MUSKOGEE, OKLA. ? Officials from Kansas City, Mo., commended his courage, offered their thanks and delivered a $14,000 reward Monday to Thurman McIntosh, the man who tipped off police to the identity of a child decapitated in Missouri four years ago.

Alvin Brooks, president of the Move Up community organization, and Maj. Anthony Ell, leader of the violent crimes division of the Kansas City, Mo., Police Department, praised the man who broke the “Precious Doe” case.

McIntosh, 81, spent a year telling Kansas City police he knew the identity of the girl known as Precious Doe and who killed her. Police finally followed up on one of his tips in late April and within days identified her as Erica Michelle Green, 3, and arrested the girl’s mother and the mother’s husband on charges of killing her.

“You helped us tremendously,” Brooks said at a ceremony in the Muskogee Public Library. “We wanted to put this in your hand.

“On behalf of the citizens of Kansas City, thank you sir, very much.”

Communities could use more residents like McIntosh, Ell said. To break the case meant McIntosh had to turn in a grandson, Harrell Johnson, Ell noted. Harrell and Michelle Johnson, both of Muskogee, are jailed in Kansas City on charges of murder and child endangerment.

A desire to share the truth was more important than anything else, McIntosh said.

“I feel 100 percent better today because the truth is known,” McIntosh said. “I didn’t turn him in because he was my grandson but because of what he did.”

It took McIntosh 50 phone calls to Kansas City police over a year to share his suspicions. After offering hair samples from Michelle Johnson, the case moved very rapidly, he said.

“After I sent hair samples up there they did hurry up and get somebody down here,” McIntosh said. “I gave my statement and they admitted to it the next day.”

McIntosh said he had no immediate plans for the reward, other than to say he would put it in the bank. McIntosh is also eligible for additional money from an FBI reward program.