Purple hearts, illicit love letters and toenail clippings: How the state handles abandoned safe deposit boxes

For years, an engraved Purple Heart medal for World War II veteran Edward T. McCabe sat in a Massachusetts safe deposit box.

He died in 1982. His children, who shared ownership of the safe deposit box, also died. Today, it’s one of two Purple Hearts the state‘s Unclaimed Property Division of the Treasurer’s Office is trying to reconnect with its rightful owners.

The majority of the more than $4 billion in property the division handles is money. But there’s also physical property, mostly items from long-abandoned safe deposit boxes, said Mark William Bracken, assistant treasurer and director of the Unclaimed Property Division.

After a year of nonpayment on a safe deposit box, the bank opens it, but holds onto the contents for seven more years. Then it gets turned over to the state.

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