James MacLean was in his living room around midnight when he heard what sounded like a muffled gunshot.
The noise was strange enough that he got up and took a walk around his home and into his driveway, but found nothing amiss. He had, however, noticed a car parked near the end of his driveway prior to the explosion, but didn’t think much of it at the time.
It wasn’t until he was leaving his driveway Wednesday morning that he noticed his mailbox was damaged.
He found an exploded shotgun shell wrapped in electrician’s tape in the box.
MacLean, who hunts and has his firearms license, believes whoever made the device removed the shotgun pellets and filled the shell cavity with gunpowder, then added some kind of fuse.
MacLean’s mailbox is a sturdy metal design and the explosion blew the rear panel off along with most of the rivets holding the box together.
“She was quite a blast,” he said.
“I’m just glad nobody got hurt when it went off.”
MacLean also has young children who sometimes check for mail, so he’s also glad it was a fuse-based device and not some kind of booby trap.
“It’s not a really nice thing,” he said.
The incident has been reported to the Prince County RCMP.
Cpl. Mike Lutley said Wednesday that whoever set off the device could be charged with both damage to property and a weapons offence for creating an explosive device.
RCMP receive calls about damaged mailboxes almost on a daily basis, said Lutley, but this is the first time he’s seen one involving an explosive.
Chances are this was someone trying to play at a prank and MacLean was targeted at random, said Lutley.
He strongly warned against such behavior – especially involving dangerous materials.
“Things like that can go bad rather quickly. Thankfully it didn’t explode in the vehicle.”
@JournalPMacLean
