Delco homeowner surprised to find ‘significant amount of cash’ in mailbox

It had all the markings of a good, old-fashioned bit of porch piracy.

The man appeared one recent morning in front of a Nether Providence home. He looked to be between 20 and 30 years old, around 5 feet, 8 inches tall and balding. He wore a black puffer jacket.

For a long while, he paced back and forth in front of the home in the 300 block of South Providence Road.

Then, he opened the mailbox, fiddled with something inside, and walked away.

When the homeowner who witnessed the incident later went to investigate, however, she was struck by what she found. Inside her mailbox was what Nether Providence police are calling “a significant amount of cash.”

In a season more closely associated with pinched parcels and pilfered packages, police in this Delco township are now attempting to get to the bottom of something far more novel: An individual apparently passing out large sums of money through the mail.

So far, authorities have been left stumped; a spokesperson for the Nether Providence police on Thursday called the incident an “open investigation” but declined to comment beyond a brief news release issued earlier this week on the matter, which occurred shortly before 11 a.m. on Dec. 6.

One theory is that the delivery could have been a simple mix-up: According to the homeowner who discovered the cash, the property once housed a psychiatrist’s office, and she suspected the money could’ve been left by a former patient unaware that the previous owner was no longer there.

Still, police are asking that anyone with information about the curious delivery — or the individual behind it — contact them at 610-892-2875.

“NPPD is urging anyone with information to come forward as detectives work to determine the circumstances surrounding the cash drop-off and identify the individual involved,” according to the department news release.