Heartsick camcorder donor seeks return of tapes

Peggy Thompson didn’t think twice when she donated some video cameras in August to the Salvation Army on Flamingo Road and Durango Drive.

It wasn’t until late November that the Las Vegas woman realized she had made a heartbreaking mistake.

Instead of the cameras she wanted to donate, she dropped off ones that contained home videos of her 12-year-old niece, Brittany, who died in2010.

“I went to go get the box and take it down to a camera store to put it on a disc for me,” Thompson said. “I opened it and it was full of (the intended) donations.”

Thompson posted a sign at the Salvation Army store in hopes that someone had bought the cameras and could return the tapes to her. She is offering a $200 reward for their return and asks anyone with information to call or text her at 970-405-5356.

Thompson, who was very close to her niece and referred to her as her daughter, also visited Salvation Army locations around Las Vegas and Henderson, but with no luck.

The two donated cameras were older models from the 1980s and 1990s and were in black bags. One of the cameras was a Canon.

Thompson said most of the photographs she had of her niece were lost when a basement flooded and those tapes were the only ones she had to remember her by.

Thompson hopes someone will give her the chance to relive those memories.