Investigators probe attorney's drowning

Awaiting final autopsy report

Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2007

Marcie Young
Charlotte Observer Staff Writer

The drowning of a prominent Charlotte lawyer on Lake Norman last week may not have been an accident, Catawba County authorities said.

Darryll Walter Bolduc's body was pulled from the Catawba County side of Lake Norman on Sept. 18, a day after he disappeared while Jet Skiing. The preliminary autopsy showed he died from a freshwater drowning, said Capt. Roy Brown of the Catawba County Sheriff's Office.

Authorities are still waiting for the final autopsy report, Brown said, but investigators do not think Bolduc's death was accidental.

Investigators do not think foul play was involved, he said. Brown would not say whether they are treating Bolduc's death as a suicide.

Bolduc, who started the Bolduc Law Firm in Charlotte in 2003, received national attention in the 1990s over a lawsuit he filed against Bank of America predecessor NationsBank. He had recently remarried, Brown said, and was living in the Mooresville area.

Searchers spent parts of two days searching the lake for Bolduc, who was last seen riding his Jet Ski. Less than 10 minutes later, a fisherman saw the abandoned watercraft circling in the water.

The next evening, sonar found an object that resembled a body, and divers recovered Bolduc's body about 90 minutes later.


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