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Human remains found in Richland County

Posted at 10:14 PM, Feb 07, 2016
and last updated 2016-02-07 23:39:18-05

Mansfield Police said they have found human remains, presumed to be that of a missing Mansfield woman, in multiple locations in northern Richland County.

Police have identified the missing woman as 62-year-old Patsy Hudson.

"I just had a bad gut feeling that something was wrong,” said Wayne Liggett who knew Hudson.

Liggett said he called police in July after he saw Hudson's mail pile up, and the gate to her driveway was never closed.

“If she saw you out in the back yard, she would say 'Hi' to you," said Mark Clever, her neighbor. "But other than that, she stuck to herself."

Although neighbors said she did befriend her new next-door neighbors, Walter Renz and Linda Buckner-Blehar.

“He [Renz] would come over and mow her grass,” said Clever.

“All I know is that they [Renz and Buckner-Blehar] moved up here from southern Ohio some place, their house burned down," added Liggett. "They were asking people for TVs to furnish their home in the neighborhood."

But friendship quickly turned to frustration over Hudson's cats.

“They turned her in about all of the cats she had," said Liggett. "She had close to 70 cats running around the neighborhood here.”

At the time Renz and Buckner-Blehar turned the 62-year-old in, neighbors tell me they never saw Hudson again.

Mansfield Police said her family reported her missing in December.

On February 4th, Renz was arrested on a warrant for receiving stolen property, reportedly tied to Hudson's credit card. Buckner-Blehar was arrested on a parole violation out of Kentucky. Police found both of them at a roadside campground in Tennessee.

Neighbors said Renz and Buckner-Blehar moved out at about the same time Hudson went missing.

A positive identification of the remains is still pending by the Richland County Coroner's Office.
 

 

 

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