The Delphi Murders: Kegan Kline Appeals His Sentence

[00:00:00] Content Warning This episode contains discussion of murder and the sexual abuse of children. So, since the last time we spoke, there's been a few updates in the case of Kegan Kline that we feel are worth talking about a little bit.

[00:00:19] Namely, he's being moved from one prison to another. And his attorney has also filed an appeal in his case, trying to make the case that the sentence that Kline received was too harsh and it needs to be reduced.

[00:00:37] Yes, so we'll be checking in on the Kline angle in this episode and sharing with you all the updates that we found and some correspondence we've done with Kegan Kline himself. My name is Ania Kane. I'm a journalist. And I'm Kevin Greenlee. I'm an attorney.

[00:00:54] And this is The Murder Sheet. We're a true crime podcast focused on original reported interviews and deep dives into murder cases. We are The Murder Sheet. And this is The Delphi Murders. Kegan Kline Appeals His Sentence.

[00:01:09] Before we get to Kegan Kline's appeal in this case, let's talk about where Kegan Kline is. As you may or may not know, he is at the Wabash prison in Indiana. And that is a prison that was in the news again fairly recently, wasn't it?

[00:02:12] Yes. Richard Allen, the defendant in The Delphi Murders case who is accused, of course, of murdering Liberty German and Abigail Williams, was recently transferred from Westfield Prison to the Wabash Valley Prison. We did an episode on that updating everybody. So he's moved to that prison recently.

[00:02:32] And that is the prison where, as we noted in that episode, Kegan Kline is currently incarcerated. And at least according to Kegan Kline, the fact that Richard Allen has been transferred to the prison where Kegan Kline is, has caused a problem.

[00:02:49] A few days ago, Kegan Kline sent us an email. He wrote, I'm being transferred to Miami Prison because of fucking Richard Allen. I'm so pissed just giving you an update. Yes. So he's... I think first of all it's worth noting that these are the words of Kegan Kline.

[00:03:09] He has a credibility problem. So just because he says he's being transferred because of Richard Allen doesn't necessarily mean that's the reason. He also may not be lying. He may just be making that assumption. Whether it's correct or not is unclear to us.

[00:03:22] I can understand why he would be making that assumption though because this new person comes in, suddenly I'm being transferred. So I can understand why his brain is maybe connecting those dots. Yes. And it's worth noting he's being transferred to Miami Correctional.

[00:03:39] What kind of a reputation does Miami have? Bad. Bad. Bad. Bad. All caps. It's a tough prison from what we've heard. It's a tough prison for the inmates. There's violence.

[00:03:54] I remember when we were at one of Kegan's hearings, there was a guy in front of him who had just murdered his, like, you know, somebody else at Miami Correctional. So it is...

[00:04:05] And I remember a reporter at that hearing kind of looked back to us and said this guy has Charles Manson vibes. He did. Yeah. He did have Charles Manson vibes. Like nothing behind the eyes. So it's a tough place.

[00:04:15] And I remember that reporter saying that. Everyone was like, eww. Talking to CEOs, talking to former CEOs, talking to people who are knowledgeable of the prison system. Miami is... I don't know if it's necessarily considered as tough as Westville or Michigan City,

[00:04:34] but it's certainly in the conversation about violence in prisons in Indiana. Now comparatively, Wabash Valley is considered nicer. It's less violent. People are saying it doesn't really have a bad reputation. So this is... he is essentially being downgraded in terms of his prison experience.

[00:04:56] And I think that is fair for him to express his frustration because that's in line with what we've heard from other people. That one is good and the other is not good. And to be clear, there's no such thing as like a party prison.

[00:05:09] There's no such thing as a soft prison, but Wabash is less hard than other prisons based on what we've heard. Yeah. And listen, maybe there are... I think we've heard from some people that they felt that there may be efforts underway to improve Miami. So hopefully that happens.

[00:05:26] Listen, Kevin and I ultimately believe that certain people should go to prison, but at the same time a prison experience shouldn't be like as dangerous or as deadly as it is right now.

[00:05:39] And so having some of these prisons have such bad reputations is upsetting because that's not how the system is supposed to work. Especially if we're prioritizing rehabilitation, which is supposedly what the point in Indiana is.

[00:05:52] But some prisons seemingly do a better job or have more resources with that than others. So obviously, Kagan is expressing that he's pretty upset about this too. He's not happy. Yeah. And a follow-up email, we had written him back saying, can you elaborate on your feelings about this?

[00:06:11] And I believe we also asked why would Richard Allen being transferred to your prison mean you have to be transferred out? Are you going to be a witness in the Delphi case? Is that what the implication is? And he wrote back to us. This is Kagan Klein's words.

[00:06:31] It's going to be terrible for me at Miami. I'm probably going to get killed, honestly. I wish they would just keep me at Wabash. I'm doing fine here and I feel safe.

[00:06:42] And I wouldn't be a witness in his case. I know no one believes me, but I legit don't have any clue about that case. That was Kagan Klein saying, as we've heard him say before, that he has no information about the Delphi murders.

[00:06:55] Okay. So he's saying there that, again, he's reiterating he doesn't know anything about Delphi, but he is also saying that he feels like he's going to be endangered in Miami, which again, given what we've heard, I don't think is a terribly dramatic or unreasonable concern for somebody,

[00:07:16] especially since we've heard from people who work in prison systems that people who are seen as child predators tend to be targets within the prison ecosystem, within the prison hierarchy. They're the people that are targeted.

[00:07:31] Yeah, that's what we've heard time and time again. Just as people in the outside world look down on people who sexually victimize children so to do people in prisons. So violent prison plus his status as a offender who targeted children.

[00:07:49] Yeah, I think he's right to be concerned and let's talk about the Delphi element of this. Should we read into this? Should we read into this? They don't want them in the same prison, so therefore there's some elaborate conspiracy involving both Alan and Klein.

[00:08:08] My gut is no. My gut is it's hard for me to understand why he would be transferred just because Richard Alan was coming to the prison. Our understanding of Richard Alan's conditions at Westville are basically that he's kept pretty close to solitary confinement

[00:08:29] for his own protection, that other people, he's not really interacting with other people. He's being kept on suicide watch by himself. Isn't that basically what we've heard?

[00:08:39] Yes, so it wouldn't make sense that it's not like he's in Gen Pop and they'd run into each other and be able to chat. Yeah, and get their story straight or whatever. Yeah, it doesn't really make sense in the context of him being moved away from Alan.

[00:08:54] Again, I'm saying I understand why he thinks that and I'm certainly not saying that's out of the realm of possibility but it's just if one guy is in isolation anyway, who cares?

[00:09:05] Yes, I would be curious if this is something he was told or if this is something he's guessing or if this is something he's just making up with Keegan Klein. Who knows? There was one more short message from him which I will read now.

[00:09:21] This prison, Wabash, is good. I got a job and bought a TV and a hot pot and a fan and then they let someone come in my room and steal it. So all the hard work I did was for nothing

[00:09:34] and I'm out almost $350. Other than that, I'm doing great. I have no clue why I'm being transferred. It's probably because they want me to suffer in solitary confinement for the rest of my life.

[00:09:45] I can't be in general pop at any other prison but this one. That was Keegan Klein. So apparently he's in Gen Pop there. Right. And he's noting that if he is to survive at Miami, he feels he's going to need to be in isolation.

[00:10:01] So this will change the way he's experiencing prison, seemingly. I would be very curious to know what exactly is prompting him to be transferred. I imagine that transfers can just happen. It's not necessarily a legal reason.

[00:10:19] Department of Correction maybe has that discretion. So I don't really necessarily think we're going to get a solid answer on this. And I also think it's worth noting, I'm sure everybody who is listening now and who has been following the case is well aware

[00:10:36] of the tendency of Keegan Klein not just to stretch the truth out of recognition, but he also seems to really enjoy painting himself as a victim.

[00:10:48] And that seems to be what he's doing in these messages, how he can't even if he works hard things are taken from him and people just want him to suffer in solitary confinement. He always seems to want people to feel sorry for him.

[00:11:05] And I think that's part of how he tries to emotionally manipulate people. Would you say that? Yeah, I would say that. I would say that. But I also think it's fair. I think some of his concerns at the same time are fair, especially about Miami and safety,

[00:11:20] because that's something we've heard expressed by other people, including people who actually work within the system. Yeah, that's fair. But I think it's important to stress that he does have a tendency to want to play the victim. That's true.

[00:11:35] And it's not clear to me why this would be, Wabash would be the one and only prison in the state of Indiana where he could be in Gen Pop.

[00:11:44] Yeah, I would be curious. And actually, if you work in corrections in Indiana, let us know about if there's a prison that tends to have a better reputation other than Wabash Valley, let us know because we'd be curious getting to know the characters of each of the prisons.

[00:12:01] Case any of them come up again. Which they almost inevitably will. So now let's move on and talk about the brief that was just filed by an appellate attorney on behalf of Kagan Klein, trying to make the case that the sentence he received was too long.

[00:12:22] Here's a question to start out with. Why appeal the sentence but not the actual conviction? Well, they can't appeal the conviction because Kagan Klein pled guilty. Okay, so that basically takes that off the table. He admitted everything written down in these charges I did.

[00:12:40] And of course we were in court and we remember hearing him go through and basically say yes, I'm guilty of this. I'm guilty of this. I'm guilty of this. So for the audience, that means you can't appeal it.

[00:12:53] Are there instances where he could or that be very limited? That would be very limited. It would be challenging. Maybe if he was under duress when he pled guilty or someone was offering him something.

[00:13:06] Right, but if you can't, if you don't have any evidence of any of that it would be difficult to say you got to appeal the sentence not the actual conviction. You went too hard on me even though I did what I said. Exactly.

[00:13:19] It will be interesting from my perspective on a macro level to see what happens with this because I think that I speak for a lot of our listeners when I say that internet crimes against children are very, very disturbing and should be treated with a lot of seriousness that has not always been reflected in the sentences that people receive for these kinds of crimes.

[00:13:42] So when you're seeing a prosecution team, in this case of course Courtney Alwein and Jen Kiefer of Miami County being able to stack charges on top of each other in a way that gets a substantive sentence.

[00:13:56] I think that's something that I would hope that other counties would be able to replicate.

[00:14:01] Yes, I would. I would imagine that other counties kept a very watchful eye on what attorneys Alwein and Kiefer did and will be keeping a watchful eye on how this appeal goes because if it is possible for these offenders to get longer sentences, I think other prosecutors would like to do what they can to make that happen.

[00:14:27] So that is good for the community and it is good for children especially in those communities because these crimes are heinous.

[00:14:34] I don't think we want to get into the details now because they are disturbing, but I will note that the images and videos under discussion here, the child sexual abuse materials are horrific.

[00:14:49] And if you do want to know what those details are, you can go back and listen to our episode covering this sentence in here.

[00:14:56] We can include a link in our show notes, but it's just I guess I just think that it could be a shift in how these are treated.

[00:15:03] But at the same time if this gets, if the sentence gets thrown out on appeal obviously then I think that's up for grabs.

[00:15:11] One thing I think is also worth pointing out is that even in this brief for Kagan Klein, it was prepared for him by attorney Mark James who is a lawyer in South Bend.

[00:15:24] And attorney James does agree, he notes that the defendant bears the burden of persuading the appellate court that his or her sentence is inappropriate.

[00:15:38] So that means basically that it is up to Kagan Klein and his attorneys to go and say this is so wrong you have to do something about it. You have to make that case.

[00:15:51] You can't just go in and say well I think the trial court did something wrong and that's not going to be enough to make the appellate court throw out their hands and say oh mercy we have to do it differently now.

[00:16:02] So the burden here is on Kagan Klein to prove that his sentence is inappropriate. Okay. And basically they made two different arguments. Okay.

[00:16:19] One argument is something we heard a lot about during the sentence and hearing itself, which is their Kagan Klein faced so many charges for his offenses. And those offenses had to be grouped into episodes because you can only get so many years per episode.

[00:16:46] And it is entirely possible that there may be more than one criminal count charged in a single episode. That's something that could be a little confusing to understand or to figure out.

[00:17:00] So I thought one way of looking at it, let's say that there is a street in our town called Main Street and there are numbered streets intersecting it. And so you have 1st and Main, 2nd and Main all the way up through let's say 25th and Main.

[00:17:18] Let's say you Anya are in our car by yourself and you are driving 100 miles an hour from 1st and Main to 25th and Main and you get a speeding ticket. Do you think the officers could get away with saying well Anya you were speeding at 1st and Main.

[00:17:40] You were also speeding at 2nd and Main, 3rd and Main, 4th and Main charged you with 25 counts of speeding and therefore increase your sentence 25 times? No because it was all one incident pretty clearly. It was all one unfortunate incident.

[00:17:54] Oh what disastrous incident that got my license taken away. Now people on Reddit are going to be like Anya Kane was just pulled over on Main Street.

[00:18:04] So that's an incident where technically you can see where they'd be multiple charges but it's only one criminal episode and you can't look at a criminal episode and just stack up as many different charges as you want to magnify the sentence. Does that make sense?

[00:18:21] Yes it does because that would be abused and would be a mess. Let's say for instance you sped at 100 miles an hour up to a house at 10th and Main, went in the house at 10th and Main, spent a few hours there watching a movie.

[00:18:39] I really had to go see that movie on time. And then you left 10th and Main and then sped a few hours later from 10th and Main to 25th and Main. That could conceivable to be two episodes. Yeah I could yeah. So the two different drives.

[00:18:54] There you go. John's on the road. So one of the questions here is when we look at the counts that Keg and Klein faced, how many actual episodes are there? And what is a contention is that there were 10 counts of possession.

[00:19:13] And possession is a different type of crime than when Anya was speeding. Yeah. Because when Anya was speeding she was actively doing something. When you possess something, you're not actively doing something. Okay.

[00:19:28] Let's say for instance that Indiana passes a law that it is illegal to own the works of William Shakespeare. And I have on my bookshelf Romeo and Juliet Macbeth Hamlin. And you don't even like Shakespeare that much. So technically I'm possessing three different books.

[00:19:52] That could be three different counts. But I'm possessing them passively. I'm possessing them right now even as I talk to you. So is that one episode or is that multiple episodes?

[00:20:05] I think you could argue that it's multiple episodes because each work is a distinctive work of Shakespeare, right? What if I went to a bookstore in Ohio and I bought all three books at one time?

[00:20:18] I think that my, I could see you making an argument for either one. But if you got them all in the same place in the same setting. That could be one episode. That could be one episode.

[00:20:30] So because it's inherently a passive offense, one of the prosecutors in this case, Jen Kiefer, made the case that the way we determine whether it's one episode or multiple episodes is by looking at when Cagan Klein came into possession of these.

[00:20:49] So each day that he's doing the active action of downloading something? Yes. So in other words, if I go to a bookstore in Ohio and buy Romeo and Juliet, and then the next day I go to a bookstore in Kentucky and buy Macbeth,

[00:21:05] that could be two separate episodes. Now, what's interesting is there are 10 counts of possession and Cagan Klein's attorneys say all of those should be folded into one episode. And that would reduce his sentence by a certain number of years.

[00:21:23] They say there was no evidence presented to suggest that those offenses did not occur within minutes of each other. In other words, maybe he just downloaded this possession of child porn or child sexual abuse materials. There was no evidence presented.

[00:21:37] They claim that he didn't download this all at one time. And maybe if he did download all those at one time, maybe it would be one episode.

[00:21:45] But I find it interesting that he says there was no evidence presented to suggest that these were not happening within minutes of each other. But earlier he said, well, it's up to us to make the case. So I would have perhaps expected him to make the case.

[00:22:01] Well, actually here's the proof that he did download them all at the same time. From a less offender focused perspective, could you argue that each of those kids is a different victim and therefore they should be separated out? That's depicted in these images. I don't know.

[00:22:20] I think you. I don't think that's the way the law currently works. You can certainly make a moral argument for that. Yeah. I don't know. It just seems like all those horrible, horrible incidents that are depicted and you're benefiting from each of those.

[00:22:35] It just feels like it should be separate on some level. To go back to my silly example with you speeding 100 miles an hour down 25 blocks. I imagine as you do that, you said that should just be one offense, one episode. I'm a bit of a bias there.

[00:22:52] I'm sure you inconvenience many people. I almost probably killed several people. And that's not really taken into account. It was just, well, she was just speeding one time. Okay. I understand that.

[00:23:04] I'm just saying that it seems to negate somewhat of the backstory of each of those images, what they represent, the horrors that they represent. But I understand that the law is not necessarily always after a perfect moral victory on every count.

[00:23:23] So do you think that Kagan Klein's appellate team is going to carry this off? Well, as I say, if they're saying we have the burden of showing that it's inappropriate, I would have liked to have seen a bit more evidence that it was inappropriate.

[00:23:38] In other words, show the evidence that these were all downloaded at the same time. But that was just one of the arguments they made. The other argument was involved aggravating versus mitigating factors.

[00:23:54] What this means is when a judge decides to sentence somebody, you can make the sentence harsher if it's a worse type of offense. If there's things that aggravate it and make it worse. Or you can make it a little bit lighter if there are things that mitigate it.

[00:24:16] Okay. So let's say for instance that it is a crime for Anya to burn a dinner and we're having people over and she burns dinner. So this happens.

[00:24:29] But maybe she burned the dinner because someone was coming over that she didn't like and she intentionally wanted them to be served bad food. What sitcom are we living in? I'm saying that would be an aggravating factor. That would make it worse.

[00:24:47] What if it was somebody coming over and you wanted to impress them and... I did. I tried to do baked Alaska and set the house on fire. And it was just too much for you and it was an honest mistake. And you misread the recipe or something.

[00:25:01] That would be a mitigating factor. It was an accident. So in other words, at the end of the day Anya has still spoiled dinner. But in one case... Your examples today are just out of control. I'm speeding, I'm burning the house on, I'm spoiling dinner.

[00:25:15] But in one case you did it intentionally and that makes it worse. In another case there are things that make it... Well it's not so serious. That makes sense.

[00:25:23] So that's why when a judge looks at an offense there are things he can look at that can make it better or worse even though the underlying offense is the same. Does that make sense? It does make sense.

[00:25:34] And I remember in Kagan Klein's sentence and hearing there were not a lot of mitigating factors but there were several aggravators. So I'm going to read a paragraph from this brief. I'm quoting now. It appears the court improperly considered factors when it determined Klein's sentence.

[00:25:52] The court noted despite the events of the February 25th, 2017 law enforcement search and interview. Kagan Klein didn't take any steps to get into counseling or work on a GED nor high school equivalency or get a driver's license. Really didn't make any changes between then and the arrest in 2020.

[00:26:13] None of the things mentioned by the court are statutory aggravators. So he's saying it sounds like the judge was applying aggravating factors which he didn't have a right to apply. So let's be clear. There's a list. There's a set list of what can be considered aggravating or mitigating.

[00:26:33] You can't just make it up in the dinner situation. You can't just be like, well, Anya, you didn't really make a list for the grocery store and that's why this happened. Like you can't just throw that away.

[00:26:44] So there is a list and they're saying he was looking at things that weren't on the list. But first of all, first of all he says it appears. So he's not even saying I believe Judge Spar applied things.

[00:26:57] He's not even saying I believe Judge Spar applied these things. It's aggravating factors. He's saying, well, it appears maybe he did. So yeah. So again that doesn't really seem to me personally like it meets the burden we'd like to see in a thing like this. Boyers man.

[00:27:15] And then also I immediately when I read that I recalled that Judge Spar in his sentencing order. He actually listed the aggravating factors he was taking into consideration and he didn't mention those things that appeared in that speech. I'm going to quote from the judges sentencing order.

[00:27:37] The court finds the following aggravators. Number one, the harm injury loss or damage suffered by the victims of the defendant was significant and greater than the elements necessary to prove the commission of the offenses. Number two, the defendant has a history of criminal and delinquent behavior.

[00:27:57] Number three, the victims of some of the offenses were less than 12 years of age.

[00:28:03] Number four, the defendant was in a position of having control of some of his victims and five, the defendant sexual behavior and attitudes and selfish manipulative character support the imposition of additional sentencing consequences upon him. That's the end of the quote.

[00:28:21] Yeah, there's nothing in here saying well I'm sentencing worse because he didn't get a GED. Yeah. So. And the lawyer doesn't even make that assertion. He just says well it appears that you know maybe he did this. So why even include this then?

[00:28:36] I think that's a good question. I think when you file a brief, you make the absolute best arguments you can. Jesus. Okay. Yeah, that just seems pretty.

[00:28:48] I mean, judges are allowed to speak to, you know, give a little speech and say, you know, here's what I think of you at the end of the day. That doesn't mean that everything is that's been rattled off as necessarily an aggravating factor. Am I wrong?

[00:29:02] Yeah, you're correct. Okay. I could say, Anya, maybe you wouldn't have burned the food if you'd gotten a better night's sleep before. That wouldn't have anything to do with our final judgment of you for wrecking dinner.

[00:29:17] I feel like this episode is so off the rails with your little examples. People can be like Anya speeds and destroys dinner, maybe on purpose. So I imagine there'd be a response filed by the state and we're keeping an eye on it and see what happens.

[00:29:34] But again, I think one thing to stress is one reason we're so interested in this is because if it sticks, it could prove to be a new strategy for county process.

[00:29:46] There are many prosecutors to deal with people accused of very serious offenses against children that are like prolific and using the internet as a tool. And because we always get a flood of questions whenever we cover Kagan Klein's case, you know, about Delphi.

[00:30:06] Do we do we think it's connected to Delphi? Well, we know it was we know that he was looked into very strongly from the Delphi investigation. What will happen in the future, I suppose, is anybody's guess.

[00:30:17] But I think this is important to cover in and of itself given the fact that what he was accused of and what he was convicted of and what he admitted to is very, very serious on its own. Yes. Thank you for listening.

[00:30:29] We will keep an eye on this and we'll keep you apprised of future developments. Thanks so much for listening to the murder sheet. If you have a tip concerning one of the cases we cover, please email us at murdersheet at gmail.com.

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