State Law Enforcement Division agents searched the home and North Myrtle Beach restaurant of Weldon Boyd on Monday, June 8 — three days after his attorneys filed a motion asking a judge to reverse an earlier ruling that stripped him of legal immunity — as a South Carolina State Grand Jury continues its investigation into whether Horry County police officers improperly shielded Boyd following his fatal 2023 road rage shooting of Scott Spivey, 33. The search, the contents of which authorities have not disclosed, marks the most significant law-enforcement action directed at Boyd since the case began, and comes as a judge weighs whether to dismiss a separate lawsuit Boyd filed against Spivey’s family attorney — a legal maneuver that, if allowed to proceed, could set a precedent with implications for how attorneys in South Carolina communicate with the media during civil litigation.
Nearly three years after Spivey was shot dead on Camp Swamp Road in the Longs area of Horry County and no criminal charges were ever filed, the case has metastasized into a tangle of civil lawsuits, a public corruption investigation, and a State Grand Jury probe with the power to issue criminal indictments. For the Spivey family, the SLED search represents the possibility that the criminal accountability the state declined to pursue in 2024 may yet materialize through a different door.
What Led to the SLED Search: Three Years Without Criminal Charges
Boyd, the owner of Buoys on the Boulevard restaurant in North Myrtle Beach, and his passenger, Kenneth “Bradley” Williams, shot and killed Spivey, a Tabor City, North Carolina, resident, on September 9, 2023, following a road rage encounter along Camp Swamp Road. Both men maintained they fired in self-defense. Horry County police initially characterized Spivey as the aggressor. The South Carolina Attorney General’s Office, after a seven-month review, declined to prosecute Boyd or Williams in April 2024, citing insufficient evidence.
That decision did not end the scrutiny. Recordings obtained by Spivey’s family during civil discovery revealed that Boyd had held a series of phone calls after the shooting with his close friend Brandon Strickland, then a deputy police chief at the Horry County Police Department. In those recorded calls, Strickland told Boyd he had been working “in the shadows” even though he could not respond to the scene the night of the shooting. Strickland also told Boyd he had contacted the captain overseeing investigations and the local solicitor following the incident…