Homeless man charged in child porn case

Thomas Jeroy Qualls, 52, The Dalles, was arrested Sunday afternoon and is accused of 20 counts of second-degree encouraging child sex abuse, a felony, and one count of parole violation.

Nelson said Qualls is on parole and was previously arrested for possessing child porn.

He said the suspect was sitting with his back to the door of a fast food restaurant in the 100 block of West Third Street when another customer came in, “and was able to see clearly over his shoulder what he was looking at on his tablet.”

As the suspect “went through a few different images and videos, there were a couple that the guy thought were highly, highly inappropriate and he called us,” Nelson said.

Seth Muck, a junior at Washington State University, was driving to Pullman from Vancouver when he and his girlfriend stopped at the restaurant around noon.

He went inside while his girlfriend waited outside, and Muck noticed a man sitting in a booth by the door, looking at an iPad tablet. It caught his eye that the man was looking at little girls, around age 6, clothed and "doing gymnastics."

He thought it was the man’s grandkids, “but he kept going through and they were like different kids every time and they were like posed pretty sexually, and then I saw the naked pictures,” Muck said.

“And that’s when I stepped outside and called the police,” he said. He had seen two unclothed pictures, of girls maybe 4 or 5 years old.

He was “really disgusted” and wanted to confront the man, but decided police should intervene instead.

He told his girlfriend, and she didn’t believe him at first.

He had never seen such images before, "and that's why it was really shocking. I was honestly like, 'Is this really happening right now, what I was seeing?'"

The man was arrested outside the restaurant, but police searched his iPad in the store, Muck said.

“Seeing those, it’s kind of, it’s hard to get out of your mind,” he said.

"I was kind of angry at that guy, but I was glad I caught it, I think it's surprising because that sort of thing isn't really something that is caught in public a lot so it is kind of strange," Muck said.

Nelson said he told Muck he'd done a great service and could say he's made a difference in his life.

While Muck was passing through town, Nelson said he still exemplified community values — looking out for others and regularly reporting concerns.

“In our investigation on the scene, without digging too far, we saw at least 20 images that met the description for us and that’s what we charged for now,” Nelson said. “It’s customary in a case like this that we don’t just sit there and keep digging through it, no one wants to see that.”

If it’s a computer hard drive, it is sent to specialists to extract data. “With tablets and phones it’s just a different system we use to remove the data,” Nelson said.

Every image or video has a unique “fingerprint,” consisting of a string of numbers and letters. Police can send those “fingerprints” to a police database — without having to view them — and glean information about the photos and videos, including whether they have been part of other criminal cases, and even if the victim in the image or photo has already been identified.

That spares officers from having to view the images themselves.

The database is managed by the National Center for Missing and Endangered Children.

Qualls is homeless, Nelson said, and he cooperated with officers during the investigation and his arrest. He was arrested outside, but officers checked out his iPad inside the restaurant, Muck said.

Qualls was trespassed from the restaurant, Nelson said. The restaurant had about 30 patrons in it at the time.

Nelson made an announcement to the patrons at the restaurant apologizing for the interruption and stressing that the man’s arrest had nothing to do with the restaurant itself.

“They knew we were doing something, but they didn’t know what we were doing,” he said of the patrons.