HENRICO COUNTY, Va. — Marsha Witherspoon was headed to breakfast after dropping her granddaughter at daycare when something caught her eye along Brittles Lane and Farrand Street in Henrico County.
"I just saw some papers in the ground, in the street. So I kept driving a little bit, and I said, 'Wait, that's mail!'" Witherspoon said.
She turned around and discovered a trail of scattered mail that stretched nearly a quarter mile.
"Wow, that could be my mail. In my head, I'm thinking that could be something I'm looking for," she said.
The envelopes were addressed to people across the state—from Henrico to Fredericksburg, Farmville, even Appomattox.
"The mail was everywhere, coming from everywhere," Witherspoon said. "It was so much mail, it felt like we was never going to finish. It was just so much."
Among the discarded items, Witherspoon says she found checks, car decals and even birthday cards with the contents missing.
"You don't realize how important mail is until you're waiting for something. That could've been someone's check or something life-changing," she said.
Witherspoon spent more than an hour collecting the discarded mail.
"Just think I always have the mindset that I would want somebody to do it for me. Because that could have been I could have been looking for a check. I could have been looking for my own decals on my truck," she said.
After collecting the mail, she turned it in to a nearby U.S. Postal Service office and reported the incident.
"It could be a matter of a life and death of a document that was just throughout the window," she said. "You don't understand than the importance of mail or the importance of people waiting for certain documents to come in."
CBS 6 has been in contact with a spokesperson for USPS who says they are looking into the incident. Updates will be provided when more details are released.
This is a developing story. Email the CBS 6 Newsroom if you have additional information to share.
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