Image via Kayla McAllister on Facebook

According to Havana, Florida mom 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.




According to McAllister, who wrote about the incident in a Facebook post on Sunday evening (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 V. 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 Gadsden 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.”

Gadsden 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!”


Update 5/9/17 6:15PM: GameStop replied to our inquiry, offering the following statement regarding the incident:

“We are disappointed to hear about the experience one of our customers recently had when purchasing a pre-owned video game from one of our local Tallahassee, Florida stores. We work diligently to ensure the quality of our pre-owned items are like new. Unfortunately, in this circumstance our thorough process fell short. We are extremely concerned that this incident occurred, and are working with the local police department to support them in their investigation.”