Search continues for suspect in jailer's death

The ex-boyfriend of New Hanover County jailer Tarica Pulliam was out on $103,500 bond after he was charged with gripping her neck till she saw flashing lights, punching her in the jaw and holding her against her will on April 1.

On Wednesday, Anthony Antwand Bowen was charged with first-degree murder after Pulliam was shot multiple times outside her apartment in the northern part of the county at 5:15 a.m.

Pulliam filed for a domestic violence protective order against Bowen four months ago.

Bowen’s whereabouts as of press time Wednesday night remained unknown. Bowen was last seen driving a silver, 2004 Ford Taurus, NC VYE-3086. Law enforcement considers him armed and dangerous.

“We’re dedicating any resources we have,” said New Hanover County Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy Ed McMahon, adding city police, the U.S. Marshals Service and the FBI were all searching for the 30-year-old. “Everybody is ready. It’s a priority for us.”

Loud voice, gunshots startle neighbors

Pulliam was wearing her uniform – thin brown tie and light-brown button-down shirt – as she walked to her SUV to begin her 12-hour shift at 5:30 a.m., McMahon said. To the untrained eye, she could have been mistaken for a sheriff’s deputy because the uniforms are similar, he said. Pulliam lived at 2405 Briarcliff Circle in Briarcliff Villas apartments off Harris Road near Gordon Road.

A woman who lives in the neighboring subdivision, Page Gebsen, said she woke up when she heard a woman’s voice. Gebsen’s bedroom faces the apartment complex.

“It was pleading,” she said, adding she couldn’t make out words. “It was a raised, female voice.” It didn’t sound angry or scared, she said.

So Gebsen went back to sleep. She heard the voice again, drifted back to sleep and woke up again when she heard a gunshot.

“That shot sounded like it was right outside my window,” Gebsen said. “I thought something fell off my porch. My cats ran and I got up and I looked and I didn’t see anything.”

Pulliam, a 27-year-old single mother, was rushed to New Hanover Regional Medical Center where she died later Wednesday morning.

‘She was my baby’

At her mother’s white house off 16th and Orange, Gracie Pulliam grieved for her daughter. The living room and a dining area were dark even though it was still morning.

“She was my baby,” Pulliam’s mother repeated, too distraught for words.

Tarica Pulliam had worked as a detention officer at the New Hanover County jail for two years doing various duties such as escorting inmates and working in booking, the medical section or main control room of the jail, McMahon said.

She did not carry a gun.

Pulliam’s 7-year-old daughter was not at the apartment when her mother was shot. Her family said the child was staying with her grandmother.

Fear of ex-boyfriend

Pulliam’s fear that her ex-boyfriend would harm her or her daughter prompted her to apply for a domestic violence protective order the day after she was assaulted. It would be valid for a year until April 2009.

As recently as April, she and Bowen had been sharing an apartment at 2513 Troy Drive, Apt. 11, in Wilmington. Bowen was working at Florida Rock Trucking Company in Leland.

In the protective order, Pulliam checked a box indicating that she wanted to stay in the apartment and she wanted Bowen to move out and pay part of the rent for that month.

Pulliam and Bowen had argued because he accused her of cheating on him. Pulliam’s daughter was home at the time.

The argument escalated after he threatened her.

She wrote that Bowen grabbed her by the neck, threw her on the floor and strangled her until “I started seeing flashing lights.”

“I tried to tell him that I could not breathe so he loosened his grip and picked me up by the neck and took me to the bedroom,” she wrote. “He threw me on the bed and stated again he thought I was cheating and punched me in my left jaw. He then stated he was going to finish what he started. He said that he was going to get his gun.

“As he reached in the closet, my mother knocked on the front door.”

In the order, Pulliam wrote that Bowen, whom she described as emotionally unstable, threatened to take her away from her child if he went to jail for what happened. He told her he wanted to avoid going to jail because he didn’t want his daughter taken away from him.

Pulliam wrote that Bowen told her that his father, who is deceased, had a large collection of guns that she believed he could access.

Finally, Pulliam stated that Bowen “said that if I left him or he went to jail, he had nothing left to live for.”

History of violence

Before Bowen was charged with assaulting and killing Pulliam, he pleaded guilty in 2002 to misdemeanor assault on a female, according to the N.C. Department of Correction. The victim was the mother of his child.

For that, Bowen was placed on unsupervised probation from Nov. 1, 2002, until Aug. 27, 2004, said Mike Stater, spokesman for the department.

But the conviction tells only part of the story.

Initially, Bowen was charged with first-degree kidnapping after he held the mother of his child against her will, sexually assaulting her April 4, 2002. The charge was dismissed as part of a plea agreement involving two other cases where he was charged with first-degree rape and assault on a female. He also served 60 days in jail after he pleaded guilty to false imprisonment and assault on a female in Pender County, court records there indicate.

Veronica Gonzalez: 343-2008

veronica.gonzalez@starnewsonline.com