Missouri officials push to help boy get back $10G found in hotel

A 10-year-old boy who found $10,000 in a drawer at a Kansas City hotel but decided to turn it over to police may still have a chance to get it back.

Tyler Schaefer found the cash last year in the room where he and his father, Cody Schaefer, were staying at a hotel near the airport, The Kansas City Star reported.

Schaefer told his son they couldn’t keep the cash because they didn’t know who it belonged to. They handed the money over to two off-duty police officers working security at the hotel. A property and evidence supervisor stored the cash at a police facility.

According to a Missouri statute, lost money could revert to a finder after about seven months if no one can prove ownership. But the owner then has another year to prove the money is his or hers and claim it from the finder.

After nearly a year of waiting, police said they are required to keep the money for an additional four years because the boy's family did not follow proper legal procedures to be able to keep the money, Fox4KC.com reported.

But Missouri State Treasurer Clint Zweifel wrote a letter to Kansas City Police Chief Darryl Forté on Thursday, pointing to a legal exception in state law that allows the chief to turn the money over to the treasurer's office.

The move would start the process of getting the $10,000 into Tyler's hands.

“I believe this is the right thing to do,” the treasurer wrote.

"We’ll work with state in an attempt to allow state to return the money. The honest youngster is deserving of the $," Forté told Channel 41 on Twitter.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.