model to lure teenage girls into sending him nude pictures. The Indiana State Police interviewed Kline as part of the Delphi murder investigation back in 2017. He wasn’t arrested on child porn charges until last year.
ISP investigators first spoke to him on Feb. 27, 2017, about two weeks following the murders after receiving info about a man soliciting underage girls on social media. It took more than three years for Kline to face charges in the child porn investigation.
On Monday, Indiana State Police issued the following statement:
The Indiana State Police has received many media inquiries since our December 6th press release concerning “anthony_shots” and eventually the identification of Kegan Kline. Your questions are certainly relevant as they relate to a long, complex, and extremely complicated murder investigation.
During the last nearly five years, we have conducted dozens of secondary investigations based on information we received. One of those investigations included a Possession of Child Pornography case resulting in the arrest of Kegan Kline. The information we had, have, and continue to receive concerning Kline has ebbed and flowed over these last few years. We understand there was a period of time that passed between 2017 and 2020 when Kline was not arrested and incarcerated for Possession of Child Pornography. Once the Indiana State Police presented the criminal case to the Miami County Prosecutor in June of 2020, immediate action was taken by both the Indiana State Police and the Miami County Prosecutor’s Office, which ultimately resulted in Kline’s arrest.
Like so many other pieces of this investigation, we will always review, learn from, and make any necessary adjustments. We do not believe that any person has done anything intentionally wrong, but we will continue to critically evaluate our efforts.
We know there is enormous interest in the “WHY” of everything we do, but we cannot and will not speculate. One day you will have the opportunity to see and know what we do, and we look forward to that day.
