Student suspended after teachers discover death note, sparks police investigation

A student at a Massachusetts middle school is at the center of a police investigation after administrators discovered his death note.

The incident occurred at Chocksett Middle School in Sterling, Massachusetts. The students had already left for the day when staff discovered the notebook around 4pm on September 30.

Police and school officials then investigated and interviewed the owner and other students, and quickly learned that the death note — which contained several names of the owner's classmates — was not a legitimate threat. But this student was suspended for three days.

In a letter to the school community, principal Tina Bass wrote, “When we spoke with the student, the student explained that the notebook was attached to an anime television series and was not intended to be a threat.

"Based on the information available at this time, the Sterling Police Department is not seeking criminal charges in connection with this incident," the Sterling Police Department said in a press release.

Despite that conclusion, police remained vigilant on the school grounds Tuesday, Oct. 6, and officials said they would "maintain a presence as deemed appropriate."

A Death Note in the anime of the same name is a supernatural notebook belonging to the gods of death called Shinigami. If someone writes someone else's name in the notebook, they die. There are a few other rules, but that's basically the gist of it.

Death Notes are often marketed to anime and manga fans as elementary notebooks with the words "Death Note" on the front cover — but given the state of affairs in the United States over the past decade, it's reasonable why parents and school administrators would be concerned about the safety of students after finding such notebooks. The mother of one of the children whose name was written in the death note expressed her disappointment with the way the situation was handled on social media.

"The student who created a list of murders with our daughter's name on it is allowed to return to the same classroom every day after a three-day suspension." he wrote in a post on Facebook. "Yes, there is a safety plan. But how does that give my daughter peace of mind when she still has to sit in the same classroom as a student on that list? She deserves to feel safe in her classroom every day."

This is not the first time that a student's death notebook has sparked such a reaction after being discovered at school. In September 2024, teachers at an I Promise school in Akron, Ohio, were alerted after a student's hand-made "death note" written on loose sheets of paper was found. Although nothing came of this situation, the parents of the students whose names were written in the notebook expressed similar dissatisfaction with the way the issues were handled.

Virginia (she) is the news editor for IGN. With ten years of experience reporting on games and entertainment, he has a background in the fighting game community, influencer news, and viral online trends. Find her on Twitter at @TheeMissGlaze.