It’s open season for so-called porch pirates as package deliveries spike during the yearend holidays. 

One such thief struck at a home in Mobile, Alabama, USA days before Halloween. A security camera at the home showed a person wearing a blouse, skirt, and a purple bejeweled headband over long blonde locks arriving at the home and puffing on a vape pipe before shoveling an armload of packages into his black Ford Escape and driving off, New York Post (NYP) reports. 

A tip to police that the suspect was back in the area on 31 October prompted the setting up of a checkpoint where the Escape was stopped. The driver was wearing the same getup that easily identified him as the porch pirate — and the packages that he had stolen were still in the SUV, sealing his arrest and detention. 

Meanwhile, a Hopkinsville, Kentucky woman had to call 911 when her package arrived on 29 October. 

“We were expecting a delivery of urgent medication that was flown in on like a Nashville airport thing — and they delivered two boxes,” she said in the 911 call obtained by WSMV, according to NYP.

The caller said she was surprised on opening the boxes and finding two severed arms and four fingers inside,  The New York Times (NYT) reports. 

Emergency responders  called in Christian County coroner Scott Daniel to retrieve the body parts and he took the limbs to the local morgue, where a courier retrieved them on 30 October, according to NYT. 

The package that originated in Nashville was apparently destined for a school or hospital for use in surgical training, the coroner told NYT.