A Grave Discovery

July 28, 2007 - Source: Jonathan D. Jones, Staff Writer

STOKESDALE - The discovery seemed straight out of a movie.

A horror flick.

Cyndy Knight and her husband, Eddie, had moved into a nice home in one of the many subdivisions springing up like wildflowers across northeast Guilford County.

It wasn't cheap. And the couple, both 51, hoped it would be the last they ever owned.

At the dawn of spring in 2006, they decided to clear a bit of woods in their backyard - and made a spooky discovery.

As the Knights cleared the underbrush, they noticed something odd: Field stones sticking upright, out of the ground. They were about 6 feet apart. A few were in rows.

The Knights had unwittingly bought part of a graveyard.

"Everyone of my friends I tell about it says, 'It's like Poltergeist; don't put in a pool,' u2001" Cyndy Knight said.

Grave concerns

Cyndy Knight doesn't understand how the lot at Charles Place at Arbor Run was sold without anyone noticing the graveyard. The surveyor's line goes right over top of it. She wonders why her lot wasn't cleared back to the property line, as several neighbors' properties were.

"I'm outraged that people overlooked this," she said. "There were stones up here. They had to see them."

Only a small part is on the Knight's property; two full graves, to be exact.

The rest is in thick woods owned by Gary Charles, who lives nearby. The land has been in the Charles family for about a 100 years, since his great-grandfather immigrated from Germany. The part that became Charles Place, where the Knights live, was owned by his sister before it was developed.

Charles said he has been all over the property and had no idea a graveyard was there.

"I didn't even know it was over there until this lady calls me four or five months ago," Charles said. "It's a pretty good ways back there."

It's easy to understand when you see the land. There is thick underbrush, except for where the Knight cleaned out around the cemetery. The head and foot stones that are still standing rise only a foot or so off the ground, if that.

Differing plats

The developer, Arbor Run Partners, did not realize it was there, said Gary Wolf, an attorney representing the company.

"Had my client known they were there, they would not have sold that lot," Wolf said. "They would have put them into a common area."

A preliminary plat for the subdivision is marked to show that graves are near the Knight's lot. It was approved in February of 2004. But Wolf said the marking about the graves didn't come from Arbor Run Partners or anyone hired by the developer to work on the project.

He provided a copy of a second preliminary plat that was approved months later. It shows no marking for the graves, and Wolf said that is what the developer received from the planning office. The graves aren't noted on the final plans recorded with the county, either.

Trevor Nuttall, a county planner responsible for reviewing plans in Stokesdale, said it's unclear when that preliminary plat was marked to show the graves and that it could have come well after the subdivision was approved. Nuttall was not the Stokesdale planner when the project was reviewed.

Common occurrence?

Finding a graveyard is not uncommon, Nuttall said. And more are likely to be discovered as rural parts of Guilford County are developed.

The timing of this discovery - after the subdivision was already under way - is what's unusual in this case.

Despite the dispute, Cyndy Knight said her primary concern is the future of the graveyard. She doesn't want it bulldozed or built over, particularly if Charles ever decides to sell his portion to a developer.

"What I want them to do is to section it off and make sure its taken care of," she said.

But the couple are also worried about what it will do to their property value should they ever decide to sell.

Having graves in the backyard isn't exactly a selling point.

"They couldn't get half of what they paid for it right now," said Kara Edmunds, an attorney representing the Knights.

Wolf said the claim has been submitted to the insurance companies representing Arbor Run Partners and the title company that handled the transaction.

"We're hopeful the title insurance company and my client's liability carrier can come to a resolution (with the Knights)," Wolf said.

For now, Cyndy Knight worries anything she finds in the backyard might be part of a grave that was disturbed. She shows off two small pieces of shale, that are nearly square, that she pulled out of the yard.

"I always think these might be the tops of someone's grave," she said.

* Unwittingly, the Knights bought a house with graves Unwittingly, the Knights bought a house with graves.


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