Billy Ray Harris (KCTV)
A Kansas City homeless man returned the favor when a generous woman decided to help him out by dropping some coins into his change cup.
Billy Ray Harris was more than surprised to find a large diamond ring among the coins in his plastic orange cup--dropped there accidentally by Sarah Darling last Friday, who had removed it and put it in her coin purse for safekeeping.
She stopped to give a little change to Harris, dumping the contents of her coin purse--ring and all--into his cup.
"My rings were bothering me, so I put them in my coin purse," Darling explained to KCTV. When she realized the next day what she had done, "[she] was so incredibly upset because, more than just the value of the ring, it had sentimental value."
Harris didn't notice the ring until more than an hour later.
"The ring was so big that I knew if it was real, it was expensive," Harris said.
When Darling came back the next day, she was surprised and thrilled by Harris's honesty.
"It seemed like a miracle. I thought for sure there was no way I would get it back," Darling said.
Harris said he never considered selling it and starting a new life with the cash.
"She squatted down like you did like right there and says ‘Do you remember me?' And I was like, ‘I don't know. I see a lot of faces,'" Harris said. "She says, ‘I might have gave you something very valuable.' I said, ‘Was it a ring?' And she says, ‘Yeah.' And I said ‘Well, I have it.'"
"My grandfather was a reverend. He raised me from the time I was 6 months old and thank the good Lord, it's a blessing, but I do still have some character," he said.
Darling gave Harris all the cash she had in her wallet as show of gratitude.
Harris said he once found a Super Bowl ring belonging to a retired Raiders player after hearing the player talk about how he'd lost the ring when he had jumped into a nearby creek with his friends. Harris walked over to the hotel where he guessed the player was staying and handed it over to the desk clerk, who made sure it was returned to its owner.