It was last August when residents in the greater Milwaukee area began suspecting that some of their mail was disappearing.
Specifically, greeting cards addressed to two Zip codes in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, seemed to never make it to their final destination.
What residents didn’t know then was that a U.S. Postal Service worker was ferreting away mail. For more than nine months, a mail carrier named Ebony Smith was — by her own later admission — plucking out greetings cards and stealing anything with cash value — gift cards, cash or checks — she found inside.
As complaints mounted, USPS officials identified that the mail was going missing on Smith's route.