Putnam's 3-Week Probe Led To Federal Charges Against Parolee

PUTNAM COUNTY, NY — In three weeks of intensive work, Putnam County investigators built the case that sent the FBI to the shallow North Carolina grave where missing Putnam resident Lori Lee Campbell's body was found.

Putnam County Sheriff Kevin McConville told Patch that Capt. James Schepperly and the department's BCI and narcotics teams "were determined to find her. They just worked nonstop tracing all the leads."

According to the case the sheriff's investigators, the Putnam District Attorney's office and federal prosecutors have put together, Campbell was already dead when on April 2 her friends called police to say the 59-year-old hadn't been seen since March 27. SEE: Reward Offered In Case Of Missing Putnam Woman

The investigators in Putnam developed many leads and gathered many facts in just three weeks, McConville said. They worked with the Alamance Sheriff's Office in North Carolina, the FBI Safe Streets Task Force, NY DEA Office, and the Connecticut State Police. That meant that only a federal prosecution would be able to merge all of the offenses into one combined and comprehensive prosecution, even though both the victim and her alleged killer were Putnam residents.

Patterson resident Dwayne Pulliam, known as "Doc," is accused of killing Campbell. Prosecutors allege he was dealing drugs as part of a large multi-state narcotics ring and she was a customer he believed was stealing from him.

Pulliam had been out of prison since December 2020, granted parole after serving 24 years for murder. He was named in an article about the parole system's caseload crisis by NYFocus, a nonprofit newsroom covering state issues.

His was a notable case, McConville agreed, but only because after he got out, the 59-year-old is alleged to have become a drug dealer in Connecticut and New York, routinely violating the terms of his lifetime parole.

"When we arrested him for murder we also broke up a large-scale drug operation," McConville told Patch.

Federal prosecutors allege Pulliam confronted Campbell, then killed her to stop her from screaming. On March 29, he coerced a fellow drug dealer — by threatening his family — into helping take her body from his apartment to his mother's house in North Carolina, where they collected shovels, a bag of lime and plastic wrap before burying it nearby.

On Wednesday, law enforcement officers found Campbell's body right where Pulliam's co-conspirator said it was buried, prosecutors said.

Pulliam faces two federal charges, the first of which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison, and the second a 40-year maximum prison sentence. The two charges are: 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.

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