Woman Tracks Down Her Brother’s Killer On Facebook 40 Years Later

OXFORDSHIRE, ENGLAND — In 1977, a British medical school graduate and his girlfriend set sail on a round-the-world adventure, only to be murdered at sea.

Decades later, the man’s sister says she identified the killer by using Facebook. Police arrested the suspect last year but, alas, the accused murderer himself died in prison before going to trial.

Related: Police Find Body Of Man Who Confessed To Killing Mom, Best Friend On Facebook

Penny Farmer, now 57, was just a teenager in 1978 when her brother Christopher, 25, and his girlfriend Peta Frampton, 24, disappeared while traveling in Latin America.

Christopher’s father, BBC journalist Charles Farmer, investigated the vanishing and discovered that two bodies had been pulled from the water near Guatemala. Dental records later confirmed that they were Christopher and Peta.

The victims had been beaten up, hog tied, weighed down with heavy boat equipment, and tossed overboard.

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Investigators tracked down Silas Duane Boston, a boat owner who was the last person to see the couple alive after offering them a lift from Belize to Mexico.

Boston claimed that Christopher and Peta had disembarked from the trip after seeing the poor condition of the boat. His last words to the British consulate were:

“Let me know if you hear anything about them.”

From there, Silas Duane Boston seemed to fall off the face of the earth. No one could locate him for the next 38 years — until Penny Farmer took up her own investigation on Facebook in October 2015.

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First, it came to light that Boston had been on the run at the time. He had been wanted back in Sacramento for statutory rape.

Just by combing through social media, then, Penny discovered that Boston was still alive, as were his two sons, Vince and Russell. She also learned that Vince and Russell Boston had been 12 and 13 back in 1978 — and they were on the boat when their father murdered Christopher and Peta.

The two now-adult brothers came clean to Penny. They admitted they saw their father fly into a homicidal rage after Christopher gave Boston guff for bullying and verbally abusing Russell.

Vince and Russell told Penny they witnessed Boston savagely beat Christopher and Peta, then tie them up and throw them into the sea. The men said they had kept silent for so long out of fear.

Penny contacted the Greater Manchester Police with her Facebook evidence and the agency, in turn, reached out to both Interpol and the Sacramento Police.

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Through sheer coincidence, California authorities had reopened a number of cold cases at the time, one of which was the 1968 disappearance of Mary Lou Boston — Silas Duane Boston’s wife and the mother of his two sons.

Police arrested Boston in a California nursing home on December 2, 2016, and charged him with the murders of Christopher Farmer and Peta Frampton. After eluding justice for four decades, Boston seemed finally poised to be held accountable in a court of law. But that fate was not to be.

Related: In Wake Of “Facebook Killer,” Social Network Says It Will Review Its Policies

Years of alcohol abuse had required Boston to undergo dialysis and, upon being locked up, he refused treatment. In April 2017, then, Silas Duane Boston died while being moved from the county jail to UC Davis Medical Center. He was 76 years old.

On top of being charged with double homicide and suspected of killing his wife, recent investigations into Boston implicate him in other crimes dating back 50 years, including other murders.

When he died, Boston had spent a total of four months behind bars.

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Penny Farmer has written a new book about her experience, Dead in the Water: Bringing Down My Brother’s Killer After His 38 Years on the Run.

In discussing the death of Boston just as she and her 92-year-old mom were preparing to fly to California for his trial, Penny said:

“I was gutted, absolutely gutted. I thought we were going to see justice. I was ready to stand up in court and tell them what a monster he was. But he wouldn’t even let us have that … I wouldn’t like to say suicide but he did it for a reason and that was because he knew the game was up.”

Penny also explained what compelled her to write the book, stating:

“First of all I wanted it to be a lasting memorial to Chris and Peta who were two great people. They were so loved. There’s not a day goes by we don’t think about them. Secondly, you can’t deny it’s a truly remarkable story.”

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Read more:
Penny Farmer – Twitter
U.S. Department of Justice
Daily Mail
The Sun
Sacramento Bee
Manchester Evening News

Main photo: Penny Farmer/YouTube video [screenshot]

The post Woman Tracks Down Her Brother’s Killer On Facebook 40 Years Later appeared first on CrimeFeed.