CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A north Charlotte woman said when she tried to build a deck, she had to stop because she found headstones in her backyard.
Roslyn Wright knew there was a cemetery in the woods behind her house on Eben Drive. However, she never suspected there could be graves below the land right outside her back door until she started digging this month.
She said she uncovered rows of stones -- 13 stones in all -- that looked similar to the stones marking some graves in the confirmed cemetery.
"I never expected that they would be that close," Wright said.
On Tuesday, Stewart Gray with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Landmarks Commission examined the land. He agreed that the stones look like the ones in the cemetery but said it was hard to know for sure.
"We don't know," he said. "You'd have to get an archaeologist to tell you whether these are graves."
That archaeologist's tests would be costly, Wright said, and she wants the developer that sold her the house, Lockard Reed, to foot the bill.
Eyewitness News called them.
"Was there any evidence of possible graves there when you sold the house to her?" Eyewitness News asked.
"Not on her lot, no," Joe Childress of Lockard Reed said. "None, whatsoever."
Childress said they surveyed the land and did soil samples when they bought it and found nothing.
But he said they are willing to talk to Wright directly about her concerns after the recommendation from Gray.
Wright said she's been consulting with an attorney and will contact them with her requests soon.
"Before, we were OK with it," Wright said. "But now, it's just too close for comfort."