A Mill Creek man accused of storing child pornography in a Snoqualmie forest tree house pleaded not guilty on March 26.

He is not currently jailed, as he is out on conditional release.

King County prosecutors charged Daniel Mason Wood, 56, March 12 with two counts of possession of depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct in the first and second degree. The charges came after a year-plus-long federal investigation.

According to charging documents, the investigation began on Nov. 20, 2016, when an employee of the Department of Natural Resources reported to the King County Sheriff’s Office he’d found child pornography in an an illegally built cabin on federal land eight miles up Southeast Middle Fork Road in the Snoqualmie National Forest.

On each wall were framed pictures of young girls 8-12 years old posing as fairies. Inside the cabin, the detective and DNR employee found an envelope that contained more images of naked children.

In early April 2017, the FBI conducted a search of the cabin and confiscated more images and items that would contain latent prints or DNA samples. Days later, the FBI interviewed a search and rescue volunteer, who told detectives he’d recently seen a Toyota FJ Cruiser with a specific license plate number he revealed to detectives.

Those clues led investigators to Wood, in which they were able to match his DNA to DNA found at the scene, according to charging documents.

On Feb. 12 of this year, detectives searched Wood’s home with a search warrant and seized “several digital items.” Nearly a month later on March 5, a special agent with the FBI reviewed the evidence that was taken and found thousands of graphic “child erotica and child pornography.”

The agent also found images of the fairy-like cabin in the woods as well.

A tree house gingerbread-style cabin in the Snoqualmie National Forest has been constructed for at least seven years and was found to contain child pornography in November 2016. Photo courtesy of King County Sheriff’s Office