According to Havana, Florida mum Kayla McAllister, her 11-year-old son was flipping through the manual of a used game purchased from GameStop on Sunday when he came across a plastic bag containing a white substance. They called the police and yep, it’s meth.
Image via Kayla McAllister on Facebook
According to McAllister, who wrote about the incident in a Facebook post on Sunday evening local time (thanks to reader Adam for the tip!), she and her son had visited the Capital West Tallahassee GameStop location at around noon on Sunday, May 7 in order to trade old games. They purchased a used copy of Grand Theft Auto 5. During the game’s lengthy install process her son decided to look through the game’s manual, which is when the packet of drugs was discovered.
From Kayla’s Facebook post:
Today i took my son to gamestop in Tallahassee to trade in games and get some new ones. When he opened the booklet inside one of the pre owned games he ( MY ELEVEN YEAR OLD SON!!!!!!!) found this. A baggie of fucking meth! Clearly the game was not properly checked when it was traded in and because of the carelessness i could have lost a child. Thankfully He brought it right to us and said what is this?
As stated in a police report filed with the Gasden County Sheriff’s Office and obtained by Kotaku, officers called to the scene performed a field test on the white substance, which came up positive for methamphetamine.
Excerpt from the Gasden County police report. Address redacted by Kotaku.
If the situation sounds familiar, it’s because the same exact thing happened in Lake Charles, Louisiana back in September. Another 11-year-old boy, another used game from GameStop, another bag of meth. According to Kayla McAllister, the similarities between the two incidents have caused her some grief.
“Yeah, I keep getting messages saying I’m a troll. I stole a story. So i decided to google it an find all these stories about it. An now I’m pissed that they let it happen again,” McAllister told me during a Facebook chat yesterday afternoon.
The main cause of Kayla McAllister’s anguish comes from imagining what could have happened had her son not brought the packet to her immediately, or if her three-year-old daughter had found it instead.
“That’s why I didn’t sleep all last night. My three-year-old daughter tears [her son’s] games apart. And had he not found it an [sic] she did this could have gone so differently. Because we would have never known it came from the game. She could have died, and I would have spent the rest of my life wondering where it even came from,” said McAllister, who is currently seven months pregnant with her third child.
We contacted the GameStop store involved in the incident, and the representative we spoke to directed us to the company’s corporate offices for comment. Before ending the call I asked if the baggie could have been missed, since the company (in my experience) only checks the condition of used game discs and not manuals. I was told, “We check everything.”
GameStop PR has not responded to our request for comment on the story. According to McAllister, GameStop did contact her yesterday to offer her a replacement.
“So the district manager called me an offered me a fucking replacement video game. Offered to send it in the mail so i wouldn’t have to go in the store. Um, no thank you I will not be using your company again.”
Gasden County police have forwarded the case to the police department in Leon County, where the GameStop store is located, for further investigation.
The moral of this story, as delivered by Kayla McAllister on Facebook:
“PLEASE CHECK ALL THE PRE OWNED GAMES YOU BUY!!! Just the thought of something happening to any of my kids because of something as crazy as this kills me. SO PLEASE PLEASE CHECK EVERYTHING!”
Comments
37 responses to “Eleven-Year-Old Gets Used Copy Of GTA 5, Finds Bag Of Meth”
By the next GTA game this would probably be legitimate pre-order tat.
Yet again, you beat me to it! Haha.
I’m just going to make it official and outsource my jokes to you.
lololollol
You bought GTA for you eleven year old son? I hope the internet firestorm you are trying to create turns around and eats you.
That’s a superb mixed metaphor. 😀
Yup… Shocking news just in, another parent buys their CHILD inappropriate game.
She was worried about the meth? Wait until she hears the non-stop language and torture scenes. Don’t get me wrong, I really like GTA5.
I’m playing through GTA5 at the moment, and when I played through the side quest where you film a celebrity having sex, I thought, “Well, this game certainly earned it’s R rating in my opinion.”
And then there’s this woman…. what.. that hell?
Did you enjoy your bag of free meth, or does it not come with every copy? Maybe it’s a US only bundle.
It was the Walmart exclusive pre-order bonus.
On the Gold Coast we got baggies of coke.
Unfortunately she isn’t alone!
That actually made it into the game over here? Wow.
Yeah I was totally surprised. Happy surprise, but surprised none the less.
Eh, if she got him GTA 5, may as well let the kid a little try of Meth as well.
Well what’s the worst that’s gonna happen, he ends up like Trevor..?
I’m italian but I had to register to kotaku au just to upvote this comment. <3
Does it actually say it was FOR him?
All I see is that he was there and that he had the manual.
Its the natural evolution of handing out mixtape samples, meth bag samples. No beach day will ever be the same again.
What’s more irresponsible, the meth or buying GTAV for a 5th grader?
Maybe if she’d actually paid attention to the ESRB rating she’d have seen it contains the use of drugs.
GTA V for an 11 year old?…may as well have let him keep the meth
Well…. it is an R18 game, so….. maybe it was the universes way of telling this parent ‘NO, this is not for your child’
Also, on a side note, what was the resale value of this game pack-in?
She sounds like the kind of person who would put it in herself
Yeah, after buying GTA5 for an 11 year old, “parenting skills” probably isn’t something she’d have on her CV.
The mother didn’t deserve receiving drugs like that, but to be absolutely fair, she shouldn’t be buying a game like Grand Theft Auto V for her very underage child.
I remember when GTAV first came out, I decided on a whim to go out and buy it. When I went to EB Games, the line was quite long, but in all dead set honesty, I was the only person in line who was not accompanied by their mother.
I still remember my parents refusing to buy GTA3 before my 18th because they thought the Rockstar logo was an R rating. It was annoying at the time; but I kinda wish all parents took that level of responsibility for the media their kids consume.
I tried to get my old boss and his wife to do the same with their youngest (he’d be about 23 now), wish I hadn’t been ignored in the end. My advice was it wasn’t suitable for him given my first hand knowledge of him, their work hours and thus supervision, and the game’s content. *sighs* I actually haven’t enjoyed GTA since the release of 3, before that they were entertaining but the later ones have never done anything for me.
Infiltrate the dealers, find the supplier.
…trades the meth back to Gamestop for $3.
Some people have all the luck.
In all fairness, it is never stated that she actually bought the game for her son, just that her son was there when she bought it and her son found it when he was flipping through the manual. She may have locked the Xbox 1 from playing certain classifications and had no reason to keep the physical game out of his hands.
I mean, it probably was bought for him, but we are deciding facts for ourselves, here.
There’s also a little bit of a jump between the ignorance of a mother allowing her ten-year-old son play an inappropriate video game and a store allegedly accidentally selling products with drugs hidden in them.
That’s why I didn’t sleep all last night. My three-year-old daughter tears [her son’s] games apart. And had he not found it an [sic] she did this could have gone so differently. Because we would have never known it came from the game.
Read more at https://www.kotaku.com.au/2017/05/eleven-year-old-gets-used-copy-of-gta-5-finds-bag-of-meth/#kPg2ZpPX6UrOWjWJ.99
That’s still just implication. She could have bought it for herself, or a third-party that isn’t mentioned in her statement and been worried that her three-year-old could have ripped through the game just like she does to her brothers’.
Don’t get me wrong, most likely did buy it for him. I’m just a tad uncomfortable with some above comments especially due to the fact that the article is very careful not to explicitly say “She totally bought it for him”.
Mum:
Hey son. What’s that little plastic bag you’ve got there.
Kid:
*panics*
Um… I found it in this game case.
Get the new DLC for GTAV where you can cook and distribute meth!
Buy now, and get your very own bag of crack.
18+ raiting but mom doesnt care. Start em’ young..
Interesting position for GameStop.
Do you check your games thoroughly on trade-in? No? Then maybe you should, before someone is seriously hurt or killed as a result of your incompetence.
Yes? Then it sounds like GameStop has a drug problem.
Stupid woman. Her hypocrisy is staggering. Buys her kid a game he’s WAY too young to be playing then starts getting all aggrieved and playing the “THINK OF THE CHILDREN!” card when the meth turns out. It’s a wonder she didn’t just let him smoke it. And she’s pregnant with her 3rd child. Jesus wept, the idiocy of people like this makes me puke.