CARMEL – A convicted Putnam felon released in December 2020 after serving 24 years in state prison will be spending the rest of his life behind bars.
Dwayne Pulliam, 63, of Carmel, was convicted last December of Travel Act murder and conspiracy to distribute cocaine and heroin and has now been sentenced to life in prison in U.S. District Court.
Four years ago, Pulliam killed one of his customers whom he suspected of stealing cocaine from his business before transporting her body to North Carolina where he buried the remains in a shallow grave in a wooded area.
In March 2022, Lori Lee Campbell went missing. One month later, working in conjunction with the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York and the FBI, the Putnam Sheriff’s Department announced the filing of a criminal complaint charging Pulliam, with not only murder but with traveling in interstate commerce, using a facility in interstate commerce with the intent to engage in a business enterprise involving narcotics, committing murder to further unlawful activity and conspiracy, the maximum offense carrying a life prison term if found guilty.
According to the late Sheriff Kevin McConville, Pulliam took part in a cocaine distribution conspiracy and traveled between Putnam County and western Connecticut by using cell phones to operate his enterprise.
Authorities said when Pulliam believed Campbell described by authorities as “one of his customers” was stealing from his business, he murdered her.
Grisly information released by law enforcement detailed the tragic chain of events for Campbell. “On March 29, 2022, Pulliam contacted a co-conspirator in the drug trade and asked him to move an Acura that belonged to Campbell. Pulliam told the co-conspirator that he suspected the woman was stealing drugs from him and when confronted and Campbell started screaming he ‘stopped her from screaming’ which was not the ‘first time he had done this.’”
Other information released detailed how when the co-conspirator went with Pulliam back to his apartment in Patterson, Campbell’s body was found wrapped in a sheet with Pulliam advising the unidentified individual. “There’s the culprit!”
Pulliam directed the co-conspirator to help him move the body, threatening to kill the man’s family if he did not do so.
Campbell’s remains were driven to Pulliam’s mother’s house in North Carolina where the pair retrieved shovels, a bag of lime and plastic wrap from the woman’s home before driving the body to a nearby cul-de-sac and burying the body in a grave that was recovered by law enforcement on April 19, 2022.
Clayton praised the outstanding work of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office, which also supported the prosecution through trial.
Comments