Sun City woman gets lost cash back from mailman

SUN CITY, AZ - An 81-year-old woman is crediting her honest mailman for her Christmas spirit, after he returned the money she never even knew she lost.

“I was filling out my envelopes with money and it was quite a stack, so I put a rubber band around them and dropped them in the mailbox,” said Shirley Mae Barone.

Among her stack of Christmas cards, Barone inadvertently dropped a deposit envelope filled with $900 in cash.

Letter carrier Tom Dunlap discovered it on his shift the next day.

“I was like, Holy Cow,” said Dunlap. “I looked around for a second because I thought I was on Candid Camera. I thought somebody was playing a joke on me.”

The envelope was not marked, but Barone’s deposit slip was inside it, listing here name and address.

“I sat there a second and thought about it,” said Dunlap. “What should I do? What’s the right thing to do? And I said, man, I need to take this money back to this lady.”

Dunlap tried to take the cash back to Barone’s house, but she wasn’t home, so he left her a note and had the money locked up in the post office safe.

“When she called me, she was really excited, like she won the lottery,” said Dunlap. “She was like, ‘I’m so happy that you found my money!’”

“Well, I got a little emotional,” said Barone. “I didn’t think I would, but he was so young, and to do something like that at Christmas time, I’m sure he could have used the money.”

Instead, Dunlap brightened her holiday spirit and affirmed her faith in humanity.

“We should all think like that,” said Barone. “And that’s how people are. I always thought people were like that, and now I know for sure that they are.”

“It made me feel good, because one of the most important things for me is to set a good example for my kids,” said Dunlap.

Barone said Dunlap refused a monetary reward, so instead she gave him a thank you card and a rave review.

“I did tell the supervisor to give him a raise,” said Barone.