Valley woman gets wallet back after it went missing 5 years ago

Many years ago, a Valley woman learned a tough lesson.

"I still don't carry cash to this day," said Alanna Jensen of Tempe. She lost her wallet five years ago while attending at a party in Seattle.

"We searched, literally, the whole house and couldn't find it anywhere," remembered Jensen.

ABC15 News caught up with Jensen Thursday as she was preparing to board a plane at Sky Harbor Airport headed home. She's headed back to Washington to reunite with her lost wallet.

"It was crazy when we found it," said 16-year-old Jack Wagster.

He was looking for his cell phone in the cushion of his friend's couch, when he stumbled across Alanna's Coach billfold stuffed with $650 in cash.

"There was just so much rushing through our minds, keep the money, not keep the money," said Wagster.

"We freaked out after we saw that," said Wagster's friend Nick Gorman. "We were very surprised. We had an ID and everything so we knew we could return it."

Jack and Nick, 15, took their found treasure to Nick's mother, Tracee. She had purchased the large, blue couch with reclining seats online for her family's bonus room.

When told about the wallet, Tracee jumped on the Internet to track down the wallet's owner.

"They typed it into Facebook and it found me," said Jensen.

"She was really excited to get the wallet back, it had been gone for so long that she was screaming like crazy and super excited. I felt really good about it," Wagster smiled.

The boys' good deed was rewarded. Alanna's parents gave each one $25 for returning the wallet and presented Nick's mom with a $20 Starbucks gift card.

"It says an amazing thing about how they were raised and who they are," Jensen said happily.