11 YO Goes Undercover to Expose Mom’s Murderer | The Case of Collier Landry

- I heard a scream coming from my sister. I heard a thud, a little... - Okay, could you describe this sound for us? - It was about this loud. And then I just panicked. - All right, now did you get up at that time to investigate what had happened? - No, I did not. - And could you tell the jury why you didn’t? - Because I was extremely afraid of my father, I always have. - This is 12-year-old Collier Landry, the only witness in a murder case involving his own father, Dr. Jack Boyle. - Collier saddled up to me and he started whispering, and he said, “My mother would never leave me, this is not right, my mother would never do this.” In our line of work, we call that a clue.

- Compelled to fight his own father, 12-year-old Collier Landry didn’t hesitate to face off against the local police department, the local media, and even his own family to find his mother. With a little help from one dissident detective, he summoned his courage and started investigating on his own. But little did he know, he was also on the list of his father’s future victims. - In the city of Mansfield, Ohio, known for its steelwork and heavy industry, 11-year-old Collier lives with his father Jack, his mother Noreen, and his newly adopted sister Elizabeth. At the time, Jack’s by far the most successful doctor in town. - He had, what the investigators called, the largest medical practice in Richland County.

One out of 13 people used Dr. Boyle as their physician. - But behind closed doors, Jack was a completely different person, described as a rageaholic by his wife, the man has a quick temper, and often goes off without a warning. One day, while Collier was sitting in the living room, playing video games, he fell victim to one of his father’s bouts. - This clip was from 1990, at the time, Collier was still a child, but as an adult, he isn’t shy of saying the actual words his father used to torture him psychologically. - But his other faults were hardly a secret to anyone. Everybody in town knew of his infidelities and Jack never had to face the consequences of his actions until the day he casually introduced his latest girlfriend to his own son. - After Collier noticed the ring, he knew he had to tell Noreen. - Noreen had reached her limit.

She already knew about Jack’s cheating, but involving Collier in his affairs was the last straw, so she filed for divorce. Jack tried to convince her to leave Ohio and start fresh, but they ended up staying for the holidays, during which it all went relatively well, until New Year’s Eve, when Collier was awakened by a piercing scream coming from his parents’ bedroom. - Paralyzed by fear, Collier didn’t move an inch and waited for his father to leave his room. He kept trying to make sense of what just happened. In the morning, he finally found the courage within himself to get out of his room and face Jack. - Convinced his mother wouldn’t just leave him, Collier grabbed her phone book and ran upstairs before his father. - So I’d hidden these phone numbers. I take the cordless phone, I go into the bathroom, and I lock the door, and I start calling every single one of my mother’s friends, and I tell them what happened.

I said, “I need you to call the police.” - While talking to his mother’s friends, Collier remembered how scared and depressed his mother had been during the past few years. He couldn’t believe he would have to deal with his father on his own from now on. - When the police arrived, Jack simply told him that he and Noreen got into an argument and she left the house by her own means. - He insisted on knowing who called them and only gave up the hard look he had towards Collier when the officers said it was one of Noreen’s friends. - I’m afraid of my father, and I think my father just killed my mother, so I’m really afraid of him and I’m afraid for my life. I know that every day, the longer the time goes on, my life is in more and more danger. - At this point, mere days after Noreen was declared missing, nobody suspected foul play.

Collier was only a kid, after all, and Jack’s story made sense. Even David Messmore, a renowned detective from the region, was easily deceived by the situation. - So if you looked at the actual circumstances, they were believable. The fact that she walked out the door, she was very upset. I don’t know whether another issue may have come up, maybe another girlfriend or something like that, and would’ve caused her to just stop and leave, and that’s not beyond belief. It’s not even unusual in our business. - When Messmore met with Collier for the first time, he seemed distraught, repeating over and over that his mother would never leave him. But Christine Boyle, Jack’s 76-year-old mother, quickly dismissed his claims. She was also present on the night of Noreen’s disappearance and did hear some commotion, but went on to support Jack’s story.

She told the detective that three years ago, during the holidays, Noreen got into a fight with him and left without warning, only to come back the next day. She explained that her son asked her to take care of Collier and Elizabeth while he went to Erie, Pennsylvania to work on the new home he purchased as part of their plan to move away. Days went by without any signs of Jack or Noreen until one neighbor tipped the police, claiming that he was up very early on January 1, and they didn’t notice anyone leaving their home at the time, so they showed up to investigate, but this time had a whole forensic unit ready to comb through the house. - When we arrived on Hawthorne Lane, we were fully staffed, we had lab coats, we went in to process the scene for the potential evidence of maybe a homicide happened.

And when we got done, we pretty much just shrugged our shoulders and left. - This second visit, however, turned out to be way more useful than initially thought. For a minute, Detective Messmore finally had the time to listen to Collier, without his grandmother around. Again, he went over the details of what he heard that night but also spoke of what his father had been up to since then. - Collier also told me that after his father got back from that weekend in Erie, his shoulders and arms were very sore and Collier had to rub liniment on him, which was unusual. - Messmore was impressed by the details Collier recalled in such a short burst, seeing that his grandmother was walking toward them, and would probably attempt to dismiss Collier once more, he quickly told the kid to call him at the station as soon as he could, and gave him his card, and left with Christine following behind him.

- Normally, if you talk to 10, 11-year-olds, you kind of take part of what they say as being not really accurate, but in this case, he was so convincing that I thought, I’m gonna have to look into this some more. - Determined to find justice for his mother, Collier set out to find a way to talk to Messmore away from his home. - I went to school the next day, and I told the principal at the school, you need to call down at the Mansfield Police Department and ask for this guy named Lieutenant David Messmore. - Aware that his father could probably kill him for conspiring against him, Collier stuck to the safety of his school to discuss with Messmore. This relationship was of great use to the detective, because he had been barred from entering the Boyles’ house after his last visit yielded no results.

It was almost as if nobody thought Jack could have possibly done something wrong to his wife. - I developed this rapport with Dave Messmore, where he would come to the school and I told him the first day, I was like, “I’m gonna go home, I’m gonna run upstairs, and I’m gonna pull the bookcases out of the wall, the shelves, and look behind them and see if I can find my mother’s body.” I’m not even 12 years old at this time. - Messmore was worried about Collier’s safety and pressed him to stop investigating on his own, but knowing that the kid probably couldn’t help himself, the detective made sure he understood the gravity of his situation. Collier needed to be absolutely certain he couldn’t get caught, because if his father was truly a murderer, there was no way to guarantee he wouldn’t take care of him in the same way he did Noreen. - These are the conversations I’m having with this man, I’m like, “I know if she was gonna leave, she would take this purse, and she would bring this, I’m gonna see if that purse is in the house.” - And this back and forth went on for weeks. Messmore would ask Collier what he found inside the house, while Collier would ask him what progress the police made. Every morning, the kid would go to his school’s principal’s office, and ask the same question. - You need to get him here, like every day, I’m like wanting to talk to him, like what happens, what do you know?

- But there wasn’t much to share on Messmore’s side. His department was pretty much convinced that Jack’s retelling of the events was correct. To them, this was only a woman who left after learning of her husband’s cheating, not a murder, not an assault, not even a crime. So the detective had his back against the wall. It was only him and an 11-year-old boy against his whole department, against their whole town. - Unbeknownst to me, he was catching sh** from his captain, because it was like, “Okay, you’re now investigating a doctor in our small town. We don’t do that. They got into a fight, and she left.” He goes, “Yeah, but there’s something about this kid.” - As his captain was about to close the case, Collier came to Messmore with a new clue.

The police had no proof of Sherri’s involvement with Jack up to this point, but Collier, while his father left him alone in his truck to pay for gas, started going through the glove compartment and found two photographs of him and Sherri inside and outside of his new home in Erie. - During this time, I find the picture of the house, I tell Messmore about this. - Immediately, Messmore assembled his team once again. They contacted the real estate agent behind the transaction and all the hardware stores in Mansfield and Erie, asking if anybody had bought a shovel in the last month. They even called Sherri herself, asking about the affair. This level of scrutiny tipped Jack off. There was someone working against him. The police couldn’t know all of these details without someone feeding them information, and this is when he told Collier that they would be leaving for Florida the following day. When asked why, Jack was evasive.

That same day, Collier called Messmore in a panic. - He realized that literally, this is the only witness to a potential murder, and this guy’s gonna kill his son. - After listening to Collier, the detective reassured him that they would get him out of Jack’s house as soon as possible, and that they would stop investigating until they could guarantee his safety. The following day, CPS agents and police officers raided the house. - On the morning of January 24, 1990, I woke up at 6:00 a.m. to these two strangers in my room and they’re literally like, “You have 20 minutes to pack a bag and your things, we’re leaving.” - With Collier out of harm’s way, Messmore and the Mansfield Police Department went on with their investigation. First, they met with Michelle Barth, the realtor who sold the house to Jack.

She explained that the woman who signed the contract with Jack wasn’t Noreen. - The real estate agent described the young lady that was with Dr. Boyle as being pregnant, and very young, and certainly that didn’t resemble the photos that I had of Noreen. - She went on to explain how Jack pressured her client to allow him to move in early, insisting the house should be entirely empty by January 1st. But it was her last comment that truly shook Messmore and his colleagues. - Next to Michelle Barth in the police list of clues were the hardware stores. Often, before or after committing a murder, the culprit will buy supplies to help dispose of the body. As seen in our recent coverage of the Sara Maynard case. After making a few calls, Messmore got a new clue. Apparently, two days before Noreen’s disappearance, Jack rented a jackhammer at a local store. This information paired with the realtor’s declaration got Messmore thinking.

It seemed almost too crazy to be true, but he got himself a warrant to search the Erie property, bringing with him a crew of technicians, equipped with shovels and pickaxes. - So as the technicians were on the floor and looking around, one of them went over to the wall of the concrete block basement, and said, “There’s a little bit of new concrete. It’s like a mortar or something, it’s kind of soft.” - The whole basement had already been renovated when the police arrived. The floor was freshly painted gray, there was green carpet over most of the area, and there even was brand new shelving on each side of the room, but Messmore didn’t let any of this fool his judgment. When one of his men told him that the floor was soft, he asked them to tear the whole place apart. - At that point, after we’d knocked down the shelving and pulled up the indoor, outdoor carpeting, it was apparent that there was a little depression in the floor. - They started digging and soon enough were struck by the foul smell.

Indeed, there was a body entombed in the concrete, rendered unrecognizable by weeks of decomposition. Jack was immediately arrested and a forensic team was dispatched to the scene. The found nothing in the house, nothing in the basement, and even looked at his cars. - We did vacuum sweepings from all the cars. We tried to see if there was any association with a victim in the car that would not be normal, and there was really nothing that was drawn of any value from the analysis of the bureau. - Stuck with an unrecognizable body without any physical evidence to back their claims, the police didn’t have much to bring to the upcoming trial. So Detective Messmore paid a visit to Collier while he was in foster care. He intended to ask him to testify against his father at the trial.

But before that, Collier had a few questions concerning his mother. - At this point, both sides of his family completely cut ties with him, claiming that he was too young to testify and that he shouldn’t be taken seriously. The detective in front of him seemed to be the only person able to listen and understand him in the turmoil. In a moment of weakness, the boy broke down crying in front of Messmore. - I was a kid sitting in foster care, wrapped up in this like whirlwind of the case in my hometown. I remember sitting in the bedroom and just kind of like in this really dark place. At 12 years old, what is my life gonna look like? I have no family, I’ve lost my mother and my father, my family... Nobody wants anything to do with me, right? - Messmore looked him dead in the eyes and told him there was still a way to make this right. If he would agree to testify, he could finally prove them wrong and get justice for his mother.

Without any hesitation, Collier said yes. - When the trial came, of course I was not going to lie for him. I was not gonna say I don’t wanna testify or anything. To me, it felt like a lie, ’cause I know what happened, I knew she was dead, I knew all this. I was working with the police, all that. I knew that this was the right thing to do as much as it hurt. - Five months later, on June 4, 1990, the trial started, and Collier finally came face to face with his father. - The testimony continued today in the most notorious criminal trial in Richland County history, Dr. John Boyle is accused of killing his wife Noreen and burying her body in the basement of his new home in Erie, Pennsylvania. - The 12-year-old son of accused murderer, Mansfield Dr. John Boyle, finally took the stand. - Will you tell us who you are? - Collier Landry-Boyle. - Collier started by telling the jury of his father’s infidelities, recalling his encounter with Sherri wearing his mother’s ring, the pictures he found in Jack’s truck, and the loud noises and screams he heard on New Year’s Eve.

Afterward, Sherri too took the stand. - We have a defendant here who was a womanizer and he would engage in one affair after another. Sherri, have you recently had a baby? - Yes, I have. - And who is the father of that baby? - Jack Boyle. - The motive, prosecutors say, so he could move into that house with younger girlfriend, Sherri Campbell, who was carrying his baby. - It’s actually better than a soap opera, because it happened right in our own town. - I did not kill Noreen, I never harmed her at all. - A Richland County jury watched a gruesome video tape of Noreen Boyle’s body being exhumed from a shallow concrete grave. It was like seeing something out of a horror movie, only this was real. - After a month-long trial, the jury rendered their judgment. - We the jury in this case find the defendant, John F. Boyle Jr. guilty of the offense as charged in the indictment. - The judge said he would tolerate no outbursts in the courtroom, but they cheered in the hallway when Dr. John Boyle was found guilty of killing his wife Noreen. - But Collier’s ordeal wasn’t over yet. For years, members of his family tried to force a retrial.

Collier’s uncle even went as far as claiming that he talked to Noreen after the murder, and that the body they found belonged to someone else. From his jail cell, Jack reviewed the autopsy report and spotted many errors and inconsistencies. This prompted the prosecution to exhume Noreen’s body four years later and perform a DNA test, since the technique didn’t exist at the time of trial. - That was where he tried to poke a hole, and a major hole, in the prosecution’s case. But forensic evidence actually backfired on him and showed conclusively that it was, in fact, Noreen Boyle. - Following these events, Collier and Elizabeth were separated. He was sent to a loving foster family, grew up in relative normalcy, and eventually became a successful filmmaker. But his father never stopped harassing him. Every few months, he would receive a letter from jail, and this went on for most of his life.

- Over that 25 years, my father did everything he could in his power to have me resend my testimony, to help him get out, anything that this man could do to manipulate me. - But six years ago, Collier set his foot to the ground and took matters into his own hands once again. He set out to produce a documentary finally lifting the veil upon his side of the story. - Now in the film’s final scene, I confront my incarcerated father in prison. I’m gonna have that moment where I can ask this man why. - But Collier never got his answer. Jack’s disillusion was just too ingrained. He simply had to accept that he’ll probably never know why his father did what he did. But what seems like a failure ended up helping him realize something much more important. - Then I realized something, why looks into the past, but what now, what now looks into the future. - In a way, his story has never been about the why, but always about what now and what he’s doing now is helping others moved past their traumas through his own victim advocacy. - So when it comes to resilience, biography is not destiny. You can be both the author and the audience of your life."