Philippine investigators prepare forensic examination
The Sun reported that the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking formed a task force on Thursday, led by the specialist Women and Children's Protection Centre. Legal sources in Cebu City said Thomas Markle Jr., 60, had agreed to turn over the four cardboard boxes for forensic examination.
The handover was expected to take place with lawyers present, with Thomas Jr. signing documents authorizing investigators to examine the contents.
The FBI has reportedly confirmed receipt of Thomas Jr.'s sworn statement and could open an investigation of its own. A source close to the case said an FBI agent had requested contact information for the Philippine investigators. That source cited Thomas Sr.'s US citizenship, his current residence in the United States and possible links to alleged offenses on US soil as grounds for potential FBI involvement.
A phone search led to the report
Thomas Jr. told The Sun that he first encountered the alleged material while looking through his father's belongings for a phone that his Filipino girlfriend's father could use. He said an abandoned LG phone contained disturbing images, prompting him to examine more of the possessions. He told police the collection contained "hundreds, if not thousands" of images and videos.
In its October 22, 2026, account of The Sun's reporting, The Daily Beast described one image on the LG phone as an apparent photograph of a laptop screen. Thomas Jr. said he recognized the room shown as part of his father's former home in Rosarito, Mexico.
Thomas Jr. reportedly contacted the FBI Hotline, the US-based National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and Pennsylvania police on July 10. After several weeks without follow-up inquiries, he retrieved the four boxes from storage to inspect what remained. An IT specialist helped him access three computer hard drives.
Alongside the drives were nine mobile phones, books, family home movies and the Emmy Awards from Thomas Sr.'s television career. Thomas Jr. alleged that he found additional child sexual abuse material both in books and on the drives.
According to The Daily Beast's account of The Sun's reporting, the alleged material included images of very young children and toddlers, as well as developed film negatives. Some images were tucked into an antique photography book identified by the paper as a volume of Lewis Carroll's nude studies of children. Other books appeared to be ordinary art volumes but allegedly contained numerous pages of abuse imagery beneath their covers.
"When I found this material I was horrified and I had no option but to report my dad," Thomas Jr. told The Sun. He said he would have no further contact with his father unless called to testify against him.
US cases cited as jurisdictional context
In a separate article published October 22, 2026, The Sun cited lengthy US prison sentences for Americans convicted of child sex crimes connected to the Philippines. Those cases provide context for the source's comments about possible FBI involvement; they are not findings about Thomas Sr.
The newspaper cited David Paul Lynch, 55, who traveled from Florida to sexually abuse children and film the abuse, and recently received a 330-year sentence. It also described the case of Kenneth Gaylord Stokes, 71, who lived near Cebu and received 120 years for abusing children.
A third case involved Vincent Anthony Principe, 55, who was sentenced in July to 30 years for possessing hundreds of child sexual abuse images after traveling to the Philippines. The Sun said the FBI highlights such sentences on its website as examples of efforts to stop child sex tourism.
Allegations sever a longstanding family alliance
Thomas Jr. had helped care for his father following a life-threatening stroke in 2022. According to The Daily Beast, citing The Sun, he moved to a home a few doors away from his father in Cebu in January 2025 and was still publicly criticizing Meghan on his father's behalf until the week of the reports.
Thomas Sr. now lives in a Florida nursing and rehabilitation center, supported by his daughter Samantha, 60. He left the Philippines in May after suffering a stroke and a blood clot that resulted in the amputation of his left leg.
The Daily Beast also reported Thomas Jr.'s previous arrests. In Oregon in 2017, police said he held a gun to his girlfriend's head during a drunken argument. He was arrested again in January 2019 for drunk driving. After the latter arrest, his father told TMZ that his son had "a serious problem and he needs help."
Meghan, 45, has not been in contact with her father since 2018. He missed her wedding to Prince Harry after saying he had suffered a heart attack shortly before the ceremony, and he has never met Harry.
A source close to Meghan said: "Now maybe people will finally understand why she has had nothing to do with her father since 2018."
