Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, June 28, 1994                   TAG: 9406300064
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By RON BROWN STAFF WRITER NOTE: Below
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

IT SURE WAS TEMPTING, BUT SOME GUYS AREN'T GREEDY

Paul Talley said he never entertained the notion of keeping the more than $600 he found in an envelope.

Bob Williams, who found more than $1,000 in a purse, said playing the good Samaritan doesn't always pay.

But both men are driven by the same guiding principle.

"You have to live with yourself," Williams said.

Roanoke police Monday reported that both men recently had turned in money they could just as easily have kept.

So far, nobody has claimed the money. The owners will have to call the Roanoke Police Department to do that.

If nobody claims it in two months, Talley and Williams will get it.

Williams found the purse after it blew off the top of a van Friday night on Roy L. Webber Highway. Talley found the envelope in the parking lot of Hechinger's, at Valley View Mall, where he is a warehouse manager.

Williams had just left his job as a salesman at Haley Toyota and was driving north on the highway toward Elm Avenue when he saw the purse tumble from the top of a van onto the middle of a lane.

He pulled to the side of the road and turn on his emergency flashers. As he walked back toward the purse, cars swerved to avoid it. One ran into the shoulder of the road where he was walking, playing "chicken" with him before swerving back into the traffic lane, he said.

"The cars didn't mind flying by," Williams said.

When he saw his way clear, he darted onto the road and picked up the purse.

Inside were small bills, stacked about four inches high. There was no identification in the purse.

Williams' first thought was that he didn't want the money around.

"Oh, s---," he recalled saying to himself. "This is drug money."

He took it home to Bedford County, where he and his wife counted it on their kitchen table.

"She had a big stack and I had a big stack," he said.

Williams started thinking that the money might belong to a vendor who had worked all week to earn it. "Obviously, whoever lost it had to work very hard," he said.

Then they started thinking about the best way to return it to its owner.

Williams ruled out putting a classified ad in the newspaper. "We'll have every kind of crazy person calling," he told his wife.

Finally, he decided to call Roanoke police, who told him to bring it downtown Saturday evening, when he left work.

Talley found the envelope stuffed with money two weeks ago. He picked it up and started to throw it away. His better judgment told him to look inside.

Talley then turned it over to the store's management, which kept it in a safe until it was given to police.

"Well, it wasn't mine," Talley said. "That much money would mean a lot to me. I figured someone else would be looking for it."

Williams said that sometimes the people who try to do right are surprised by the people they try to help.

Several years ago, he picked up a poodle, which had been struck in the road. He ran up a several-hundred-dollar tab as the vet nursed the dog back to good health.

The happy owners finally picked up their mended dog. They left him the bill.