Glenburnie, Ont., man returns stolen mail he found to residents in rural Kingston

The OPP are looking for a Grinch who stole Christmas cards and other pieces of mail from a rural area in Kingston.

On Tuesday, a Glenburnie, Ont., man found several opened cards and letters scattered along a roadway.

He then took it upon himself to make sure the stolen mail was delivered.

“So just over here in the trees, I found a red envelope that was torn open,” says Richard Lorimer, pointing to the area where he found several pieces of mail, “and the Christmas card was over to the side.”

Lorimer, a school bus driver in Glenburnie, was on his Tuesday morning route when he noticed mail scattered across the intersection of Battersea and Patterson roads.

“Some of it was across the road and some of it was in the farmer’s field right over here.”

Lorimer collected at least 15 pieces of mail, some of them bills — but all the Christmas card envelopes were ripped open.

According to the OPP, several people in the Inverary area, north of Kingston, noticed mail was missing from their roadside mailboxes, along Battersea, Perth Round Lake, Holmes and Davidson roads.

“They weren’t opening the bills and paying the bills,” says Lorimer, smiling. “They were only opening the Christmas cards and taking gift cards and any type of monetary value.

“Anything of value that’s inside the cards, that were meant as gifts for the recipients.”

One of those pieces of mail contained someone’s paycheque — in the sum of $1,700.

Lorimer decided to Google the person’s name and he tracked that person down and was able to personally hand-deliver the cheque to the recipient, whom Lorimer didn’t name.

Kelly Johnson, an Inverary, Ont., resident along Perth Road, said mail and packages were also stolen from her mailbox overnight Monday.

“I was very bitter on Monday and I’ve come back around,” says Johnson, “because humanity is great.”

Her Christmas spirit returned because of one man. Lorimer hand-delivered Johnson’s stolen mail to her home and returned the rest to Canada Post.

The OPP are now asking residents who believe their mail was stolen to report it to police.