Thief From 1955 Gives Iowa Catholic College $500
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An anonymous letter with $500 and a plea for forgiveness sheds some light on a long-forgotten crime at an Iowa Catholic college.
The writer admitted stealing a portable radio from a teacher's lounge at Clarke College in Dubuque in 1955. The writer tried to make amends by slipping five $100 bills into the mailing sent last week to college president Sister Joanne Burrows.
It seeks forgiveness, saying the money was to be used by current faculty.
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The letter bears few clues to the writer's identity: It has a fake return address and a Chicago postmark.
Burrows says no one is around at Clarke who would have remembered the theft. She says "good Catholic guilt" probably weighed on the writer's conscience all these years.