Illinois State Treasurer Michael Frerichs Seeks Additional Help with Operation Purple Heart
SPRINGFIELD – Illinois State Treasurer Michael Frerichs urges people to assist with Operation Purple Heart, an unprecedented mission to return 11 Purple Heart medals to their rightful owners.
The military honors were submitted to the Illinois State Treasurer’s Office for safekeeping and return as part of the Unclaimed Property program, also known as I-Cash or missing money.
Military medals are among the most difficult items to return because neither the Armed Forces nor the federal government
maintains a comprehensive list of awardees.
In an effort to find the rightful owners, the Illinois State Treasurer’s Office is releasing additional information that the
owners or their relatives might recognize. A thorough vetting of inquiries will occur once an electronic claim is made at www.
illinoistreasurer.gov/icash.
Misrepresenting oneself in an effort to recover unclaimed property is a crime, will not be tolerated, and the state treasurer’s
office will seek prosecution to the fullest extent of the law, especially with regard to military honors.
Each of the 11 Purple Heart medals was inside a bank safe deposit box. Each bank determined the safe deposit box as
abandoned because the owner(s) of the box had not touched it in several years. As a result, the contents of each safe deposit
box were turned over to the Illinois State Treasurer’s Office.
In most cases, the conflict in which the Purple Heart was awarded, such as World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam or
Desert Storm, is unclear or unknown.
The names below are the names associated with the bank safe deposit box and might not be the name of the awardee. The
dates below correspond to when the contents of the bank safe deposit box containing the Purple Heart were turned over to
the treasurer’s office, not when the medal was earned or awarded:
Robert Cawthon, submitted to the Illinois State Treasurer’s Office Nov. 1, 1992, from Fifth-Third Bank in Oak Park.
Raymond Wilson, submitted to the Illinois State Treasurer’s Office Nov. 13, 1995.
Lawrence M. Burns, submitted to the Illinois State Treasurer’s Office Nov. 5, 1997.
Linda K. Moore, submitted to the Illinois State Treasurer’s Office Oct. 17, 2001.
Bernice Smith, submitted to the Illinois State Treasurer’s Office Nov. 18, 2002.
David Gorski, submitted to the Illinois State Treasurer’s Office Oct. 30, 2003.
Vincent G. Tuttle, submitted to the Illinois State Treasurer’s Office Oct. 25, 2018.
Toni Alexander, submitted to the Illinois State Treasurer’s Office Oct. 26, 2018.
Isbell Servina, or Mary A. Shayer, or Vincent P. Shayer, submitted to the Illinois State Treasurer’s Office Oct. 31, 2018. It is believed they lived in Chicago. Each name was on the safe deposit box. A will for Mary and a Trust for Vincent also was in the safe deposit box.
Michelle Steward or Patricia VanHasselaere, submitted to the Illinois State Treasurer’s Office Oct. 31, 2018.
Kenneth Wiest, submitted to the Illinois State Treasurer’s Office Oct. 23, 2019.
Since 2015, the Illinois State Treasurer’s Office has successfully reunited seven Purple Hearts with their owners or heirs. It did so through an internal investigatory process, and the office is required by law to try to return unclaimed property no matter how long it takes. Private entities holding abandoned or misplaced property are not compelled to try to identify nor locate the owner.
