What Do We Know About The Canadian Pedophile Suspect?

There’s still a lot we don’t know about Christopher Paul Neil, the main suspect in a global manhunt for a man seen in more than 200 child porn pictures.

The 32-year-old hails from B.C., but hasn’t been in contact with his family for more than a month. But his past provides some intriguing clues about what he’s alleged to have done. Neil spent time in Nova Scotia as a counsellor and chaplain at an air cadet training centre – and taught his young charges a class about moral issues.

His duties at Greenwood Air Cadet Summer Training Centre from 1998 to 2000 brought him into close contact with youngsters between the ages of 12 and 18. “If young people were very homesick and having trouble coping away from home at a camp, he would be there to counsel,” advises Captain Hope Carr. But there were no complaints about him during his time there and everyone seemed happy with his work.

It’s not clear what sent him overseas, but he admits on his MySpace page that he never really wanted to come back. An expatriate Canadian named Amy Bowler frequently ran into Neil when he surfaced in South Korea as an English teacher. “He had a number of close friends,” she recalls about the frequent karaoke singer. “He came out regularly for drinks. He was certainly not a pariah.”

Then there’s the matter of a mysterious blog entry from a man named “Peter Jackson”, who authorities believe may have been Neil posting under an assumed name. The blog was aimed at English teachers and reveals a man devoted to the teaching profession who often demonstrated a sophomoric sense of humor.  While there are frequent references to sex in his postings, none directly reference children.

Instead, “Jackson” complained about condoms in South Korea, talked about a nurse who bathed him in a Thai hospital and described rebuffing a man who hit on him in a sauna. It’s clear he was at least partly versed in avoiding the law. Among the topics he broached in some of his 300 messages – how to delay or skirt police background checks needed for some teaching jobs. And on a Korean job board, he writes about deleting computer files. “If you’re worried about content there are several ways to encrypt your drive,” he advises.

It was the images from a computer that landed Neil in trouble in the first place.