It was pretty challenging being a pedestrian after winter storm Jonas dumped more than 15 inches on Charlottesville. City code requires that sidewalks be cleared within 24 hours after the snow stops. Once City Manager Maurice Jones declared the storm officially over the evening of Saturday, January 23, citizens received a slight reprieve because it […]
Escafé is a popular place to get a drink, a place a group of people out on the town might choose for a nightcap later in the evening. “It’s an end-up place,” says owner Todd Howard. And that has the restaurant in trouble with the Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control. That’s because to get […]
An attorney for Jesse Matthew called the search warrant for Matthew’s Hessian Hills apartment so broad it amounted to a “fishing expedition” because it didn’t limit what could be considered trace evidence and biological material. At a January 21 hearing, Judge Cheryl Higgins denied the defense motion to suppress evidence collected. The parents of Hannah […]
Ryan McLernan admits he’s an addict. But he’s adamant he never sold drugs until another addict—a confidential informant for the Jefferson Area Drug Enforcement Task Force—asked McLernan if he could help him score. McLernan did, and, six months later, he was indicted for distribution of $50 worth of heroin. The 22-year-old Western Albemarle High graduate […]
The snow flurries predicted for Wednesday are “small potatoes compared to what’s coming,” says Jerry Stenger, director of the State Climatology Office. Snow starting early Friday and continuing thought Saturday evening could bring an accumulation of more than a foot and up to 18 inches, he says. A low pressure system developing in Louisiana and […]
NBC’s newsmagazine Dateline was in Charlottesville this morning to interview Robert Davis, the Crozet man who was pardoned by Governor Terry McAuliffe December 21 after spending nearly 13 years in prison. Davis was 18 years old when he was charged in the 2003 murders of Nola “Ann” Charles and her toddler son, whose bodies were found […]
When Steve Sellers took the job as chief of Albemarle County Police in late 2010, he came to a department where, earlier that same year, four officers had been disciplined for inappropriate behavior on the job. He took over an organization where a dashcam video of an officer listening to the Black Eyed Peas’ “My […]
The Associated Press investigation the week before Christmas revealing that slave labor routinely is used in Thailand to clean and peel the shrimp that makes its way into major American grocery chain freezers has some locals fretting about whether to serve the nation’s favorite crustacean over the holidays. AP reporters followed and filmed freshly peeled […]
Robert Davis stepped outside the walls of a prison as a free man today for the first time since he was arrested at gunpoint nearly 13 years ago. Governor Terry McAuliffe issued a conditional pardon in a case that experts have called a textbook case of false confession. After being released from Coffeewood Correctional Center […]
Robert Tracci won’t officially take the job as Albemarle’s top prosecutor until January 1, but he was in court December 17 to be sworn in, an oath Judge Cheryl Higgins requested he take a second time because she had instructed him to say “fairly and impartially perform the duties” rather than “faithfully and impartially.” Republican Tracci […]