PICKENS COUNTY — Three Easley teenagers, along with a young man from Pickens, were arrested and faced over 400 charges of malicious damage after they allegedly when on a mailbox bashing spree during the Christmas holidays.

Joshua L. Greenleaf, 19, of 218 Pine Street, and Michael A. Gardner, 17, of 223 Farrs Road, both of Easley, each faced 105 counts of malicious damage.

Ethan T. Heaton, 17, of 116 Knoxtown, in Easley, was served with 106 warrants in the December incidents and Phillip A. Jett, 18, 275 Welborn Road, in Pickens, was served with 105 charges of malicious damage.

According to Assistant Sheriff Tim Morgan, with the Pickens County Sheriff’s Office, that agency received 115 reports of mailboxes being destroyed during the holidays.

Because of the vast number of malicious damage incident reports being filed with the Sheriff’s Office that resulted in the issuance of 420 arrest warrants, additional deputies were needed to serve the charges to the young men Saturday, Morgan said.

And while the suspects in the cases had been identified earlier, county magistrates had to complete each warrant separately, a time consuming event that delayed the arrests, he said.

Evidence and the time frame in the case, along with a description of the vehicle suspected of being involved in the mailboxes destruction indicated that local high school students were involved, he said.

“We gave the description of the vehicle to our (school resource officers) who located that vehicle in a school parking lot,” Morgan said. “Our SROs are a great resource.”

Morgan said that the destruction of mailboxes is a serious offense, causing a hardship on county residents who depend upon the mail service.

“A lot of people have neither the financial or physical means to replace their mailbox,” he said. “Some may have to decide between replacing their mailbox or having their heat repaired.”

The hardship placed upon the elderly population in having their mailboxes destroyed or disabled is far-reaching, Morgan said.

“Mail is an important form of communication for many of the older residents,” he said.

“When I was driving to work one morning, I saw an older person standing outside near the road.

“Her mailbox was on the ground, and she was waiting for the mailman to come by,” he said. “She was expecting a letter or something and didn’t want to miss it.”

Damaging personal property, such as mailboxes, does hold serious penalties, he said.

“This is not a game, it’s a crime,” Morgan said. “Destroying someone’s mailbox can place a great disruption in that person’s life.

“And for some older people, getting mail is the highlight of their day,” he said.

While the malicious damage of mailboxes is a criminal, prosecutable offense, the action of bashing a mailbox while driving down a country road is within itself a danger to the suspect, he said.

Several years earlier, a group of teenagers were in a moving vehicle and striking mailboxes with a baseball bat, Morgan said.

After hitting one mailbox, the teenager, who was leaning out the passenger-side window of the car, was turning to look behind him at the destroyed mailbox when the vehicle passed to close too another mailbox, he said.

The teenager was struck in his head by the passing mailbox, resulting in such injuries that the young man was pronounced dead at the scene, Morgan said.

“Not only is it a crime, it is a dangerous thing to do,” he said.

The four teenagers recently charged have been released from the Pickens County Detention Center on a personal recognizance bond, Morgan said.