The friends bought the couch from a Salvation Army store in February. According to The Little Rebellion, after watching a movie, students reported feeling wrinkles in two side cushions built into the couch. Werkhoven, a geology student at SUNY New Paltz, told CBS News, “There were these bubble wraps, just like two or three of them. “We ripped them out and it was like we panicked, like one and a half hundred dollar bills.” The friends almost ripped the couch apart in sheer confusion at what they had discovered. Once all the packages were opened, they quickly counted the money, taking pictures as they went. The total came to a staggering $41,000! “You keep counting more and more money and you get excited, like Reese is thinking about buying his mom a car and a boat,” said Russo, a SUNY graduate.
But the students’ joy turned into moral doubt when they saw that one of the envelopes had a woman’s name on it. “The right-hand man disappeared very quickly after finding this piece of paper with his name on it. Because we didn’t deserve this money,” said Guasti, a graduate of Mount Holyoke College. To find the real owner of the fortune, the students’ parents helped search for him. The parents also told their children not to tell anyone about the stash so it wouldn’t be stolen. “The right-hand man disappeared very quickly after finding this piece of paper with his name on it. Because we didn’t deserve this money,” said Guasti, a graduate of Mount Holyoke College.
To find the real owner of the fortune, the students’ parents helped search for him. The parents also told their children not to tell anyone about the stash so it wouldn’t be stolen. Werkhoven’s mother eventually found the woman in a phone book and the young man called her. “I’m like, ‘I found something I think is yours,’ and she’s like, ‘What?!’ and I’m like, ‘I found a couch,’ and then she’s like, ‘Oh my God, I left a lot of money there.’” “I found a couch,” Werkhoven said. Friends of the old woman, who wished to remain anonymous, said she told them her ailing husband gave her a lot of money before he died so that she would have some after he died. Not knowing where to put it, she hid it under the old sofa in her room. She said she had kept her savings on the couch for 30 years. Not long ago, she had to undergo back surgery and spent a few months in a recovery center.
While she was there, her doctors told her children to get her a new couch to help with her back pain. That’s what happened at the Salvation Army. “We almost didn’t choose that sofa,” Russo told thelittlerebellion.com. “It’s pretty ugly and smells, but it was the only sofa that had the right dimensions for our living room.” The three people said they didn’t feel guilty about doing the right thing and even went to dinner with the old woman and her family after returning the money. “I think anyone can do good if they want to,” Werkhoven told CBS News. “I think it happened the way it was supposed to, and to be honest, I don’t think much about it,” Russo added. But the Good Samaritans didn’t walk away with nothing. The woman gave the three children $1,000 to share!
