A week after Charlottesville police admitted they’d mishandled an investigation into a pre-Christmas Downtown Mall assault that brought national attention of the wrong sort, details of what sparked the incident are foggier than ever. Surveillance video from a nearby bank has proved useless, and neither victims nor police are making further statements citing the ongoing […]
Charlottesville still has some qualities of a small town—gossip travels fast, you can’t go anywhere without running into someone you know… But anyone paying attention to local news also knows we face big issues from controversial roads to transformative development of critical segments of Downtown to high profile crimes that need solving. Here are a […]
A couple’s late night stroll on the Christmas-lit Downtown Mall turned to terror in the early morning hours of Friday, December 20, when they were brutally assaulted by three men in what appears to have been a random act of violence. Even though one of the victims, Jeanne Doucette, managed to take photos that appear […]
After eight years of twice-a-month Monday night meetings, and countless hours corresponding with constituents, city brass, and media, former Charlottesville City Councilor and Mayor Dave Norris is stepping out of the public eye, and feeling pretty good about it. “I didn’t run for office to feed my ego or climb the political ladder,” he said […]
First there was Trader Joe’s at Stonefield. Then came Fresh Market at Albemarle Square. Word that a Wegmans is coming to Fifth Street set foodie hearts aflutter when it was announced in 2012. In what has become a veritable parade of grocery stores marching into Charlottesville, the new ones just keep on coming. The latest […]
The man known as the “graduation day rapist” has quietly changed his name, a move that prosecutors and victims rights advocates fear could help a dangerous predator conceal his violent past. On October 28, Buckingham County Circuit Court judge Kimberly S. White approved a second petition by Jeffrey Theodore Kitze to become legally known as […]
Seven months after a fake ID sting turned Rugby Road into a paramilitary zone, complete with armored vehicles and SWAT-attired agents, the three defendants who pleaded guilty to charges relating to the creation and distribution of at least 20,000 fake IDs were sentenced in federal court on Monday, December 16. The admitted “mastermind” of the […]
Three days after the body of 18-year-old Lynchburg teen Jamisha Gilbert was discovered, the families and friends of nine missing or murdered young people from Central Virginia came together on Saturday, December 7, to issue a call for community action. “This is not right!” exclaimed Ronald “B.B.” Shavers, head of the Lynchburg-based nonprofit youth group […]
The former Charlottesville restaurateur and accountant who duped clients out of more than $200,000, then went on the run, is likely to remain behind bars for less than three years, a judge ruled in Charlottesville Circuit Court on Thursday, December 5. Fifty-year-old James Kirk Baldi told Judge Edward Hogshire that shame led him to flee […]
Got holiday lights? It’s that time of year, and, according to Dominion Virginia Power, simply lighting a Christmas tree can tack as much as $10 onto a power bill for the holiday season. Jeff Norford’s holiday season power bill jumps a bit more than that. Indeed, perhaps no one in Charlottesville knows the ecstasy of […]