Our Own Sherlock Holmes Finds Owner of Stolen Purse
Friday, May 18, 2007 3:52 PM
Regina Wilkerson was packing her bags in her hotel room at the downtown Hyatt two days ago, preparing to fly back home to Virginia after a Houston seminar.
This had been a bad trip. On Wednesday, the day she was scheduled to return home, her handbag had been stolen - and it had contained cash, jewelry, credit cards, identification cards and notes, among other items. Then the phone rang with some unbelievably good news.
"She kept saying, ‘Oh my God, you're kidding,'" recalls Kristian Pipkins, 31, the customer service rep in METRO's Lost & Found department and Wilkinson's new BFF (best friend forever).
The story of the stolen purple purse - a floral fabric bag - started with its disappearance at the Hyatt earlier on Wednesday. Wilkerson filed a report with the Houston Police Department.
A few hours later, a cleaning man found the handbag in the men's restroom on the first floor of METRO's headquarters in the Ride Store. The purse looked like it had been ransacked - and to the janitor's credit, he fished out papers from the trash he had a hunch belonged in the handbag.
Forty minutes and five phone calls later, Pipkins found the owner. His search included calling Southwest Airlines (the itinerary had been fished out of the trash) and the owner's parents whose number he found on a planner page in the purse. Pipkins even used his personal cell phone to make the long-distance call.
The Sherlock Holmes detective work is routine for Pipkins and the Lost & Found staff, which includes Virginia Hickey, supervisor, and two other reps, Jo Marie Castaneda and Yinka Omotunwashe.
"If we get a purse that has some kind of phone number in it, we will try to call. We're always looking for a name," says Pipkins. "Helping somebody get that stuff back, that's what we do. It's exciting for them, but that's what we're paid to do. We enjoy doing it.
Pipkin, the married father of nine children ages 11 months to 11 years, has worked at METRO for three years. Before that, the patient and polite rep worked in customer service and technical support.
When Wilkerson picked up her purse enroute to the airport - the cash and jewelry were missing. But everything else was in her purse. For Wilkerson, it was a fairytale ending to a nightmare...thanks to a METRO employee who wouldn't give up.