Threat Made to Police about Possible Mass Shooting Leads to Federal Prison Sentence for Alexandria Man

Kenneth Allen Moody, 33, originally of Hot Springs, Arkansas, was sentenced yesterday for making threats, announced United States Attorney Brandon B. Brown. Moody was sentenced by United States District Judge Dee D. Drell to 18 months in prison, followed by 3 years of supervised release.

A federal grand jury returned an indictment on August 24, 2022, charging Moody with one count of interstate communication of a threat as the result of a threatening phone call he made in July 2022 to the Vidalia Police Department (“VPD”). In the phone call, Moody, who was living in Vidalia, Louisiana, at the time of the incident, stated that he wanted to turn himself in because of what he was going to do. When asked what he was planning, Moody told the VPD dispatcher that he was going to possibly perform a mass shooting at the Natchez High School in Mississippi. Moody told the dispatcher that he had been planning the shooting for months and had loaded automatic weapons. VPD was able to locate the cellular device he had used to make the call to them and traced it to a device in Hot Springs, Arkansas with subscriber information belonging to Moody. At the time of the call, Moody was living in the Vidalia, Louisiana area. He admitted to making the call to VPD with the intent to make a threat or with knowledge that the communication would be viewed as a threat.

The case was investigated by Federal Bureau of Investigation and Vidalia Police Department and prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Tennille M. Gilreath.