By Sharyn L. Decke
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
Already at least two victims have turned up following the break-in to the blue mail drop bin outside the Centralia Post Office two weeks ago.
Centralia Police Department detective Sgt. Pat Fitzgerald says police have learned that over the past few days checks which may have been amongst the stolen mail have been cashed at locations around the state, but not by their intended recipients.
Over the weekend before Jan. 27, someone pried open a drop box at the drive-through beside the post office at the 200 block of Centralia College Boulevard. Post offices in Galvin and Rochester were hit as well. Several school levy ballots which were presumed to have been deposited there were found hours later along a Centralia sidewalk.
Fitzgerald said he has heard from victims who either mailed a check which never reached its destination or received cancelled checks back from the bank and saw the name of the payee had been altered.
He asks anyone who deposited mail into either of the two bins during the weekend prior to the morning on Jan. 27 to take steps to confirm if their item actually reached the person or business it was addressed to.
More importantly, if the outgoing item contained a check for payment of some kind, he urges the sender to monitor the related accounts and contact the intended recipient.
Fitzgerald says after a reasonable amount of time has passed, if a piece of possibly stolen mail does not arrive where it is supposed to, he asks the sender to call the police department’s investigative division at 360-330-7614.
Theft of mail is also a federal crime, which is investigated by U.S. Postal Inspection Service.
The Centralia postmaster said they empty the bins on Saturday afternoons but not on Sundays and there is no way to know how many pieces were taken. Postmaster Jade Nevitt also indicated anyone who believes they may have been a victim needs to visit the post office to pick up a form they’ll need to forward to the postal service.