Inside an old safe: hidden cash, open feud

Globe ^ | June 13, 2009 | Peter Schworm

[george76]

For four decades, the 1-ton safe sat in the back of a family shoe store, and as the years rolled past, its secrets were seemingly forgotten. When the family closed up shop, renting the building to a shoe repairman, the safe stayed put. No one remembered the combination. No one knew what to do with it.

Now, everyone is rushing to stake a claim.

Dumped in a vacant lot in neighboring Lawrence last November as an obsolete, oversize nuisance, the old-fashioned vault was discovered to hold a small fortune - $178,496 in crisp currency. The money was packed in blue bank envelopes, wrapped in old Daher's Shoes shopping bags and a white Nike T-shirt, and tucked in a locked compartment.

The surprise discovery is the target of an intra-family court battle involving four competing parties, though none can explain why someone would stash so much money away and apparently not tell anyone.

John Belko, the widower of Joyce Belko, who ran Daher's for years before dying of cancer in 2003, believes the money rightfully belongs to her estate. Joyce Belko's brother, Ken Daher, who bought the property in 1996, says it belongs to him.

Even the tow truck driver who was paid $200 to haul the vault away says he should get the money, as he is the last person to possess the safe. And the state government, after learning about the contested windfall in local press accounts, is chasing the money...

Amid all the competing claims, the police department has had enough. Last week, the department filed a petition seeking to have Essex Superior Court take the money and determine its rightful owner.

[Ecliptic]

“Somebody needs to learn to keep their mouth shut.”

Really!!! Why on Earth would anyone go around telling everybody? I find money all the time but never turn it in (never more than $50)........

Finders keepers unless you hear of someone losing it and they can identify specifically where and how much...

[Orange1998]

I would donate it to the firefighters fund for job down well. Without them it would have never been found.

[Vermont Lt]

Somebody is an idiot for talking. When you find money, you quietly put it in your pocket and skulk away.

No good deed goes unpunished.

[Sacajaweau]

It goes to her widower. They worked for it.

Consider the firefighters one of those "God things"....and let the widower do a little donating...

[Arthur McGowan]

And those are 1969 dollars, and the dollar was worth a lot more in 1969!

[Orange1998]

Sounds fair, I second it.

[SunkenCiv]

Amid all the competing claims, the police department has had enough. Last week, the department filed a petition seeking to have Essex Superior Court take the money and determine its rightful owner.

Obviously the rightful owners will be the attorneys representing the various claimants -- $178K is tip money.

[cynwoody]

Possession is 9/10s of the law.

And secrecy is the crucial tenth tenth.

[Political Junkie Too]

How would this be resolved if the safe were found on a ship sunk in the ocean? Regardless of who found it, wouldn't the original country claim the treasure as its own?

-PJ