Salt Lake woman delights TV's Jay Leno with brave tale

Chasing down a purse-snatcher landed 75-year-old Betty Horton of Salt Lake City on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" Friday.

Horton told Leno and his audience the whole story — first reported in the Deseret Morning News on Sept. 1 — of how she noticed her purse was missing from her shopping cart and saw the man running through the parking lot with it. She followed him around the block, caught him, took her purse back and chided the thief — but then gave him $3 and covered for him when police arrived.

"I felt sorry for him," she told Leno's delighted audience. "If only he'd asked somebody first. I would've helped him."

Leno praised her example for "older people everywhere," who can obviously still defend themselves.