Teen in Hawaii investigated for using fake account to threaten SC school, cops say

When a Midlands high school was the target of threats earlier this week, the Kershaw County sheriff said his office moved fast and determined the posts on social media were not valid.

Sheriff Lee Boan said an investigation showed Monday’s threats targeting Lugoff-Elgin High School were made by a 15-year-old male in Hawaii.

After dealing with jurisdictional issues, on Thursday the sheriff’s office said law enforcement officers made contact with the teenager in Hawaii.

No arrests have been reported, but both the FBI and the Honolulu Police Department showed up to the teenager’s home, according to the Kershaw County sheriff’s office. Honolulu police are leading the investigation, and the teen could face prosecution in Hawaii, the sheriff’s office said.

“He thought he was making funny pranks,” the sheriff’s office said.

In addition to the investigation, the sheriff’s office said the fake account used to issue the school threats was shut down. On Wednesday, Boan voiced frustration that the account was active at that time.

“Why the account is still up, I don’t know?” Boan said Wednesday. “We’ve reported it multiple times, ‘it’s a fake account and it’s making threats.’ We don’t own Instagram, so we can’t tell Instagram what to do.”

That teenager in Hawaii created a fake account using the identity of a real student in Kershaw County, according to Boan. The teenagers had been chatting on the phone, Boan said.

But the Kershaw County student was one of the people to immediately call the sheriff’s office and report the threats that first went online at about 4:15 p.m. Monday, according to Boan. The Midlands teen wanted to let law enforcement officers know someone was getting ready to use his name to put out false school threats, the sheriff said.

Deputies went to the student’s home, and after a search Boan said no guns were found, nor were any devices that connect the student to the posts with the threats.

The Midlands student told deputies that in a recent conversation, the teen in Hawaii told him that “I’m getting ready to post” the threats, according to the sheriff.

There was no word on a motive for the threats.

Some of the threats were posted while deputies were at the student’s house, according to Boan.

“At that point we come to the conclusion that this is a fake account using his identity,” Boan said.

In the first six hours after the threats were made, Boan said investigators were able to track the fake account to Hawaii, where all the posts were being generated.

Making an arrest has not been as simple.

“If this was a threat made in our county, I pretty much guarantee you we would be inside that house and we would have that device in our hands and the person making threats in custody,” Boan said. “Because of where he’s at, in Hawaii over 4,500 miles away we don’t have that luxury in this case.”

In addition to the sheriff’s office, FBI and Honolulu police, the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division assisted in the investigation, according to Boan.

In another odd turn, Boan said this is not the first time this Midlands student’s identity has been used on a fake account issuing threats.

“He’s had multiple incidents in the past where for some reason fake accounts are being created with his name on it and school threats are going out,” Boan said. “We’re still working on why that’s happening.”