Paulding Man Receives Sheriff’s ‘Good Samaritan Award’

According to a Paulding County Sheriff’s Office news release, on June 1 of this year, Paulding resident Madison White left her residence in the late evening hours to go on vacation with her family. When she arrived at her vacation destination, she realized something that every traveler fears—that she had lost all of her vacation money.

White was unsure where she lost the satchel that contained more than $1,900 cash as well as Social Security cards, bank account information and other personal information. Since she did not know where she lost her belongings, she did not know where to begin the search. She thought the belongings were gone forever.

About 6:50 a.m. on June 2, Nathan Geyer was on his way to work when he noticed a small satchel in his yard. To his amazement, he found the more than $1,900 along with other personal documents that obviously belonged to someone else. Without hesitation, he called 911 and told them what he found. A Paulding County deputy responded to the scene to speak with Geyer and subsequently took all of the items into evidence for safekeeping.

Through the course of the evening, the money and other personal items were left outside over night and had gotten wet. When the items got wet, they became difficult to read and made it troublesome for detectives to determine whom the items belonged to. After a lengthy investigation, and following up on several dead ends, detectives were finally able to determine who the money belonged to.

Sheriff Gary Gulledge commended Geyer on his honesty and integrity and presented him with a Good Samaritan Award from the Paulding County Sheriff’s Office.

“It takes a lot for a young man to turn in that amount of money this day in age, it renews my faith in the human spirit to know that there are still honest people left in the world,” Gulledge said in Friday’s news release.

The Paulding County Sheriff’s Office commends the actions of Nathan Geyer and also encourages anyone that finds property, money or other items to contact authorities to turn them in.