New Brunswick

RCMP still trying to get hold of U of M hate mail suspect

The investigation is ongoing into a vicious mass email campaign targeting a female student at the University of Moncton.

Police haven't made contact with suspected individual or located him, 3 weeks after start of investigation

Sgt. André Pepin said police is still working to locate the suspected author of the vicious mass email campaign. (CBC)

Police are still looking for the author of a series of vicious emails targeting a University of Moncton female student.

Three weeks ago, a first email was sent to thousands of students and staff, as an attack on the student. 

Since then 10 emails have been sent, many containing photos and videos of a sexual nature.

RCMP said Monday that although a suspect was identified early on in the investigation, they have yet to make contact with him, or figure out where he is.

"It is a long process," said Sgt. André Pepin of the Codiac RCMP. "With anything when you implicate computers, email messages, there's a lot of different things we have to determine."

Pepin said a team of several investigators is on the case and new information has been coming in every day.

The University of Moncton confirmed the tenth malicious email sent two weeks ago was the last one to reach a large number of its students and staff. (CBC)

He says progress has been made and remains optimistic police will be able to catch the suspect soon.

"We believe really strongly that we'll be able to make contact with him," he said.

No new attack, says university

The university confirmed Monday there's been no other attack since the tenth email sent two weeks ago.

It's not known whether that's because the individual behind them has given up, or because the university has been successful in blocking him.

After it initially resisted demands from students to freeze the email system, the university finally decided to apply a filter that would block some emails from outside organizations.

It's hard to tell if that stopped the individual, as the university is giving out very little information, citing the ongoing investigation.

"The entire university community has been offended by the non-consensual publication of images of a sexual nature," said university spokesperson Nathalie Haché by email.

"The University of Moncton continues to work with the RCMP to put an end to this situation as soon as possible."