BILL SELIN
An unsolved theft that occurred some 50 years ago has been righted, and one can only speculate as to why. Was it guilt brought on by the Christmas season? Is the person ill? Or, has he been riddled with guilt from the start?

On Monday morning, Bill Selin opened Poindexter Lumber as usual. When he went inside, there was a box on the floor. Inside the box was an old electric saw.

The saw was well worn and no longer in working order. The electric cord was cut, but not even a replacement cord could bring new life to the old saw.

As Selin looked through the box, he found an envelope, the contents of which disclosed a 50-year-old story in an unsigned, two-page letter.

“Jesus was watching all the time. He left it up to me to decide,” the letter revealed in scratchy, printed detail.

“I’m bringing back your Black and Decker saw that I took from your store back in the late 1950s,” were the first words that Selin read. “I came to Cynthiana to buy an 8-inch circular saw. I looked at several other stores but couldn’t find what I wanted … Until I passed your store, and I saw in the window the best looking saw I’d ever seen. So, I went inside to check it out. When I looked at the price, I said ‘that’s the saw I’ve been looking for — a heavy-duty Black and Decker saw.’

“But there was a problem. The price was around $79 or more, and I couldn’t afford that much. But I just couldn’t leave there without that saw.

“At the time, there were two people in the store. One was an older person who was working there, and a customer.

“When the older man (who Bill says was his grandfather Harold Poindexter) went out to fill the other man’s order, that’s when I decided to pick up the saw and walk out the front door with it. No one saw me.

“I thought I was getting by with it all these years,” the man said, explaining that he never went back to Poindexter Lumber for fear of being caught.

“I knew it was wrong when I took it, but I didn’t have the money.”

The man apparently used the saw over the years in construction. He said he has built over 20 homes and 1,000 “odd jobs.”

“There was never a time when I picked up that saw that I wasn’t reminded how I got that saw.

“God has told me it’s time to do what’s right. I’ve learned my lesson. Crime doesn’t pay.”

Enclosed in the letter was $100.

“I feel better already,” were the final words of the confession.

There was no name or other identifying remarks. However, he joked that he started to enclose a check.

“I’d like to know who it is,” Selin said. “He made the effort. He could’ve just forgotten it.”

Harold Poindexter died in 1977. Selin wasn’t born until the late 1950s and cousin Bobby Poindexter was born after Bill.

Bobby discovered the box on the steps to the business on Sunday evening. He carried it inside, assuming that Bill knew what the saw was about.

Selin said when he first looked inside, he wondered if someone thought they did repairs there.

Then he saw the $100 and began reading the letter.

“Is this a gag?” Selin wondered. “For this guy to come back is flabbergasting.”

Certainly there are those people who thrill over getting the best of someone or a business.