Posted on 05/18/2018 4:35:38 AM PDT by sodpoodle
For years Matthew and Maria Colonna-Emanuel thought a piece of rusty metal behind some trees in their backyard was just part of a cable or electrical box.
But it wasn't. It was a safe containing $52,000 in cash, gold and diamonds. And the story of how they discovered it -- and what the couple did next -- is remarkable.
The couple saw the metal box between some trees when they moved in to their Staten Island home in New York, but never paid much attention to it.
"I thought it was an electrical box," Matthew Colonna-Emanuel told CNN affiliate WCBS.
They dug it up
When trees in their yard were damaged by wildlife they got a better view. "It [the box] was really prominent when the deer ate away all the foliage," Matthew said.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
I haven’t kept up with the story, I’ll admit. But when he made the fiscovery, as I recall, the vultures from Florida, the Feds, and probably the freakin’ UN descended on him in a swarm, all demanding their “share,” as if they’d done any of the hard work to find the treasure.
Remember the story of Henny Penny?
I haven’t kept up with the story, I’ll admit. But when he made the fiscovery, as I recall, the vultures from Florida, the Feds, and probably the freakin’ UN descended on him in a swarm, all demanding their “share,” as if they’d done any of the hard work to find the treasure.
Remember the story of Henny Penny?
Update: per Wikipedia, the US Supreme Court eventually ruled that Fisher was entitled to 75% of the appraised value of the artifacts recovered from the Atocha. That would amount to more than $320 million.
Actually, there was a huge 3-sided legal battle surrounding the Atocha, between Spain, Florida and Fisher. Spain lost, Florida got 25%, I think, and Fisher was awarded 75% by the USSC.
I was in Key West for six months in 1987, and walked through the Maritime Museum . The Fisher org was getting ready to pay off their investors, so they had taken inventory. They didn't have a lot of storage space, so they just stacked the treasure everywhere. The silver ingots were in large piles all over the place, gold bars were on the floor behind a counter, and jewels and jewelry were being glass.
Lots of security, of course. Cameras and lots of armed guards.
Fishers company is still working the Atocha wreck, and still finding stuff. It's estimated that only about half of the treasure from the ship has been found.
Whenever I installed large safes in our retail stores, I always had the locksmith bolt them to the floor. Never lost one.
Our nation was founded on the integrity of a moral people. Today, a good 80% of people would have kept the stolen loot and not even blinked. Finders keepers. Immigrants are especially opportunistic that way, not through any fault of their own, but just by coming from cultures that dont value integrity and fairness the way we do.
It is uplifting that the couple have the good morals to notify the victim about her stolen goods.
Karma indeed. God is always watching.
For starters, anyone who has a real relationship with God and therefore endeavors to obey His warnings against theft and lying and for loving one's [literal, in this case] neighbor as oneself (although this fellow mentioning "karma" may have other motives).
Regardless, your comment betrays a troubling lack of basic morality, to which apparently you're blind. Hardly what I would call a "right mind." Your view of yourself and this world--and the next--might need some rethinking. I'm praying for you, Sam.
I am laughing at the idea this is insurance fraud. I mean, who fraudelenly hides their safe for the insurance, and then LEAVES IT HIDDEN IN THE ORIGINAL SPOT for 8 freaking years without recovering the contents and dumping the safe in a lake or bay?
I mean what fraudulent criminal leaves their spoils for 8 years to be found by others, who may keep the stuff? I mean, seriously, who does that?
I remember the same thing. He was essentially told it was all owned by the state of Florida. I was just saying in the end and after an epic long legal battle that was a incredible feat in of itself Fisher again prevailed at the supreme court.
IMO he was an amazing guy with a level of determination few could match.
If you get a chance to catch the episode of Strange Inheritance where Colby visits the Fisher family and museum. It's fascinating. His daughter talks about how her father believed them to only be temporary owners and stewards of the treasure. He told her 400 years ago other people owned it now they will own it for a brief period and 400 years from now someone else will own it. Makes you realize we don't really own material things at all.
My, aren’t we cynical!
Sadly, the woman who had hit the boy lived on the next street and never really mentally recovered from the terrible accident. :(.
This reeks of an amateur theft, by a neighborhood youth who stashed the safe where it wouldn’t be obvious (it was lying around unrecognized for a while), and never gotten back to by the thief. Something happened to him, or he got arrested for something else, who knows. The thief didn’t want his parents to see it, and had no place to stash it better than the overgrown local lot.No reason to accuse the former owner of the property, necessarily. Tho one might want to ask a few questions.
People who accuse the owners of the safe should consider that they don’t even know that the safe was insured, let alone that the owner collected on the insurance. And that they certainly do not know that the owner has not reimbursed any insurance claimed or any loss claimed on taxes. All we know is that the owner never expected to see any of the stolen goods again. And that since the recovery is public knowledge, any required restitution of insurance is pretty much a foregone conclusion.
Count on it.
man, how come I never find rusty safes in my backyard?
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