Earlier this month, I wrote about John Helling's frustration about the Bank of New York Mellon's discovery last year of money that should have paid to his mother well before her death in 1983. It turns out that her lost money was among 1,887 uncashed cashier's checks issued in the 1980s and payable to Minnesotans, according to records provided to Whistleblower after I made a data practices request to the Minnesota Department of Commerce.

In August 2008, Bank of New York Mellon provided Commerce with $90,872.60, a 95-page list of account holders and a one-paragraph letter of explanation from a man named Seswick Perry, who works for the bank. His letter, addressed to "Gentlemen," says, in part,:

"Enclosed are EBT checks and checks from Mutual fund security accounts that have been defunct for some time. The Bank of New York Mellon has done due diligence mailing and has decided to escheat the balance from these accounts as a supplementary."

As far as Gladys Helling's money, the records indicate eight checks issued from July 1980 to February 1982, when she was still alive, but no longer living at the St. Paul address on the checks.The records do not shed light on the question that truly intrigues John Helling: whether the original source of Gladys Helling's money was her mysterious globetrotting brother, Donald Caldwell, who died in his sister's Cleveland Avenue apartment in 1970.

People don't need to do a data practices act request to see whether they or their relatives are on the list. Instead, this property has been integrated into the giant pot of unclaimed money maintained by the state. Visit the state Department of Commerce Unclaimed Property web site to see if you're owed a share.