photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

Chadwick Potter is pictured Tuesday, April 23, 2024, in Douglas County District Court.

A transient man who was charged with but then acquitted of murdering a blind Lawrence resident in downtown Lawrence was recently found dead in a Boulder County, Colo. lake.

Chadwick Potter, 36, was found dead on July 6 in the Barker Meadow Reservoir just outside Nederland, Colo., according to a report by the Boulder County coroner’s office.

A Douglas County jury in April 2024 found Potter not guilty of second-degree murder in the bludgeoning death of David Blaine Sullivan, 62. Sullivan’s body was found on July 12, 2023, beneath a clump of trees by the Kansas River bridge near Sixth and Vermont streets.

The prosecution had argued that Potter beat Sullivan to death with a two-by-four. Surveillance video in the case showed the two men walking together near Seventh and Vermont streets late at night on July 11. In the footage, Potter was shown carrying a board. Later video in the area showed him walking alone without a board and looking “continuously” behind him, as a detective put it.

Sullivan’s badly beaten body was discovered nearby the next morning, a bloody two-by-four alongside him.

The defense had argued that police had conducted an inadequate investigation, including insufficient DNA testing, and had sought to hastily pin the crime on Potter with a lack of evidence that resulted in a “weak case.”

Details about the circumstances surrounding Potter’s death in Boulder County were not immediately available. Local media in the Boulder area reported that a fisherman called local authorities on July 6 to report a body floating face down in the lake. A dive team recovered the body several hours later, according to multiple reports.