Florida Cops Blow Up "Suspicious" Package, Turns Out to be Church Donation

Susan Jacobson
Orlando Sentinel
May. 10, 2010

Here’s how suspicious we’ve become in the post- 9/11 world.

A cardboard box left at a church near Lake Mary caused the closure of Markham Woods Road while a bomb squad X-rayed it and then blew it up.

The note on the 40-pound bundle said, simply, “For Pastor Nick.” In the old days, someone would have taken it inside and opened it.

But a church member who found the package on the doorstep about 11 a.m. today thought the corrugated box secured with duct tape might be dangerous.

He drove it from Master's Touch International Church, 555 Markham Woods Road, to a nearby fire station to have it checked out.

The Seminole County Sheriff's Office bomb squad couldn't figure out what was inside even after the box was X-rayed.

So, deputies blew it up.

"It didn't look normal," sheriff's spokeswoman Kim Cannaday said. "That's all we knew."

The result: More than $2,500 in paper money was turned into confetti. Four hundred ninety-eight rolled silver dollars remained intact, Cannaday said. The church won't be out any money, though, because the U.S. Treasury will replaced damaged paper money, she said.

The bills were estimated to be worth $2,500 to $2,700. The silver dollars may be worth more than $1 apiece, depending on their year minted and condition.

The ordeal was over about 1 p.m., and the road was reopened.

Although no one was hurt or ever in danger, the Sheriff's Office advises anyone who finds a suspicious package to call law enforcement.

"Don't attempt to move it," Cannaday said.