THE Duchess of Sussex’s estranged father Thomas Markle Snr is being investigated over a huge stash of child sex images after being reported to police by his own son.
Meghan’s dad, 82, is alleged to have kept the sickening hoard at his home in the Philippines, where Thomas Jnr found it.
A source close to told The Sun: “Now maybe people will finally understand why she has had nothing to do with her father since 2018.”
Thomas Jnr told police he discovered “hundreds, if not thousands” of child sex abuse images in four large boxes at his father’s home.
Cops investigating the Duchess of Sussex’s estranged dad are now preparing to seize the evidence.
Horrified , reported their father to detectives in the Philippines after making the sickening find at his home in the city of Cebu.
had been forced to leave the house in May and return to the US after suffering a stroke and a blood clot which led to
But he is alleged to have abandoned the enormous stash of vile content packed into storage boxes.
Thomas Jnr, 60, told police he unearthed the horrific pictures and videos mixed up with innocent family mementos.
He also contacted investigators in the US who are also set to launch their own probe.
Thomas Jnr told The Sun after submitting his sworn statement to child abuse police in the Philippines tonight: “When I found this material I was horrified and I had no option but to report my dad.
“I have supported, cared for him and helped him for years — but that stops now.
“I won’t speak to my father ever again unless I’m called to give evidence against him.”
He triggered the investigation after searching for a phone for his Filipino girlfriend’s father in boxes of Thomas Snr’s belongings.
He told friends he was shocked and disgusted when a 15-minute video of naked little girls flashed up on the abandoned LG mobile.
Victims appearing to be aged no older than ten or 11 appeared in sex acts captured on video along with three still pictures of naked and scantily clad girls of about the same age.
Thomas Jnr alleges one of the sick images on the phone was a photo taken of the screen of a Lenovo ThinkPad laptop that was in a room he recognised in his
The shocked son — the retired TV lighting director’s carer after he suffered a life-threatening stroke in 2022 — told pals he was left a “shaking wreck” by the discovery.
He confided to one: “What I saw made me sick to the stomach — all this stuff was just dumped on me and I didn’t know what to do.
“I knew right away it was highly illegal and would land me in jail for a long time if I didn’t get rid of it. I felt betrayed, angry and disgusted — and realised I had to report him.”
On July 10, he reported his discovery to the FBI Hotline, the US-based National Centre for Exploited and Missing Children and the state police in Pennsylvania where his father was living.
But his anxiety grew in the weeks that followed as he received no calls or follow-up inquiries — and he decided to steel himself to check the remaining contents.
He retrieved the four large brown cardboard boxes from storage and enlisted the help of a local IT expert to help him access three computer hard drives.
Thomas Jnr told his pal: “There was an unbelievable amount of stuff — old family home movies on VHS cassettes, books, nine mobile phones, along with the
“But there were also many more worrying items which I’d never seen before — old books that turned out to be full of naked little girls.
“Then the technician helped me turn on the first hard drive and I gasped when all of the icons suddenly appeared.
“His desktop was full of row- upon-row of thumbnail pictures linking to the most sickening child abuse imaginable. The worst of the worst.”
Preschool kids including toddlers either captured nude or engaged in horrifying sex acts were among the files stored on the hard drive.
More images of a man engaged in a sex act with a very young Asian girl appeared to have been stored in the pages of an antique book called “Lewis Carroll Photographs Of Children: Four Nude Studies.”
Another developed film negative showed two more naked schoolgirls.
Other books found in the boxes included lifelong enthusiast Thomas Snr’s most treasured family keepsakes and arty picture books.
But innocuous covers featuring tasteful nude pictures of adult women led to page after page of naked little girls in sexual poses on the pages inside.
Further analysis found there were also vile images on the same hard drive as some of the former film technician’s work files, including his professional CV.
The document headed “Thomas W Markle” listed his old Hollywood address and phone numbers together with his “Executive Profile, Skill Highlights and Professional Experience”.
Another column of the CV listed his “Core Accomplishments” including three Emmy Awards won for lighting excellence.
The résumé appeared next to another download of daughter Meghan addressing a women’s event at the on the same hard drive as the child abuse images.
Thomas Snr remains estranged from American former actress , 45, and has never met her husband , 42.
He claimed he suffered a heart attack shortly before her and did not attend the ceremony.
And he was supported by his son as he begged for years to be allowed to reunite with her after a string of public spats.
Window fitter Thomas Jnr, who moved to a new home a few doors from his father in Cebu in January 2025,
But he spectacularly turned on his father on Thursday as court papers filed in Cebu City sparked a high-profile police inquiry.
Investigators from the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking on Thursday appointed a task force run by the specialist Women and Children’s Protection Centre.
The FBI also confirmed receipt of the contents of Thomas Jnr’s affidavit and look certain to conduct their own probe.
A source close to the case in Cebu said tonight: “An FBI agent has already requested the contact details of investigators leading the case in the Philippines.
“Thomas Markle Snr is a US citizen, he is currently living in the US and may be linked to alleged offences committed on US soil.
“There is a strong precedent for cases in circumstances like this to be investigated by the FBI.”
Thomas Snr is currently living in a nursing and rehabilitation centre in Florida, where he has been supported by daughter Samantha, 60.
Samantha and Thomas Jnr were the children of his first marriage to secretary Roslyn Loveless, whose 11-year marriage to him ended in 1975. She died in 2024 aged 79.
Meghan was born in 1981 to Thomas Snr’s second wife , 70, whose eight-year marriage to him ended in 1987. Cebu City legal sources confirmed on Thursday that Thomas Jnr had agreed to surrender the four cardboard boxes of assorted items for detailed forensic examination.
He was due to formally hand over the material while accompanied by a team of lawyers acting on the instruction of the task force of investigators.
The boxes will be taken to Cebu City Department of Justice, where Thomas Jnr was due to sign documents consenting to their detailed forensic examination.
Officers from the specialist Women and Children’s Protection Centre Task Force declined to comment.
U.S. JAIL TERMS WARNING
From , in Florida
A STRING of US paedophiles who have committed crimes in the Philippines have been handed massively long jail sentences in America.
David Paul Lynch, 55, who frequently travelled from Florida to sexually abuse kids in the South-East Asian country and film it, recently got 330 years.
The FBI, now investigating Meghan’s dad, uses this as an example of stopping child sex tourism on its website.
Another paedo Kenneth Gaylord Stokes, 71, who lived near the city of Cebu where Markle Snr resided, got 120 years for abusing children.
And in July, Vincent Anthony Principe, 55, was sentenced to 30 years after travelling to the Philippines to gather child sexual abuse images.
Markle Snr is thought to be in a care home in Lakeland in the state of Florida, which has some of the US’s toughest punishments for child sex crimes, including the death penalty.
