Cause of Amelia death undetermined

The state medical examiner's office is unable to determine a cause of death for the human remains unearthed in April from a shallow grave in Amelia County, a spokesman said yesterday.

Advanced decomposition has forced the medical examiner's office to rule the cause of death as undetermined for the skeletal remains believed to be those of Clent Chavers, according to Steve Murman, a spokesman for the office.

Authorities say Ulisa Mary Chavers has admitted she buried Clent Chavers, her second husband, in the backyard of their former home in Amelia, where the remains were found. She said she dumped him from his wheelchair into a hole in the yard and buried him in 1994, when he was 68.

Mary Chavers, 60, also is accused of dumping the body of a boyfriend, Reginal Cody Bowles, into a well on his property in Louisa County. Then last week, authorities said they were taking another look at the circumstances surrounding the death of Bowles' mother, Eleanor Bowles.

Murman also said yesterday that the medical examiner's office was unable to determine why the skull was missing from the remains believed to belong to Clent Chavers.

Clent Chavers' half sister, Betty Rodriguez Turner of Hammond, La., said yesterday that she was disappointed the cause of death could not be determined.

"There's a lot of things that we don't know the answer to," Turner said. "We just have to trust in the good Lord."

Bowles disappeared at least two years ago, and authorities discovered his body in March at the bottom of a 33-foot-deep, unused well. The medical examiner is still trying to determine what caused his death. Mary Chavers has denied killing anyone, her attorney said.

Louisa authorities have charged Chavers with concealing Bowles' body, credit-card fraud, identity theft and possession of a sawed-off shotgun. Her trial is set for Oct. 21.

Authorities suspect that Chavers collected Bowles' and Clent Chavers' Social Security money after they disappeared. Last week, investigators said money removed from Eleanor Bowles' bank account before and after her death had ended up in Mary Chavers' account.

On July 5, 2004, Mary Chavers reported finding 69-year-old Eleanor Bowles' body in a trailer beside the house where Chavers was living with Cody Bowles, who was alive at the time. Food and vomit were found in the dead woman's mouth, authorities said.

Mary Chavers had cooked meals for Eleanor Bowles and had been administering her prescribed medication, authorities said. The medical examiner's office found that Eleanor Bowles had died of natural causes. No autopsy was performed.

But Lee Bowles, the son of Cody Bowles and grandson of Eleanor Bowles, said he remembers Mary Chavers telling him after his grandmother died that an autopsy had determined she died of a heart attack.

Authorities say it's too late to do an autopsy now because Eleanor Bowles was cremated.

Lee Bowles said his grandmother had always wanted to be buried beside her husband, who had died years earlier.

"I never knew my grandmother to want to be cremated," Lee Bowles said.

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