TRIANGLE -- A man helping ready a home for the rental market found two tombstones in its basement Wednesday.
Prince William police spokeswoman Erika Hernandez shows the pair of
tombstones that were found in the basement of a rental property in Triangle, VA.
By: | Times-Dispatch
Published: March 15, 2010
Published: March 15, 2010
For a week, Edward
Grogg had been doing work at a one-story home on Triangle Street, helping
landlord Elliot
Diamond get the 60-year-old house ready to be rented again, after two
tenants abruptly left with little notice a few weeks ago.
While in the basement, Grogg
said he saw slabs of concrete lying on the floor.
"When I picked them up I could
feel the grooves, so I took them and turned them around, leaned them against the
wall and then I realized they were real tombstones," said Grogg.
"I don't believe in ghosts, but I was kind of spooked."
According to Grogg,
the tombstone discovery is the latest in a series of eerie events in the house,
including a light bulb that inexplicably turned on while power was shut
off.
The headstones of Mary
J. Fitton, alive between 1880 and 1935, and David
M. Ingram, alive between 1957 and 1980, are now in a police evidence room in
Woodbridge. Grogg
called authorities on Diamond's advice and reported what he had found.
Prince
William County library
historian Don
Wilson said a check of local records show that Fitton
lived with her husband, Hanson
Fitton, on Saint Asaph Street in Alexandria
before her death on Oct. 6, 1935. Social Security death records show that Ingram
lived in Washington
in 1971.
Wilson
said both people could be buried in Alexandria,
and that their headstones could have been stolen or replaced.
"Usually, when we find a
tombstone in Prince
William County, it has been removed from a grave
site and replaced with a new one, after the stone begins to show wear," he
said.
Investigators are trying to find out how the stones got to the house.
Diamond
bought the house as an investment property in 2003 and said his last tenants
were a man and a woman who argued frequently. He said the man left without
notice, and the woman weeks later surrendered the key to the house, leaving no
contact information behind.
"The headstones weren't there
when I was in the basement about a year ago," said Diamond.
"The police are going to have to track down where these guys went and ask them
about it if they are going to find out who they belong to."
While Diamond
said he doesn't know about any paranormal activity in his house, Grogg
said earlier tenants moved out because they heard strange voices, doors slamming
and footsteps on the wooden floors where no one was walking.
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