June 8 update: Wallet missing after being turned in to police found by security company
A woman who turned in a cash-filled wallet she found at the Cloverdale Rodeo can’t understand how it went missing after she handed it directly to Surrey RCMP officers.
“Last I saw it was in a police officer’s hand walking away," said Cassie Willis of the wallet stuffed with a thick wad of $20 bills.
That was Friday, May 18, on opening night of the rodeo.
The following day, remembering the name on a card inside the wallet, Willis looked up the rightful owner online to tell him Surrey RCMP had his wallet. She also sent him a picture she had taken of the wallet showing the cash was still inside.
But over the next three weeks, the RCMP has repeatedly told her and the wallet’s owner that it was never handed over to police, Willis told CTV News.
“I just can’t understand what kind of explanation they would have as to why there’s no record my sister and I turned this wallet in,” she said.
CTV reached out to Surrey RCMP about the missing wallet, and a media relations officer said two officers now recall receiving it from Willis, but insist they handed it over to security at the rodeo.
Despite the wallet being full of cash, those officers made no notes about accepting it or how much money was inside.
The Cloverdale Rodeo says the wallet was never turned in to the event’s lost and found.
The owner of the wallet doesn’t want to speak to media, but he is still in touch with Willis.
"Actually, what he said was, 'I've just come to face the fact that I'm not getting my wallet back. It's gone,'” she said. “I feel really disappointed."
The security company contracted by the rodeo says it just learned about the missing wallet and is now investigating if it was ever handed over to its staff.
