BOAT SKIPPER DIES AWAITING TRIAL OF 2 GRADUATES HE KILLED 40 YEARS BACK
A former boat skipper has died awaiting trial in the US accused of murdering two Manchester graduates as they travelled the world nearly 40 years ago.
Silas Duane Boston, 76, had been in custody since December charged with the maritime murders of medicine graduate Christopher Farmer, 25, and law graduate Peta Frampton, 24, both from Greater Manchester, whose bodies were discovered 200 metres from the coast off Guatemala on July 8, 1978 .
He was taken from his California jail to hospital earlier this month but died on Monday night, his son Vince Boston confirmed to the MEN.
Vince and his brother have testified they were just young boys when they saw their father murder the two graduates and were to be witnesses in the trial.
They say they witnessed their father pushing the young couple from the boat in a fit of anger because Mr Farmer admonished the skipper for attacking one of them.
US authorities also suspect Boston murdered his former wife - the boys’ mother Mary Lou - who disappeared in 1968.
On Monday night, the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department announced the death of a 76-year-old inmate at the Sacramento County Main Jail but did not identify him.
His son Vince called the M.E.N. today to say the jail had confirmed to him the dead man was his father, who had been suffering from heart and liver problems.
He expressed sympathy for the families of Christopher Farmer and Peta Frampton and said: “My mother was also a victim of his. He killed my mother when I was four years old. Of course I have sympathy for those families he’s hurt and all the pain he’s caused over the years.
“I’m in anguish for what he did to my mom. She was only 23 years old. He murdered her. My father caused a lot of pain and suffering for a lot of people and pretty much got away with it all. It’s at least some kind of justice he’s not among us anymore. but unfortunately this case wasn’t able to go to trial. He’s gone and he can’t hurt anybody else.”
Earlier this year Peta Farmer’s mother ,Audrey, 92, had begged the US court for a speedy trial so she could see justice done before she dies.
The original investigation by officials in the US and the UK had come to nothing until the UK families begged Greater Manchester Police’s cold case unit to revisit the deaths last year in late 2015.
It led to GMP contacting the retired detective who had investigated the original case and who handed over records of the case which he had kept in his garden shed.
US detectives were alerted and found Boston’s two sons - long estranged from their American father and each other.
Court papers lodged in California show both claim they witnessed their father pushing the young couple from the boat, allegedly in a fit of anger because Mr Farmer admonished the skipper for attacking his own son.
Mr Farmer and Ms Frampton, had travelled to Australia - where Mr Farmer had briefly worked as a doctor in Brisbane - and to the Americas as part of a round-the-world trip to celebrate their graduations.
The pair wrote back to their parents frequently and reported they had met an American called ‘Dwayne’ who had offered to take them from Belize to Mexico.
In Ms Frampton’s final letter, postmarked July 18, 1978, she ends: “Enough of the future. I don’t think there’s any more news - nothing much happens on a boat. Lots of love Peta.”
Two badly decomposed bodies of a man and a woman were later found floating in the sea about 200 metres from the beach off Punta De Manabique.
Volunteer firefighters recovered the bodies, noting the male had ankles bound and the hands were tied behind the back.
The body had been attached to a ‘shock block’, part of a car engine which can be used as ballast, by a 15m length of string.
There was a ‘bullet hole in the right leg and signs of torture’, according the English translation of a report quoted in the US court documentation.
The body of the woman had also been bound and attached to a car engine part which was resting on the bottom of the sea.
Both bodies were buried in Guatemala but only identified after they were exhumed a year following the deaths. They were finally identifed using dental records.
Court documents showed the UK consulate general in San Francisco managed to speak to Mr Boston, the skipper of a boat named Justin B on which the pair had sailed, by phone and the American claimed his two passengers had disembarked because his boat had required repairs.
Mr Farmer’s father, Charles, also managed to raise Mr Boston in a trans-Atlantic phone call and, according to US court documents, the skipper said he didn’t know what had happened to the couple and said: “Let me know if you hear anything about them.”
Vince Boston, aged 13 at the time, said his father ‘would become very violent when he drank alcohol’ and described how his dad tried to hit Mr Farmer but missed and ended up in the water after the latter had told Mr Boston to leave his younger son Russell, 12, alone, according to the criminal complaint lodged in the US.
Vince Boston alleged his father repeatedly struck Mr Farmer to the back of the head with a wooden ‘billy club’ as the young doctor is said to have cried: “What’s your game? What’s your game?”
When his girlfriend emerged from the galley, Mr Boston is alleged to have threatened to shoot her with a spear gun.
Mr Boston tried to stab the medic in the chest with a fillet knife but the blade broke and his father then bound his two passengers with ropes, according to Vince Boston.
The following morning he is said to have told his two passengers he intended to tie them to a tree so they could be discovered and he could escape and he demanded the pair sign over their traveller’s cheques to him, it is alleged.
The skipper then ‘hog tied’ his passengers at the rear of the boat and put plastic bags over their heads before pushing first Mr Farmer and then Ms Frampton overboard followed closely by the machine parts to which they were attached by a length of rope, it is claimed.
“Boston looked at his watch and after a three or four minutes stated ‘OK they are dead now’,” according to the criminal complaint file.
Mr Boston’s younger son Russell, in his own statement referred to in the US court documents, said his father had been ‘angry’ after Mr Farmer had ‘pushed (him) overboard’.
Mr Farmer had jumped to the defence of the youngster and asked his father to ‘leave him alone’ after the skipper had been ‘yelling and punching Russell Boston’, according to the US court documents.
Russell Boston also alleged his father had attacked the young medic from behind with ‘an antique billy club’ and then tried to stab him with a fillet knife.
He described how the skipper sailed away and after a few hours of silence allegedly told his sons: “You know, I had to do that. They didn’t give me a choice.”
Silas Duane Boston, 76, had been in custody since December charged with the maritime murders of medicine graduate Christopher Farmer, 25, and law graduate Peta Frampton, 24, both from Greater Manchester, whose bodies were discovered 200 metres from the coast off Guatemala on July 8, 1978 .
He was taken from his California jail to hospital earlier this month but died on Monday night, his son Vince Boston confirmed to the MEN.
Vince and his brother have testified they were just young boys when they saw their father murder the two graduates and were to be witnesses in the trial.
They say they witnessed their father pushing the young couple from the boat in a fit of anger because Mr Farmer admonished the skipper for attacking one of them.
US authorities also suspect Boston murdered his former wife - the boys’ mother Mary Lou - who disappeared in 1968.
On Monday night, the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department announced the death of a 76-year-old inmate at the Sacramento County Main Jail but did not identify him.
His son Vince called the M.E.N. today to say the jail had confirmed to him the dead man was his father, who had been suffering from heart and liver problems.
He expressed sympathy for the families of Christopher Farmer and Peta Frampton and said: “My mother was also a victim of his. He killed my mother when I was four years old. Of course I have sympathy for those families he’s hurt and all the pain he’s caused over the years.
“I’m in anguish for what he did to my mom. She was only 23 years old. He murdered her. My father caused a lot of pain and suffering for a lot of people and pretty much got away with it all. It’s at least some kind of justice he’s not among us anymore. but unfortunately this case wasn’t able to go to trial. He’s gone and he can’t hurt anybody else.”
Earlier this year Peta Farmer’s mother ,Audrey, 92, had begged the US court for a speedy trial so she could see justice done before she dies.
The original investigation by officials in the US and the UK had come to nothing until the UK families begged Greater Manchester Police’s cold case unit to revisit the deaths last year in late 2015.
It led to GMP contacting the retired detective who had investigated the original case and who handed over records of the case which he had kept in his garden shed.
US detectives were alerted and found Boston’s two sons - long estranged from their American father and each other.
Court papers lodged in California show both claim they witnessed their father pushing the young couple from the boat, allegedly in a fit of anger because Mr Farmer admonished the skipper for attacking his own son.
Mr Farmer and Ms Frampton, had travelled to Australia - where Mr Farmer had briefly worked as a doctor in Brisbane - and to the Americas as part of a round-the-world trip to celebrate their graduations.
The pair wrote back to their parents frequently and reported they had met an American called ‘Dwayne’ who had offered to take them from Belize to Mexico.
In Ms Frampton’s final letter, postmarked July 18, 1978, she ends: “Enough of the future. I don’t think there’s any more news - nothing much happens on a boat. Lots of love Peta.”
Two badly decomposed bodies of a man and a woman were later found floating in the sea about 200 metres from the beach off Punta De Manabique.
Volunteer firefighters recovered the bodies, noting the male had ankles bound and the hands were tied behind the back.
The body had been attached to a ‘shock block’, part of a car engine which can be used as ballast, by a 15m length of string.
There was a ‘bullet hole in the right leg and signs of torture’, according the English translation of a report quoted in the US court documentation.
The body of the woman had also been bound and attached to a car engine part which was resting on the bottom of the sea.
Both bodies were buried in Guatemala but only identified after they were exhumed a year following the deaths. They were finally identifed using dental records.
Court documents showed the UK consulate general in San Francisco managed to speak to Mr Boston, the skipper of a boat named Justin B on which the pair had sailed, by phone and the American claimed his two passengers had disembarked because his boat had required repairs.
Mr Farmer’s father, Charles, also managed to raise Mr Boston in a trans-Atlantic phone call and, according to US court documents, the skipper said he didn’t know what had happened to the couple and said: “Let me know if you hear anything about them.”
Vince Boston, aged 13 at the time, said his father ‘would become very violent when he drank alcohol’ and described how his dad tried to hit Mr Farmer but missed and ended up in the water after the latter had told Mr Boston to leave his younger son Russell, 12, alone, according to the criminal complaint lodged in the US.
Vince Boston alleged his father repeatedly struck Mr Farmer to the back of the head with a wooden ‘billy club’ as the young doctor is said to have cried: “What’s your game? What’s your game?”
When his girlfriend emerged from the galley, Mr Boston is alleged to have threatened to shoot her with a spear gun.
Mr Boston tried to stab the medic in the chest with a fillet knife but the blade broke and his father then bound his two passengers with ropes, according to Vince Boston.
The following morning he is said to have told his two passengers he intended to tie them to a tree so they could be discovered and he could escape and he demanded the pair sign over their traveller’s cheques to him, it is alleged.
The skipper then ‘hog tied’ his passengers at the rear of the boat and put plastic bags over their heads before pushing first Mr Farmer and then Ms Frampton overboard followed closely by the machine parts to which they were attached by a length of rope, it is claimed.
“Boston looked at his watch and after a three or four minutes stated ‘OK they are dead now’,” according to the criminal complaint file.
Mr Boston’s younger son Russell, in his own statement referred to in the US court documents, said his father had been ‘angry’ after Mr Farmer had ‘pushed (him) overboard’.
Mr Farmer had jumped to the defence of the youngster and asked his father to ‘leave him alone’ after the skipper had been ‘yelling and punching Russell Boston’, according to the US court documents.
Russell Boston also alleged his father had attacked the young medic from behind with ‘an antique billy club’ and then tried to stab him with a fillet knife.
He described how the skipper sailed away and after a few hours of silence allegedly told his sons: “You know, I had to do that. They didn’t give me a choice.”
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