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Bomb placed in mailbox
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Fireworks weren't the only things exploding over the holiday weekend. Early Sunday morning, a bomb blew up in a Newton County mailbox in the third such incident this year, according to the victim.

The force of the blast turned the metal shell of the mailbox inside out and hurtled a piece of it about 30 yards up a hill into the resident's front yard, according to a Newton County Sheriff's Office report.

A witness described seeing a black car come up the road shortly before 1 a.m. with the lights off but flipping the headlights on occasionally, "as if to see where they were going," wrote deputy Steven Ledford in the report. The car stopped in front of the mailbox, the perpetrators put something in it and then exited the neighborhood by turning left at the stop sign.

The mailbox exploded shortly after.

NCSO Investigator Mickey Kitchens said it was not common to see a mailbox bomb, and that the remnant bomb materials were packaged to be sent to the Georgia Bureau of Investigations crime lab.

The homeowner said explosive devices had been left on or near her property two times prior to this occasion - once in June and once in May - but were not as powerful as this one.

Kitchens confirmed that at least one explosive device, similar to a "sparkler bomb," had gone off the road near the homeowner's property around Memorial Day.

"It's been one mess after another," said the victim. "We're scared. What if someone had opened the mailbox?"

The homeowner said she had been asleep when it happened, but a neighbor described hearing a loud "boom" just after she went to bed.

"I jumped straight out of the bed and grabbed the phone," said the neighbor. She described smelling gunpowder in the air.

"We just want some help," said the homeowner. "We don't know what to do."

Anyone with information about the incident can contact the NCSO at (678) 625-1400. Anonymous tips can be left online at www.newtonsheriffga.org and clicking on "Anonymous Tip," or by calling (678) 625-5007.