Laird: Old-School Police Work Led to Boggs' Arrest

Paducah Police Chief Brian Laird says it was old-fashioned police work that led to the capture of former Barbecue on the River executive director David Boggs Jr. on Thursday, more than a year and a half after he vanished from the area.

Boggs disappeared in Nov. 2018, after Barbecue on the River staff confronted him about more than $24,000 that was missing from its account. He was later charged with theft after police learned he had written checks to himself out of the account to pay scammers who threatened to reveal an inappropriate picture he had sent to someone over the internet.

"He had sent a photo and then he started receiving messages back that the photo had been sent to an underage person, and that he needed to pay money to not go to jail," Laird told the Greg Dunker Show Friday morning. "Ultimately he believed that, and he started sending them money. After he sent the amount of money they asked for, then they would ask for more money. He sent that to them using prepaid cards and wire transfers, stuff like that."

Laird said Boggs left town shortly after being confronted about the missing funds.

"He got confronted by members of Barbecue on the River about the missing money, and he told them what had happened. Then he just left. He told us that he walked down the Greenway Trail the day he went missing. He just didn't know where he was gonna go or what he was gonna do. He contemplated suicide, but then ultimately chose not to do that." 

Investigators had all but given up on finding Boggs by early this year. Laird said many within the department thought he might even be dead, but they got lucky in April when a medical bill was sent to Boggs' former address linking him to the Columbia, SC area.

"The medical bill led us to do some search warrants. It took about a month and a half of staying on top of it and following up on things. A lead that came out of those search warrants provided us with another lead, and then it was just kind of snowball effect there." Laird said.

Ultimately detectives tracked Boggs down to a trailer park in South Carolina and he was arrested without incident.

Laird said he was glad to finally be able to bring this case to a close.

"There's a lot of emotion that goes with things like that. I know David personally, so I was very excited," Laird said. "We love a good mystery, but we also like to solve them. This was a great opportunity to be able to solve the mystery of his disappearance."

"I think it's a great example of excellent police work," He added. "We use new technology, but it's just old school police work of just diving in and looking through things and taking a lot of time and effort, and never giving up either."