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Landscaper Troubled By Vultures Atop Empty House

Photo: Hawes Spencer

The man who called in a tip that may have led to the discovery of a human remains behind an empty house in southern Albemarle says that it was the sheer number of vultures that caught his eye.

Longtime resident Bobby Pugh says he had passed by the house many times before. But recently, on his way to a landscaping job, he spotted as many as 30 buzzards.

 "And happened to look over and notice the buzzards on the roof and in the trees. It was too many for a normal reason. I didn't think it was a skunk carcass or something-- it was a lot, and it caught my eye."

Pugh says he went ahead to the job but couldn't erase the memory of the buzzards. As it turned out, he didn't have to. The buzzards were still there.

"And on my way back I slowed down and looked again and I was like, "That's odd; I need to call."

Pugh says that when he spotted the buzzards in early October he knew that investigators, some of whom are his friends, were getting thousands of similar tips about the disappearance of University of Virginia student Hannah Graham, who vanished September 13.

 "I felt weird calling because I didn't want to reroute a positive part of the investigation, but I thought that I should call."

On October 18th, a member of a team from the Chesterfield County Sheriff's Department reported finding skeletal remains in that yard, at 3193 Old Lynchburg Road.

The property owner, who lives less than two miles away, declined an interview request. Neighbors say she had tried selling the property, and Pugh says he noticed that the for-sale sign had recently come down, a signal to him not to start start traipsing around.

"I didn't want to be a trespasser on the property. That's the reason I didn't stop."

On September 24th, police arrested Jesse L. Matthew Jr. on a beach on the Gulf Coast of Texas, and he was charged with abduction. Until a few years ago, Matthew lived just off Old Lynchburg Road, five miles north of the site where the remains were found.

"If I were gonna look for a place where someone may have done something bad to someone, it was a perfect location. It's in the middle of nowhere, it's been abandoned for a few years, there's access to the back of the house where you could hide. The closest neighbor isn't even close. And if you knew the area, you'd know that no one would ever look at that spot."
 

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