
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, August 12, 1994                   TAG: 9408120101
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B3   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: New River Valley bureau
DATELINE: WYTHEVILLE                                 LENGTH: Short

WYTHE COUNTY ASKED TO HELP

A group of citizens trying to maintain a Rural Retreat cemetery abandoned by its owner has asked Wythe County for help.

Tom Addison, representing the group before the county Board of Supervisors this week, urged increased efforts to track down and arrest Sunset Memory Gardens owner Don Magallenes.

Magallenes was arrested earlier this year in Mississippi on a felony warrant charging him with failing to build a mausoleum after contracting to do so. Before he could be returned to Virginia, a breakdown in communication allowed him to go free. His whereabouts are unknown.

The supervisors voted to hire lawyer Lee Chitwood to pursue collection of back taxes on the cemetery, and to schedule public auction of the property. People with relatives whose graves are in the cemetery are worried about future upkeep, while others who purchased mausoleum contracts from Magallenes wonder if that work will ever be completed.

Chitwood is to meet with the supervisors to discuss the possibility of forcing Magallenes into involuntary bankruptcy, which would free the property from legal encumberances and perhaps encourage potential purchasers.

But the supervisors said they could do nothing about Magallenes' apprehension.

by CNB