NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — Police in Newport News found a man in his home Saturday that had been deceased for multiple years, in the Lee’s Mills Homes community at the 400 block of Rivers Ridge Circle.
It all started with a phone call when an unidentified neighbor told local reporter Aleah Hordges that he got a call to do a welfare check on his next door neighbor on February 8.
“The nephew called me. I told him I couldn’t go on Friday because I was going out of town, but I can do it on Saturday,” said the unidentified neighbor.
He said that he checked the home around 9:30 a.m on February 10 and said an odor was coming from inside.
No one answered after several knocks so the unidentified neighbor called police to the home on Rivers Ridge Circle in Mulberry Village.
“I gave them the keys, they entered the house and found the gentleman,” he added.
Newport News police said they found a man’s body inside and that he had been dead for several years.
Officers believe the man was in his late sixties.
Other neighbors told local reporters they think the situation is strange. Some thought the man could’ve possibly been sent to a nursing home or moved away with his family, but instead he was inside his home the entire time.
“Summer has come and we didn’t smell anything,” a neighbor said.
The neighbor who did the welfare check and called police said the man’s family is in California and he lived alone taking care of himself.
He said the last time they saw each other was two years ago.
“He was very secluded. He didn’t want to be bothered with a bunch of people.”
Police believe there was no foul play involving the man’s death. Court documents say the homeowner was 68-year-old Charles Rafkind.
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