Morally Challenged (Notes)

George - combs the beaches with a metal detector.



Matthew and Margaret Jamel - 13yrs of age/twins

Grandma Ada Stiles

Grandpa Marcus Stiles

Charlotte and Kenneth Jamel





George has murdered Ada trying to find out where Marcus hid the coins.  When Margaret and Matthew find 10 of them, they ask George to get one appraised, telling him they only found 3.  Altogether there are 15 coins.  George has not been able to find them with the metal detector because they are hidden under what looks like an old rowboat wreck and are under two inches of sand after about 20 bottle caps and another inch of sand.



George does not get the coins appraised, but the teens take one coin to a decent appraiser and find out each one is worth $3,000 to $5,000 each, depending on if they can be authenticated as the Spanish Dabloons that were legend to have been lost at sea when a Gallion sank in the seas North of North America. 

George tells the teens that they are only worth $1 -$3 apiece and is willing to buy all that they can find.  In a drunken stupor at the tavern, he brags about the teens having found the coins and gets the attention of an old pirate, Lucus.



The climax occurs when the teens tell their parents about finding the coins.  The parents are in disbelief until George and Lucus burst in, taking them all hostage.  Lucus has a gun and makes the teens take George to the coins.  Instead, George helps the teens tell a couple on a beach walk what is happening and they use their cellphone to call the police.  The parents are saved and it is found out that Lucus is wanted in 3 states for fraud and murder.



George, having saved the family, pleads to a charge of aggrivated homicide in the killing of Ada Stiles.



Through the detailed notes that Marcus Stiles kept as to where he found the coins and several experts, the coins are found genuine.  The Jamel's use them as colladeral to save both houses (that they were in danger of losing) and spend summers and weekends in the Stiles beach home.  They donate 5 of the coins to the town museum and help the museum build a monument to their most famous resident and his wife, the Stiles (who are Charlotte's parents).  They also have a nice headstone commissioned for them.  The combined findings and rebuidling of the town that Charlotte and Kenneth do brings tourism and fishing back to the town boosting the neighboring economy.  Charlotte begins her lifelong dream of writing her parents life story and George eventually becomes Mayor of the small beach town.