DOUGLASVILLE, Ga. — A black woman in Georgia has been charged with eight counts of making terroristic threats after several neighbors received racially-charged notes in their mailboxes going back to last year, the Douglasville Police Department said in a press release. At least seven recipients of the vile communication were black, according to a local news report.
Authorities identified Terresha Lucas, 30, as the suspect behind the bombastic notes, according to a police statement.
Douglasville Police Department provided the following overview of the case:
A series of racially-charged notes left in mailboxes in the Brookmont subdivision led to charges against a resident of the community.
Residents on Manning Drive began receiving the notes last December from a person who claimed to be a white male member of the Ku Klux Klan, who threatened to burn down their homes and kill them, according to detectives with the Douglasville Police Department.
Instead, their investigation led them to Terresha Lucas, a 30-year-old African-American female, who was charged with eight counts of making terroristic threats this month. Accused of writing and placing the notes in her neighbors’ boxes, Lucas allegedly described herself as a six-feet-tall white male with a long, red beard who did not live in the neighborhood.
Detectives Nathan Shumaker and Andre Futch worked the case, which garnered television news coverage March 4 on CBS-46 News when an alarmed resident called the station about a note he received.
Police Chief Dr. Gary Sparks said their persistence and dedication were major factors in solving this case.
“Our investigators had the drive to stick with this case and see it all to the end,” Sparks said. “That’s what we’re all about and this reflects the professionalism and integrity of the department”.
“They stayed with it and put in a lot of hours. Even when some people went to the media, which could have hampered our investigation, we still stuck with it to the end.”
On December 21, residents of two homes on the street received notes in their mailboxes that Shumaker described as racially-motivated. “The notes threatened to burn their houses down and kill them and said that they didn’t belong in the neighborhood,” he said.
Shumaker said the notes were dropped in the mailboxes at night and discovered the next day when the victims went to get their mail.
Subsequent notes with similar verbiage were placed in residents’ mailboxes on Feb. 17, Feb. 22, March 1 and March 3. After a six-month absence, the final note was placed on Sept. 6. Shumaker said there were likely more notes written.
After the first couple of notes were received, Shumaker and Futch went door-to-door to check doorbell cameras and gather whatever information they could from the residents, Shumaker said. They also walked the neighborhood several times and handed out flyers to residents, Futch added.
“By mid-March, we really didn’t have anything to go on,” Shumaker said. However, he and Futch determined that the letters had similar handwriting, tone and verbiage with some distinctive letters that were consistent throughout.
They received the break they needed on Labor Day, Sept. 6, when evidence was found linking the notes to the house of Terresha Lucas. Detectives were able to gather enough evidence to obtain a search warrant.
During the search, detectives found other evidence which ties the suspect to the incidents, according to Shumaker.
The notes were received by at least seven black residents of the neighborhood. The writings reportedly contained the N-word and discussed hanging people and killing children, CBS46 reported.
Lucas is expected to surrender to police this week, according to authorities.
