WELCH, W.Va. – A Welch man has been arrested for alleged possession of child pornography after a local State Police investigation.

According to a criminal complaint filed with the McDowell County Magistrate Court, a cyber tip was reported by Google concerning two images, one being an anime (Japanese animation) image of what appeared to be a young girl and the other featured a prepubescent girl engaged in sexually explicit conduct.

WV State Trooper R.L. Jones was assigned to the cyber tip on December 19th and traced the Google Account back to a local Internet Provider address said to be located in the City of Welch Water Company.

In the criminal complaint, Trooper Jones identified Welch resident Timothy Morgan as the suspect and on Tuesday, December 27th, Trooper Jones and Trooper K. M. Saddler executed a search warrant for Morgan’s residence and seized several electronic devices before taking Morgan to the Welch Detachment for an interview.

During the interview, Trooper Jones said Morgan admitted to creating the account and that his reasoning was to ‘keep his wife from finding out about his porn addiction.’

The criminal complaint concluded by saying Morgan has a four year old daughter around the age of the juvenile in the photo reported as child pornography but that it is still unconfirmed at this time if the juvenile is his daughter.

Trooper Jones said the image had not been flagged by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) but after interviewing Morgan, the photographs will be submitted to NCMEC as child pornography.