Lost ring found in Braintree sewer 2 years later

BRAINTREE, Mass. (WHDH) -- A lost wedding band was found in an unlikely place: the sewer.

On Friday, Maura Burke was all smiles, wearing the wedding band her husband gave her 21 years ago.

"This ring it just represents so much to me and to the family. It was huge it was really everything to me. I'm not a hugely materialistic person but this mattered," Burke said.

So, when Burke discovered it was missing she was devastated. She had taken it off at home and the end of the day and the next thing she knew -- it was gone.

"We tore the house apart for months for months. And then anytime anybody would find anything at home, they would say, ‘Oh guess what we found,” we’d say, ‘The ring, the ring, the ring,’ it was such an issue for so long. And the ring never turned up,” Burke said.

Until a few weeks ago. Nearly two years after she lost the ring, workers two blocks away from the Burke's home found it deep in sewer line. The workers disinfected it and brought it to the Mayor's office.

"Once we were able to read the initials on the ring, which is MJM, and saw the date ’91, we were able to go down to the town clerk’s office and saw the initials MJM in ‘91 which were the only initials for that year, so all of a sudden it was like the ‘a-ha’ moment," said Mayor Joseph Sullivan of Braintree.

The mayor and his wife -- who are friends of the Burke's -- stopped by the house to return it.

“He put his hand out and he said, ‘Is this yours?’ And I looked and I said, ‘My wedding ring!’ and then I burst into tears," Burke said.