Buried treasures and Pirates are the kind of thing you hear about in Legends and movies. But when Matthew and Maria Corona Emmanuel went digging in their backyard, they discovered that fiction can become a very shocking reality. Hello wonderful people. I’m Scott Lefler for Wonderful and here it is. You’ll never guess the unbelievable treasure this man found in a power box in his backyard.
The Immanuel family lived in Tothill Staten Island for the longest time. They thought that an unsightly piece of metal that lay in their backyard was just an electrical box. Matthew Emmanuel had lived in his home for about four years, along with his wife, Maria, and their son. But although they knew every inch of their property by heart, there was one mystery that awaited to be discovered. The Emanuels assumed that the silver box underneath some trees outside of their home was nothing more than an old cable box.
But there was more to this box than meet the eye, and it was about to change their lives. The family always assumed that the big piece of metal laying in weight in the corner of the backyard was nothing more than an electric box where electric pole wires were kept. Initially, the box was embedded so deep in the soil that no one paid it much attention until Mother Nature intervened. The rusty metal box was buried behind bushes and poison Ivy alongside a fence around the house. Then a deer came and ate 4ft of the bottom of the foliage.
The ruined trees look so hideous that Emmanuel decided to put bamboo, which has deer resistant properties, in its place. But he had no way of knowing what he was about to uncover. The deer had weakened the trees, which made them vulnerable to the elements when winter came. With the heavy snow we got this winter, a lot of them were falling down. They were top heavy, Emanuel told the advance.
His yard was ruined. Emmanuel was once proud of his backyard, and he wanted to restore it to the way it was. But the plants and flowers were a mess, and so were the trees. So he called Bob Foley of the New Jersey landscaping company Touch the Earth Incorporated, and that’s when he learned that the box wasn’t really a box at all. The power box had been driving Emmanuel and his wife nuts.
The object was partially unearthed and ruining the way his lovely garden looked. But when the professional landscapers stopped by to rebuild their damaged land, they were stunned to find that the box contained a long forgotten secret. The box was more visible than it had ever been before, but what was inside? It was only a matter of time before curiosity got the best of them and the Emmanuel family finally uncovered the truth. It was obvious that the box hadn’t been moved in a very long time, so Emmanuel decided to take a closer look.
The family could see the rusty box from the deck, the living room, and the kitchen, too. Foley planned on repairing the backyard, so he was eager to get rid of that unsightly thing. But he first had to get rid of the electric box. Except it was so much more than that. Foley had decades worth of landscaping experience, so he’d seen some rather bizarre things during his career, but he didn’t realize that he was about to see something he’d never encountered before.
Foley had worked in enough yards to know that the big, rusty piece of metal wasn’t an electric box at all. But the box was in the way, and his crew needed to get rid of it, so there was no sense in keeping everyone in suspense any longer. When fully pulled the box from the ground and flipped it over, he realized the box was safe, which meant Emmanuel’s assumptions were wrong. But what could possibly be inside it? The Emmanuel family hadn’t yet discovered what was actually concealed inside the safe.
Was there a Journal, a weapon or stock certificates? Why had someone buried the safe in their yard? But when the box was finally opened, it produced more questions than answers. The safe was about one and a half feet in height and 2ft across. It also weighed more than £100.
Fortunately, the contents inside were even more impressive. The safe had cash, gold, and diamonds. They knew that none of these things belong to them, but what were they supposed to do? Foley and the Emanuels couldn’t believe their luck. This zip plastic bag inside the safe also contained Jade, earrings and other pieces of jewelry.
But although the items in the safe had survived, some of them were badly damaged. The dollar bills were wet, so we set them out to dry for several days. Some of the bills were salvageable, but others were damaged beyond repair. The Emanuels had about $16,000 of usable cash. The extra gems brought the total to about $52,000, but what they discovered next made headlines all over the world.
There was a note inside the safe, along with a couple of personal documents, all wrapped in a plastic zipper bag. When Emmanuel read the letter, he was stunned. There was an address on the piece of paper, and Emmanuel was determined to learn who it belonged to. Fortunately, the address was located in the vicinity of his neighborhood. Two days after the safe was discovered, he decided to go to the address and ask the people there if they were missing anything.
It was, after all, the right thing to do, but he hadn’t realized that this would get the cops involved. Emmanuel knocked on the door, and an elderly woman greeted him. He introduced himself and asked, I have a strange question for you. Have you ever been robbed? The elderly woman was puzzled at first.
Then she told him something that started an investigation. In 2011, the alleged Ninja Burglar broke into the elderly woman’s house the day after Christmas while she and her husband were away. But when they returned they found their safe was missing. Had Emanuel discovered the missing link to an otherwise unsolved crime? The safe contained treasures and documents that were very special to the elderly couple.
And when it was stolen they feared that they would never get it back. But was their stolen safe the same safe that Emmanuel had discovered in his backyard? The Top Hill neighborhood fell prey to Robert Costanzo, a conniving thief known as the Ninja Burglar. In 2011, his staff made him an unseen menace. And in the span of a decade he managed to Rob more than 200 homes in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.
But was he ever found Castanzo targeted 160 homes in Tothill Staten Island. The community was mortified to say the least. But in 2015, cops finally caught the Ninja which put everyone at ease. The office of District attorney Michael E. Mcmahon wasn’t able to link him to the elderly couple’s robbery but cops did investigate him as his Mo was nearly identical to whoever took the couple’s belongings.
The Emmanuel family invited the elderly couple to visit their home and look through the contents they found. The woman cried the moment she saw the jewelry. She spent years dealing with the trauma of losing her treasured items. She never thought that they would be recovered. But would she get to keep it?
The Emmanuel family managed to bring joy to the elderly couple who’d lost their prize possessions several years earlier. But when the people asked them why they returned the safe contents the answer was simple. It wasn’t even a question. It wasn’t ours. The wife told CNN Affiliate WC to which Emanuel added, the reward is Karma.