NITRO, W.Va. — The West Virginia Treasurer’s unclaimed property division delivered a forgotten treasure to Nitro Mayor Dave Casebolt on Wednesday. Casebolt was presented with the contents of a safe deposit box he’d long since forgotten. Among the items was a wedding ring set.
“Those rings were handed down to my first wife by her grandmother,” he said. “They’re priceless to her. I remember how emotional she was when she received them and now, because of John (Perdue) and his staff, she’ll be able to pass them along to her grandkids.”
Casebolt said he and his former wife, Debbie Creighton-Casebolt, had talked about the rings several months ago, but neither knew what had happened to them. Also in the box was another ring, which Casebolt assumed also belonged to her along with two picture proofs of his children when they were born in 1980 and ’81.
“When we went through our divorce, we had forgotten about that safe deposit box,” Casebolt said. “We didn’t realize anything was in it because she didn’t remember putting the rings in there and I didn’t recall it either. We just assumed they were lost forever.”
The state Treasurer came into possession of the box about six months ago. Perdue’s unclaimed property division has returned thousands of items long since forgotten or never known about to people all across West Virginia. They’ve returned tens of thousands of dollars worth of items in recent years.
“It’s priceless,” said Casebolt. “Typically that’s why people put things in a safe deposit box because there’s sentimental value and they don’t want to lose them.”