Man Finds Unusual Rusted Box In Backyard, Unraveling A Mysterious String Of Events

We all dream of finding valuable buried treasure. For one Staten Island native, Matthew Emanuel, the rusted box he’d long ignored, hidden underground in his backyard contained contents which were beyond his wildest expectations.

Staten Island Suburbia

For four years, Matthew Emanuel and his family had lived in their humble home in Todt Hill, Staten Island completely oblivious to the fact that there was a part of the garden hiding an unbelievable secret.

Unknown Prize

There, in a seemingly ordinary corner of the yard, not even buried deeply beneath the grass, was the most unexpected discovery. The Emanuel family soon came across the incredible secret hidden on their property that would unravel an astonishing string of unresolved mysteries.

The Rusted Box

In the Emanuel family’s backyard, nestled in the ground by the side of their fence, was a random, old and rusted box. It had clearly not been touched in decades. It was partially hidden, covered with coils of stinging poison ivy. As things would turn out, something extraordinary was about to happen.

Stormy Weather

By chance, elements beyond the Emanuel family’s control brought the mysterious box to their attention. The winter storms in early 2018 had been particularly severe. Heavy snowfall caused the trees lining the fence to fall over. Then, roaming deer came by and munched up the remaining plants, unearthing the mysteries beneath their depths. The house’s biggest mystery, which had gone neglected for years, was now in plain sight. As spring blossomed, they couldn’t leave the garden in its unruly state…

At Their Fingertips

It had always been merely a few paces away from their front door. The rusted box in the backyard was now plainly visible from the window as they looked out from the family room. For years, they had never thought much of its contents. It was just one of those objects that didn’t demand any attention. But now, after all these years, there was no avoiding the mystery.

Garden Renovations

The damage that the winter storm had caused meant Matthew would have to completely redesign the back garden, and that meant working around the rusted box. The task was too big for him to attempt alone. Matthew Emanuel had to search for an expert landscaper to help with the demanding task. When he found a helper that suited his needs, he made an appointment. What he didn’t realize was that he had set in motion a chain of events that would have unbelievable and unforeseen results.

Bamboo Bob

The landscaper, Robert Foley, went by the name of Bamboo Bob. He made the trip to Staten Island home in late April 2018. He had decades of work experience, landscaping homes across New York and New Jersey, and he’d seen a lot of bizarre things in his time. But despite the random encounters he had experienced in all his years of work in people’s homes, what he was about to help uncover on Matthew Emanuel’s property was probably the most wild discovery he would ever make.

Work Begins

Matthew’s plan to restructure the garden was to put a small thicket of bamboo on the one side of the backyard. It would act as a makeshift wall, offering the family a degree of privacy. As Bamboo Bob and his crew set to work, they soon came across the rusted box. But when inquired about the mystery box and the story behind it, Matthew’s response came as a huge surprise.

Unearthing The Mystery

Bamboo Bob had been in enough backyards and seen so many bizarre situations that he couldn’t resist digging up the box and discovering what lay within it. Besides, it was getting in the way of his work. Matthew told the landscaper he’d always assumed that the rusted box was an electric cabinet attached to the fence surrounding their property. He couldn’t have been more wrong.

The True Identity

Bamboo Bob and his crew excavated the box from the dirt and managed to loosen it from the densely packed soil. It was then that they knew for certain it was not an electric box at all. Matthew’s assumption for the past four years was soon proven wrong. Together, the men turned the heavy rusted box over to examine it more thoroughly. They soon stumbled across something that immediately indicated what the box’s purpose was.

Not Just A Box

The box had a dial on it. It was a locked safe. Bamboo Bob and his team showed it to their employer. The homeowner was nothing short of gobsmacked. Now the obvious question racing through Matthew’s mind was, what could be inside that rusted safe?

Guessing Games

The safe was roughly two feet in width and one and a half feet in height. It was heavy, weighing up to 100 pounds. Despite its weight, Matthew now had to know the contents of the box he’d ignored all these years. As Bamboo Bob and the work team stood by in the garden watching, Matthew started to try and shift the rusted box around as best as he could, wondering if he might hear the jingling of coins inside. But his efforts didn’t end there.

Breaking It Open

Matthew couldn’t hear anything from within the box, but that did not necessarily mean the safe was empty. With the help of the landscapers, he lifted it up and carried to the front deck of the house to further investigate. As the landscapers continued their work redesigning the garden, Matthew was focused on an entirely different endaevor. He took a pickaxe, and smashed into the safe’s rusted lock. He peered inside — and when he finally saw its contents, it sent chills down his spine.

An Absolute Treasure

Matthew Emanuel could scarcely believe his eyes. The safe contained tons of stacks of hundred dollar bills, each bundle about three inches thick. There were also small zipped plastic bags containing hundreds of items: chunks of gold, jade, earrings, jewels, diamond rings. It truly boggled the mind. Matthew and Bamboo Bob had literally stumbled across an absolute fortune in treasure, right there among the fallen trees in the corner of an otherwise ordinary Staten Island backyard. But there was a huge problem with all those riches.

Water Damage

Sadly, it seems the discovery occurred years too late. The safe was apparently not waterproof. Many of the dollar bills were wet and damaged after years of exposure to the elements. The stacks of cash were molded together, and Matthew quickly realized that if he were to begin to try and work at them, they were liable to fall apart. But the surprises surrounding this incredible discovery were far from over!

Saving The Treasure

Matthew set to work, painstakingly peeling the bills apart and setting them aside to dry out. The arduous project took him several days. Some of the bills could potentially be salvageable, but it would take hard work to see just how many of them he could manage to recover. As Matthew soon discovered, he wouldn’t be able to save a large portion of his newly found treasure. As the bills dried, he never could have guessed just how much they would amount to.

Counting The Cash

Soggy or whole, Matthew began to count the entirety of the contents of the box. All in all, there were roughly $5,000 worth of dollar bills that were too damaged and that Matthew, despite his careful efforts, could not salvage. But then there was the rest of what he could use. Newly dried, though slightly faded, he now had on his hands an eye-popping $16,300 in cash! Now the riches had been quantified — but the mystery did not end there. Matthew was about to make yet another shocking discovery about the safe and its incredible contents.

Acting On Suspicion

Even if it was beyond exciting to have found the unexpected treasure, Matthew had a sneaking suspicion that it was no mere coincidence that this rusted box was in his backyard. He felt it couldn’t have been someone’s belongings that they had just stashed them there and they had long been forgotten. Many people would have merely pocketed the findings from the safe and been satisfied with their loot but Matthew had a hunch that something far more sinister was at hand. As he went through the rest of the safe’s contents, he soon got his answer.

All That Glitters

The next task on Matthew’s hands was to take inventory of all the jewelry and gems that the safe held. The amounts of sheer gold that Matthew had discovered in the safe were absolutely astonishing. Matthew needed to take out his kitchen scale just to take account of the weight of it all. As he measured and listed the many contents of the safe, he came across another surprise. Inside one of the plastic bags was a piece of paper that would change everything.

The Next Clue

Matthew put the assorted jewels aside. He opened the plastic bag, unfurled the paper within it, and found there was an address on it. Naturally, he immediately looked it up online. The address could be that of the box’s mysterious owner. The search results left him utterly shocked.

Under His Nose

To Matthew’s great surprise and thrill, the address written on the paper stashed deep inside the rusted box wasn’t far from his very own home. In fact, it was close enough that he could walk the short distance. Not only was it on Staten Island, but it was in the same neighborhood. What’s more, he realized that he happened to pass by that same home every time he went to walk his dog. Matthew knew exactly what he had to do.

On A Mission

Matthew just couldn’t keep the news of the treasure to himself, not after he had discovered the enclosed address. On April 30, 2018, two days after discovering the safe, he walked over to the address. He had no way of knowing who might answer the door, or what the conversation could possibly lead to. In the worst case scenario, if this went wrong, he would possibly have to get the police involved. He knocked on the door.

A Strange Introduction

An elderly woman opened the door. Matthew introduced himself, and then asked the hesitant woman a strange question: “Have you ever been robbed before?” It could have ended right there with a simple ‘no’. Yet as Matthew watched, to his shock, she began to shake. She was either terribly upset or filled with anticipation. Matthew was entirely unprepared for her reaction.

Confirmed Crime

The elderly woman was beyond surprised by the question that this stranger had posed to her. Still trembling, she confirmed what Matthew had asked: she had indeed been robbed. The painful memory immediately resurfaced as she attempted to explain her story. The night after Christmas 2011, a burglar broke into her home. By the time she and her husband realized what had happened, the criminal had long fled the scene of the crime — and $52,000 worth of money and jewelry had vanished without a trace. Could Matthew possibly provide the missing link in the unfortunate tale?

Enter The Ninja

Despite its affluent reputation, Todt Hill had a frightening recent past. At the time of the robbery in 2011, Staten Island had been prowled by an unseen menace who had terrorised the previously secure neighborhood. They called him the Ninja Burglar because of the stealthy execution of his many crimes. From 2005 to 2015, the Ninja Burglar had robbed over 200 homes across Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey. A-hundred-and-sixty of his targets had been in Staten Island, many of which were right there in Todt Hill. Could this robbery have been his masterful handiwork?

Ending His Reign

In 2015, a man called Robert Costanzo was finally taken into custody in Staten Island. He had a criminal past, and was in court for something unrelated when he was seized for robbery charges. It took two years for him to finally receive his long-awaited prison sentence. Although the residents of Todt Hill could rest easier, by that time, the woman Matthew had met had long lost hope she would recover her stolen items. Police had told her she would never see her belongings again. Even more unbelievable that all of the developments up to that point, was what Matthew would do next.

Recovering The Treasure

Now that he’d proceeded even further in solving the backyard mystery, Matthew took the elderly woman over to his home to see if she could identify the contents of the safe. He was truly amazed by the pace of everything.
Just two days after opening the safe, he had nearly unraveled the puzzle. So were these the items the lady had been robbed of?

Lost And Found

Sure enough, the moment the woman saw the jewelry and the stacks of thousands of dollars worth of bills, she was overcome with emotion. She instantly started crying, and hugged Matthew, still shaking with disbelief. At last, both knew they could believe each other’s story. For six and a half years, she had lived with the trauma of losing her valuables and her savings. Now here they were, right in front of her eyes. And what would happen next was even more astounding.

Doing The Right Thing

Matthew Emanuel returned all of the safe’s contents to its previous owner. What had started as a mere eyesore in his overgrown backyard, covered with poison ivy and forgotten, had suddenly morphed into an overwhelming moment of joy for a stranger within just a few days. With the help of bad winter weather, pesky deer, and the curiosity of Bamboo Bob, Matthew had managed to accomplish in less than a week what the police had not been able to solve in more than six years. So what would be his reward for his kindness?

Instant Karma

In Matthew’s mind, there wasn’t even a question as to what he would do with the objects. Every single piece, and every dollar that he had taken such care to separate and dry, were returned to their rightful owner, his elderly neighbor. Matthew refused to take any reward. In his mind, as he would later tell the press, the only reward he could hope for was good karma. He was just doing the right thing. But he did something to make sure he’d never forget this life-changing event.

Remembering The Mystery

Now that their backyard had been renovated and the safe had been returned, Matthew and his family decided to commemorate the experience. They placed a ceramic elephant in the backyard, beside the bamboo that Bamboo Bob’s team had planted. They wanted to mark the spot where they found the safe. Now they knew that real-life mystery and actual treasure could always potentially be waiting right there, in plain sight.