Las Vegas visitors are reunited with lost wallet

Heather Rawlyk

Monday, Nov. 3, 2003 | 11:19 a.m.

In a city known for relieving tourists of their money, a vacationing couple recently were reunited with their bankroll.

Len Ricks of Nashville, Tenn., discovered shortly after landing at McCarran International Airport last week that she had lost her wallet, containing her driver's license, credit cards and more than $200 in cash. Her husband, Donald, was traveling to Las Vegas by motorcycle.

Luckily for Len Ricks, 47, her wallet also included a detailed phone list, with the names and phone numbers of friends and family members.

It was even more fortunate that her wallet ended up in the hands of local residents Jerry and Clare Fitch, who were returning home from a family reunion in Florida.

Jerry Fitch, a retired state of Nevada engineer, noticed a wallet lying in the aisle in front of him on the plane. The 75-year-old Fitch picked up the wallet and planned to turn it in to airport officials.

Clare Fitch, who is retired from the Las Vegas Public Works Department, said her husband forgot about the wallet until the next day.

"The next day when I came home from church, I found this wallet on the table," she said. "My husband then told me that he had found the wallet on the plane and he had forgotten all about it."

The Fitches immediately opened the wallet to try to find identification, then began trying numbers on the phone list.

"From her license we knew her name, so we were trying to find familiar names on the list to call," Clare Fitch said. "There were so many names and a bunch of different states, so we just picked a number that looked closest to Nashville."

The number they chose turned out to be Ricks' brother-in-law, who already knew about the lost wallet.

"When we called, he knew right away about the wallet," she said. "He said it was wonderful and we gave him our number for the owners to contact us."

Clare Fitch said that within three minutes, she and her husband received a phone call from Donald Ricks.

The Fitches told Ricks they had found his wife's wallet and offered to hand-deliver it to them at the Palace Station, where the Ricks were visiting for a Vietnam veterans reunion.

"You know, they came here to enjoy themselves and this had obviously ruined the first portion of their trip," Clare Fitch said. "We know our way around here so we just told them we'd bring it to them and meet them at the front desk."

Fitch laughed as she recalled the first time they saw the couple.

"I could see them holding up a sign in the lobby area," Fitch said. "I was like 'Oh God, that has to be them.' I turned to my husband and just thought it was so funny."

Fitch said the couple offered them several rewards, but they refused to accept.

"Oh, they wanted to buy us a drink or buy us dinner. At one point he offered all of the money in the wallet," she said. "I just told him 'Oh get out of here' and told him to have a great time."

Fitch said she and her husband were glad to be able to help them out.

"We're just happy that it didn't get in the wrong hands," she said. "She really had a lot of important things in that wallet and a lot of things that you don't want strangers to have access to."

Donald Ricks, a 61-year-old federal government worker, said that he was surprised to receive the wallet so quickly with all of its belongings still in tact.

Ricks said the incident changed his perspective of Las Vegas residents.

"It was very refreshing that these people were so honest and willing to help us out," he said. "They didn't go part way. They did what they thought was necessary and it really made our vacation much more enjoyable. We've definitely changed our views about people in Las Vegas."