He Still Owes on His Car, but Now His Conscience Is Free and Clear

Minutes after Bobby Nicholl learned that he would lose his ’88 Plymouth unless he could make the last payment of $525, he walked to his frontyard Friday and found a wad of cash and checks totaling almost $700 in a bush.

“At first, I thought it was play money because it didn’t look real. There was too much of it,” said Nicholl, who is 36 and unemployed.

A closer look revealed that the “pile of money” could be his final car payment, he said.

But instead of paying his bill, Nicholl went to the police station and handed it to Det. Dale Walker.

“I figured you can always buy another car, but you can’t always buy another conscience,” Nicholl said. “So I gave it back, and [Walker] told me that I was doing the right thing.

“I told him it doesn’t feel like it right now. But deep down, I know it is.”

The money had been stolen from the nearby Me-N-Ed’s Pizza Parlor on Thursday night. Two men stormed into the restaurant in the 12700 block of Garden Grove Boulevard about 10:45 p.m and held about 10 employees and customers at gunpoint, demanding cash. The robbers took about $1,000 from the cash register and fled in a car parked behind a neighboring business, Police Sgt. Andy Jauch said.

Several employees and customers followed the robbers and flagged down a police officer, Jauch said.

The robbers led police on a short chase and then abandoned their car at a business complex a few blocks away. Officers chased the men as they ran on Thackery Drive, tossing out cash and checks, Walker said.

Jose Elias Martinez, 23, of Garden Grove and Arturo Gomez, 21, of Santa Ana were arrested on suspicion of robbery. Martinez and Gomez are in Orange County Jail. Martinez, who was on parole, is being held without bail. Gomez’s bail was set at $50,000. Police recovered two loaded handguns.

On Friday, residents of the area where police arrested Martinez and Gomez found cash and checks strewn on their lawns and sidewalks. But the largest sum, $680, was left behind a bush outside a group home where Nicholl is recovering from alcoholism.

Nicholl, who worked in a casino on an Indian reservation in Cabazon before coming here, said, “I drank every day for a year and a half. This past month is the first time I had stayed sober in a very long time.”

Nicholl also is going through a divorce, job hunting, attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and trying “get back on my feet,” he said.

“He was down on his luck,” Walker said. “He had his car repossessed and everything. But instead of keeping the money, he turned it back in.

“That’s the amazing part about this.”