← The Binge Crimes: The Poet
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- [00:03]
Brittany
When it comes to weight loss, no two people are the same. That's why Noom builds personalized plans based on your unique psychology and biology. Take Brittany. After years of unsustainable diets, Noom helped her lose 20 pounds and keep it all.
- [00:16]
Steve Fishman
I was definitely in a yo yo.
- [00:18]
Brittany
Cycle for years of just losing weight.
- [00:21]
Collier Landry
Gaining weight and it was exhausting.
- [00:23]
Brittany
And Stephanie, she's a former D1 athlete who knew she couldn't out train her diet and she lost 38 pounds. My relationship to food before Noom was never consistent. And Evan, he can't stand salads, but he still lost £50 with Noom.
- [00:38]
Lt. Dave Messmore
I never really was a salad guy. That's just not who I am. Even through the pickiness, Noom taught me that building better habits builds a healthier lifestyle. I'm not doing this to get to a number. I'm doing this to feel better.
- [00:49]
Brittany
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- [01:03]
Steve Fishman
Listen to all episodes of Finding Mom's Killer ad free right now by subscribing to the binge. Visit the binge channel on Apple Podcasts and hit subscribe at the top of the page or visit getthebinge.com to get access. Wherever you listen the binge feed your true crime obsession.
- [01:27]
Noreen Boyle
The Binge.
- [01:34]
Jack Boyle
It was around middle of January. My father says to me that he was going to go to his office to pick up some paperwork and he said did I want to come along with him?
- [01:47]
Steve Fishman
By mid January 1990, Noreen Boyle had been missing for about two weeks and her 11 year old son Collier was desperately trying to find her.
- [01:58]
Jack Boyle
We go to my father's office and on the way back we stop at a gas station. And my father used to do you know what Mallow cups are? They're like Reese cups with marshmallow in them. He was like really into mallow cups so we went into the gas station to get those, but he left me in the truck. And I'm watching through the windshield and I see him inside the gas station and I just start rummaging through his truck and I open up the center console and that's when I find two photographs. One is of a house that I've never seen before and the other one is of his girlfriend Sherry Campbell with her two kids who I knew. And they're sitting in front of a fireplace that's like covered in plastic so it looks like a new fireplace.
- [02:54]
Steve Fishman
What do these photos mean? Collier calls up Mansfield Police Lt. Dave Messmore, his partner in the hunt for his mother. And what does he say when you tell him about the photos? Hmm.
- [03:12]
Noreen Boyle
Hmm.
- [03:14]
Jack Boyle
And that was when things started to sort of get hairy.
- [03:24]
Steve Fishman
From Sony Music Entertainment and Orbit Media, this is finding Mom's killer. I'm Steve Fishman Episode 3 the House on Wolf Road.
- [03:43]
Collier Landry
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- [04:42]
Mike Dugan
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- [05:46]
Steve Fishman
The thing about active cases is that there are unpredictable turns. This one was no exception. Lt. Dave Messmore's investigation was about to relocate almost as soon as he began looking into the disappearance of Noreen Boyle. Dave learned that her husband was planning a Disappearing act of his own. Dr. Jack Boyle was leaving town.
- [06:13]
Lt. Dave Messmore
What happened was Jack got a contract in erie, Pennsylvania, to work for a. A large company. He'd been traveling back and forth to erie to set this whole clinic up.
- [06:25]
Steve Fishman
Dr. Jack Bole had made no secret of the move. A month earlier, he'd placed an ad in the local paper informing patients that he was shutting down his practice.
- [06:36]
Lt. Dave Messmore
So I called up to erie and had a detective work with me. And he started to talk to people that knew him and had met him.
- [06:44]
Steve Fishman
It didn't take long for the eerie detective to learn about Jack. He seemed to be setting up a new life in Erie, and he'd have the means to do it at his new job. He stood to make a lot of money, about $500,000 a year, which would be worth over a million dollars today. The detective learned that Jack had already bought a house in Erie, one a lot bigger than the Boyle house in Mansfield. 3,000 square feet, four bedrooms, a two and a half car garage, a new fireplace, and a huge, unfinished basement. It was on a street called wolf road.
- [07:24]
Lt. Dave Messmore
The more this detective worked on it up there, he said, that's just a lot of strange things going on with this guy. I said, yeah, I know.
- [07:33]
Steve Fishman
For instance, there was Jack's companion. When looking at houses. Here's the realtor describing that companion.
- [07:41]
Sherry Campbell
I'd say mid-20s, 26, 27. She was small, petite, brown hair, brown eyes, and very pregnant. He walked in and he shook my hand. He says, I'm Jack Boyle. This is my wife Sherry.
- [08:01]
Steve Fishman
Sherry, as in Sherry Campbell, was pregnant with Jack's child. But she wasn't his wife. Not yet. Now, introducing your much younger, extremely pregnant girlfriend as your wife is hardly illegal. And it's a lot less complicated to explain to a stranger. But the situation did get complicated. There was something else the detective learned from the realtor. It wasn't just Jack's house. It was apparently Jack and Sherry's house. The contract of sale for the wolf road house was signed by two people. Jack boyle and someone calling herself N. Sherry Boyle. N. Sherry boyle was, of course, Jack's girlfriend.
- [08:49]
Lt. Dave Messmore
He presented her as his wife, and when she signed her name, it wasn't her name.
- [08:57]
Steve Fishman
Turned out it was useful for Jack to have his quote unquote wife with him to sign papers. Because of the divorce proceedings, Jack's finances were tied up with Noreen's. To get a mortgage, Jack had to get his wife's approval. And apparently his wife did give her approval. The new wife, Mrs. N. Sherry Boyle.
- [09:23]
Lt. Dave Messmore
She Forged a name.
- [09:27]
Steve Fishman
It was like Sherry was erasing Noreen. Now, as for Sherry's forgery, maybe all this was just a naive, lovestruck young woman doing whatever her older, wealthier lover asked. Dave wasn't so sure. He wondered, was Sherry involved in Noreen's disappearance?
- [09:49]
Lt. Dave Messmore
Don't tell me she didn't know what was going on.
- [09:52]
Steve Fishman
Dave soon learned something else he found suspicious. Jack paid the house's full asking price, nearly $300,000, without negotiating, except for one condition. He wanted to move in two weeks early, before the end of the year. Jack said he was starting work in Erie in early January. The seller agreed, and Jack picked up the keys to the Wolf Road house at noon on December 30th. Noreen disappeared 15 hours later. Hmm. To Dave, the time was starting to seem meticulously planned. But to what end? Then, according to the Eerie detective, the realtor made a strange comment. Here's what the detective recalls. There's something in my mind, she said. I can't think of it right now, but she says, something just stands out. And she says, I wish I could tell you. And I said, well, when you recall.
- [10:50]
Lt. Dave Messmore
You have my number.
- [10:51]
Steve Fishman
Just give me a call at work and let me know. Remember those photos? Junior detective Collier landry Boyle told Lt. Messmore he discovered in his father's truck the unfamiliar house. Sherry Campbell and her children standing in front of a new fireplace. That was the eerie house, the one on Wolf Road. Dave's investigation had already led him to the new house. But he thanked Collier, praised his efforts. Dave had grown fond of Collier. He felt terrible for him. And the photos did help sharpen Dave's understanding. Collier was being supplanted. So was Noreen, Sherry and her kids. They were Jack's family now.
- [11:38]
Detective
Talk to Collier a lot about how his dad treated him. Even as a small child, his dad didn't like him.
- [11:47]
Steve Fishman
Dave figured if Jack was hoping to make a fresh start in Erie with a new wife and a new house, then Noreen must have been in the way. Dave was now convinced the Erie house was a key to Noreen's disappearance.
- [12:04]
Detective
These little things kept narrowing it down to Erie, Pennsylvania.
- [12:15]
Steve Fishman
Collier constantly had more tidbits to report to Dave. He'd call Dave a couple times a week. Any reason to reach out was a good one.
- [12:25]
Jack Boyle
I just needed to be reminded that there was somebody in my life that also remembered my mother that was doing something to try to find her. Somebody else is in this with me. It's not just me.
- [12:37]
Steve Fishman
So Collier kept sharing intel with Dave. About his father's movements. And Jack was constantly on the move. By this point, December 1989 into January 1990, Jack was leading a kind of double life. He wasn't just going back and forth between Mansfield and Erie to relocate his office, A three hour drive each way. He was staying at Sherry's place most nights, then getting up at 5am and hurrying back to the Boyle family residence, where most mornings Collier found him sleeping on the couch in the living room. Apparently, Jack was intent on keeping up appearances. But according to Collier, in other ways, he let his appearance slip because my.
- [13:24]
Jack Boyle
Father always had these, like, really, really well manicured hands. He was really particular about that because when you're a doctor, you're always washing your hands and stuff. So he was really careful with that. And so I start noticing there's like, cuts on his hands. My father comes home one night, his shoulders hurt, are really sore. And he asks me to rub Ben gay on his shoulders because he said he had been moving boxes all day. And there was some bruising on his arms, too. Thought that was weird. My father was not like a manual labor person.
- [13:59]
Detective
Collier told me that his dad came home for Mary, Pennsylvania, and his back and his arms were hurting, and Collier had to rub Ben gay on him. I thought that's a little bizarre.
- [14:15]
Steve Fishman
And then a tip came into the Mansfield police department. This tip changed everything for Dave. An anonymous woman called. She said she worked for a friend of Jack's and she'd rented a piece of machinery for Dr. Boyle. A jackhammer. Had Dr. Boyle taken up manual labor after all? So you find out that he rented a jackhammer. What's your reaction then?
- [14:44]
Lt. Dave Messmore
That's called a hint.
- [14:48]
Steve Fishman
The cops visited Easy rental in Mansfield. According to the store manager, the man who rented the jackhammer was definitely Jack. He'd paid for it with a personal check. Given his driver's license's ID he picked up the jackhammer on December 29th. Noreen went missing in the early hours of December 31st. To Dave, the way those dates fit together sure seems suspicious. Noreen disappears, and Dr. Boyle just happens to have a jackhammer handy. Hmm.
- [15:26]
Detective
I kept thinking, is it possible this guy actually would bury the body in his house?
- [15:33]
Steve Fishman
Keep in mind, Noreen is still just a missing person. There's no body, which means there's no murder. But what if Dave finds Noreen's body buried beneath the wolf road house? Well, that would change everything. But now Dave is worried. If Dr. Jack Boyle is a murderer, well, then Collier is living under a murderer's roof. And Then Jack makes a proposal to Collier.
- [16:06]
Jack Boyle
We're having this conversation at the dinner table, and he says, you know, Collier, I know this has been really hard for you with mommy, you know, abandoning us. We're all having a really tough time, myself included. Like, I don't know why she would be doing this to us. I have a medical convention that's happening in Clearwater, Florida. He says to me that we should take a father and son trip together to go to this medical convention so I could have a break from everything.
- [16:47]
Steve Fishman
Father and son had taken trips to Florida before, but this one felt different. Collier was afraid.
- [16:54]
Jack Boyle
So the next morning, I go to school, I call Dave, and I say, this is what's happening.
- [16:59]
Lt. Dave Messmore
I said, no, no, no, no, no. So I called children's services, and I said to the head of it, I said, let me tell you what I'm doing. And I explained everything to him. I said, now this guy wants to take Collier on a vacation. My fear is that something will happen to Collier. And he goes, oh. He said, all right. He called me back later and said, we're going to remove Collier and put him in an approved home to stay with some people. I said, good. That's exactly what I want. I didn't trust Jack at all.
- [17:38]
Steve Fishman
By now, Dave is convinced that Jack's capable of anything, including killing his own son. A few days later, on January 25, Collier awoke to some surprise. Visitors.
- [17:56]
Jack Boyle
There are these two people from Children's services. They've come into my room, and they're like, you've got 20 minutes to pack a bag. We're getting you out of here. And I can hear all this commotion downstairs, like, all the whole hell breaking loose. My grandmother's yelling at somebody. I'm like, what? Like, what is happening? And I start packing a bag for myself, and I pack a bag for my sister with, like, her toys. So we're coming downstairs, and there's Dave Messmore talking to my grandmother. So they take me to the principal of my school's house, and she kind of is telling me, you know, you're going to stay here for a little bit while everything gets sorted out.
- [18:46]
Steve Fishman
Jack missed the whole thing. He'd left early that morning. That night, camping out at his principal's home with his little sister, Collier had the worst asthma attack of his life and was brought to the hospital, out of his house, away from his father. His breath recovered. He was in stable condition. The next morning, his principal, now his guardian, came into the hospital room. She had news for him.
- [19:23]
Jack Boyle
Collier, Lt. Messmore found your mother.
- [19:36]
Sherry Campbell
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- [20:06]
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- [20:40]
Noreen Boyle
It was extremely interesting. Like it was so bizarre, you know, Learning more about Dr. Boyle and what he was like.
- [20:51]
Steve Fishman
This is Mike Dugan, a detective in a suburb of Erie called Mill Creek Township. As it turned out, the house on Wolf Road was located in Mill Creek, which has its own police department. That's how Detective Dugan got involved.
- [21:08]
Noreen Boyle
Once I was assigned the case, Dave Messmore was my go to guy. He and I were constantly talking and I know that he took this case really to heart because of the children, especially Collier.
- [21:21]
Steve Fishman
Because of Dave's intervention, Collier was now out of harm's way. On January 25, Children's Services had taken him away from Jack. That same day, Collier, Lieutenant Dave Messmore and the Mansfield police made another big move. They executed a search warrant on the Boyle household. The police made a big show of it. Lots of equipment, lots of manpower. But they found nothing. No physical evidence, no blood, no indications of a struggle, nothing in the Boyle's three cars. In short, no evidence of murder. But Dave was not discouraged. He wasn't the type to let go, which is why he had put a backup plan in motion. Here's Detective Mike Dugan again.
- [22:16]
Noreen Boyle
We waited until they completed their execution of the search warrant in Mansfield, and when that turned up negative. That's when we went and applied for a search warrant to go and search the Wolf Road address.
- [22:33]
Steve Fishman
Just as police were coming up empty at the Boyle residence in Mansfield, police in mill Creek Township, 180 miles away, were seeking a court order to search the house on Wolf Road. It wasn't clear they'd get it, as even Dave Admits that search warrant relied on some questionable leaps in logic and pretty thin evidence. After all, what was the evidence that there even was a body or that the body was in the erie house.
- [23:05]
Lt. Dave Messmore
So I called up there in erie and I said, look, here's what I've got. And I said, I'm very, very interested in getting in that new house. And they said, oh, boy, do you have any more than that?
- [23:23]
Steve Fishman
That's about the time that the eerie detective heard once again from the realtor who'd sold Jack the house. Remember, she'd said there was one more strange thing about Jack, but at the time, she couldn't quite recall it. Well, she'd remembered it.
- [23:41]
Sherry Campbell
He wanted a copy of the design plans, the blueprints. And he asked me to find out what the foundation of the home was. I said, probably gravel. And he said, no, no. He says, if I were to break into the basement floor, what will I hit? What is underneath that floor? If I ever want to lower the floor, you know, finish it off as a playroom for the kids? I thought it was kind of strange because it had a really high ceiling. I'm tall, and I had high heels on, and I. I estimated 10ft. I don't know what it is, but it's extremely high basement.
- [24:19]
Lt. Dave Messmore
That is something that sticks in your mind. Why would he want to lower the basement? What was he going to do?
- [24:27]
Steve Fishman
The realtor's new information went into the application for the search warrant, and they.
- [24:32]
Lt. Dave Messmore
Said, we have a judge that we will take this to. The judge had been a former prosecutor, and he went, there you go.
- [24:43]
Steve Fishman
There you go. Dave's supposedly flimsy application had been signed by a judge. Dave now had what he most wanted, A chance to search the house on wolf road. David fixated on that house, a fixation that his superiors did not share.
- [25:03]
Detective
My captain was not behind me the day that I got ready to serve a search warrant. Captain said, what are you doing? I told him what I was doing. He said, you gotta be kidding. I said, no. He said, you really think that a doctor would kill somebody and take the body up to erie, Pennsylvania? I said, I don't know, but I'm gonna find out.
- [25:33]
Steve Fishman
According to Lt. Messmore, his superiors were pretty much convinced that go it alone. Dave had gotten hooked on a wayward theory, and now, based on that theory, was going to go tear up the house of a prominent local physician.
- [25:50]
Detective
He said, you're going to embarrass the police department. I said, I don't care who he is. It has to be Done.
- [25:59]
Steve Fishman
Maybe Dave's superiors had a point. Maybe he was too close to this one. For Dave, this wasn't just another case. This was personal. He was offended by Dr. Jack Boyle.
- [26:12]
Detective
Disgusted and insulted for what he did to his family. The way he treated Collier, it was with a lot of disdain.
- [26:28]
Steve Fishman
On the morning of January 25, the search of the Boyle residence in Mansfield produced nothing. So Lieutenant Dave Messmore and a local prosecutor climbed into Dave's department issued Oldsmobile and made the long drive to Erie. In Dave's recollection, it was a rough trip.
- [26:49]
Lt. Dave Messmore
The weather was bad, it was snowing and everything. So we drove up there through six inches of snow and it got worse and worse.
- [26:58]
Steve Fishman
What should have been a three hour drive turned into a five hour slog. And for what? Let's be real. A doctor with no history of violent crime is going to murder his wife. A premeditated murder in their home with his mother and children sleeping nearby. Oh, and this mastermind is going to rent a jackhammer to dig his wife's grave using a personal check with his name on it. It's a little far fetched, this whole thing. That doesn't seem to you like you're on a wild goose chase?
- [27:36]
Lt. Dave Messmore
You couldn't convince me there was anything more bizarre than this. I was not prepared to dismiss any viable theory.
- [27:45]
Steve Fishman
For Dave, this case was different from any other he'd worked on.
- [27:50]
Detective
I had an inclination to do things that maybe I wouldn't have done in other cases. Some people don't have any faith, and I have faith. I think God does lead you in.
- [28:04]
Lt. Dave Messmore
The right directions a lot of times.
- [28:06]
Steve Fishman
And Dave believed God was leading him to Wolf Road.
- [28:12]
Lt. Dave Messmore
By the time we got there, we were late and the lieutenant up there had four guys ready to work with us. They said, well, it's nice you got here. I said, well, I'm lucky I got here.
- [28:25]
Steve Fishman
When Dave arrived at Wolf Road, it was dark, already past 5 and the temperature was in the low 20s. He met a team of local technicians and cops, including Detective Mike Dugan.
- [28:39]
Noreen Boyle
We actually got to the Wolf Road address around about 20 after 5 or so and no one answered the door.
- [28:49]
Detective
I kicked the door in. It was kind of enjoyable. Yeah.
- [28:53]
Steve Fishman
The Erie cops had canvassed local hardware stores and discovered that Jack had purchased a large roll of indoor outdoor carpeting. What you might know as Astroturf.
- [29:05]
Lt. Dave Messmore
All over this two and a half car garage was indoor outdoor carpeting. I said, well, it's gotta be under there.
- [29:14]
Noreen Boyle
And we rolled up the carpeting.
- [29:17]
Lt. Dave Messmore
None of the concrete underneath was damaged or anything.
- [29:22]
Steve Fishman
This was not good news. Dave had half a dozen men traipsing around this big empty house. Turned out Jack and Cherry had not moved in, despite the rush to collect the keys. There was no furniture, though Dave did notice a working phone. They'd struck out in the garage, and according to Dave, some of the cops were getting antsy.
- [29:46]
Lt. Dave Messmore
That kind of made me concerned that maybe, maybe that wasn't what I was going to find her at.
- [29:56]
Steve Fishman
Dave led the other cops from the garage into the house toward the only other room where a jackhammer might be used. The basement.
- [30:09]
Lt. Dave Messmore
It was almost like a dampness in the air. And as I opened the door to the basement, this wave of drying paint came up.
- [30:23]
Noreen Boyle
The basement was not finished other than the fact that the the floor had been painted, and in one section was green indoor outdoor carpeting that had been glued down. And on top of the indoor outdoor carpeting, there was shelving units.
- [30:42]
Lt. Dave Messmore
Jack had a contractor come in and build two by four shelving all along one wall. So the technicians were working and looking all along the walls and looking around that shelving that was built. And one of them said, gosh, this is like almost fresh concrete that didn't dry splattered on the wall.
- [31:06]
Noreen Boyle
And we got down on our hands and knees, we're feeling along the shelving, and there was a little bit of an indentation under the shelving, which was odd because the rest of the basement was pristine. At that point in time, we decided that we're going to have to take the shelving unit down.
- [31:25]
Lt. Dave Messmore
So the other lieutenant said, go get sledgehammers.
- [31:30]
Steve Fishman
The cops knocked the shelving down with sledgehammers, having a good time destroying what Jack and Sherry had imagined as the children's playroom.
- [31:40]
Detective
And I'm thinking, oh boy, how am I going to explain this?
- [31:43]
Steve Fishman
But Dave proceeded, pulled it all down.
- [31:47]
Lt. Dave Messmore
And then ripped up the carpeting that was glued to the floor.
- [31:52]
Steve Fishman
There was something else the cops had discovered when they were canvassing the local hardware stores. In addition to finding out about Jack's purchase of the indoor outdoor carpeting, they learned he'd bought several bags of co quick drying concrete. Now, even quick drying concrete can take up to a month to fully cure or harden. And as the cops discovered in the basement of the Wolf Road house, under the shelving and the indoor outdoor carpeting, there was a section of the floor that hadn't completely cured.
- [32:28]
Noreen Boyle
And that area was 6 foot 8 inches in one direction and 2ft 6 inches another. So it actually almost looked like a. A Grave site the size of a grave site. At that point, we took the sledgehammer, and I hit, like, in the center of the uncured concrete. I broke it up a little bit and then got down and started digging it out.
- [32:57]
Lt. Dave Messmore
They did it with little tiny screwdrivers and everything, trying not to disturb anything.
- [33:03]
Steve Fishman
The uncured concrete was about 3 inches thick. The team broke that up and hit dirt. And then something caught Dave's eye.
- [33:12]
Lt. Dave Messmore
Then we found something I was looking for, and that was a green tarp.
- [33:18]
Steve Fishman
Something Collier had mentioned seeing around the Boyle house recently.
- [33:23]
Noreen Boyle
And I reached in and grabbed the tarp and started pulling it up a little bit. And I got a distinct odor from the hole, and it was that of a dead body. Once you smell a dead body, you never forget that smell. So.
- [33:48]
Steve Fishman
Whoo. Hours passed. It was getting late.
- [33:54]
Noreen Boyle
The tarp was wrapped with a rope. Cut the rope so that we could open up the tarp.
- [34:01]
Steve Fishman
And there was a woman's body.
- [34:05]
Noreen Boyle
And because it had been wrapped and it had been in a cool, moist grave, there wasn't any really decay. We found that she had a white plastic bag over her head and that was tied around her neck. The only thing that she was wearing was. Were panties. She was naked, and that's all she had was just a pair of panties on. And then the jewelry on her neck.
- [34:37]
Steve Fishman
There were two chains. She also had a wristwatch on a Rolex.
- [34:43]
Noreen Boyle
He went and actually cut the plastic bag to reveal the face.
- [34:51]
Steve Fishman
When the technicians cut the bag open, blond hair tumbled out. It looked like the hair in a photo Dave had brought with him, a photo of Noreen.
- [35:01]
Detective
And I checked a picture I had of her, and it was very obvious. Well, I looked at her. It was Noreen.
- [35:12]
Noreen Boyle
He tentatively identified the body that we had just unearthed as Noreen Boyle.
- [35:26]
Steve Fishman
After taking one last look at the body in the basement, Lt. Dave Messmore walked upstairs with one thought on his mind.
- [35:36]
Detective
I can't wait to get my hands on Jack. It's time to lock him up.
- [35:44]
Steve Fishman
So Dave picked up Dr. Jack Boyle's house phone. He woke up his captain back in Mansfield, the same captain who, according to Dave, told him he was about to embarrass the department.
- [35:57]
Detective
And I said, I've got Noreen's body up here. He said, what? And I said, I got Noreen's body. She's been murdered. I said, I want you to write up a murder warrant and take it and serve it on Jack before he gets away somewhere. He said, a murder warrant? And I said, yep. He was shocked about the Whole thing.
- [36:27]
Steve Fishman
In the early morning hours of January 26, a phalanx of Mansfield police headed to the Boyle house and knocked on the door.
- [36:37]
Lt. Dave Messmore
Jack was home and he came out and they said, you're under arrest for homicide. And he says, okay, I don't have anything to say. Nothing.
- [36:54]
Steve Fishman
Record five million dollar bond set tonight in Mansfield for a doctor accused of murdering his wife. Tonight, 46 year old Jack Boyle sits in the Richland County Jail on an aggravated murder charge. Dave was exhausted. So was the prosecutor he brought along. Still, they took a moment to celebrate. They headed to the nearest cheap motel. In their room they drank beer, ate pizza. And Dave, in his glory, surveyed their surroundings.
- [37:25]
Detective
Looked over in the corner and there was a whole herd of ants eating somebody else's food. The thing was a dump. It was awful.
- [37:38]
Steve Fishman
The next day, Dave began the long drive back home to Mansfield. Noreen had been found. Just Jack had been locked up. That evening, Dave phoned the house where the Boyle children had been taken into care.
- [37:52]
Lt. Dave Messmore
I said, I need to talk to Collier.
- [37:55]
Steve Fishman
At the home of Collier's foster family, Dave and Collier went into a small TV room, just the two of them. Dave sat on a chair facing Collier on a couch. Their knees were a few inches apart.
- [38:10]
Jack Boyle
He told me, you know, that they had found my mother's body and it was buried underneath the house that I found the photos of. I remember asking him, did she look like she was at peace. He said, yes. I'm sure he was lying. And I was really sad. I was also sad for Dave because I knew he wanted a different outcome too. I knew he probably wanted more than anything to say, I found her, she's okay, we've found her shopping and you know, you know, she just needed a little break, but she's back now. I knew that's probably the story he would have rather have told me. But I also know that he wanted to be there to tell me about it. He was my partner in crime.
- [39:10]
Lt. Dave Messmore
I said, it's better that you know what happened to her than, than to go on for years and years and never, never find her. And I said, well, it's my job, Collier, it's for you. I said, I'm really sorry.
- [39:26]
Jack Boyle
There's a finality to it because there's always that little like modicum of hope. And I believe I started crying. But I also was just. My whole life was just. Everything had just changed.
- [39:44]
Steve Fishman
Collier was in effect, an orphan.
- [39:49]
Jack Boyle
I'm all alone and the one person that can make it all better isn't there to burn.
- [40:03]
Steve Fishman
And it wasn't over yet. Before he left the Guardian's house that evening, Lieutenant Dave Messmore had a request for Collier.
- [40:13]
Lt. Dave Messmore
I told him he might have to testify when very often, that prosecutors would use a a young child to testify. But it was important, he said, absolutely.
- [40:30]
Steve Fishman
In the trial of Dr. Jack Boyle for the murder of Noreen Boyle, their son, Collier was to be the prosecution's star witness. And there would be a trial because Dr. Jack Boyle, despite the body found in his basement, pleaded not to guilty. Did you, Honor about December 31st of 1989 caused the death of Noreen Boyle?
- [40:57]
Lt. Dave Messmore
No, I did not.
- [40:59]
Noreen Boyle
I never harmed her at all.
- [41:01]
Steve Fishman
What was Jack's defense? He was the innocent victim of a conspiracy to set him up. Don't want to wait for that next episode. You don't have to unlock all episodes of Finding Mom's Killer ad free right now by subscribing to the Binge Podcast channel. Search for the binge on Apple Podcasts and hit subscribe at the top of the page. Not on apple. Head to getthebinge.com to get access wherever you listen. As a subscriber, you'll get binge access to new stories on the 1st of every month. Check out the Binge Channel page on apple podcasts or getthebinge.com to learn more. Finding Mom's killer is a production of Orbit Media. Creator and host Steve Fishman. That's me. Our senior producer is Drew Nellis. Our producer and production coordinator orb Austin Smith. Our story editor Emil Klein. Fact checked by Ryan Alderman Mixing in sound design by Scott Somerville. Our lawyers are at Davis, Wright Tremaine from Sony Music Entertainment. Our executive producer is Jonathan Hirsch. Special thanks to Emily Rasik, Steve Ackerman, Catherine St. Louis, Sammy Allison, Fisher Stevens Rhea Julian, Dan Bopkoff at wme. We'd like to thank Evan Krasik, Marisa Hurwitz and Ben Davis. We want to also thank Carl Hunnel at the Richland Source for the generous use of his podcast studio. And a really warm thank you to Collier Landry for sharing his story and for his production assistance.