Inset: Nicholas J. Gandy (Charlotte County Sheriff's Office). Background: The area in North Carolina where Gandy's girlfriend's body was discovered (Google Maps).
A 37-year-old man in North Carolina was arrested for allegedly killing his girlfriend shortly after she posted a video to Snapchat showing the two of them in a nightclub together.
Nicholas Jordan Gandy was taken into custody this week and charged with one count of murder in the slaying of 33-year-old Tabulon Debreshea Reece.
According to a news release from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, officers at about 6 a.m. on Sunday responded to a 911 caller's request for a welfare check in the 700 block of Lawton Road. The caller reported that there was a woman "lying on the ground and not moving."
Upon arriving at the address, first responders located the victim, later identified as Reece, who appeared to have suffered a fatal gunshot wound to the head. Emergency medical personnel pronounced Reece dead at the scene.
Reece's family told detectives that she and Gandy, identified in the document as "her longtime boyfriend," had gone out to a nightclub the previous evening, according to a probable cause affidavit.
The family said Reece left the house that evening in her Honda Accord. The car returned several hours later, but it was being driven by Gandy — and Reece was not with him.
"The victim's family members advised that Gandy returned to the victim's residence after the murder, in the victim' s vehicle," the affidavit says. "They advised that Gandy told them that the victim had his vehicle and he had the victim's. The family members advised that Gandy drives a 'goldish' Lexus, four-door sedan with tinted windows."
Investigators said that Gandy's Lexus was not with the victim when she was found.
Police soon learned that Reece posted a story to her Snapchat account at around midnight. The post showed her at the nightclub in the same outfit she was wearing at the time of her death.
"Gandy is seen with her in the video," police wrote in the affidavit.
Cellphone data from Reece's device showed that on the night she was killed, her device pinged in the area where her body was later discovered as well as in the 10000 block of Old Dowd Road.
Investigators later discovered that at about 4:30 a.m. on Sunday, shortly before Reece's body was found, Gandy was arrested at an Amazon Distribution Center in the 10000 block of Old Dowd Road for what appeared to be "an unrelated incident." Following up on that incident, detectives found that Gandy's 2004 Lexus sedan had been towed from the distribution center parking lot.
Police responded to the towing company's headquarters where they found the vehicle in the tow yard.
"Detectives observed blood inside the vehicle and a discharged cartridge casing on the driver's side floorboard," the affidavit said. "Detectives observed an ID card belonging to Gandy hanging from the rearview mirror."
Gandy was arrested on Monday and charged with Reece's murder. He is currently being held in the Mecklenburg County Jail without bond, records show. He is currently scheduled to make his next court appearance on March 10.
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