Baltimore murder suspect released from Charlotte jail is now back in custody
A man charged with murder by Baltimore police and released from the Mecklenburg County jail last week has been arrested again, according to jail logs.
Police booked Charles Anthony Boatwright back into uptown’s jail on Saturday evening, according to those logs.
Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden’s office said last week that Boatwright spent months in jail on a fugitive warrant. Legally, jail staff were forced to let him out and prosecutors were forced to drop charges when Maryland did not send a governor’s warrant, the sheriff said.
“Charles Boatwright was arrested today in Charlotte, North Carolina, by law enforcement officials,” a Facebook post by the Baltimore Police Department said on Saturday.
Court records were not immediately available. North Carolina’s online records system, eCourts, lagged Monday morning after new counties were added to it.
A spokesperson for State’s Attorney of Baltimore Ivan Bates disputed McFadden’s account of what happened.
“A Baltimore Police Department Officer drove the Governor’s Warrant packet down to Annapolis and hand-delivered it to the Maryland Extradition Coordinator,” spokesperson James Bentley said in an email Monday night. “The Governor’s Office then produced a Warrant of Rendition, which was mailed on October 6 and, according to tracking, arrived on October 8, a day before he was released and approximately a week before the 90-day deadline of October 15.”
.Ryan Oehrli covers criminal justice in the Charlotte region for The Charlotte Observer. His work is produced with financial support from the nonprofit The Just Trust. The Observer maintains full editorial control of its journalism.
This story was originally published October 13, 2025 at 12:51 PM.