The Problem

The CEO of a Fortune 500 company began receiving letters in the mail from a disgruntled former employee, who claimed the company owed him a few hundred dollars from when he worked there—more than 20 years prior. While the company’s HR department confirmed the individual had worked at one of its facilities through a staffing agency, the letters began arriving at the homes of the CEO’s family members, and the company sought to learn more about the former employee’s background, mental well-being and propensity toward violence.

Our Solution

The company’s internal security department had conducted an open-source background investigation and had not found any red flags. We proposed a multi-faceted approach including public records and open-source research, the submission of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to relevant law enforcement agencies, research of breached data on the deep and dark web, and a review of select published works by the former employee. We quickly identified several concerning aspects about the subject and his background, including:

  • Multiple orders of protection filed against him, as well as a felony conviction for stalking and harassment
  • Archived news articles detailing his suspension from high school for creating a “hit list” of students and school staff he reportedly wanted to kill
  • A book written by the subject that was reportedly inspired by his childhood and told the story of a high school student who was often the subject of unfair treatment. The fictional student threatened a wealthy executive’s son with a knife before purchasing a rifle and ammunition and fantasizing about killing the executive’s family, locking the executive in a vehicle and lighting it on fire
  • An email address for the subject that included a reference to serial killer Ted Bundy, as well as a Google profile for the subject that included reviews of a serial killer museum and a probation monitoring service
  • Police records indicating that four months prior, police had investigated the subject for sending threatening communications to the CEO of another multinational company, in which he also demanded payment 

The Outcome

Using the findings and analysis provided in our report, the company and its CEO were able to work with a threat assessment expert, their internal security team and other key partners to determine next steps and mitigate against future threats or escalation of violence.