After a weeklong series of threats made against students and staff, the South Burlington School District has found relief – and a suspect has been arrested.

Electronic Clues Lead to School Threat Suspect

After a weeklong series of threats made against students and staff, the South Burlington School District has found relief – and a suspect has been arrested.

  • April 24, 2017

The South Burlington School District, located in Vermont, had been dealing with death threats for over a week. Classes were cancelled and students, parents and staff members were on edge, wondering if there would ever be an end to these threats.

After the FBI began investigating the threats, an investigator quickly found a cyber trail to follow. Three days later, they arrested Josiah Leach, an 18-year-old student at South Burlington High School.

The investigator said Josiah Leach’s login credentials were used to setup a phone number through a service called TextNow. Quickly after that, someone used a VPN to access a Microsoft Outlook email account to send 6 emails that threated to kill students at the high school.

A new Facebook account is created from the same IP address and investigators noticed that one email account was created while Leach was signed in to Outlook and using a student laptop at the high school. Police receive a threat from the new Facebook account, and a secretary from the high school received a threat via phone from the TextNow account that was created that morning.

It didn’t take long for the FBI to figure out who the suspect was. School District Superintendent said that there is something to be learned here for anyone who’s thinking about making these threats against a school. “You will be found,” he said. No matter how tech savvy you think you are, a cybercrime team will find your cyber trail.

A timeline of events were tracked and recorded by the investigator, which traced every step the suspect made online.

Featured

  • How Cloud Security Solutions Are Transforming Campus Safety

    Campus administrators today face a challenging mandate: deliver stronger security across their facilities while working within tighter budget constraints. From school districts focused on student safety to hospitals protecting patients and staff, the question remains the same: how do you build security infrastructure that evolves with your needs without requiring massive capital investments? Read Now

  • Rethinking Campus Security From the Inside

    For decades, campus security strategies focused on keeping threats outside school walls. But since the tragedy at Columbine High School, data has shown that many attacks begin inside the building, often in classrooms and corridors. This shift has prompted schools to rethink security from the inside and place greater emphasis on interior elements such as classroom doors. This shift is evidenced by a new generation of classroom door systems engineered to delay inside intruders and an ASTM standard that raises the bar on how these systems must be designed to defend against attack. Read Now

  • AI in Security: Advancing Campus Safety and Considerations for Implementing

    Artificial intelligence (AI) continues to capture attention across every sector, and the physical security industry is no exception. Once seen as experimental, AI-enabled analytics now underpin how organizations monitor environments, detect threats, and make decisions. What was once futuristic is now a practical necessity for safety professionals managing growing volumes of data, tighter resources, and increasing expectations for faster, more accurate responses. Read Now

  • How Cloud Security Solutions Are Transforming Campus Safety

    Campus administrators today face a challenging mandate: deliver stronger security across their facilities while working within tighter budget constraints. From school districts focused on student safety to hospitals protecting patients and staff, the question remains the same: how do you build security infrastructure that evolves with your needs without requiring massive capital investments? Read Now

Most   Popular