Fayetteville outside mailbox removed after repeated thefts, post office seeking alternative

FAYETTE COUNTY, Ga, - We have new information about an ongoing investigation into mail theft at the Fayetteville Post Office. We’ve learned of another arrest of a man suspected of breaking into the outside mailbox and committing identity fraud.

Authorities say thieves have broken into it so many times, the Fayette County Sheriff warned residents not to ever use it again.

"We noticed a big uptick in our fraud cases and the common denominator was the blue receptacle in front of the post office," Sheriff Barry Babb of Fayette County.

As of Wednesday morning the box had been removed. The post office tells the sheriff’s office they are seeking a more secure alternative.

The sheriff says more than 25% of the county’s fraud cases were connected to mail theft from the box.

Fayette County deputies installed surveillance cameras for a two-week period. On more than half the nights, they captured individuals either casing the box to break in or actually busting in and stealing the mail, as the people in this SUV are accused of.

When deputies stopped the SUV, the body cam video shows a post office bin in the back crammed with stolen mail.

Sheriff Barry Babb says investigators found more than 200 checks in the SUV totaling over $49,000. Two men, John Turner and Christopher Smith, were arrested and charged with multiple counts of theft of mail, identify fraud, elder abuse and theft by taking.

FOX 5 has learned of an additional arrest three days earlier, another man named William Devonte Morton was charged in a previous case. They say William Morton had more than 41 stolen checks from that Fayetteville mailbox as well as chemicals to alter them and a credit card embossing machine to make fake transaction cards in the victim’s names.

Bottom line, the sheriff says use online bill pay and don’t rely on post office mailboxes.