Investigation after school receives 'very unusual' packages addressed to children

At least one elementary school in Alabama has received suspicious packages addressed to students from an unknown sender.

Phenix City Schools superintendent Randy Wilkes told The Independent that one school in his district had received multiple “unsolicited mailings” in the last week. The packages were addressed to students at the school, and all appeared to be sent by the same person.

Students at the school occasionally take “pen pals,” Mr Wilkes said, but these packages struck him as odd because they were not school-sanctioned mailings.

“It’s very unusual,” he said. “I can tell you that in my almost 30 years [in the district,] I’ve ever seen anything addressed directly to a student at an elementary school.”

Mr Wilkes said he alerted law enforcement shortly after hearing about the mailings. Local police told him an investigation had been launched, and that other schools in other cities were involved as well.

Mr Wilkes knew of no immediate threat to his school or any others.

The Houston and Phenix City Police Departments were leading the investigation, Alabama Law Enforcement Agency Robyn Bradley Bryan said. She declined to comment further on the probe.

A nearby district attorney’s office previously published a message on Facebook about similar, unsolicited mailings, but had deleted it by Tuesday morning.

The Covington County, Alabama District Attorney’s Office wrote on Facebook that the FBI was investigating letters and packages of food sent to children in schools around the Southeast, according to AL.com. The sender described himself as 14 years old, mentally disabled, and a target of bullying, according to the post.

The post also claimed that the IP address for the gmail account the sender listed in his letters appeared to originate in Houston, Texas. The same IP address had appeared on websites discussing girls' underwear and types of music to listen to when he visited his pen pal in Phenix City, the post stated.

The district attorney’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

An FBI spokesperson declined to comment on the case, except to say that they were “not aware of any specific and credible threat to our community”.

“The FBI regularly shares information about potential threats through a variety of means to better enable state and local law enforcement agencies to protect the communities they serve,” the agency said in a statement to The Independent.

They added: “As always, we urge the public to remain vigilant and report suspicious activity to law enforcement.”