Published: 05 February 2010
A Ball Ground man got more than he bargained for while he was trying to fix up a car he bought from a wrecker company last November.
Tye Kuykendall, 76, called the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office after finding more than $200,000 in counterfeit $100 bills in a secret compartment of the car.
Kuykendall said he purchased the vehicle for $400, in an effort to make a little money.
“I’m 76 years old and can’t do much work, but I’m trying to do stuff to make a dollar to keep from being on welfare and have something to eat,” Kuykendall said. “I thought I could take the car and make a little money or drive it, one.”
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Special
While working on a police-seized car he bought late last year, a Ball Ground man found more than $200,000, police said.
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Kuykendall said he and his 19-year-old grandson were on a mission to find out why heavy gas fumes were getting inside the car when they came across something odd: a hidden compartment between the back seat and the trunk.
“My grandson was with me. Me and him was trying to figure out how to find it,” he said.
“We found that trap door, got it opened, and he said, ‘What’s that in that sack?’ I said, ‘You know me, I carry everything in the trunk. I use this for my truck and everything.’ He put his hand in there and said, ‘That don’t go through the trunk. That’s partitioned off.’
“I reached down there and got it, and he said, ‘Holy (expletive)!’”
They found more than 2,000 $100 bills inside.
Kuykendall knew the car had been seized by police, so he decided to turn the money over to authorities.
Lt. Jay Baker said the sheriff’s office is investigating where the counterfeit cash originated from, but details of the investigation are being held tightly.
Police had not made any arrests at press time.
Kuykendall has his own theory of why the compartment was placed where it was.
“I was trying to figure out how them gas fumes was getting up in the car,” he said. “The gas fumes, I figure, was to keep the (police) dogs from sniffing it out. That’s what I figured.”
