Moving Nightmare Turned Dream Come True

A moving nightmare is now dream come true for a Beacon Falls woman after the NBC Connecticut Troubleshooters helped track down valuable family treasures that went missing when she moved from North Carolina.

Christina Leoni has been waiting more than four months for this very special delivery.

But this time she is watching the delivery men more carefully, and checking her list to make sure it's all there.

"Hi Justin; it's nice to meet you," said Leoni, greeting the delivery driver.

After her original move, Leoni signed the acceptance paperwork too soon, before she realized a cedar chest containing generations of family history never made it onto the truck.

Her moving company, Allied Van Lines, said she was out of luck at first.

In a letter dated May 13, Allied said it had looked for the cedar chest, but was closing Leoni’s case and denying her claim because she had signed a form at the end of the move stating her belongings had arrived. That's when she called the Troubleshooters.

"You don't realize sometimes when you come so close to losing something that means something to you, when you get it back, you realize just how precious they were," said Leoni.

Representatives from Allied said after our story aired, someone from the company recognized the cedar chest from the sample photo we used and tracked it down.

Seeing the cedar chest being delivered Monday made the Troubleshooters very happy, but seeing what was inside it was a joy to behold.

One of the items inside was her daughter’s wedding album.

"I just never thought I would get them back," said Leoni.

A final letter from her dying mother.

"It just became more special at that time because it was one of the last things she wrote," said Leoni.

Photos of a son who almost didn’t make it.

"He was our miracle baby," said Leoni.

There were many others, too. The precious family keepsakes stored in the cedar chest were enough to fill up three medium-sized moving boxes.

Leoni doesn’t live in the digital age. Once her photos, letters, and treasures are gone, they are gone for good. That’s why it was so important to help her get them back.

"I'm just very grateful. I'm very grateful for the great job you guys did," said Leoni. "You did a wonderful job."

Allied sent the Troubleshooters this statement Monday:

"As we originally stated, we have always taken Mrs. Leoni’s incident seriously and continued searching. After a photo of the chest aired on television, we were able to confirm there was a miscommunication in the physical description of it. While this may seem to be semantics to some, in the moving industry terminology matters particularly when dealing with storage facilities that are hundreds of thousands of square feet in size. We are extremely pleased with the outcome of reuniting Mrs. Leoni with her blanket chest and importantly, the personal photos that were stored in it."

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