The Wall Street Journal
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The Journal.
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2025
9/28/2025 5:30:00 AMShare This Episode
Camp Swamp Road Ep. 3: A Friend in the Shadows
On Super Bowl Sunday, Jennifer Foley opened a police file and discovered 90 recorded phone calls from her brother’s killer. To Jennifer, what she heard completely undermined Weldon Boyd’s self-defense claims. But the calls also revealed that Boyd had a powerful friend. WSJ’s Valerie Bauerlein reports.
Read the Reporting:
Valerie Bauerlein: A word of warning. This series contains descriptions of violence and strong language, including unbleeped curse words. Please be advised. Previously on Camp Swamp Road.
Mark Tinsley: I didn't see how this could be. I didn't see how you could stand your ground while you're chasing someone else's.
Speaker 3: Yes, it was a dead body, but it was the body of my son, but you would expect more reverence for a body than he received.
Jennifer Foley: I didn't know what to look at first, so I just opened the first folder and there they were.
Valerie Bauerlein: What?
Jennifer Foley: The 90 phone calls.
Valerie Bauerlein: It's Sunday, February 9th, 2025. Across America, families and friends are gathering to watch the Philadelphia Eagles take on the Kansas City Chiefs in the Super Bowl, but Jennifer Foley isn't one of them. Through her civil suit against Weldon Boyd and Bradley Williams, she had just got a hold of a mountain of evidence. Jennifer was poring over a mangled mess of police files, which included hours of Weldon Boyd's phone calls. Where were you?
Jennifer Foley: I was at my kitchen table, sitting at my kitchen table, and I had just on the small little legal pads, and I'm like writing down the file names. I'm trying to figure out who some of these people are because I don't really know what I'm looking at.
Valerie Bauerlein: And how many hours of calls are you going through?
Jennifer Foley: I mean, I think there's what seven, eight hours of worth.
Valerie Bauerlein: The calls are from 2023 spanning from the day of the shooting to a few days after, Saturday, September 9th to Wednesday, September 13th. Jennifer clicked around and then she opened this call.
Automated: County 911. The next available operator will answer your call.
Valerie Bauerlein: You've heard this call before. It's Weldon Boyd calling 911 about Scott Spivey, but that version was from the dispatcher side. This recording is from Boyd's phone.
911 operator: 911, address of your emergency.
Weldon Boyd: Hey, I've got a guy pointing a gun at me driving. We're armed as well. He keeps throwing the gun in our faces acting like he's about to shoot us. If he keeps this up, I am going to shoot him
Valerie Bauerlein: In this recording. You can hear things you couldn't make out in the police dispatch version like the sound of Boyd's powerful truck, a Dodge Ram TRX. It has a supercharged engine called the Hellcat V8.
Weldon Boyd: We're Highway 9 headed toward Loris.
Valerie Bauerlein: And for the first time, you can clearly hear another voice, Boyd's Passenger Bradley Williams telling his friend to slow down.
Weldon Boyd: My buddy's like, "What the fuck?" And he's got a gun aimed at us next to us.
Bradley Williams: Slow down, slow down, slow down.
Weldon Boyd: Then he tried to (inaudible)
Valerie Bauerlein: Police had concluded that Jennifer's brother Scott Spivey had been the aggressor. But when Jennifer heard this version of the 911 call, it told her a different story. What she heard was her brother being chased.
Jennifer Foley: He's running from you. Leave him alone. All I can do in that whole 911 tape is like, "Please just stop. Just stop."
Valerie Bauerlein: But Boyd doesn't stop. Jennifer knows how this call ends. She hears Boyd follow her brother onto Camp Swamp Road. Then Boyd's truck stops and Jennifer hears the shots much louder than she had heard before.
Weldon Boyd: Wait hold-
Speaker 9: Back up, Weldon, back up. (inaudible) back up.
Weldon Boyd: I can't put it in gear.
Speaker 9: Put it in gear.
911 operator: Hello?
Weldon Boyd: Fuck.
911 operator: Hello?
Bradley Williams: Where's he at?
Valerie Bauerlein: After they ring out, Jennifer notices something else new, something that Bradley Williams says.
Bradley Williams: God dammit, Weldon. Why couldn't we fucking leave him alone?
Valerie Bauerlein: "God dammit, Weldon. Why couldn't we fucking leave him alone?" In that moment, what Jennifer hears is Bradley Williams undermining his and Boyd's claim of self-defense. What she hears is that they knew they were chasing Spivey. After the 911 call, Jennifer moves on to the next file and the next one and the next. She can't stop listening.
Jennifer Foley: And I pulled the first all-nighter that I pulled since I wrote my thesis to get my masters like that was 10 years ago. I mean, I stayed up the whole time.
Valerie Bauerlein: Jennifer is late-night cramming because she has a deadline. In just a few hours, her lawyer, Mark Tinsley, would question Boyd and Williams face-to-face for the first time. Mark hadn't heard these calls, but also to Jennifer, these calls affirm what she had suspected all along, that this wasn't a stand-your-ground case, that her brother Scott Spivey was pursued and that the investigation into his death should never have been closed.
I'm Valerie Bauerlein, and this is Camp Swamp Road, A series from The Journal. Coming up episode three: A Friend in the Shadows.
Weldon Boyd, Bradley Williams, and every person in the recordings you're about to hear declined to speak with us. Boyd and Williams deny any wrongdoing.
A natural question at this point might be, "Why was Weldon Boyd recording his phone calls?" The answer is a bit complicated, but you can find it inside the calls themselves.
Kathy Boyd: Hello.
Weldon Boyd: So she brings a guy to stare at the people picking the car up.
Kathy Boyd: Well, I warned you she would.
Valerie Bauerlein: This is a call from a few hours before the shooting. It's between Weldon Boyd and his mother, Kathy Boyd. They're talking about a dramatic breakup that Boyd is going through.
Kathy Boyd: Weldon, you got some crazy people.
Valerie Bauerlein: Boyd had recently broken up with his fiance. Hours before the shooting, she had returned a Toyota 4Runner that Boyd had bought four. He wasn't there for the drop-off, but Boyd had heard that his ex was with another guy when she returned the truck.
Weldon Boyd: Well, I told you she had somebody else.
Kathy Boyd: Weldon and she'll have somebody else in about three more months.
Valerie Bauerlein: Through my reporting, I learned that Boyd was recording his phone calls because of this breakup. He was locked in a custody battle with his ex. She was pregnant with his unborn son, and Boyd was hoping to catch her saying something that would help his case. I was able to reconstruct Scott Spivey's movements in the hours before the shooting using phone records and security camera footage. With these phone calls, I can now do the same with Weldon Boyd, and it's clear that he was having a bad day. Turns out his ex didn't just return a truck inside, inside it was a five-carat engagement ring.
Weldon Boyd: And she just had the ring sitting in a cup holder?
Kathy Boyd: I don't know. They didn't tell where it was.
Valerie Bauerlein: Less than an hour before the shooting on Camp Swamp Road, Boyd puts both the engagement ring and the truck up for sale on Facebook. Minutes later, Boyd is driving his white truck down Highway 9. Bradley Williams is in the passenger seat. Boyd is confiding in his friend about how much he wants to be a dad. At 5 54 P.M, Boyd calls 911.
911 operator: 911, the address of your emergency?
Weldon Boyd: Hey, I've got a guy point a gun at me driving. We're armed as well.
Valerie Bauerlein: Four minutes later, Scott Spivey is shot and killed. In the moments after, you can hear Boyd asking the dispatcher when the police will arrive.
Weldon Boyd: Man, how how far out are we?
911 operator: (inaudible)
Weldon Boyd: Can I call my mama?
Valerie Bauerlein: "Can I call my mama?" As Boyd waits for his mother, Kathy Boyd, to pick up, you can hear him talking to witnesses.
Weldon Boyd: Huh?
Speaker 11: You okay?
Weldon Boyd: Yeah, yeah. Did you see that? What happened on the road?
Speaker 11: No.
Weldon Boyd: Okay. The dude tried to run us off the road, and when we turned here, he got there, got out and aimed a gun at us.
Speaker 11: Oh, Jesus.
Weldon Boyd: Hey, Mama. I decided to shoot. I just killed somebody.
Speaker 12: Yeah, you did.
Weldon Boyd: He tried to shoot me and Bradley.
Speaker 12: Are y'all okay?
Weldon Boyd: We're good. He's hit.
Valerie Bauerlein: An hour after the shooting, Weldon Boyd calls his mother again.
Weldon Boyd: All these officers are saying we're fine. They keep telling each other, this is cut and dry. This is cut and dry. He shot at me first, I shot back. I killed him. We're fine.
Valerie Bauerlein: Hours later. Boyd calls his mother again, this time from the Horry County Police Station. Kathy Boyd is wondering how the whole thing started.
Kathy Boyd: But he had to have a problem before he caught up with y'all.
Weldon Boyd: Yeah, the witnesses are saying it started around Bell & Bell. They had reports of him driving crazy around Bell & Bell.
Kathy Boyd: So something was wrong. Y'all were just in his (inaudible)
Weldon Boyd: Yeah.
Kathy Boyd: How's Bradley?
Weldon Boyd: Very quiet.
Kathy Boyd: Boyd again reassures his mother that he has a clear-cut self-defense case.
Weldon Boyd: The dude tried to kill me, Mama. He tried to kill me.
Kathy Boyd: But was it you or were you random?
Weldon Boyd: No, I was random, but he picked me.
Kathy Boyd: That's just crazy.
Weldon Boyd: He picked the wrong one.
Valerie Bauerlein: As Jennifer listened to the recordings, she realized that Boyd is someone who makes a lot of phone calls and many of them are to his mother. Kathy Boyd is a big presence in his life. She helps her son out with a lot of things, including his dog, Grady.
Weldon Boyd: All right, where are you at?
Kathy Boyd: I'm leaving Kruger. I picked up some cheese and bacon and bits for Grady.
Weldon Boyd: Okay, just don't swing the door open. Only open it about halfway.
Valerie Bauerlein: Boyd is very close with both his parents. He seems to call them from anywhere anytime. Across the five days of recordings in the police file, Boyd talks with his parents more than 30 times.
Speaker 13: Yeah.
Weldon Boyd: Where's Mama at?
Speaker 13: Asleep.
Weldon Boyd: All right. Wake her up because she's got stuff for Buoys happening that they need her, but they can't get her.
Valerie Bauerlein: Buoys is Buoys on the Boulevard. A restaurant in North Myrtle Beach owned by Weldon Boyd. His mother works with him on the day-to-day running of the place. There's even a dish named after her on the menu, Mama Boyd's Fried Oysters. Buoys on the Boulevard sits right off the ocean. It's a brightly colored building that advertises itself as a beach bar, grill, sushi bar, and live music venue. Weldon Boyd is the face of Buoys and he's something of a local celebrity in North Myrtle Beach. The restaurant's a pretty popular place and Boyd sometimes appears on local TV.
Speaker 14: Welcome back to Carolina AM. Hey, I'm excited because a dear friend of mine's in the studio today, Weldon Boyd of Buoys on the Boulevard and he-
Valerie Bauerlein: Boyd fights hard to defend himself and his business and he does it publicly. In 2018, he sued a customer who left a negative online review of his restaurant.
Weldon Boyd: I will not tolerate someone fabricating a lie to damage my business and hurt my employees just because they're pissed off. We won't stand for it.
Valerie Bauerlein: Boyd won that lawsuit. The customer was ordered to pay him thousands of dollars. One time when a rowdy customer took a swing at him, Boyd fought back by punching him in the face multiple times. He then posted a video of it on Facebook, in the caption, Boyd said, "Guy got assault and disorderly conduct." He added. "He also got a trip to the dock." Boyd's success as a businessman gives him a certain reputation. He's known as a hometown boy made good. Here's Boyd speaking to high school graduates in 2022.
Weldon Boyd: Do not fear failure. Fear is the greatest thief of opportunity and I've had someone who many years ago tell me that and it took a lot of years to understand what they were saying. Well, my name is getting dragged through the fricking mud.
Kathy Boyd: Weldon, Weldon, it'll all come out in the wash.
Valerie Bauerlein: In the days after killing Scott Spivey, weldon Boyd seems very concerned that the shooting is damaging his reputation. He talks with his mother about it,
Weldon Boyd: And I do not look good right now.
Kathy Boyd: Well, once the rumors go, you got lots of witnesses, Weldon. The police have already done everything and they got all the evidence that they had come to a conclusion.
Valerie Bauerlein: Boyd gives his mother updates on the police investigation. He tells her how frustrated he is with all the rumors swirling around and he tells his mom about his feelings. Jennifer listened to all of it.
Jennifer Foley: I don't know this person. I don't know who they are, but I hear their deepest thoughts that they're telling people behind closed doors when nobody else is listening. And that's as close as you get to someone's true character as you can possibly get. I think the most heartbreaking thing though was to hear him tell his mama that he knew I was following him. I was on his tail.
Valerie Bauerlein: This is a call between Boyd and his mother two days after the shooting. They're talking about Scott Spivey.
Weldon Boyd: So there's no one-
Kathy Boyd: You think you were following him?
Weldon Boyd: Oh, he knew I was following him. Me and you talking, he knew he had fucked up at that point because all the other cars slammed on brakes and was trying to get away from him. And I was like, he just ran me off the road and aimed a gun at Bradley's head, fuck this guy and I chased him. Oh, I was on his ass and his truck couldn't outrun my truck and he knew it. So yeah, he was terrified.
Valerie Bauerlein: To Jennifer this moment in the calls is shocking. Boyd's entire stand-your-ground claim is based on the idea that he was in fear for his life when he killed Scott Spivey. But in this private moment with his mom, Jennifer thinks that Boyd clearly undermines that.
Jennifer Foley: I catch myself thinking how scared Scott had to be in those last moments of his life. Like how scared does he have to be? And then you solidify that by saying that you knew he was scared. Those are really hard things to hear.
Valerie Bauerlein: Jennifer is getting an intimate look into Weldon Boyd's private life, but she's already learned a lot about him from what's public. Boyd's Facebook profile is filled with hundreds and hundreds of posts. In one video posted on Facebook, Boyd does donuts in his powerful white truck.
Weldon Boyd: Yeah.
Valerie Bauerlein: Boyd's Facebook is also filled with videos of him shooting guns. Boyd is a veteran. When he was in his 20s, he served 14 months on active duty in the National Guard. On his left arm, Boyd has a tattoo of a semi-automatic rifle. My reporting shows that Boyd owns around 70 firearms. In one Facebook video set to slow motion, Boyd shoots at a fake head he ordered online. When it explodes, it sprays imitation blood and brain matter. In another Facebook video, he sets off a cannon.
Weldon Boyd: God almighty.
Valerie Bauerlein: Boyd shares his love of guns with his best friend, Bradley Williams. The two men first met in 2008 at community college. They've been close ever since. On Camp Swamp Road, both Boyd and Williams fired their guns. But Boyd said it was his bullet that killed Scott Spivey. Days after the shooting, the two friends speak over the phone.
Bradley Williams: I mean, it is a shitty situation all the way around.
Valerie Bauerlein: Williams tells Boyd, he's relieved that the evidence seems to put them in the clear.
Bradley Williams: I mean careful with the words, but I mean it's a shitty situation all way around. But that whole scenario could not have played more perfect for a given scenario, if that makes sense.
Valerie Bauerlein: Boyd says that his lawyer, Ken Moss, told him they were very lucky.
Weldon Boyd: Ken told me that I had a horseshoe up my ass. He said, "What are the chances that you get in a shootout and you got five independent witnesses where none of them know you and none of them know each other all stopped to back up your story?"
Valerie Bauerlein: On this call. Boyd repeats his story several times, that he acted in self-defense because he thought Scott Spivey was trying to kill him.
Weldon Boyd: I said, "If I see his mom, I'm going to look her in the eye and say, 'Your son tried to kill me.'" I mean, you want me to Sugarcoat that?
Valerie Bauerlein: In the middle of the call, Boyd takes a pause
Weldon Boyd: So Bradley, I know it's up to say, but I had a fucking blast. I know it's fucked up, but I'm a up fucked up person.
Bradley Williams: Well, I mean, it is what it is.
Weldon Boyd: I had a good time.
Bradley Williams: The main thing is I'm glad you okay. I'm glad to me okay. I mean, like I said, it is what it is. I mean, I feel no remorse for that dude. I hate the situation just because it's just bullshit. But I mean, he fucked up.
Weldon Boyd: He fucked up. I mean, what else do you want to say?
Valerie Bauerlein: A couple minutes later, Boyd suggests that he and Williams do something to commemorate the killing.
Weldon Boyd: We should go get teardrop tattoos.
Bradley Williams: Yep. I didn't want to say that, we was going home from the farm. That's what I first thought was we got to get teardrop tattoos or spider webs on our elbows.
Weldon Boyd: We got to find somewhere on our body to put a teardrop. I'm doing it. Me and you are going to fucking do it. I don't give a shit. We're doing it.
Bradley Williams: Oh, God, battle buddies.
Jennifer Foley: They say they were in fear for their life, but you had an f-ing blast. Fear and love they're not coinciding emotions. Are you in fear or do you freaking love it? I mean, stand-your-ground to work, you have to be in fear of your life, but you loved what you were doing. Those don't mesh. The stories weren't meshing.
Mark Tinsley: I think Jennifer said it best, but on the spectrum, love and fear are on opposite ends. You can't be in fear for your life and having a fucking blast.
Valerie Bauerlein: Sitting at her kitchen table late at night, Jennifer knew that her lawyer, Mark Tinsley, needed to listen to these calls. She began sending him clips. Mark got them the next morning. He was about to set off on a 200-mile drive to depose Boyd and Williams under oath. For him, the timing of Jennifer's discovery couldn't have been better.
Mark Tinsley: I began to listen to the calls as I drove, okay? And so I can tell you that pretty much the entire four-hour drive I was listening to calls all the way and making notes.
Valerie Bauerlein: And what did Mark say when you got him on the phone?
Jennifer Foley: He was like, "Girl, the Super Bowl was last night, but you just ran a touchdown."
Mark Tinsley: There were only two living witnesses to what actually happened and here we have a peek into what they're saying and what they're doing and what they're talking about.
Jennifer Foley: And I was like, "Well, I don't know. We're not out of it yet. We found a whole bunch of stuff. We've got to make sure it means something though."
Speaker 15: Would you raise your right hand please? Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Weldon Boyd: I do.
Mark Tinsley: All right, Good morning, Mr. Boyd. My name's Mark Tinsley. We just met this morning, as you know, I'm going to take your deposition today in at least in-
Valerie Bauerlein: Mark Tinsley deposed Weldon Boyd for two hours. He asked him about what happened on Camp Swamp Road and he used some of Boyd's own words from the calls to guide his questions.
Mark Tinsley: But he had just run you off the road, right?
Weldon Boyd: Yes.
Mark Tinsley: And at that point you were thinking, "Fuck this guy," and so you chased him,
Weldon Boyd: (inaudible)
Mark Tinsley: You still have to answer.
Weldon Boyd: I got on the phone with 911. I mean, obviously someone aims a gun at you, it makes you mad. I'm not going to apologize for that. But I got on the phone with them and my objective was to relay a police officer to his location and get him off the road.
Mark Tinsley: Yeah. Well, you're not going to apologize for anything, right?
Weldon Boyd: No, sir.
Mark Tinsley: Yeah, because you loved it.
Weldon Boyd: I wouldn't say that. I mean, I might've made a comment that I'd like to see if you'd show it to me, but this was a pretty bad situation.
Valerie Bauerlein: Bradley Williams was next. Compared to Boyd, Williams was more guarded and softly spoken. He often gave one-word answers.
Mark Tinsley: Do you remember him telling you that he had a blast?
Bradley Williams: No.
Mark Tinsley: Okay.
Valerie Bauerlein: Tinsley asked Williams if he remembered Boyd gloating about the shooting.
Mark Tinsley: That would be a kind of a shocking thing for somebody to say, wouldn't it?
Bradley Williams: It would.
Mark Tinsley: Is your testimony, he never said, "I had a fucking blast. I know it's fucked up to say, but I'm a fucked up person."
Bradley Williams: I don't remember that.
Mark Tinsley: If he had said something like that you just admitted would be shocking. You would remember something like that, wouldn't you?
Bradley Williams: Yeah.
Valerie Bauerlein: Eventually Tinsley gets to the teardrop tattoos.
Mark Tinsley: Which you think is more outrageous saying, "I had a fucking blast," or suggesting that you get tattoos to commemorate the killing.
Valerie Bauerlein: Depends on the context.
Mark Tinsley: Tell me a context in which one is worse than the other.
Bradley Williams: Well, I, you look at face value it sounds horrible, but there's dark humor involved with everything too. It's a coping method.
Mark Tinsley: Okay, but you don't have a recollection of him saying either one to you?
Bradley Williams: No, sir.
Valerie Bauerlein: What were you doing during the depositions? What was going through your mind that day?
Jennifer Foley: I was on pins and needles waiting to get the call back of how everything went.
Valerie Bauerlein: Beyond just wanting to know how the depositions went. Jennifer was eager to tell Mark something important, something else she'd heard in the calls. After the depositions were over, Jennifer dropped yet another bombshell.
Jennifer Foley: I said, "I know that the stand-your ground-stuff comes first." I said, "But at some point I want to talk to you about the role that Horry County played in this." And Mark was like, "What do you mean?" And I was like, "Well, I know I told you," but I don't know if you realize there's like eight calls between him and the deputy chief." And he was like, "What?"
Valerie Bauerlein: Jennifer discovered that Weldon Boyd was doing a lot of talking with the deputy chief of Horry County Police.
Mark Tinsley: It was like pouring gasoline on it and setting it on fire. I mean, they were explosive. The things you hear are explosive.
Valerie Bauerlein: That's next. I want to go back to Camp Swamp Road on the night of the shooting and to what Weldon Boyd was doing in the half hour after killing Scott Spivey. While police are securing the crime scene and interviewing witnesses, Boyd makes a few calls.
Speaker 13: ... up son?
Weldon Boyd: I killed him.
Speaker 13: Well, you know what? If he deserved it, don't worry about it.
Valerie Bauerlein: He calls his lawyer.
Speaker 16: Weldon, you need to not be telling your story in front of a bunch of people.
Valerie Bauerlein: Okay. Sorry. And he calls a very close friend.
Brandon Strickland: What's up man?
Weldon Boyd: Brandon, where you at?
Brandon Strickland: I'm at my house.
Weldon Boyd: Can you come to Camp Swamp Road off of 9 as fast as possible?
Valerie Bauerlein: This call was to Brandon Strickland. Strickland and Boyd are good buddies. They go hunting together.
Brandon Strickland: Yeah. What's wrong?
Weldon Boyd: I had to shoot somebody
Brandon Strickland: What, had to shoot somebody?
Weldon Boyd: He held a gun at us. He ran us off the road. We stopped to try and get the stuff on the trailer because we were hauling a couch. He got out, pulled a gun and started shooting at us and we had to shoot back.
Valerie Bauerlein: But Brandon Strickland isn't just a good friend of Weldon Boyd, he's a cop. And not just any cop, but the deputy chief of the Horry County Police Department. When Boyd tells Strickland what's going on, Strickland is immediately concerned.
Brandon Strickland: Is he dead?
Weldon Boyd: Yes.
Brandon Strickland: All right. I got to be real careful with that because in my jurisdiction we're an investigating agency, so I got to be careful that I'm not showing any-
Weldon Boyd: I know that, it's self-defense and we got witnesses that are all saying it's self-defense, I just-
Valerie Bauerlein: One of Strickland's biggest responsibilities is overseeing police investigations. That means he's the one in charge of the detectives arriving at Camp Swamp Road at that exact moment.
Weldon Boyd: I'm a fucking nervous wreck dude.
Brandon Strickland: I'll slot out there, but I got to be real careful, you know what I'm saying?
Weldon Boyd: Okay. All right.
Brandon Strickland: All right.
Weldon Boyd: Thanks.
Brandon Strickland: Just be calm.
Weldon Boyd: Okay.
Brandon Strickland: Watch.
Valerie Bauerlein: A few minutes later, Boyd and Strickland talk again. Strickland tells Boyd he isn't coming to Camp Swamp Road.
Brandon Strickland: Hey, Weldon.
Weldon Boyd: Hey.
Brandon Strickland: Look, I got the people coming that need to come, but I need you to listen to me and understand me for a second, okay?
Weldon Boyd: Okay.
Brandon Strickland: And it might not make sense now, but it'll make sense later. I don't need to come out there, okay?
Weldon Boyd: Yeah, I get it. No, I get it now. I understand.
Valerie Bauerlein: The number two man at the Horry County Police Department is promising Boyd, that he's got the right people coming.
Brandon Strickland: That keeps it clean and if what you're telling me is a case and it's a self-prevent thing, you're going to be fine, you just got to go through the process. They're going to ask you questions. They're probably going to take you to Conway to sit you down and talk to you.
Weldon Boyd: Okay.
Brandon Strickland: All right. But just I'm right here.
Weldon Boyd: I know, I know. I understand completely,
Brandon Strickland: So all right. Well, you'll be all right.
Weldon Boyd: Thank you.
Brandon Strickland: Yeah, man. Talk to you later.
Weldon Boyd: Bye.
Valerie Bauerlein: Strickland's lawyer Burt Von Hermann says his client's recorded assurances are, "All bluster." Von Hermann says that Strickland did nothing to influence the investigation and he denies that his client helped Boyd avoid criminal charges.
Brandon Strickland: Hey buddy.
Weldon Boyd: What's up, man?
Brandon Strickland: Nothing. You all right?
Weldon Boyd: Yeah, I'm good. It's a fricking mess though.
Valerie Bauerlein: The morning after the shooting, Strickland texts Boyd and asked that he call him, they would speak four times that day. In this call, Strickland explains why he never came to Camp Swamp Road.
Brandon Strickland: Well, dude, I didn't come there last night. I did that for you because I didn't want anybody to be able to come back and say like, "That other guy's family or something," and say, "Oh, he's friends with the deputy chief, and he was out there directing the investigation." You know what I mean?
Weldon Boyd: No, I understood that completely.
Valerie Bauerlein: Even though Brandon Strickland wasn't there, he explains to Boyd what he was doing behind the scenes.
Brandon Strickland: Well, and I'll tell you what happened after you called me. Now, this is Brandon and Weldon, never to be spoke of again.
Weldon Boyd: Okay?
Brandon Strickland: I called my people and the detective who met with you last night was Alan Jones, right?
Weldon Boyd: I think so, yeah.
Valerie Bauerlein: Strickland is saying that he personally picked Detective Alan Jones to manage the Camp Swamp Road investigation. This is the same Alan Jones who interviewed Boyd at the police station.
Brandon Strickland: Yeah, country guy, good old boy. Well, that's who I sent out there and I called-
Valerie Bauerlein: The same Alan Jones who wrote the police report saying, Boyd's and Williams' actions were justified.
Brandon Strickland: I was working. I was into shadows last night. I weren't there, but I was in shadows.
Valerie Bauerlein: This is also the same Alan Jones, who Jennifer called repeatedly in the weeks after the shooting, begging for answers.
Brandon Strickland: Well, I'm a friend that'll always be there for you and I didn't want you to look at it as, "Damn, Brandon ain't even come to me," but I did it for you.
Weldon Boyd: No, that never even crossed my mind. I mean, I fully understand everything and I don't know, it's just not how I expected my Saturday to go. That's for sure.
Valerie Bauerlein: According to a spokeswoman for Horry County Police, detectives are assigned on-call duty in advance, meaning that Jones responded to Spivey's homicide because it was his turn. Horry County Police didn't make Jones available for an interview. Boyd and Strickland had been friends for some time. They were both seen as small town boys who had become successful men. At the time of the shooting, Strickland was on a fast track to becoming chief of Horry County Police. Boyd had done a lot for Strickland and his colleagues. At his restaurant, Buoys on the Boulevard, uniformed police officers eat free and their families eat half price. The restaurant has even donated tactical equipment to the Horry County Police Special Operations Team. Before the shooting, Boyd's restaurant was scheduled to cook a big meal for the police, but in another call, Strickland tells Boyd, that event might be a little problematic now.
Brandon Strickland: We do probably need to postpone the cooking for the department. It might look-
Weldon Boyd: Yeah. Okay. We'll wait until next year.
Brandon Strickland: Yeah, yeah because they'd be like, "Damn, yeah, he's feeding the people."
Weldon Boyd: Have a big banner that says, "Thank you."
Brandon Strickland: Yeah.
Valerie Bauerlein: In their calls, Boyd and Strickland seemed very aware of how this whole situation could look from the outside. Here they talk about how things might've been different for Boyd if Scott Spivey wasn't a white man.
Brandon Strickland: Well, Brandon and Weldom be talking and it's glad it's a white male.
Weldon Boyd: Yes.
Brandon Strickland: That's, well, one of the first questions I asked, I was like, "Okay." Because you know how that shit can go.
Weldon Boyd: Yeah, that would've changed the narrative.
Valerie Bauerlein: Some of America's best known stand-your-ground cases have involved older white men killing younger Black men. George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin in Florida, or the shooting of Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia. The handling of those cases was highly scrutinized, and Boyd and Strickland seemed aware of it.
Brandon Strickland: You'd have still been okay, but you'd really had people running their mouth down, "White business owners shoot Black male."
Weldon Boyd: What a mess.
Valerie Bauerlein: The Spivey family was unhappy with a lot of things that the Horry County Police did, but they were particularly angry about the decision to tow Scott Spivey's body in his truck. On another call from the day after the shooting, Strickland explains to Boyd why that happened.
Brandon Strickland: Yeah. Hell, they towed the truck to the PD with his body still in it.
Weldon Boyd: I thought, yeah, they never took it out. I thought that was odd.
Brandon Strickland: Well, you can in some situations, but in a situation where they're looking to make sure that every I is dotted and Ts crossed to clear you. They did it that way so that way when they do a-
Valerie Bauerlein: It's a little hard to hear. But in talking about the handling of Scott Spivey's body, Strickland describes it as a situation where they were looking to clear Boyd. I've spoken with several coroners in South Carolina. Transporting a dead body in a truck is not at all the way it's done. Some question whether it's even legal under state law. Typically in a homicide, a coroner would be responsible for a body. It has to be under their control. Horry County Police told the Spivey family they towed the truck with the body inside because of the weather. It looked like rain. Hearing these calls between Boyd and Strickland, things were starting to come together for Jennifer. Why detectives were so cagey with her family. Why the police didn't seem to thoroughly investigate her brother's death?
Jennifer Foley: Everything we thought, everything that we questioned, we had positive affirmation in those calls. I'm realizing that Scott was never going to have a fighting chance. He never had a fighting chance.
Valerie Bauerlein: Discovering these calls clarified so many things for Jennifer, but they left her with a big question.
Jennifer Foley: Who didn't listen to them? They're here. Am I the only person that has listened to these phone calls?
Valerie Bauerlein: Remember, these calls came from an Horry County Police file. They had been in their possession for months. Jennifer couldn't understand how anyone in law enforcement could hear what she'd heard and decide not to charge Boyd and Williams.
Jennifer Foley: How did it pass through SLED, Horry County Police Department and the Attorney General's office and no one listened to these and then want to stand in front of my family and say, "We looked at all the evidence and we've come to this conclusion."?
Valerie Bauerlein: Jennifer now had evidence she believed, showed blatant police corruption and evidence she also believed completely upended Boyd and Williams stand-your-ground defense.
Jennifer Foley: I didn't say these things. I didn't say any of it. I just pressed play. Jennifer was about to go public with the calls. She had no idea what that would set in motion.
Speaker 18: Horry County Police Department has terminated a patrol division sergeant as part of an ongoing internal affairs investigation related-
Valerie Bauerlein: Next time on Camp Swamp Road.
Speaker 19: Body cam footage shows what some say is the officer coaching the shooter, Weldon Boyd, to act like a victim?
Valerie Bauerlein: Can we trust that evidence?
Speaker 19: Are you asking me can I trust a video with my own eyes? I mean, look, here's the thing, Valerie, what are you asking me?
Jennifer Foley: And I pray that you all sleep tonight, knowing that no blind eye can be turned to Scott Spivey anymore. Thank you.
Speaker 21: Thank you, ma'am and hold on now.
Speaker 20: In this case, the fact from the wound to the tomb, from the beginning to the end, lead conclusively to the finding that this is a stand-your-ground case.
Valerie Bauerlein: Camp Swamp Road is part of The Journal, which is a co-production of Spotify and the Wall Street Journal. I'm Valerie Bauerlein. Our senior producer is Rachel Humphreys. Our producer is Heather Rogers, editing by Colin McNulty. Fact-checking by Nicole Pasulka. Music, sound design and mixing by Nathan Singapok. Additional music by Peter Leonard. Our theme music is by So Wylie remixed for the series by Nathan Singapok. Special thanks to Catherine Brewer, Miguel Bastillo, Sam Enriquez, Pia Gacari, Carlos Garcia, Matt Kwan, Jennifer Levitz, Jessica Mendoza, Bruce Orwell, Velana Patterson, Sarah Platt, and Cam Pollock. thanks for listening. Episode four will be released next Sunday.
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SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2025
9/28/2025 6:00:00 AMShare This Episode
Are Trump’s Lethal Attacks on Drug Boats Legal?
トランプ大統領による麻薬密輸船への致死攻撃は合法か？
In the past month, the Trump administration has ordered a trio of military attacks against boats suspected to be transporting drugs from South America to the U.S. However, little information has been released about the people who were killed and whether there were actually any drugs aboard. And some Pentagon officials have raised concerns about the legality of these strikes. WSJ national security reporter Vera Bergengruen and legal correspondent Jess Bravin explore how Washington’s approach to combating drug smuggling has changed and the potential pitfalls of these strikes. Caitlin McCabe hosts.
- lethal attacks /ˈliːθəl əˈtæksɪz/ 致死攻撃、命を奪う攻撃
- suspected to be transporting /səsˈpɛktɪd tuː bi ˈtrænspɔːrtɪŋ/ ～を運んでいると疑われる
- Pentagon officials /ˈpɛntəɡən əˈfɪʃəlz/ ペンタゴン（米国防総省）の高官
- legality of these strikes /lɪˈɡæləti ʌv ðiːz straɪks/ これらの攻撃の合法性
- combating drug smuggling /ˈkɑːmbætɪŋ drʌɡ ˈsmʌɡlɪŋ/ 麻薬密輸と戦うこと
- potential pitfalls /pəˈtɛnʃəl ˈpɪtfɔːlz/ 潜在的な落とし穴、問題点
- trio of military attacks /ˈtriːoʊ ʌv ˈmɪlɪˌtɛri əˈtæksɪz/ 3回の軍事攻撃（3つの攻撃）