You can do a quick search for the item... then turn on the "show
closed items" filter to make it appear. From there you can click and
open it and copy/paste what you need out of it.
Also, as the admin of my company's installation... I have a feed set
up to monitor for any deleted stories. It happens so rarely, so it is
easy to monitor. When something doesn't look right, I talk to the
person who did it. I also have a rolling record of the last week's
deleted stuff if I ever need it.
Kevin E. Schlabach
http://agile-commentary.blogspot.com/