Dumfries, Va. –– The body found behind a Dumfries shopping plaza this week is that of a homeless man.
Kenneth Michael Hostetter, 66, was found behind a closed restaurant in the Triangle Shopping Plaza on Wednesday.
Investigators told News & Messenger they do not suspect foul play, and that the body was so badly decomposed police had to bring in a forensic anthropologist to identify the remains.
Those who had met Hostetter said he was a man of very limited financial means.
The man often frequented the winter shelter on Potomac Mills Road, near the Potomac Rappahannock Transportation Commission, in Woodbridge, said Gayle Sanders, administrator at Volunteers of America Chesapeake’s Hilda Barg Homeless Prevention Center on U.S. 1 in Woodbridge.
“He was on disability, and you can’t find a place to afford on $674 a month [his monthly income] in Prince William County. It’s true and sad,” said Sanders.
In addition to meeting him at the winter shelter, Sanders also spoke with Hostettler during an annual homeless count in Prince William.
During the count in January, 488 people in counted as being homeless in Prince William County, 1,056 less people than in Fairfax County, according to the Washington Metropolitan Council of Governments.
While officials admit the numbers can never be 100 percent accurate, the number of homeless residents fell by 142 in Prince William from the year before.
