A lost wallet containing more than $1,600 isn’t the first time Shawano Police Lt. Dan Conradt has dealt with found property during his time with the local police department.
The recent case of Carmen Scholl’s lost wallet led to Conradt recalling a discovery of misplaced money 10 times the amount in the lost wallet.
In the spring of 2019, then-Detective Conradt followed up on a case in which an employee at Goodwill turned in $18,200 found inside a purse donated to the thrift shop.
“This case involved a worker at Goodwill in Shawano going over donated items and came across a purse containing an envelope from the Golden Nugget in Vegas with the name of Carol handwritten on the envelope,” Conradt said. “The worker notified her supervisor and then turned the wallet over to police.”
The purse also contained an envelope labeled “Golden Nugget” Las Vegas with “Carol” written on it. Also, a money envelope with Dairyman’s Bank logo on it was in the purse.
Conradt spent more than a month with a variety of people to try and find the owner of the purse. He talked again with the person at Goodwill who found the money, staff at the bank about former customers named Carol, three bank customers named Carol and the husband of a fourth, as well as a funeral home that had recently worked with a family of a woman named Carol who took some of her possessions to a Goodwill.
Nothing turned up from any of these conversations.
Eventually, one of the Carols called him back with another name to follow up on.
Lo and behold, it was the owner of the purse. Apparently, she had been in Las Vegas, won the money and then forgot about it. They had given one of their two area homes to their son, and he loaded up a bunch of her belongings and took them to Goodwill, not knowing of the thousands of dollars stuck inside the purse.
“Had this worker chose to not say anything and keep the money for themself, no one would have probably ever known,” Conradt said. “They instead did the right thing and turned it in.”
