BY NANCY DRURY DUNCAN, Eastern Shore Post
A 45-year-old man convicted of killing a local couple and hiding their bodies was sentenced to 108 years in prison in Accomack County Circuit Court.
When he was arrested and charged with the murders, Julian Travis Scarborough, of Painter, told a police investigator, “I am a gangster and I will stay a gangster.”
The Painter resident was described as “a dangerous and deadly person” by Commonwealth’s Attorney Spencer Morgan.
He said Scarborough’s criminal violence began as a juvenile and continued throughout his life.
At his sentencing, Scarborough told the court he had no remorse for the shooting deaths of Princeton Bragg and Lolita Monique Boggs because he did not kill them.
Evidence presented at the August jury trial told a different story.
Cellphone location tracking, DNA evidence, text messages, and video evidence of him going into the couple’s home on the day they disappeared convinced a jury of his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
In March 2022, Bragg and Boggs failed to return from a shopping trip and a worried family member called police.
Their bullet-ridden bodies were found in their car in a wooded area not far from their Painter-area home.
Boggs’ body was on the floor of the back seat and Bragg’s body was in the trunk.
It is thought the pair was killed at another location because the car was undamaged.
Bragg was the father of eight children and Boggs the mother of nine.
“This was a horrific incident,” said Judge Lynwood W. Lewis. “You were destined for that for a long time. The multiple tragedies you have caused led to this.”
Many of the murdered couple’s grown children and other family members were at Scarborough’s sentencing.
Morgan described the pain and suffering felt by those family members as “palpable.”
Many cried both during the trial and at the sentencing.
While leaving the courtroom after hearing Scarborough’s sentence, one said, “He can’t ever hurt anybody again.”
A jury earlier convicted Scarborough of first degree murder, robbery, concealment and defiling a dead body, destroying evidence, and other related felonies.
