Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office
- Police are investigating hundreds of Amazon packages tossed off the side of the road in Oklahoma City.
- An unidentified suspect stole several of the items, with the notable exception of books.
- An Amazon spokesperson told Insider the company is working with police on the investigation.
Officials in Oklahoma City are investigating hundreds of Amazon packages found dumped on the side of the road on New Year’s Eve.
According to the Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office, the packages had were supposed to reach their destinations by Christmas, but tracking information indicates that the items never reached the USPS facility for delivery after departing from the Amazon warehouse.
In a Facebook post, the sheriff’s office said an unidentified suspect rifled through the packages and stole several items of interest, while leaving behind the rest — most notably books.
“Apparently the thief isn’t much of a reader … the books that were being delivered were left behind,” the post reads.
An Amazon spokesperson told Insider the company is working closely with the sheriff’s office throughout the course of the investigation.
The incident comes after a similar case in Alabama in November, in which police discovered hundreds of undelivered FedEx packages dumped into a ravine on private property in Blount County. FedEx drivers quickly arrived on the scene and collected the packages, which were scattered across a ditch.
“These guys came from all over the country to work on Thanksgiving. Thank you guys for your hard work and clearing up this mess,” the Blount County Sheriff’s Office said at the time. “FedEx has sent multiple trucks and drivers from all over the south.”
In December, officials announced they took a suspect into custody for dumping the packages. Deandre Rayshaun Charleston, 22, faces five charges of cargo theft, a Class D felony, for dumping packages on at least six separate occasions.
Blount County Sheriff Mark Moon said in a press conference that Charleston was “sorrowful for what he had done,” and noted the former driver told officials he had recently experienced a death in the family and “was having some hard times in his life and just made poor choices.”
