FORT WORTH, Texas — Updated on Wednesday at 5:50 p.m. with information concerning Wood's employment at Dallas Children's Medical Center.
A Fort Worth man has been federally indicted for engaging with child pornography, according to court documents.
James Wood is accused of engaging in sexual exploitation of children from October to November 2019, according to a criminal complaint.
On Nov. 3, 2019, Homeland Security investigators arrested a different suspect in San Francisco. It was during this arrest that detectives seized two cellphones, which led them to Wood, according to documents.
On one of the phones, detectives found images of child pornography on the app called Whisper. Authorities also found conversations between this suspect in California and Wood on the app, court documents show.
Wood went by the username that partially read "Tiger," according to the documents. The rest of the username has been redacted.
Authorities say when going through the Whisper app, they discovered that Wood exchanged explicit messages to the other suspect in California, who was planning to meet up with an 11-year-old girl.
In court documents,authorities refer to the suspect in California as "suspect No. 1."
The criminal complaint revealed the following messages between the two suspects:
Tiger: “Would love to havea young date to the movies”
Suspect No. 1: “Me to, although there’s a mon in Washington who’s all ready to let me have her young daughter”
Tiger: “Mmmmm perfect”
Tiger: “How old is her daughter”
Suspect No. 1: “Her daughter turns 11 in January”
Tiger: “mmmmmm [expletive] yes”
Tiger: “perfect age”
The two suspects continue to talk about taking the girl’s virginity and then exchanged two child pornography images.
Earlier this month, detectives were able to receive additional information from Whisper after serving a search warrant, according to the criminal complaint.
This is when investigators learned that the username Tiger traced back to coordinates in the Dallas Fort-Worth area, authorities say.
Investigators in Dallas discovered additional posts from Wood on Whisper that said, “God I love seeing the girls walking home from school," the documents state.
Detectives say GPS data associated with this post indicated Wood was near Central High School in Fort Worth when he shared it.
Wood is also accused of posting a message that reads, “Girls, hmu. Age is Unimportant, you’re [sic] desire to please is important," the criminal complaint says.
Court documents state that GPS coordinates show Wood posted about 15 times on Whisper while in Fort Worth. There were also about 20 posts from GPS coordinates that trace back to Children’s Medical Center in Dallas.
After executing a search warrant, detectives located Wood on Jan. 30 at a Fort Worth residence and requested to speak to him.
Wood claimed ownership of the Tiger account and told authorities that the account had been deactivated, according to court documents.
He then admitted to using the account to engage in sexually explicit conversations regarding children, federal officials say.
Wood also admitted to receiving child porn on the app but claimed he "would often report the users who posted such material," according to the criminal complaint.
But when authorities searched Wood’s phone, they found the Whisper app was still installed.
Wood has been working as a respiratory therapist in the pediatric intensive care unit for Children's Medical Center since August 2009. He was fired on Jan. 31, 2020, the day after the raid at his home.
A spokesperson for Children's Health released the following statement:
"We are appalled by the alleged actions of this individual and he was terminated immediately We have fully cooperated with law enforcement, and will continue to do so, throughout this investigation."
If anyone has any information about this individual or this case that might be helpful in the investigation, they should call the Department of Homeland Security’s toll-free tipline: 1-866-347-2423.
