By Shavonne Potts
spotts@salisburypost.com
A slain local dentist traded prescription drugs for sexual favors, an investigator said in applying for a search warrant obtained Tuesday.
And one of the people charged with the murder of Dr. David Boyd told authorities she wasn’t the only person who had sex with Boyd in exchange for drugs.
Candice Jo Drye told Salisbury Police investigators that all of the transactions occurred in Boyd’s private office at his dental practice at 644 Statesville Blvd.
Investigators executed search warrants Thursday at the 9 Pine Tree Road home where an employee discovered Boyd’s body and Friday at his office.
At the office, they found notes with Drye’s name and phone number and those of others. They also collected, according to the search warrant, unused condoms, a blue plastic vibrator, a camera, a video camera, VHS tapes, alcohol and empty alcohol containers, and a photocopied sex-related article, among other things.
More than 30 items collected at Boyd’s home in the city’s Country Club area included pills, latent prints, bed sheets, blanket and pillowcase, a vodka bottle, a fingernail, a Marlboro cigarette, hair, fibers, bathroom items and an electrical cord.
An employee discovered Boyd’s body in the master bedroom of his home at around 8:35 a.m. Thursday after he failed to show up for work, the search warrant said. Boyd was lying on the bed, his hands were tied behind his back, and he had turned blue. There were spots of blood on the bed.
The “master bedroom appeared to be ransacked along with the master bathroom,” Detective J.D. Barber wrote in an affidavit requesting the warrant.
Authorities have charged three people with murder: Drye, 23, of 142 Delano’s Lane, Mocksville; Jonathan Alexander Barnett, 18, of 6276 Old Salisbury Road, Kannapolis; and Christopher Boyd, 21, of 873 Oakwood Villa Drive in Kannapolis.
Drye was arrested Thursday. Barnett’s mother brought him to the Rowan County Magistrate’s Office on Saturday. And authorities in Cabarrus County took Christopher Boyd, who is not related to Dr. Boyd, into custody Sunday.
The warrants don’t indicate how police believe each was involved in the murder. In the affidavit requesting a search warrant for Boyd’s office, Barber wrote that during the investigation “it has been learned from several witnesses that Dr. J. David Boyd made personal appointments at his Office without the knowledge of his Office Staff and that these appointments were made for prescribing narcotics in exchange for sexual favors mainly to young females.”
Barber wrote that during an interview with Drye, investigators learned she had arranged to meet with Boyd last week at his office “for the purpose of obtaining prescription narcotics, money, and alcoholic beverages in exchange for sexual favors.”
During the same interview with Drye, Barber wrote, “it was learned that she is not the only person that obtains prescription narcotics from Dr. J. David Boyd in exchange for sexual favors and that all of this occurs in Dr. J. David Boyd’s private office located within his Dentist Office.”
The evidence seized from Boyd’s office, Barber wrote, could corroborate Drye’s story.
Police say Boyd was strangled to death. A magistrate said Barber told him that Drye claimed Boyd promised to loan her $3,000 to get an apartment and that investigators believed Boyd was killed when he didn’t give her the money. The suspects ransacked the house trying to find money before stealing electronics from the home, the magistrate said police told him.
Drye, Barnett and Christopher Boyd are scheduled for a probable cause hearing July 9.
The N.C. State Bureau of Investigation and the Rowan County Sheriff’s Office confirmed Monday that the agencies had recently opened an investigation into claims that Boyd was diverting prescription drugs for illegal use.