Within an hour of closing on his first home, Josh Ferrin, an artist for the Deseret News, used the keys to take his first official look inside. While taking it all in, he noticed a tiny scrap of carpet peeking out of a small door in the ceiling of a workshop at the back of the garage. He got a ladder and climbed up to explore the unseen space. It was dark and musty, but Ferrin could see a black metal box sitting there. It was a heavy metal box—the kind used to haul ammunition during World War II—and it was filled with cash (more than $45,000), old stamps, bond certificates, and other random memorabilia.

And he gave it all back!

"You can't make plans for money like this," Ferrin said. "It just doesn't feel right to do anything but give it back. So I immediately closed it, locked it in my truck, and called my wife. 'You won't believe what I just found.'" His wife Tara immediately knew the couple had to return the money to its rightful owners.

But Arnold Bangerter, the former homeowner, had passed away in November 2010, and his youngest son, Dennis Bangerter, the executor of Bangerter's estate, had just signed the 1950s red-brick rambler away. It took at least three hours for the Ferrins to sort and count the box-full of cash, all the while teaching a lesson of honesty to their two young sons, who wanted to keep "just one" of the bundles and kept trying to slip coins into their pockets.

"The house needs some work," Josh Ferrin said. "I could use the $45,000 for remodeling, but he didn't save that money for us. He saved it for his family. I never considered the money mine. You can't allow yourself to think like that."