JAY — To hear Josephine Bizier tell it, she and her husband never once considered keeping the money.

What money, you ask? Why, the $6,000 they found Thursday afternoon in the Hannaford parking lot.

“Was it that much?” Josephine asked Friday, as the cash was being returned to its rightful owner. “We didn’t count it.”

Jay police tasked with returning the money to its owner have declared the couple’s honesty to be a case of “enormous integrity.”

At about 11:30 a.m. Thursday, Josephine and Gregory Bizier, parents of two, had just left Hannaford in Jay Plaza. They loaded their groceries into the truck and were about to be on their way.

“My husband walked around the back of the truck and there’s this bundle on the ground,” Josephine said. “He thought it was my coupons. Then he picked it up and it was some envelopes with elastics around them. They were all frozen together and you could see right off that it was money.”

They wondered who might have dropped this considerably fat stack of cash, Josephine said, but did they discuss the possibility of keeping it?

“No, not at all,” she said. “We didn’t even count it or anything.”

Instead, the couple brought the money to the Jay Police Department, which is right across the street. Since there was a name and P.O. box number scribbled on the bundle, police had little trouble tracking down the owner, who was expected to go to the Police Department to pick it up.

All thanks to a couple who didn’t succumb for even a moment to the temptations of the “finders, keepers” philosophy.

“I feel that this couple deserves to be recognized for their enormous integrity,” Jay Police Detective Michael Mejia said.