Kenneth Allen found the bag with nearly $13,000 dollars at a gas station Saturday, and then contacted police to return it to the owner.CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. -
A Good Samaritan returned nearly $13,000 in cash after finding the large sum of money in a bank bag in a trash can outside a local convenience store.
Clarksville police said Kenneth Allen found the bank bag sitting on top of a trash can outside Chum's Discount Tobacco Store on Peachers Mill Road Saturday evening.
"I went up and checked the bag and found a lot of money in there. I saw hundreds of dollars bills galore," Allen told Nashville's News 2.
Inside the bag was a man's wallet and $12,764 in cash.
Allen attempted to contact the owner by phone and then at the home address listed on the driver's license inside the wallet, but was unsuccessful, so he called Clarksville police.
Officers were able to locate the 51-year-old owner and found out he had a reaction to his medication and was hospitalized. That's why the bag was left at the convenience store.
Clarksville police were able to return the money to the man.
Jim Knoll with the Clarksville Police Department said it could've ended differently.
Knoll said, "You probably want to get it out of your hands. This could have easily gone a couple of different ways, could have been money taken in a robbery after a night drop."
Allen says he believes he was meant to find the bag of money.
Allen said, "About 5:38 is when we showed up and found it and noticed it, so for like 47 minutes people walked by no one noticed it, touched it, no one even seemed to see it there. We were meant to find it."
The only reason he stopped at the store was to grab something to drink on the way home.
Allen, who just accepted a job to teach math in the public school system, says he never even thought about keeping the money.
He actually laughed about something else left in the bag- a bottle of cologne.
Allen says the man who left the cash called him and said he's one in a million.
The two men plan to meet each other sometime soon.
