Dozens of women living across Melbourne’s south-east are alleged to have received used condoms in the mail and graphic messages for more than two months, sparking a police hunt for the person behind it.
More than 60 women who attended the same school during the late 1990s have reported the disturbing mail to police. The packages have also contained handwritten letters detailing graphic messages.
Police say the offender or offenders used a student-created yearbook from Kilbreda College Mentone’s class of 1999, which contained the home addresses of pupils.
The first letter was received on March 20 and the most recent was received on Monday.
Kilbreda College was helping police with their inquiries as officers analysed DNA and handwriting, police said.
“We’re keeping an open mind in relation to any relationships to the school or the students, or someone who has no association to the school whatsoever,” detective senior dergeant Grant Lewis said on Wednesday.
“It’s quite possible this yearbook, which had addresses on it, may have been found by someone who was not associated with the school and may have just thought it ... (was) a joke to start with and now it has become quite serious.”
Police urged people who could identify the offender or offenders to come forward.
Lewis said there were also secondary victims in the case given some of the former students’ parents received the letters, rather than their children who had long moved out of home.
“Some of these people who are receiving this mail and material are quite old so it’s quite traumatising for them and upsetting,” he said.
Bree, who did not want to provide her surname, was among the victims. She said students included their names in the yearbook to keep in touch in the pre-social media era.
Her mother opened the letter.
“Her reaction was quite shocked and she was quite upset,” Bree said. “I was very freaked out [and] didn’t sleep that night.
“The next day I heard of another girl who had received the same or similar type of letter and then there was another one.”
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Bree created a Facebook group, leading more of her former classmates to say they too received a letter.
The letter Bree received was graphic and sexual, she said.
“It was completely disgusting, not something that you would expect in the mail,” Bree said.
“Some of our parents are quite elderly and some parents are sick and some of the girls are unwell at the moment. It’s just the last thing anybody needed.
“We can’t think of anybody who has a grudge against us.”
In a statement, Victorian police said officers were treating this as a “targeted attack”.
“It is believed that most of those who reported the material have received multiple letters, all with the suspected used item included.”
– with Australian Associated Press