MURFREESBORO, Tenn. – Billie Watts said she was tempted but couldn’t bring herself to keep $97,000 she said she found in a Cracker Barrel restroom. The 75-year-old Murfreesboro woman told The Daily News Journal that she discovered the money inside a tapestry bag hanging from a hook on a stall door last Thursday.
But five days later, the money and its anonymous owner remain something of a mystery in the community, where police said they have no report of the find. While digging through the bag to figure out its owner, Watts said she found a bundle of neatly stacked bills. Watts said she and her husband took the money home, but later called the restaurant back and asked if there was a lost-and-found department. She was told yes, and left her number.
A woman called about 15 minutes later and verified she was the owner by identifying pictures left in the bag. Watts returned the bag to the owner, whom she described as an elderly woman, but said she does not have the woman’s last name or phone number.
Watts said the woman told her that the money came from selling her home and her belongings and that she was going to start a new life in Florida with her son. Watts said the woman offered to pay her $1,000, but Watts refused it.
A manager of the Cracker Barrel restaurant, Bill Shupp, said no employees actually saw the money or the elderly owner.
If you found $97,000 in cash in a Cracker Barrel Bathroom, would you contact ‘Lost and Found?’ My guess is the lady who lost the money didn’t trust banks… go figure.
2 Old School ladies. One carrying $100k in cash around and the other finds it and gives it back.
A sad day in America when the hermetically-sealed mayonnaise jar buried in the backyard is now (again) the new standard for monetary security. Glad this lost money situation worked out…had it been left in the Men’s Room, soooo long, suckah!
I’d have refused the $1,000, but I would have taken lunch at the Cracker Barrel any day.
97K$ wasn’t gonna change the finder’s life, on the other hand it would have destroyed the loser’s life. It’s a values lesson, some people are smart or intuitive enough to know that every decision you make effects the way you see yourself and your world and some people just aren’t for sale.
Who leaves their life savings in a tapestry bag hanging on a hook inside a Cracker Barrel restroom? I don’t get it. You’d have to be delusional to do something like that. Or not care about money.
I’m scared to put more than $100 cash in my wallet .
That would never happen here.
Just the money, maybe I’d keep it but the tapestry bag, pictures and that old lady smell.. I’d give it back only I’d have accepted the $1k as a reward because hse could have lost it all
Now I remember why I like Cracker Barrel….
😀
And, yes, I’d have returned it. However, I think the local PD or IRS probably would be sufficiently interested that calling them might be a good idea….
I was in a slightly similar situation about 40 years ago. Two old-maid aunts in Pittsburgh sold their house and kept the proceeds under the mattress. My uncle found out about it, and hauled the cash back home here. Scared the crap out of him having $40K in the car….
He could have called me :D….
Regards
After returning the money, the original owner was arrested for having “too much cash.”
Which, as far as I can tell, is actually a crime these days.
Who you are is what you do when you think no one is looking.
The kind of people who would take the money, typically are the kind of people who:
1. eventually end up in jail
2. or fired from a good job
look, a bathroom has a bath in it
a restroom has somewhere to relax
do you mean a toilet?
One word… Karma.
Dementia – explains both the decision to carry the money around and the act of leaving it in the bathroom. Unfortunately, the demented (i.e. US as we reach advanced age) are easy victims for sociopaths.
What are they thinking?! That money belongs in the Hole.
http://www.theonion.com/content/video/in_the_know_should_the_government
i dont get it with these money stories…
how the hell is someone so careless with such an amount of money???
The old lady who lost the money “should have” offered 10% finders fee. In fact, since too many people are this self-centered, it should be made the law==and if neither party wants to participate, then the money should go to the government.
I’ve lost my wallet a few times and had busboys, waiters, bus driver return it to me. I have always offered ALL the cash that was in the wallet, thankful for the return of the other items.
In full face of someone else’s honesty and generosity, its “amusing” to see how stingy and self centered most people are.
Hateful Hoomans.
NO. If she did the right thing, we would not know about it.
Why not take the money? why does everyone applaud her morality? what if the owner was a thief who stole the money from orphans? as improbable as that might be. we can never know to 100% the consequences of our actions, so why not take the money and use it as best and as reasonably we see fit?
#19–assdrag==good question.
I think the answer is “karma.” Or, in being “not a hypocrite.”
If you don’t return the money, then how can you complain/fee injured if anyone/life treats you poorly?
I think its an effort to bring meaning to an existential universe. If the meaning is to be scratching at the bottom of the barrel, that works too, but its not uplifting.
Must be that time of the month. Local (to me) bus driver finds and returns $80K to Brinks. http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/News/Local/2008/12/10/7702536.html
I wouldn’t give it back, but only because 100K hanging in a bathroom, I assume it has something to do with drugs.
This whole story reeks. No one saw the lady in the restaurant. The police have no report. Thousand dollar bills? Balony! Hate to be the devil’s advocate here, but it sounds like a lady making up a story. She needs dental work & what better way to get it for free than looking like a good samaritan. Sorry. I Don’t buy it.
Running in to a bug where the server won’t render the text of the article until I post. Ignore this pls.
I agree with the poster who thinks this story is bunk. So many things don’t make sense. $1000 bills have been out of circulation for decades. It’s highly unlikely that anyone would have 97 of them. That would mean that whoever bought this woman’s house paid in $1000 bills. Just ridiculous. And who carries around the cash from the sale of all of their earthly possessions? You have to be pretty stupid to carry it around with you and carelessly leave it in a restroom stall.
Ok..this is just damn rediculous!!! The grandson obviously thought of this scheme in order to get his grnadma’s teeth fixed for the holiday’s..man I tell ya…the world is full of them.
But, you gotta give it to them…they thought of a good one…just messed up with the $1,000 dollar bills that aren’t even made anymore!!
I guess we’re all just supposed to be stupid right??…LOL
nah, she just sold some killer weed the kinfolk were growing in the mountains, then spaced out and forgot where she left the cash.
Sure I believe it. The same thing happened to me last week. I was in McDonalds and I went to the men’s room and found $10,000,000,000 in $1000 bills in a garbage bag. I took it home and later called the restaurant to see if anybody lost anything. Sure enough a little old man said he lost a bag with some money in it. I gave it back to him and he wanted to give me a reward but I wouldn’t take it.
The cops can confiscate large amounts of money even though it isn’t stolen. Its better than selling tickets to the policeman’s ball.
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ON MAY 25, 2012 I ATE LUNCH AT THE CRACKERBARRELL AT EXIT 10 SEFNER FL INTERSTATE 4. AFTER GETTING LEMON JUICE ON MY HANDS FROM EATING FISH, I WENT TO THE RESTROOM TO WASH MY HANDS. I TOOK OFF MY 3 CARET DIAMOND WEDDING RINGS AND FORGOT THEM. I WISH I WOULD BE SO LUCKY AS TO FIND THE PERSON THAT FOUND THEM. MY 75 YO HUSBAND WHO IS IN THIRD STAGE RENAL FAILURE AND 42 MEDS A DAY GAVE ME THOSE RINGS MANY YEARS AGO. HE HAS THE MATCHING WEDDING BAND. ANY SUGGESTIONS????