Why a 2023 voicemail warning couldn’t stop a local teacher arrested three years later

In early April 2023, Dr. James Edwards, then-principal of Niles North High School, received a voicemail from an unknown caller who, in an uneasy voice, made a serious allegation about one of the teachers in the Niles Township High School District 219 building. 

“Hi, I wish to remain anonymously (sic), but I am calling to report one of your teachers is into pedophilia. His name is Thomas Neal. He’s a German language teacher. I’ve seen many files of kid porn on his portable hard drive and also on his computer at home,” the caller said.

“He’s talked about it, and I don’t know if he’s fantasized about it, but if you guys don’t do anything about it I’m going to the police next and make sure he doesn’t hurt anyone.”

The Record obtained the voicemail and other files via public-records requests, and they show how local police agencies conducted an investigation into Neal that stalled within four months. Nearly three years later, in June, border authorities arrested Neal in Mexico after allegedly finding child sexual abuse material on his phone.

Federal prosecutors said he was traveling with eight electronic storage devices and charged Neal with transporting child pornography. 

The District 219 School Board on June 29 held a special meeting to dismiss Neal, and Board President Amber Wood said in a statement to the community that the federal allegations do not involve district students, property or technology.

According to public documents The Record obtained, tips regarding Neal’s alleged possession of child sexual abuse material were given to authorities in 2023 and 2025.

In 2023, Skokie police reportedly examined Neal’s phone but did not locate any child sexual abuse material. And then multiple scheduled police visits to Neal’s residence never occurred, according to public records and law enforcement. 

In August 2023, four months after the voicemail, Skokie police marked their investigation “Inactive.”

From an uncooperative tipster to jurisdictional confusion to a second tip in 2025, statements and documents provided to The Record provide more insight into how law enforcement responded to previous tips involving Neal and why authorities could not obtain an arrest prior to June 2026.

JUMP TO: ‘Inactive’ | No ‘Knock and Talk’ | Conflicting Statements | A Second Tip | Neal’s Time in D219

The Anonymous Tipster

The caller who first left a voicemail with Edwards on April 3, 2023, reportedly told the school principal he had dated Neal for approximately one month and had just ended the relationship after learning Neal allegedly possessed child sexual abuse material. 

In an email to the D219 community last week, Wood said the district did not conduct an internal investigation because the anonymous report was not communicated to the superintendent or human resources.

“As a result, neither district level leadership nor the Board of Education were aware of the anonymous report and thus no district level review of the anonymous report occurred at that time,” Wood wrote.

Nine days after the voicemail, on April 12, 2023, a Skokie police officer called Neal and left a voicemail asking if he would voluntarily agree to meet, according to the police report. Neal reportedly returned the call and met with two Skokie police officers later that afternoon at the high school.

In a copy of the investigation report provided to The Record, the Village of Skokie redacted the officer’s summary of what Neal told the officers on April 12.  But Neal reportedly did provide permission for police to search his cellphone. 

Police searched Neal’s photos and his SnapChat account, and the search “yielded negative results with anything consistent with child pornography,” the police report says.

Approximately two hours after the Skokie police officer spoke with Neal on April 12, an officer received a voicemail from the anonymous caller who left the tip with D219, public records show. 

The next day, two Skokie police officers spoke with the anonymous caller over the phone, but the caller did not wish to tell the officers his date of birth “or any other information regarding himself,” the police report states.

Skokie police officers asked the anonymous caller if he “would be willing to meet in person to file a report and he refused.” The caller apparently “said he did not want to get too involved.” 

Skokie police also reportedly asked if the anonymous caller would be willing to speak in front of a judge in order to assist with getting a search warrant for Neal`s property. The report says the man “refused and said he did enough by reporting it to Niles North.” 

‘Inactive’

Skokie police “pursued all available leads,” Skokie Police Chief Jesse Barnes told The Record via email. He wrote the department could not substantiate the allegations against Neal and contacted officers in the Cook County Sheriff Office who are part of the Cook County Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.

The ICAC is a “multi-agency initiative” administered by the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office, a county webpage states. Representatives from area law enforcement agencies, including Skokie PD, with specialized training work in the task force to investigate the online exploitation of minors. 

Skokie police contacted the Cook County Sheriff’s Office’s representatives to the ICAC because Neal lived in Chicago, outside of Skokie’s jurisdiction, Barnes said. 

A Skokie police report shows that two Skokie police officers planned on conducting a “knock and talk” at Neals’ Chicago residence on April 28, 2023, with assistance from the ICAC.

Prior to the end of the 2022-2023 D219 school year, a report says, a Skokie police officer spoke with a Cook County sheriff’s officer who “stated his team wanted to gather more information on Neal and his associates prior to conducting the knock and talk at his residence.”

Skokie officer Giovanni DeLaVega “followed up with” Cook County Sheriff’s Officer Daniel Codd regarding Neal two months later (July 25, 2023), and the two scheduled “the knock and talk” at Neal’s residence for Aug. 21, the supplemental Skokie police report states. 

That day, however, Codd reportedly informed DeLaVega that “he was unable to conduct the knock and talk,” and it was rescheduled for Aug. 24. And when that day came, “Codd stated he was unable to conduct the knock and talk due to a scheduling conflict” the report states. 

DeLaVega went on to write: “At this time, I have not been followed up by by Officer Codd regarding the knock and talk. No new information or anything of evidentiary value has been provided since the previous tip line left on 04 APR 23 by the subject’s ex-boyfriend.”

The supplemental report — which was reviewed by a Skokie police supervisor in September 2023 — shows Skokie police then marked their investigation into Neal “Inactive.” 

Asked why the case was marked “Inactive,” Skokie Deputy Chief of Police Denise Franklin said in an email that there “was insufficient evidence to pursue additional investigative action at that time.”

No ‘Knock and Talk’

In an email to The Record, Matt Walberg, head of communications for the Cook County Sheriff’s Office, said Codd rescheduled his role in the “knock and talk” at Neal’s residence several times in part because Codd was the handler of a much sought-after K9. 

The officer reportedly was the handler of “the only Electronic Scent Detection dog in Cook County” in 2023. As a result, his schedule was full “regularly assisting other law enforcement agencies with their investigations” on top of his own caseload, Walberg wrote. 

“As the agency responsible for investigating this case, it was always the responsibility of the Skokie Police department to continue attempts to re-schedule if they wanted Codd to accompany their detectives,” Walberg wrote.

“There was nothing preventing the (Skokie police) department from conducting a knock and talk without Codd’s assistance, and they could also have requested assistance from any of the more than 60 police agencies that are ICAC Task Force members, including Chicago Police, which would have had jurisdiction given that Neal lived in Chicago.”

Skokie police, however, disagreed, telling The Record it was the department’s belief that the county was in charge.

Conflicting Statements

Barnes and Franklin both acknowledged the Skokie Police Department initiated an investigation into Neal after receiving the tip from District 219 in 2023. 

But Franklin said that after Skokie police provided their findings to the Cook County Sheriff’s Office’s representatives to the ICAC, Skokie police considered the Cook County Sheriff’s Department became the lead agency investigating Neal. 

“The Cook County Sheriff’s Police Department, through ICAC, served as the lead police agency for this investigation,” Franklin said in an email. 

“After Skokie Police shared the results of its investigation with ICAC, the Skokie Police Department was not involved in subsequent investigative actions, including a follow-up ‘knock and talk’ contact with individuals involved.”

Walberg said the Skokie Police Department asked the Cook County Sheriff’s Office ICAC Unit whether it could “assist with their investigation,” but he repeatedly affirmed the Cook County Sheriff’s Office never opened their own investigation into Neal or took over Skokie’s.

“The Skokie Police Department was the lead agency on this case. The Sheriff’s Office could not open a competing investigation, nor did it ever take over as lead agency,” Walberg wrote. 

A spokesperson for the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office said via email: “When the ICAC Unit receives a cyber tip related to suspected [child sexual abuse material], it refers the information to the appropriate law enforcement agency based on where the alleged conduct occurred. … The primary law enforcement agency is responsible for leading the investigation.”

In an email, Barnes said sharing information between police departments “is essential to identifying additional leads and advancing investigations” that cross jurisdictions, and information from multiple sources often corroborate allegations “to the point they are actionable.”

He also wrote that the 2023 investigation may have informed the 2026 apprehension of Neal.

Barnes’ email says, “Once SPD did not have any more viable leads, the case was inactivated, consistent with normal investigative procedures. It is unknown if the information provided to ICAC contributed to the search of Mr. Neal’s belongings when he crossed the border.” 

A Second Tip

While the anonymous caller reportedly expressed an unwillingness to participate in the investigation, the federal complaint against Neal notes another tip from 2025 that may have indicated Neal allegedly possessed child sexual abuse material.

Snap Inc., the corporation behind the social media platform SnapChat, reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in May 2025 that a SnapChat username “associated” with an email address “thomas.j.neal@[XXX].com” had uploaded two files of child sexual abuse material to the app from the user’s device, the complaint states. 

The NCMEC, a nonprofit that works to “reduce child sexual exploitation,” regularly receives reports of sexual exploitation that are then reviewed by human analysts and “made available to the appropriate law enforcement for potential investigation,” the nonprofit’s website states. 

It is unclear, though, whether the report linking an email address with Neal’s name to the illicit content was ever reviewed by area law enforcement.

Franklin said the ICAC “works closely” with the NCMEC but did not say Skokie police got in contact with the NCMEC. Emma Vaughan, a spokesperson for the nonprofit, said it “does not share information regarding specific CyberTipline reports or investigations.” 

If local law enforcement agencies had received information regarding the 2025 tip to the NCMEC, it is also unclear whether that information would have been enough to justify a search warrant for Neal’s property. 

Peter Sadelski, a Chicago lawyer who specializes in police misconduct, said the burden to obtain probable cause for search warrant relies on whether a “reasonable person under these circumstances” will believe there’s a chance the subject has evidence inside their house that would allow an officer to originally believe they are breaking the law. 

In his professional opinion, Sadelski said anonymous tips are “difficult” because they’re not as reliable as when they come from verified tipsters. 

Police themselves can submit affidavits to a judge, he said, but they would have to share what information they have, why they believe their information is credible, and, if they don’t have identification for the source of a tip, why they believe the tip is credible nonetheless.

“The judge would have to determine how sure were you that’s the person you were speaking to,” Sadelski said. “It’s very much different than the situation if the person came to the police station, the police officer was able to look at this individual and was able to confirm that they are what they say they are, through the police database.”

“That would, I think, pass the probable cause threshold.”

Neal’s Time in D219

Internal D219 records show the district first hired Neal to work as a Spanish and German teacher at Niles West High School in 2013. In his cover letter applying to the position, Neal wrote he previously spent six years teaching world languages at a high school in Urbana, Illinois. 

In 2015, then-Assistant Superintendent John Heintz recommended the board extend Neal’s contract. The board voted to “honorably dismiss” Neal in April 2016 as part of a reduction in force, but he was apparently rehired and obtained tenure in May 2017, district records show. 

D219 records also show he served as a sponsor to the district’s German National Honor Society beginning in 2017 and German Club beginning in 2018. 

A D219 Facebook post shows he traveled with 21 district students to Germany as part of an exchange-student program in 2017.

Federal law enforcement contacted D219 in June 2026 to inform them Neal was the subject of an active criminal investigation, Wood said in her email to the district community.

On receiving that information, “the district immediately placed the employee on indefinite suspension, denied access to all district property and electronic systems, and prohibited any contact with students,” Wood wrote.

As previously reported, the board convened an emergency meeting on June 29 and voted to dismiss Neal.

“We also believe it is important to clarify that the federal criminal complaint does not allege conduct involving District 219 students, school property, or district technology,” Wood wrote.

“We fully recognize that many families have understandably asked that question in order to understand the pervasiveness of these serious charges.”

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