Adair County Man Sentenced for Mailing Threatening Communications

St. Louis, MO: Lonnie Sutton was sentenced to 18 months in prison on three charges of mailing threatening letters, United States Attorney Catherine L. Hanaway and Adair County Prosecuting Attorney Mark Williams announced today.

“I would like to commend the cooperative efforts of Prosecuting Attorney Williams, the Kirksville Police Department, the Kirksville office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Postal Inspection Service for their investigation of this case,” said Hanaway. “Even though Mr. Sutton claims that he never intended to harm anyone, threats to harm our citizens will be investigated and prosecuted by this office.”

On January 28, 2003, Sutton sent a letter threatening to harm school children on a school bus; on April 6, 2006, Sutton mailed a letter to the Kirksville Police Department containing a threat to kill several members of the Kirksville Police Department; and in October 2006, Sutton mailed a letter to an Associate Circuit Court Judge threatening to destroy her.

Kirksville police officers and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) began the investigation in January of 2003, and almost immediately focused on Lonnie Sutton.  They questioned Mr. Sutton on a number of occasions but Mr. Sutton denied any involvement.  They began examining the letters for handwriting comparison and fingerprints and obtained Sutton’s fingerprints and handwriting exemplars.  The handwriting exemplars did not match, but the fingerprints on several of the mailed letters did. On October 2, 2007, Sutton took a polygraph test and failed.  On October 15, 2007, Sutton voluntarily went to FBI offices and, in a written confession, admitted sending the threatening letters but denied that he intended to harm anyone.

LONNIE SUTTON, Kirksville, Missouri, pled guilty in June to three felony counts of mailing threatening communications.  He appeared today for sentencing before United States District Judge Donald J. Stohr in St. Louis.

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