♦ You've likely heard of three coins in the fountain, but that was nothing like Charlie Banbrook's find last week
by Maria Koropecky
the Peninsula News Review newspaper
Wednesday, September 9, 1998, page 2
A good Samaritan with excellent detective skills found $4,150 and returned the stash to its rightful owners.
Charlie Banbrook, owner of Western 66 on Mt. Newton X Road, was doing some routine cleaning up around the motel grounds on Tuesday, September 1. As he gathered some stray paper and plastic from around the fountain in the well-used gravel parking lot, he picked up what appeared at first to be just another dirty plastic bag, this one scarred with tire tracks.
"I was just going to toss the baggie into my bucket but when I looked a little closer, I noticed something different about it," he said.
He opened the average-appearing zip-lock sandwich bag and found $2,000 worth of travelers cheques. But what caught his eye right away was the cash — about another $2000.
After his first feelings of incredulity subsided, his detective skills took over. Because of the travelers cheques, Banbrook was able to trace the money to a couple from Scotland who stayed at the motel the night before, but they had already checked out.
He followed his feeling that they had not yet left the area, and began his search. His first call was to Butchart Gardens because he figured "everybody goes there." He called the Gardens, gave them the license plate number and sure enough, there they were.
When first found by staff, the couple had discovered their loss, and were feeling overwrought. They were sitting outside the gates, looking glum, not knowing what to do next, he said.
When Banbrook got the couple on the telephone, he asked simply: "Did you lose something?" When the answer was a firm ‘yes’, he told them to come back to the Western 66 so he could return what he'd found. Neither party needed to say what the item was.
"I was just tickled when they came back," said Banbrook. "They were shaking — white as ghosts." The couple, in their 50s, told him they had been saving the money for 10 years so they could take this trip to Canada.
They offered Banbrook a reward but he didn't accept it.
"You don't need rewards for things like that," he said. "To see the look on their faces when they got back was reward enough for me."
It also never occurred to Banbrook to keep the money for himself. "I was brought up on a farm in the Prairies and was taught to be honest."
The woman concluded the money must have just fallen out of the fanny-pack she was wearing but she didn't know when it had happened.
Now that they've been reunited with their savings, the happy couple have gone to another land of fantasy and enchantment — Disneyland.
