Kids in child porn photos are not local, says St. Johns County Sheriff's Office

Detectives now say the photos that 19-year-old child care provider Neal Buckles is accused of emailing do not appear to be of local children.

Buckles was charged last week with emailing two photos from a computer IP address at his parents’ Ponte Vedra Beach home, showing boys between the ages of 5 and 10 engaged in sexual acts.

St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Commander Chuck Mulligan called the photos “heinous.”

Mulligan said the photos appear to have been downloaded from an underground child porn website and have circulated in the past.

Neighbor Ann Bittinger said she still feels on edge.

Her 10-year-old son used to play with Buckles’ younger brother at their home.

“It scares the hell out of me,” said Bittinger. “For the last two and a half years, a group of us moms of boys in the neighborhood have not allowed our children to go anywhere near that house.”

She said the arrest left parents all over the neighborhood rattled.

“I got a phone call from one of my neighbors yesterday, sobbing hysterically,” said Bittinger. “She was scared that it was her son who was pictured having oral and anal sex.”

Bittinger said she and that neighbor both sent photos of their sons to a detective earlier this week to make sure their kids weren’t in those photographs.

“And he confirmed that it wasn’t,” said Bittinger.

Bittinger is frustrated that Buckles is out on bond because the Sheriff’s Office said he admitted to taking a sexual photograph of a 4-year-old.

At this point, detectives said they have not found the photo Buckles said he took, so he has not been charged.

Buckles is a UNF student and, until last month, he was a child care provider at The Church of Eleven22.

His father stepped down from his position at that church as an elder board member the day after his son’s arrest.

Bittinger is also upset the school district won’t move her son’s school bus stop away from Buckles’ house. School buses drop neighborhood kids off steps away from Buckles’ front door.

“He has freedom now to run about the neighborhood, and now our little boys don’t,” said Bittinger.

The St. Johns County school district said the bus stop isn’t moving because Buckles has not been convicted of a crime.

But even if Buckles is convicted in the future, that doesn’t necessarily mean he can’t live near a school bus stop.

In August, Action News Jax reported on a Middleburg bus stop right in front of a house where a convicted sex predator and a sex offender live.

State law does not explicitly prohibit sex offenders and predators who are on probation from living near a school bus stop. It leaves that up to a judge’s discretion.

“I have my lights on at night. I’m not sleeping,” said Bittinger.

And she’s had enough.

She put a “for sale” sign on her lawn on Wednesday, saying she’s a “motivated seller.”

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