Search for missing Gastonia mother brings back emotions for another Charlotte family

CHARLOTTE — As authorities confirmed a Gastonia mother’s body was found after she went missing last Sunday, a different family a few hours away shares their same pain.

The search for LaPorscha Baldwin began on Oct. 10 when she was last seen heading to work by her family.

Police found Baldwin’s car abandoned on Interstate 85 between Sam Wilson Road and Belmont. Warrants said her ex-boyfriend, Charles Combs was the last person to see her.

On Thursday, law enforcement officials found Baldwin’s body in Fairfield County, SC, and took out warrants for first degree murder on Combs. He was arrested in Myrtle Beach Saturday and is waiting to be extradited to Mecklenburg County.

Combs was convicted of killing a girlfriend, Marsheida Dorsey, in Charlotte in 2004 and spent 12 years in prison.

Dorsey’s family is now opening up to Channel 9′s Mark Becker about how Baldwin’s disappearance brings back a lot of emotions.

“It still hurts. We definitely still miss her. We’ve been missing her for 17 years,” her cousin LaShay McCoy said.

McCoy and her cousins are still devastated.

“It wasn’t like they were together years or months. It was a very short courtship that ended her life unfortunately,” her cousin Shakira Jones said.

Combs was released five years ago. He’s the same man whom Baldwin’s family said she was trying to leave when she disappeared last Sunday.

“And then when I heard his name on Sunday, it was like re-living every moment again,” Jones said.

“I was like, ‘Oh my God, this is happening all over again.’ So I immediately went on social media, got on the pages and said, ‘This is the guy who killed my cousin. He is dangerous,” Dorsey’s cousin Almetra Jones Schofield said.

Schofield said Combs threatened to kill her cousin if she tried to leave. It’s a tragic script domestic violence experts have seen before.

“What our studies show us is that 75% of the women who were murdered by a partner were actually murdered by somebody they had left or were trying to leave,” said domestic violence expert Bea Cote.

Cote works with victims and their abusers and said Combs fits a frightening pattern.

“He’s already gone like past the point of no return, you know. He’s already killed before, and so nobody should ever, ever believe that they’ll be safe with him,” Cote said.

The women Becker spoke with don’t know Baldwin’s family but they wanted them to know they feel their pain and are praying for them.

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Missing Gastonia woman’s car found abandoned on I-85; police, family worried

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