Body Of Missing Hudson Valley Woman Found In North Carolina: FBI

PUTNAM COUNTY, NY — The case of a Putnam County woman missing since March 27, has reached a tragic conclusion, according to federal officials.

Dwayne Pulliam, a/k/a "Doc," has been accused of participating in a crack-cocaine distribution conspiracy, traveling between New York and Connecticut, and using cellphones to operate a narcotics business enterprise, selling crack-cocaine and murdering Lori Lee Campbell, a customer he believed was stealing from his business. Today, 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 FBI and Kevin McConville, the Sheriff of the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office announced the filing of a criminal complaint in White Plains federal court.

According to the compliant, in December 2020, Pulliam was released after 24 years in prison for murder. Not long afterward, from at least in or about January 2022, the 59-year-old engaged with others in the business of selling crack-cocaine, traveling between New York and Connecticut, according to the FBI.

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On March 29, federal prosecutors say Pulliam contacted a co-conspirator of his in the drug trade and asked him to help move an Acura that belonged to Campbell. He told his co-conspirator that he suspected that Campbell was stealing drugs from him, that he confronted Campbell and that Campbell tried to leave but Pulliam did not let her. Campbell reportedly started screaming.

Pulliam told his unidentified co-conspirator that he “stopped her from screaming” and that this was not the first time he had "done this," according to court documents.

When the co-conspirator went with Pulliam back to Pulliam’s apartment in Patterson, New York, 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 his boss move the body to Pulliam's Honda Accord, and they then drove to Pulliam mother’s house in North Carolina. Pulliam and his co-conspirator got shovels, a bag of lime and plastic wrap. The pair then drove Campbell’s body to a cul-de-sac, where her body was ultimately covered in lime and buried in a shallow grave, according to authorities and an eyewitness account.

On April 19, law enforcement officers found Campbell’s body in North Carolina right where Pulliam's co-conspirator said it was buried.

Pulliam is 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, and thereafter committing murder to further that unlawful activity, and one count of participating in a conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute 28 grams and more of crack-cocaine.