Homeless man may reap reward for good deed

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A homeless man will soon have well over $100,000 after returning an engagement ring to a woman who accidentally dropped it in his cup.

"I think in our world we often jump to like the worst conclusion, and it just makes you realize that there are good people out there," said Sarah Darling, whose fiancé set up a website seeking donations for Billy Ray Harris, the man who found the ring.

By Monday, more than 6,000 people had donated more than $145,000 to the fund.

Harris, who frequently panhandles on Kansas City's Country Club Plaza, found the ring an hour after Darling dumped spare change from her coin purse into his cup. She had taken it off earlier and put it with the coins.

"The ring was so big that I knew if it was real, it was expensive," Harris told KCTV.

Darling was horror-struck when she realized the next day what she had done. She went back to Harris, squatted beside him and told him that she might have given him something valuable.

" 'Was it a ring?' " he recalled asking her. "And she says, 'Yeah.' And I said, 'Well, I have it.' " Darling gave Harris all the cash she had in her wallet at the time. -- AP