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An accused drug dealer in the Hudson Valley has been arrested for allegedly participating in a conspiracy to distribute crack cocaine and for traveling and using facilities of interstate commerce to operate a narcotics business enterprise, and murdering the woman who he believed was stealing from that business, federal authorities in New York announced.
The filing of a criminal complaint in Westchester County, at White Plains Federal Court on Friday, April 22, charges Putnam County resident Dwayne Pulliam, age 59, of Patterson, also known as "Doc," with participating in a crack-cocaine-distribution conspiracy, and traveling between New York and Connecticut.
The complaint says Pulliam used cellphones to operate a narcotics business enterprise — his business selling crack cocaine—and murdering Lori Campbell, also age 59, and of Putnam County, a customer he believed was stealing from his business.
Pulliam was arrested Thursday afternoon, April 21 in Connecticut, in the area of New Milford in Litchfield County, and was ordered held without bail.
New York State Crime Stoppers offered a reward of up to $2,500 for information leading to the discovery of Campbell after she went missing.
She had not been seen nor heard from since Sunday, March 27.
As alleged in the complaint:
- In or about December 2020, Pulliam was released from approximately 24 years of prison for murder. Not long afterward, from at least in or about January 2022, Pulliam engaged with others in the business of selling crack cocaine, traveling between New York and Connecticut to do so, and using phones to do so.
- On March 29, 2022, Pulliam contacted a co-conspirator of his in the drug trade and asked him to help move an Acura that belonged to Lori Lee Campbell.
- Pulliam told his co-conspirator that he suspected that Campbell was stealing drugs from him, that Pulliam confronted Campbell, that Campbell tried to leave but Pulliam did not let her do so, and that Campbell started screaming.
- Pulliam then told his co-conspirator that he “stopped her from screaming” and that this was not the first time he had “done this.”
- When the co-conspirator went with Pulliam back to Pulliam’s Putnam County apartment in Patterson, the co-conspirator saw Campbell’s dead body in the apartment, wrapped in a sheet.
- Pulliam said “there’s the culprit,” and then directed his co-conspirator to help him move the body, threatening to kill the co-conspirator’s family if the co-conspirator did not do so.
- The co-conspirator helped Pulliam move the body to Pulliam’s Honda Accord, and they then drove to Pulliam’s mother’s house in North Carolina.
- Pulliam and his co-conspirator got shovels, a bag of lime, and plastic wrap from a shed by Pulliam’s mother’s house, and drove Campbell’s body to a cul-de-sac, where her body was ultimately covered in lime and buried in a shallow grave.
- On April 19, 2021, law enforcement officers found and recovered Campbell’s body from the area in North Carolina where Pulliam’s co-conspirator said it was buried.
Pulliam has been charged with:
- One count of traveling in interstate commerce, and using a facility in interstate commerce, with intent to engage in a business enterprise involving narcotics,
- Committing murder to further that unlawful activity,
- One count of participating in a conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute 28 grams and more of crack cocaine.
The travel act count carries a maximum sentence of life in prison. The narcotics conspiracy count carries a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in prison and a maximum sentence of 40 years in prison.
The arrest was announced by:
- Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York,
- Michael J. Driscoll, Assistant Director-in-Charge of the New York Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation,
- Kevin McConville, the Sheriff of the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office.
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