Analysis: Prosecutors to drop some counts against Kegan Kline’s child porn case
DELPHI, Ind. (WISH) — Prosecutors want to drop some of the child porn charges against Kegan Kline.
He’s the man police say collected sexual videos and images of underage girls using the “Anthony_Shots” social media profile that is connected to the murder of eighth-graders Abigail “Abby” Williams and Liberty “Libby” German in 2017.
News 8 uncovered the court documents about two months before Kegan Kline is set to go on trial. Prosecutors want to drop some, but not all, of the charges against him.
Prosecutors filed the request late Wednesday looking to drop five specific counts in the case against Kegan Kline.
In the court filing, the prosecutor says there was not enough evidence to prove those counts beyond reasonable doubt, but the prosecutor did not explain why.
The Murder Sheet podcast creators Áine Caine and Kevin Greenlee have been following the case closely.
“When you have a high profile case with many, many charges the prosecutor is only going to bring the strongest to the forefront. It’s sort of like gardening you prune the weak branches, so that the tree can be healthy and strong,” Caine said.
“And in this case in particular when you’re dealing with child sexual abuse materials charges it’s very important that the prosecutor be able to prove that the person in the images is in fact underage,” Greenlee said.
Greenlee says in some cases, there may be no evidence that the person in the picture is underage.
“If you haven’t identified that person, you don’t have a birth certificate for that person you have to rely on the testimony of a doctor and often times a doctor will tell you I’m not able to conclusively state that this person is under age then those charges would be dropped,” Greenlee said.
“We’ve been expecting possibly some charges to be dropped just because of the nature of these kinds of cases and talking to experts who are familiar with them, so I would say that we don’t read too much into it and we would encourage everyone to not read too much into it,” Caine said.
Kline still faces 25 counts of child pornography. His trial is set for Jan. 18.
Police believe he was exchanging social media messages with Liberty German up until she and Abby Williams were murdered in Delphi. He has not been charged in that case, and has not been publicly named a suspect in their deaths.
