Delphi murders suspect moved to same prison as paedophile catfisher

Delphi murders suspect Richard Allen is now housed in the same prison as the paedophile who admitted to using an online catfishing account to communicate with one of the slain teenagers just hours before the killings.

Mr Allen, who is charged with the February 2017 murders of best friends Libby German and Abby Williams, was transferred to Wabash Valley Correctional Facility on 6 December, according to court documents.

The documents, filed by Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita on 7 December, state that the accused killer was placed under a “safekeeping order” on 3 November before being moved out of Westville Correctional Facility to the new facility last week.

The transfer comes after attorneys for the 51-year-old local Delphi man have spent months claiming that he was suffering ill-treatment at the state facility where he has been held for the best part of a year.

Mr Allen was sent to Westville maximum security prison following his October 2022 arrest, with officials saying it was for his own safety due to the high-profile nature of the case.

In April, the suspect’s attorneys at the time filed an emergency motion claiming that he was being treated like a “prisoner of war” at the facility – and that it is causing a “steep decline” in his physical and mental health.

The former CVS worker was allegedly being held in a cell “no larger than that of a dog kennel”, was forced to sleep on a pad on the “cold, concrete” floor and was only allowed to shower once or twice a week, the attorneys claimed.

A photo shared in the motion showed a thinner-faced Mr Allen dressed in a dirty top and a prison jumpsuit while sitting in restraints. The image was shared alongside an image of the married father of one taken some time prior to his arrest.

“Simply put, this version of Richard Allen was a very different version than counsel for Mr Allen had interacted with over the past five months,” the motion reads.

“The conditions under which Mr Allen has been forced to endure are akin to that of a prisoner of war.”

Mr Allen has confessed to the 2017 murders multiple times behind bars – though his attorneys claimed his confession cannot be believed due to his mental state.

Now, Mr Allen has been moved to Wabash Valley, a level three facility.

This puts him in the same facility as Kegan Anthony Kline – the man who was jailed for four decades earlier this year on a slew of child pornography charges.

Kline has also been connected to the Delphi murders case, after he admitted to using the catfish social media profiles “anthony_shots” to contact and groom underage girls.

One of the underage girls he contacted through the account was Libby German.

In a 2020 police interview, a transcript of which has been seen by The Independent, Kline admitted that he had communicated with 14-year-old Libby on Instagram and Snapchat through the catfishing profile before she died.

The transcript revealed that he had exchanged photos with the teenage girl and that Libby had communicated with the fake profile on the very day that she and Abby, 13, were murdered.

Police have said that the “anthony_shots” account was the last to communicate with Libby before she died.

Kline, 29, used the catfish account from 2016 to 2017 on platforms including Snapchat and Instagram – using photos of a known male model, portraying him as being extremely wealthy and owning numerous sports cars.

Kline, who had addresses in Kokomo and Peru, close to Delphi, posed as the model in order to groom underage girls and get them to send nude photos and their addresses and try to get them to meet him. The male model whose photos were used had no connection to the case.

Indiana State Police and the FBI carried out a search warrant on 25 February 2017 – less than two weeks after Abby and Libby were murdered – at Kline’s home in Peru after tracking down the user of the anthony_shots profile to the property, according to an affidavit.

Kline allegedly told investigators he would use social media accounts to talk to underage girls and had exchanged messages with and received about 100 sexual photos and about 20 sexually explicit videos from around 15 underage girls.

However, he denied any knowledge or involvement in the two teenagers’ deaths and he has not been accused of being involved in Libby and Abby’s deaths.

In 2020, Kline was arrested on 30 felony charges of child sexual abuse images and child exploitation tied to the account.

However, in December 2021 – prior to Mr Allen’s arrest in October 2022 – investigators announced that they were looking into the profile in connection to the murders and urged anyone who had communicated with, met, or attempted to meet the individual posing as anthony_shots to come forward with information.

Just days after Mr Allen was arrested, five charges were dropped against Kline.

This May, he pleaded guilty to 25 counts and was sentenced to four decades in prison.

This connection marks the latest twist in the tragic case which left the teenage victims’ families desperately searching for answers for years before an arrest was finally made in October 2022.

It began back on 13 February 2017 when Libby and Abby set off on a walk along the Monon High Bridge in their hometown of Delphi.

During the walk, Libby posted a photo of her best friend on Snapchat as they walked along the Monon High Bridge.

Minutes later, Libby captured a video of a man – known as “bridge guy” – dressed in blue jeans, a blue jacket and a cap walking along the abandoned railroad bridge.

In the footage – found on Libby’s phone following their murders – the man tells the two girls: “Guys, down the hill.”

Later that day, the teenagers were reported missing when they failed to return to a spot where a family member was picking them up.

The next day – Valentine’s Day 2017 – their bodies were discovered in a wooded area less than half a mile off the trail along the side of Deer Creek.

In October 2022 – over five years later – Mr Allen was arrested and charged with their murders.

Following his arrest, the case has continued to be fraught with controversies.

In September, his legal team made a bombshell claim that Libby and Abby were killed – not by the suspect – but as part of a “ritualistic sacrifice” at the hands of a white nationalist cult called Odinists.

One month later, his two attorneys Andrew Baldwin and Brad Rozzi then dramatically quit the case following the leak of graphic crime scene photos taken from the wooded trail where the teenage best friends were brutally murdered.

The leak – according to authorities – was traced back to a friend and former coworker of one of the attorneys.

That individual, 41-year-old Mitchell Westerman, of Westfield, Indiana, has since been charged over the matter.

Following the removal of the attorneys, Mr Allen’s trial has been delayed until October 2024.