Woman in backpack might have been shot in head

A man accused of keeping the skeletal remains of a Durham woman might have shot her in the head.

That’s according to an autopsy report released Wednesday in the death of Lakiea Lacole Boxley, 31, who was reported missing in March 2008.

Durham police arrested Michael Charles Dorman in the case after a friend told investigators that Dorman admitted to killing a prostitute and asked him to help dispose of her remains.

Dorman had been storing Boxley’s bones in a backpack, prosecutors have said.

Pathologists at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Chapel Hill could not determine an exact cause of death but ruled the cause “undetermined homicidal violence, with findings suggestive of blunt head trauma consistant with a shotgun wound.”

Dorman, 32, of 1411 Sundown Drive in Mebane, was arrested July 15 on a charge of concealing or failing to report a death.

It’s unclear whether he will face further charges.

Durham County District Attorney Tracey Cline said during a court hearing in July that Dorman told investigators that he found the remains and had planned to take them home with him for his own sexual gratification.