Broken Arrow Woman Retrieves Cash After It Falls Out Of Armored Truck

Tuesday, June 6th 2006, 11:12 am

By: News On 6

A Broken Arrow woman has a lost-and-found story of big proportions. She found a box filled with cash, but never thought about keeping it. She also never dreamed her story would garner so much attention.

News on 6 crime reporter Lori Fullbright says Teresa Stiles was pumping gas at a service station at 193rd and Elm in Broken Arrow when she saw a cash box fall out of a Brinks Armored truck as it passed on the street. "I just thought, did that just happen. I couldn't believe I'd just seen that happen. It was like something in the movies."

She was afraid a car would hit it, so as soon as it was clear, she darted into the street, scooped it up and when she couldn't find a phone number on the box, she immediately took it to Broken Arrow Police. "When you see Brinks, you think money and I thought I don't know how much is in there and I'm just taking it to the station, I don't want to have anything more to do with it."

Broken Arrow Police returned the box to Brinks and learned the money had come from a nearby Bank of America ATM.

Teresa didn't even know how much money was in the box, until we told her. Lori Fullbright: â€œSo, we found out today, there was $40,000 in it.â€ Teresa Stiles: "Oh My Gosh that really makes me nervous."

Teresa can't believe all the hubbub over her act of honesty. She was just trying to protect someone's money. â€œIf that was me and my deposit got lost, I'd be upset. That's all I was thinking about, people's money being in that box and it not being where it's supposed to be."

The folks at Brinks called and thanked Teresa and said they'd look into giving her some sort of reward. You can bet they'll also look into how a box of money fell off the back of one of their armored trucks.