Teen finds envelope with almost $13K in cash, turns it in to police

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    SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. (KPHO/KTVK) — A Scottsdale teenager found an envelope full of cash and credit cards in a mall parking lot and turned it in to police, who were able to track down the rightful owner.

“What’s going through my mind is, somebody wants this back and I want to find out who and make sure they can get it back,” said Jack Davis, a freshman at Rancho Solano Preparatory.

In November, a woman who works at a nail salon at The Promenade in Scottsdale became sick at work and decided she needed to leave. “I got really dizzy and I tell them, I cannot stay, I have to go home,” explained Thu Dinh.

Once she got to her car, she realized she couldn’t drive. By this point, she was repeatedly getting sick. She called for her husband to come pick her up and while she was waiting, she got medicine out of her purse but forgot to zip the purse back up.

As she drove off in her husband’s vehicle to the hospital, she opened the door and got sick again, that’s when the envelope fell out of her purse without her realizing.

“I think about an hour later, somebody called me and asked me, had I lost something, I said ‘I’m dying right now I don’t know what I lost!'” Dinh said.

The person who called was an officer with Scottsdale Police Department. The 15-year-old and his mom were on their way into Nordstrom Rack when he came upon the envelope. He says he was in the right place at the right time to find it.

“If we parked on the other, you know, opposite side of that row of parking spaces we probably very well would have not noticed it,” Davis said.

Davis said his curiosity is what made him pick up the envelope as it looked like it was full. And it was. Inside, there was $12,900 in cash and Dinh’s license and credit cards. He instantly knew he had to find who it belonged to.

“It’s a lot of money and somebody had to work very hard for it,” Davis said. “It takes a lot of work to make a little bit of money and I respect people who go out and they work very hard to get a better life for themselves and make more money.”

Dinh said she withdrew her money out of her bank accounts out of fear, due to the pandemic.

Davis and his mom brought it to a Scottsdale police precinct, who not only got in touch with Dinh to return her money, but also connected the two strangers.

“I said ‘Oh my god, I’m very, very lucky that God give to somebody that’s very, very nice to find that envelope,” Dinh said. “Every night time I pray. Every time I pray, I remember Jack.”

“She just reacted very happily. That, in itself, is worth everything that was in that envelope and more,” Davis said. “Getting someone’s money back to them isn’t always saving their life but it is doing the right thing and that’s what counts.”

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