A retired California man has decided to make restitution for a crime he said he committed in 1959. Bernard Schermerhorn was a student at Kathleen High School in Polk County back then.
He wrote a letter to The Ledger newspaper confessing that he and an acquaintance had stolen some Ledger newspaper racks and thrown them into a lake way back when.
Schermerhorn said he had thought about the incident over the years and wanted to make things right.
"Well, I just decided that it was wrong and I wanted to pay it back," he said.
Enclosed in the envelope was a check made out to The Ledger for $200. Ledger publisher Kevin Drake was astounded when he got the letter this week.
"I was thinking how many times he must have thought over the past 55 years about doing it and then kind of what made him to think it's time for me to make restitution," said Drake.
Schermerhorn said his mother moved to California decades ago and he served in the Navy for 20 years before working as a cook for the San Diego County Probation Department for 18 years. He now lives in La Mesa, California.
Drake said the newspaper will donate the $200 to the Florida Baptist Children's Homes.