Ex-boyfriend arrested for murder in case of missing NC woman
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include information on an arrest after Laporscha Baldwin’s body was found.
Police in Myrtle Beach, S.C., arrested the former boyfriend of a North Carolina woman who went missing and whose body was found four days later.
Laporscha Chantal Baldwin, 30, last spoke with family members at 2 p.m., Oct. 10, police said in a news release Tuesday. Baldwin’s family had been unable to contact her since, the Charlotte Observer reported last week.
Her vehicle was found abandoned on southbound Interstate 85 between Sam Wilson Road in Charlotte and Belmont, Gastonia police said previously. Authorities later discovered Baldwin’s body in Fairfield County, South Carolina.
At the time of her disappearance, police said they believed her former boyfriend, Charles Williams Combs of Charlotte, had heard from or seen Baldwin last.
A week after her family in Gastonia reported Baldwin missing, police found and arrested Combs.
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department Homicide Unit has charged the 35-year-old Combs with first-degree murder, according to a news release from CMPD on Sunday.
The case was handled by CMPD homicide detectives working with law enforcement officials from the FBI, the Gastonia Police Department, the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division and the Fairfield County Sheriff’s Office. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police says Combs will be extradited to North Carolina.
This story was originally published October 12, 2021 at 6:03 PM.
