Family surprised to learn man’s body was buried on his property

A relative of Clent Chavers was shocked to learn yesterday that authorities had exhumed what they believe are his remains in a backyard in rural Amelia County.

Friday's discovery came after Chavers' widow, Ulisa Mary Chavers, admitted the day before that she buried her husband's body about 15 years ago outside their former home on West Pridesville Road, authorities said.

Mary Chavers already is accused of dumping another body, that of her boyfriend, Reginal Cody Bowles, into a 33-foot-deep well on his property in Louisa County. Bowles had been missing for at least two years when his body was found in the well last month.

Investigators don't know yet how either man died, but they say Mary Chavers had been collecting both men's Social Security money after they disappeared. Authorities believe Clent Chavers died and was buried in spring 1994, when he was 68.

Clent Chavers' half sister, Betty Rodriguez Turner of Amite, La., recalled yesterday in a phone interview that Mary Chavers told members of Clent Chavers' family in the early to mid-1990s that he had died and would be cremated.

"Wait a minute," Turner said yesterday when told of Friday's discovery in Amelia. "She called us and told us that he died and he was going to be cremated and she didn't want us to come."

Turner said Clent Chavers was a war veteran who had worked as a taxi driver in Louisiana and had children from a previous marriage. He had medical problems with one of his legs, which was amputated, and he had been in a nursing home in Slidell, La., before moving with Mary Chavers to Virginia, Turner said.

Authorities said Clent Chavers was Mary Chavers' second husband, and her first husband lives outside Virginia. She had a daughter with her first husband and a daughter with Clent Chavers, authorities said.

In Amelia, Clent Chavers used a wheelchair, and before he died, Mary Chavers told their landlord that her husband was in poor health and she took care of him.

"My picture of her was that she tended to him and she was overworked and she always looked tired," landlord Sandra Drinkard said.

Authorities said Mary Chavers told them that after Clent Chavers died of natural causes in 1994, she dug a hole and dumped him from his wheelchair into it and buried him.

She later moved to Louisa, where she lived with Bowles on his property on Garretts Mill Road in the Mineral area. Her daughter by Clent Chavers, Teresa Sullivan, was married and living with her husband, James Sullivan, in another home on Bowles' property.

After authorities discovered Bowles' body in the well, the Sullivans moved in with Mary Chavers' other daughter in Amelia, James Sullivan said in a brief interview at the house yesterday. He said Teresa Sullivan wasn't home. A woman at the house declined to comment.

James Sullivan said Mary Chavers had given him and his wife the same explanation for Bowles' disappearance that she gave to Louisa investigators -- that he had ridden away on a motorcycle to Sturgis, S.D.

Authorities started looking into Bowles' disappearance late last year after a son in Florida reported that he hadn't seen or heard from his father in three years. Authorities believe he'd been missing since at least early 2007.

In the Louisa case, Chavers faces charges of concealing Bowles' body, credit-card fraud, identity theft and possession of a sawed-off rifle. She has a preliminary hearing set for April 27.

Contact Reed Williams at (804) 649-6332 or .