The woman whose Ross Simons earrings were stolen off of her porch by a possum last month got a replacement pair from the company, and some more good news as well.
“I went the next morning to get my nails done and the woman next to me is like you’re the possum lady aren’t you?” Betsy Lockhart said.
It’s the story that’s got legs, albeit four little ones that took off with Betsy Lockhart’s Ross-Simons hoop earrings a little more than a week ago after they were delivered to her Fairfield home.
“It’s just been fun for everyone,” Lockhart said.
While Lockhart and her family and friends have gotten plenty of laughs out of the possum caught on camera stealing her earrings, she never expected what would come to her door next, a possum-proof delivery, sealed with warning labels to any potential possum predators!
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Inside the heavily padded package, a brand new pair of the same hoop earrings she’d ordered and a hand-written note from the president and CEO of Ross-Simons.
“We have a number of business partners in the greater New York and Connecticut area that actually saw it on the news and reached out to us and said, you’ll never believe what happened to one of your products, so we got a real kick out of it,” Jim Spletz, president and CEO of Ross-Simons said.
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Spletz said making things right for Betsy was the least his company could do, especially at a time when porch piracy is at its height around the holidays.
“When the thief in question turned out to be mother nature, we really all had a good laugh and it seemed like something that everybody needs, a good feel-good story right about now,” Spletz said.
Believe or not, the story gets even better.
“I had no idea it was in Connecticut and then Betsy called us,” Dara Reid, director of Wildlife in Crisis said.
Reid takes in a couple of hundred possums a year and now Betsy, Ross-Simons and Amazon are making a donation to her cause.
“We’re very honored and we hope the possum is doing well that’s our most important concern,” Reid said.
It seems that the now-infamous possum is doing OK. The missing package was finally found under a pile of leaves in Betsy’s neighbor’s yard and covered in tiny bite marks, returned by her neighbor to the scene of the crime.
“It’s been so much fun and hopefully people got a laugh out of it because again we all just need something to laugh about these days,” Lockhart said.
Amazon also sent Lockhart a new pair of the same earrings. She now has three pairs and an even better story.
