Published: August 29, 2008 12:10 pm         

Local woman seeks Good Samaritan

Last June Valerie Worsham did not get her Rowan Water bill. When she asked about it, she was told it was already paid. Now she is looking for the person the credit for the bill truly belongs to.

“I went ahead and paid the full amount due disregarding the credit,” Worsham said.

When she went back to the utility office again to pay her payment for July, she inquired about the credit on her account. The water utility employee said she had no idea who it belonged to. She was able to show her a copy of her bill stub from May. Whoever had it scratched her amount due out and wrote $42.72 on it.

“The only thing I can figure, is that my bill accidentally ended up in the post office box above or below mine, which would be box number 864 or 866,” she said. “Our three boxes are in a corner, so there aren’t any to our left.”

She said she was not sure how their boxes were labeled. However she does understand that it would be easy to make a mistake by putting mail in the wrong box. She wrote a letter to the occupant of each of those two other boxes. Recently, she switched her address from the P.O. Box to home address.

“I haven’t solved the mystery. I am close. I talked with Phil Tackett last week. He is a gentleman I sent a letter to,” she said. “He said the $42 is not his.”

Worsham said she loves a mystery. Her father was a lawyer and did a lot of research. So she proceeded to do research to solve her own mystery.

“I googled 40351-0866,” she said. “It came up as US Army Engineer Unit Directory. Then I clicked on that and an address came up as 2265 Flemingsburg Road. An old Army Depot and the Rowan County Transportation Department was located there.”

When she found the location, she saw that the buildings were not active. She said that she would still call the phone number that was registered to the address she found to see who it is.

“I called to ask them about who pays their bills,” she said. “They said it was not theirs and their bills are paid through Frankfort. So it wasn’t them.”

“It has to be rightfully refunded to that person,” she said.

Worsham requests that whoever paid the $42.72 to Rowan Water in the first two weeks of June to email her. She said that she would make sure that Rowan Water gets the credit off her account and onto the person it belongs to. She can be contacted at valeriepobox865@aol.com.