Charlottesville Breaking News
Man allegedly shoots woman in neck
John Wesley Morris has been charged with malicious wounding.county mugshotAs snow was falling over the county early Sunday morning, gunfire rang out just off of Hydraulic Road, and a woman became the year's first victim of a shooting in Albemarle. Charged in the incident is John Wesley Morris, a 53-year-old Charlottesville resident, who reportedly fled the scene and was captured in his vehicle in the Free Union/Earlysville area less than two hours later.
The victim, an unnamed woman, received a gunshot wound to her neck, but her injuries were described by an Albemarle County Police Department release as "non life-threatening." The release indicates that the March 27 incident occurred around 1:40am in the 1800 block of Inglewood Drive with the arrest around 3:05am on Buck Mountain Ford Road.
Published reports suggest that Morris is no stranger to violence. In 1985 he was convicted of the double homicide of Ricky Clements and Monte Wanless at the Pantops-area Hardee's restaurant. He was sentenced to 46 years, and according to the Department of Corrections, released in January 2008.
Trial continued: As Ragged fields erupt in green
The fire began crawling through fields and forests on February 19.file photo by hawes spencer
One month later, the terrain has been reclaimed by green.photo by hawes spencer
Neighbors point to this burn pile as the source of prior fires-- and the fateful one.file photo by hawes spencerThe criminal trial has been pushed back, but the burned fields of Ragged Mountain Farm have recently emerged to look greener than the surrounding fields spared from flames during the recent 609-acre wildfire that began on a wind-whipped Saturday in February.
"That's not surprising," says Sam Lindblom, who burns fields across the Commonwealth as the land program manager for the Virginia Nature Conservancy. Lindblom says the combination of ample rainfall during the spring growing season, black ash to heat the land, and an explosion of nutrients unleashed by the recent flames created a "perfect combination" for rejuvenated fields.
"And whammo," says Lindblom, "that's why it's so green."
Meanwhile, accused fire-starter Alex Toomy has won a continuance on the two charges stemming the blaze. The hearing was to have occurred on Monday, March 28, but his lawyer, Michael Derdeyn, confirms that his client will instead appear for trial on May 31.
At issue is whether Toomy broke state fire law by conducting a brush fire before 4pm and whether his burning practices resulted in the blaze that began around 2pm on Fe...
Upper Bundoran: Manor house under foreclosure
The seven-bedroom, five-fireplace house with 55 acres is underwater.PUBLICITY PHOTOAnother grand Albemarle house is headed toward the auction block. Upper Bundoran, the house built by the son of the man who built Scott Stadium, is under foreclosure and will be sold on the courthouse steps April 18.
The 6,500-square-foot Georgian manor on 55 acres is part of the Bundoran Farm "preservation development," but its developer insists the rest of project is not in trouble.
"That's completely separate financing and a separate lot," says Robert H. Baldwin Jr., general manager of Edge Valley Preservation LLC, the company developing Bundoran Farm. "Foreclosures are never good. We take them very seriously."
Royal Bank of Canada is calling its $3.1 million credit line on Upper Bundoran, which has been listed for sale for $2.6 million. "It's underwater," acknowledges Baldwin.
The plan for the 2,300-acre Bundoran Farm is to keep most of its acreage under conservation easement as pasture, forest, and orchards, and to plant 108 residential lots in the middle of that. "Tax credits are not part of our plan," say Baldwin of the popular land preservation perk used by some developers, such as Biscuit Run's, to mitigate investment losses.
Bundoran Farm sales have picked up, with 17 lots recently sold. "We suffered like everybody else," says Baldwin. "For a year and a half, we didn't make a single sale...
Scream-worthy: Graeter's takes Charlottesville
We felt like kids in an ice cream store...PHOTOS BY LISA PROVENCEBuckeyes are already familiar with Graeter's, the fourth generation family-owned Cincinnati ice creamery. Foodies may have heard Emeril Lagasse and Bobby Flay extol its virtues. Since it's now available at Kroger, the rest of us can give it a taste.
Never ones to turn down offers of free ice cream, the Hook staff savored the Mocha Chocolate Chip and Chocolate Chocolate Chip, and tried unsuccessfully to wrest the Butter Pecan from an unrepentant colleague who ate the whole pint.
The secret to its sumptuousness is something called the French-pot method, in which the ice cream is made in two-gallon batches with, naturally, all-natural rich-as-sin heavy cream and cane sugar.
"I like it because it's custard style and creamy," says Rob Myers, whose father's family is from Ohio. He'd heard of the legendary ice cream, and when it became available at Kroger's, he was there. His favorite? Black raspberry.
Graeter's makes 24 flavors and 13 seasonal flavors, and sells for $4.29 a pint. Umm, where's the vanilla?
DNA advance: Harrington's parents pleased by familial approval
Along with this composite sketch of the assailant in a 2005 Fairfax rape, connected by DNA to the Morgan Harrington case, investigators now have another tool at their disposal: familial DNA searching.File photo
Morgan Harrington, who should have graduated from Virginia Tech in May, will receive a diploma posthumously, says her father Dan Harrington, who hopes to walk in her place during graduation exercises.PHOTO COURTESY HARRINGTON FAMILYFour months after the parents of murdered Virginia Tech student Morgan Harrington urged the Virginia Crime Commission to allow familial DNA searches to be conducted in unsolved homicides, the state is ready to begin using the tool, Governor Bob McDonnell announced Monday, March 21.
"I think this is going to be very valuable," says Morgan's father, Dan Harrington, "not only in Morgan's case, but in other unsolved crimes throughout the state."
The Harrington case certainly seems tailor-made for the technology. Twenty-year-old Harrington disappeared from outside UVA's John Paul Jones Arena during a Metallica concert on October 17, 2009. Her remains were discovered more than three months later on an Albemarle County farm, and unidentified DNA recovered in the case matches DNA left on the victim of a 2005 rape in Fairfax.
Unlike a traditional DNA search, which looks for an exact match within the state's DNA databank, a familial DNA search looks for matches that suggest an immediate family relationship to help police home in on a suspect. It's how California investigators recently caught two alleged predators. Lonnie David Franklin Jr., known...
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