Good Samaritan finds $6K in trash, returns it

MANASSAS, Va. (FOX 5 DC) - Imagine throwing away more than $6,000 - you frantically dumpster dive the next day, praying you'll find it, but turn up nothing.

Then imagine that an unlikely hero comes to the rescue.

Morgan Burnley was taking out the trash when she noticed something strange while closing the lid - a wad of money, just sitting on the ground, right next to the garbage.

"There were a couple hundreds, fives, ones twenties, fifties, all bills," Burnley recalled.

Burnley is no stranger to hard work. She wears many hats at the Papa John's on Route 1 in Stafford when she's not at her second job in Manassas.

But this hard-working pie slinger says she never thought to stash the cash she found - $6,606 to be exact.

"That's not the right thing to do. Because someone is looking for that. If I lost that amount of money, I'd hope someone else would turn it in," Burnley said.

And she was right. The next day, co-workers found a local business owner dumpster diving for the dough.

"So what would have happened if she hadn't turned this in. This simply would have been a lost property call and the owner never would have gotten his money back," Stafford County Sheriff's Office Major Shawn Kimmitz said.

The Stafford County Sheriff's Office was so impressed with Burnley's act that they presented her with a Challenge Coin.

Meanwhile, Burnley offers up a slice of advice to anyone else in her position.

"Remember your morals! Remember your morals and remember what your parents told you when you were young," Burnley said.

But Burnley didn't walk away from the experience empty handed.

In addition to receiving the coin from the Sheriff's Office, the grateful business owner also gave her a small reward.