Investigators say a Snapchat post, phone data and evidence from a towed car helped connect the suspect to the case.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Charlotte-Mecklenburg police say a 37-year-old man has been charged with murder after officers found his longtime girlfriend dead with a gunshot wound on Lawton Road early Feb. 15, hours after the couple appeared together in a nightclub video posted to Snapchat.

The case moved quickly from a welfare check to a murder charge, with detectives identifying Tabulon Debreshea Reece, 33, as the victim and Nicholas Jordan Gandy as the suspect within about a day. Police said Gandy was arrested Feb. 16 and transferred to the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office after an interview with homicide detectives. The investigation remains open, but court records and the affidavit outlined a detailed timeline built from family statements, cellphone data and physical evidence recovered from a vehicle linked to Gandy.

According to police, officers were called shortly after 6 a.m. Sunday, Feb. 15, to the 700 block of Lawton Road in Charlotte’s Freedom Division after a 911 caller reported a woman lying on the ground and not moving. First responders arrived and found Reece dead at the scene. Investigators later said she had suffered a fatal gunshot wound to the head. By then, detectives had already begun piecing together the hours before her death. Family members told police that Reece and Gandy, described in court records as her longtime boyfriend, had gone out together the night before. Reece left in her Honda Accord, relatives said, and the car returned hours later with Gandy behind the wheel and Reece missing. In the affidavit, police said family members told detectives Gandy claimed Reece had his vehicle while he had hers. They also described the car he usually drove as a gold-colored Lexus sedan with tinted windows.

That account became more important as detectives gathered other evidence. Police said Reece posted a Snapchat story around midnight showing her and Gandy inside a nightclub. Investigators said she appeared in the same outfit she was wearing when her body was found, and they noted that Gandy could be seen in the video with her. Cellphone records then placed Reece’s device in the area where her body was later discovered and also near the 10000 block of Old Dowd Road. Detectives learned that around 4:30 a.m. Sunday, before Reece was found, Gandy had been arrested at an Amazon distribution center on Old Dowd Road in what police described as an unrelated incident. His 2004 Lexus was towed from that location. When homicide detectives went to the tow yard, they said they found blood inside the vehicle, a discharged cartridge casing on the driver’s-side floorboard and an identification card belonging to Gandy hanging from the rearview mirror. Police have not publicly released the name of the nightclub, the exact time investigators believe Reece was shot or a public explanation of what happened at the distribution center before Gandy’s earlier arrest.

The case unfolded in a stretch of northwest Charlotte better known for warehouses, industrial traffic and connector roads than for violent crime scenes that draw wide public attention. Lawton Road sits near Brookshire Boulevard and other freight corridors, making the setting notable in investigators’ timeline because it suggests police were tracking movements between the club area, Reece’s home, the place where her body was discovered and the Old Dowd Road site where Gandy’s Lexus surfaced. That sequence gave detectives a chain of places rather than a single crime scene. It also gave prosecutors an early mix of direct and circumstantial evidence: family accounts about the couple’s last known movements, social media showing them together late that night, location data from Reece’s phone and items recovered from a car police tied to Gandy. In homicide cases, that kind of early record can shape how prosecutors argue opportunity, proximity and timing even before all forensic testing is complete. At the same time, some central questions remain unanswered in public filings, including whether anyone outside the couple saw them leave the club together and whether surveillance footage from nearby businesses fills in the final gap before dawn.

Police announced the break in the case on Feb. 17, saying detectives had identified Gandy as the suspect during their continuing investigation and obtained a warrant for his arrest. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department said its Violent Criminal Apprehension Team located Gandy on Feb. 16, arrested him and brought him to the Law Enforcement Center for questioning by homicide detectives. After that interview, police said, he was turned over to the sheriff’s office. The department publicly identified Reece after notifying her next of kin and said Detective Murphy was leading the investigation. Local reporting on the case said Gandy was being held without bond after the charge was filed. Earlier reports also listed a March 10 court date, though the public record available in open reporting did not spell out what happened at that hearing or whether additional settings were made after that date. Police have not announced any added charges, and they have not publicly described whether testing on the blood, casing or any weapon had been completed as of mid-March. No public court filing reviewed in open coverage described a plea from Gandy.

Even in the early documents, the case carried a stark personal detail that made it stand out: the last public image of Reece alive appears to have been a social media post showing a night out with the man now charged in her death. That detail gave the investigation a time marker that was both ordinary and haunting. Reece’s family, according to the affidavit, helped detectives reconstruct those final hours by telling them when she left, how the car came back and what Gandy said when he returned without her. Police, for their part, kept their public statements restrained. The department said only that officers responded to the welfare call, found a victim with apparent trauma and continued to investigate until they made an arrest. That gap between the bare public release and the fuller affidavit is common in homicide cases, where investigators try to protect evidence while still showing a judge probable cause for an arrest. For now, the public picture of Reece’s final hours is still incomplete, but the record already lays out a sequence that prosecutors are likely to revisit in court: a club outing, a midnight video, a predawn arrest at another location, a towed Lexus and a body found after sunrise on Lawton Road.

Gandy has been identified by police as the lone suspect publicly charged in Reece’s killing, and detectives say the homicide investigation is still active. The next major milestone is expected to come through future Mecklenburg County court proceedings or any additional release from Charlotte-Mecklenburg police.