Parking ticket paid 31 years late

Calumet, Mich. -- A parking ticket issued in Calumet, Mich., 31 years ago has finally been paid, but the payer remains anonymous, authorities say.

Calumet parking enforcement officer Marsha Johnson, who wrote the ticket in 1976, said she was clueless as to why someone would send an envelope with a $20 bill to pay the ticket more than three decades later, the (Houghton, Mich.) Daily Mining Gazette said Friday.

"That would have been me, I wrote the ticket, and she finally paid," said Johnson, whose last name was Garcia at the time the ticket was issued. "I wonder what made her pay it. Just her conscience?"

The money arrived in April, accompanied by a reminder of the date of the parking violation and a note.

"I always had good intentions of paying it. I put it aside and every once in a while I would come across it and said 'some day I'm going to pay it.' Now I think it's time," the scofflaw wrote.

Police said they have no plans to investigate who may have sent the money and the note

Copyright 2008 by United Press International.