Five times, a Washington state park ranger set out to find a log cabin believed to be hidden deep in the Cascade Mountains. It was the stuff of backcountry legend, talked about and stumbled across by hikers and park employees before but never positively located.
On the sixth try, he succeeded.
And what he found set off an FBI investigation into child pornography.
On Monday, 56-year-old Daniel Wood appeared in King County Superior Court, charged with two counts of possessing child pornography following the months-long investigation.
But the story began long before then, in November 2016, when a Washington Department of Natural Resources (DNR) employee, Christopher Jones, alerted the FBI to a shocking discovery he had made deep within the Snoqualmie National Forest.
According to an FBI probable cause affidavit, Jones told the Bureau he had become aware of rumours among the hiking community regarding the existence of a mysterious log cabin, located somewhere on federal land within the park. Jones told the FBI that the DNR had been aware of the existence of the cabin for nearly a decade, but was not sure of its precise location.
So he set out to find it, making five separate hiking expeditions without success before coming across the cabin on his sixth attempt on Nov. 18, 2016.
On the outside, the cabin appeared oddly anachronistic: more tree house than traditional home, as the whole structure stood on stilts some eight feet off the ground. It was dark brown, with a wraparound porch and pitched roof, accessible only via a ladder. A police detective would later tell the FBI it “resembled a fairy or gingerbread house.”
But any comparisons to an idyllic fairy tale came to an abrupt halt after Jones investigated the cabin and discovered sexually explicit images of young girls, framed and mounted on the walls of the cabin along with more photos found inside folders inside the cabin. Jones alerted the police, using GSP coordinates and his iPhone to lead investigators back to the site of the cabin.
In April 2017, the King County Sheriff’s Office handed the investigation over to the FBI, which collected a variety of evidence including a mug, smoking material, and glasses, and sent them for DNA and fingerprint analysis at the bureau’s lab in Quantico, Va.
At the same time, FBI agents interviewed a search and rescue volunteer who told them he had, on several occasions, spotted a maroon Toyota FJ Cruiser at the trailhead leading in the direction of the cabin. The FBI tracked the license plate provided by the volunteer to one Daniel Wood, 56, of Mill Creek, Wash.
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At this point the FBI began active surveillance on Wood, looking for any concrete proof linking him to the cabin and its contents.
According to documents filed in King County Superior Court, FBI agents took DNA swabs off the handlebars of Wood’s motorcycle, as well as from the inside of a paper drinking cup Wood had previously discarded. These samples were compared with the samples previously obtained from inside the cabin, establishing what the FBI described as “extremely strong support for identification” of the DNA in the cabin as belonging to Wood.
Further search warrants obtained by the FBI for Wood’s home discovered an SD card that the FBI claim “contained thousands of images of child erotica and child pornography.”
On Monday, Wood plead not guilty to both child porn possession charges. His trial is set for later this summer.
Prosecuting attorney Cecilia Y. Gregson has requested that Wood not have any contact with minor children during the duration of his court proceeding, and that he have a system installed in his home for monitoring his internet traffic and usage.
Global News has reached out to Wood’s attorney and will update the story with his comments if and when they’re available.
-Court documents supplied to Global News by KIRO-7 News in Washington.
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