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.
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.