In the unlawful killing of a loved one, there’s an inclination to go one of two ways – either sink into inertia and despondency, or put all of one’s energy and waking hours into finding answers. My family fell very much into the last category. Far from accepting the shocking news of Chris and Peta’s murders as a fait accompli, their response was to redouble their efforts to seek justice and so they threw themselves into the task, body and soul.

With the advent of the internet and the widespread use of mobile phones, it’s hard to appreciate just how difficult that was. Back in the 1970s, most international communication was painstakingly carried out by letter with the occasional, poorly connected, very expensive long-distance telephone call. Communications with America were difficult enough, but with Central America they proved nigh on impossible.

There was now a firm conviction, shared by us, the Framptons, the Foreign Office and the Greater Manchester Police, that Boston was wholly responsible for their deaths.

The harbour master had confirmed that Chris and Peta were signed on as crew for the Justin B’s voyage on 26 June 1978 from Dangriga (Stann Creek) but they were not on board when the boat put into Livingston, Guatemala, on 6 July.

A Punta Gorda fisherman reported that he had seen the Justin B disabled on 5 July, heading for Livingston, and only Boston was sighted as being on board. Presumably, his sons had been ordered to stay below in the galley.

The location of the bodies tallied exactly with where the Justin B was known to be sailing at that time. Peta’s last letter to her mother referred to the tensions onboard the boat, with the two boys constantly squabbling and Boston losing his temper with them. In her letter she said that they were at Hunting Caye on 29 June but the letter was postmarked 18 July from Livingston, Guatemala. It had always been her custom to add a postscript to her letters if she had been unable to post them at the time, even if it were one or two days’ gap. It is unthinkable that she would not have done so after 19 days.

Boston did not carry out his plan to go down to Costa Rica and sell the Justin B as Peta, in her letter to her mother, had claimed was the stated aim in travelling south. Instead, he docked in Livingston on 6 July. On 19 July, he then turned around and sailed back up north again along the Belizean coastline, returning to the port of Dangriga (Stann Creek) on 9 August. This is where Chris and Peta had last been sighted in June and were recorded by the harbour master as being on board as crew and from where they had picked up the ballast that Peta refers to in her letter.

We learnt from the Foreign & Commonwealth Office that Boston and his two sons then sailed on further north to Belize City. Very suspiciously, he changed the Justin B’s name and sold the boat on 14 August before flying to Miami and returning overland to California in late August.

Discrepancies had begun to creep into the two interviews that Boston gave to the British Consul and my father. To the Consul, he maintained that he had put them ashore on the Cabo de Tres Puntas Peninsula and to my father, near Puerto Barrios. Either way, the story didn’t stack up because the coastline is largely jungle down to the beach and at that time there were no access roads down to the coast.

Their tortured bodies were weighted down with heavy engine gears and they were located 200m offshore, suggesting they were killed aboard a boat. Death was by drowning. It is inconceivable that, had they been put ashore, as Boston maintained, someone would have bothered to take them out to sea to kill them.

Like scenes from a silent thriller on repeat, various scenarios played out in our minds of how Chris and Peta could have been apprehended, tied up and killed at the hands of one man. Was the motive financial, sexual or a moment of hot headed anger, metered out under the relentless burning Caribbean sun, or maybe a combination of all three? And where were the boys when it happened? Were they ashore or did it happen under the cloak of darkness?

Our belief that Boston was responsible was confirmed when Interpol informed us of some staggering news. Boston’s third wife, Mary Lou (mother of the two boys on the boat) had disappeared in September 1968 in Sacramento some ten years before Chris and Peta were killed, and was untraceable. We were incredulous to hear this latest news and it took some time to assimilate.

Many years later, Boston’s younger son Russell was to describe to me what he remembered about events during this period on his side of the Atlantic. On his arrival back in his hometown of Sacramento in Northern California in late August, Boston became paranoid that the authorities would interview his sons about the events in Belize so he moved them between the care of his mother at her home in Roseville, a suburb in the northeast of Sacramento, and his father who lived with his second wife, Carmen, about 37 miles away to the east in Placerville.

It wasn’t long before Boston started to come under scrutiny for Chris and Peta’s murders. Following our contact with the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, the British Consulate in San Francisco traced him and started the process of interviewing him in October (as previously described), but by spring of 1979, convinced of his guilt, they placed the case in the hands of the police and Interpol. Such was their interest in him that Boston’s lawyer accused them of harassment.

Russell recalls: ‘My dad told me that an officer working on behalf of Interpol had informed him that Chris and Peta’s bound bodies had been washed up with weights attached to them. The locals found them and were scared, so they buried the bodies in haste but then word got out and made it to the authorities, who dug up the bodies. At that time there was a missing persons report for them so they found out who they were. They found out that my dad was the last person to see them on his boat. They came to my grandfather’s house in Placerville where we were living at the time, and took dad to lunch a couple of times. It was a police officer from Scotland Yard or Interpol, or maybe both, I am not sure. (No one, as far as we were made aware, flew from England to interview Boston.)They asked my dad what he knew about Chris and Peta.

‘The officers who were questioning him were being really nice to him and asked him if he would be interested in showing them the last place that he saw them alive. They offered to fly him down to Guatemala so he could show them himself. My dad said no, he didn’t want to go back down there. My dad assumed that the police knew he was responsible but that there wasn’t enough evidence to extradite him. As long as he didn’t go down there, he believed he was fine. He showed them on a map where he had last seen them, so for them to say they would fly him down there to show them, there would be nothing to be gained. I believe they were trying to get Dad down there to be further interrogated or do something to make him confess.’

In May 1979, 10 months after killing Chris and Peta, I learnt from Russell that Boston fled Sacramento to get away from the mounting police interest in him. He took with him not just Vince and Russell, but also his four-year-old son, Justin, from his marriage to his previous wife, Kathe. She had divorced him three years before in a very acrimonious split. Filled with jealousy and wanting to spite her, he abducted Justin. He took the three children all over including Shasta Trinity Alps National Forest, to the north of Sacramento, Colorado, Bishop in Inyo County, Los Angeles, and then Lake Tahoe National Forest in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Since the 1800s the Boston family had a claim to an old goldmine called Last Chance, located in the desolate Lake Tahoe Wilderness, where there was some property and old cabins and he was familiar with this territory.

Russell recalls that summer of 1979 well and described to me what happened next: ‘We were at Last Chance, in the middle of nowhere, with no phones, no communication and the only contact we had with the outside world was through our grandfather, who would drive out to bring us food. Without our welfare cheques coming in, he was our only source of income. My grandfather realised that it was a hopeless situation and that he needed to take control. He negotiated a deal with Kathe, whereby she agreed to drop all charges against my dad for the safe return of her son Justin.’

With the winter approaching, Boston slowly began to accept that it wasn’t a well-conceived plan to have three young kids in tow and his father’s offer sounded a good one. After six months of hiding out, in October 1979 he finally returned Justin to Kathe in return for the piece of paper that she had signed absolving him of all charges for the abduction of their child. Boston thought the case was done and dusted and that would be the last he heard of it, but it wasn’t.

Some sixteen months on, Boston and Russell were living with his now sixth wife, an Irish woman called Angela and her two children, Mia and Kevin, in Shingle Springs, Placerville. Boston had already shown her his dark, evil side by drunkenly damaging her previous home, vandalising it and spray-painting the walls with profanities. He had driven to Los Angeles and slandered her in front of her ex-husband to try to convince him to take the children away from her, simply as a way to cause her pain and distress.

Russell recalls one memorable night in February 1981: ‘I was watching TV with Mia and Kevin. The phone rang and I answered it. The voice demanded to talk to Dad. I said he was busy, because he had already gone to bed. They said it was the police, the house was surrounded and they wanted Dad to come out with his hands in the air. I thought it was a prank call, so I opened the front door and looked outside. Even though it was dark, I could see dozens of police officers hiding behind pretty much every tree, building and car. It was several police departments and possibly SWAT [Special Weapons and Tactics team, in the US, a group of highly trained police officers who specialise in high-risk tasks]. It was a huge production!

‘I shouted to Dad, who came out of his bedroom wearing only a pair of jeans, and he took the phone off me. They instructed him to come to the front door with his hands up. Then, with the loudspeaker, they told him to slowly back out onto the porch, turn around and make his way to the middle of the front yard. They tackled him and he fell into a bunch of poison oak and was yelling at them to stop as they put the handcuffs on him.’

That night in February 1981, the San Rafael Police Department in Marin County arrested Boston for a warrant that had been issued for abducting Justin in 1979. It wasn’t for the murders of Chris and Peta. Even though he had safely returned Justin to Kathe, the police warrant was still active. He was then released on bail and the case was subsequently dismissed after his lawyer contacted Kathe’s lawyer and the piece of paper (in the deal made between his father and Kathe) was duly produced. This exonerated him from all abduction charges. Spending two weeks in jail he was questioned about what had happened in Belize but they were unable to extract a confession or even progress the case. So, after his brief flirtation with the law in 1981 he was once again a free man!

* * *

Back in England, we were grateful for any scraps of information we could source but news was thin on the ground. Following the British Consulate in San Francisco interviewing Boston on his return to California in autumn 1978, we were told that he was interviewed by the police but we were given no details, and by the spring he had disappeared off the radar and couldn’t be found.

September 1979, I left to go to Lancaster University to study English Literature but I frequently returned home at weekends and holidays. One year on from their deaths, we had begun to pick up the pieces of everyday life, although there was always a tangible sense of melancholy. Mum and Dad made sure that Nigel and I didn’t wallow in the sadness of it all, but of course the question of what had happened to Chris and Peta and the unanswered question of why, was never far from our minds. We all wrestled in our own individual ways in coming to terms with how to get our lives back when there was no closure or justice.

My father, an intensely private person, threw himself into working even longer hours than normal. Having left the BBC, he was head hunted to work for a government quango called the Distributive Industrial Training Board. He was responsible for designing and then running a television studio and establishing the professional technical standards for the use of videos in government training. Mum still worked tirelessly as a doctor’s receptionist but for her, solace came from going on long walks with the family dog. Both my parents continued to devise ways of keeping the case alive, writing letters to anyone and everyone they could think of who had links with it.

Totally frustrated by the case’s lack of progress, in January 1980 my mother wrote very pointedly to Boston at his father’s address in Placerville, asking if he had any ‘theories’ about Chris and Peta’s fate:

‘It is perhaps useless to go over old ground, but Peta’s family and ours have suffered enormously as a consequence of some callous and cold-blooded killer. We can only hope that whoever is responsible suffers in a similar manner, and if he has children, it is to be wondered what he would feel if such a monstrous fate should befall his own son or daughter. I am sure you will be as appalled as we are and will join us in wishing that whoever is responsible receives the torment of the damned. We hope most fervently that he may never have a moment of peace from his conscience, until he too comes to as violent and cruel a death as his victims.’

There was no reply and in fact we received no more news about Boston from either Greater Manchester Police or California throughout the whole of 1980.

That summer, I spent my university vacation island hopping around Greece. After such a tragedy had befallen our family, the expected response from my parents might have been to lower the portcullis, but instead they displayed an enormous amount of self-control in not clipping my wings.

So having received no news from California for almost two years, out of the blue on 26 February 1981 our spirits were raised. My parents received a letter from San Rafael PD saying that Boston was in custody for child abduction. The letter didn’t mention Justin by name, only that it was for the kidnapping of ‘one of his children that wasn’t on the boat’. We were nonetheless jubilant… with Boston in custody we had every expectation that our case would now receive a proper and in-depth investigation.

Little over one year after the murders, CI David Sacks had been moved off the case and assigned to take temporary charge of the Special Branch Unit at Manchester Airport. Such was the depth of trust and confidence he had in my father and wanting to push the case forward with as much urgency as possible, in the light of this unexpected communication from America, he wrote a letter to the San Rafael Police Department saying:

On Sacks’s recommendation, in his absence, Mum and Dad became the main point of contact. It seemed that just as my parents had made all the enquiries during the first four months of them missing, once again they were the ones now actively involved in trying to keep the case alive. After Sacks moved onto other duties in early 1980 dad and he still kept in tentative touch but no one person at Greater Manchester Police or Interpol took the case over that my parents were aware of. They were told, however, that the case would never be closed until the murderer had been apprehended.

My father immediately sat down to reply to San Rafael Police Department saying: ‘We do not know whether during your questioning of Boston, you have reached a consideration as to whether to raise the issue of Dr Farmer and Miss Frampton. If you believe any further information we might have, even if circumstantial, rather than proven fact, could be of use in your questioning, we would be glad to co-operate fully. If there is a question of a further charge, both my wife and I will travel to the USA and assist you in any way we can. Is it possible under US law for you to question the two children, supposedly his, that were on board the boat over the crucial days?’

The next piece of news we received was in a letter from San Rafael Police Department in March, from Detective Sergeant James Kelly, who was tasked by Interpol to interview Boston about the events in Belize whilst they had him in custody. It would appear they received very little help from Interpol in Washington – their only contact was conducted through teletype and Kelly says he never actually spoke with anyone. He says he received copies of Peta’s letters but never received the originals which he believed were held by Interpol. Vince and Russell, who were now aged 16 and 15 were never interviewed.

It was during this interview that Boston gave another version of events: ‘Leaving Hunting Caye, the weather was bad so we tied the Justin B up whilst we waited for the weather to clear. A boat came past with two natives on board, heading for Puerto Barrios. Chris and Peta disembarked and went on this other boat as it was going to be quicker to reach their destinations.’

Boston said that he had no idea who could have committed the murders, and making light of it, he added that this type of violent crime is very common in Central America. He said that during his time down there, he had seen numerous acts of violence which seemed to be a way of life for Guatemalans.

It was with little surprise that we read: ‘Boston has an extensive record dating back to 1961. He’s been arrested for disturbing the peace, assault, burglary (several counts), possession of stolen property, carrying a concealed firearm and rape. It is also my understanding that Mr Boston was a main suspect in a homicide investigation in Sacramento approximately 13 years ago. This investigation extended from the disappearance of his second wife [an error, this was in fact his third wife and the boys’ mother, Mary Lou] who has never been found.’

At the end of the letter, our hearts sank to read: ‘Boston is presently out on bail pending charges.’

Sergeant Kelly asked my father what questions he would like them to ask on our behalf. He sat down that night and wrote an extensive report and a series of questions for Sergeant Kelly to present to Boston. Dad added: ‘Due to the long-distance investigations in Belize and Guatemala, and the non-existence of sophisticated forensic evidence being available, we realise that it is extremely doubtful whether a successful case could be brought against a suspect, unless there is some sort of admission.’

Dad requested a further update to the case and again asked whether Boston’s sons could be interviewed to see if they could corroborate any of his version of events. Poignantly, he concluded: ‘I am writing to you in this detail as you are most likely the only law enforcement officer in the world who is in a position to progress any enquiries regarding this case.’

Mum describes the endless waiting for further news: ‘We felt like we were operating in a vacuum. California, seemed so remote and every communication took so long that by the time we received any answers, they were out of date.’

Indeed, it was six months before we heard from the police in Sacramento again when, in mid-August 1981, we received a letter dated 29 July from Sergeant Kelly: ‘I would like to bring you up to date in regards to my involvement with Silas Duane Boston. The warrant I had obtained for Boston charged him with abducting one of his own children.’

Then came the bombshell… ‘After spending a short time in jail, Boston’s case was dismissed due to a legal technicality.’

Reading that word ‘dismissed’ took some comprehending. How on earth could that be? There was a massive consensus of opinion on both sides of the Atlantic that Boston was guilty of murdering Chris and Peta, yet it was obvious that their murders were not top of the police’s agenda, indeed they had seemingly been pushed aside. Boston was now once again free and there was little prospect that he would ever have to answer for what had happened to them. Despite repeatedly asking, we were never told what exactly that ‘legal technicality’ was at the time. We only learnt, some 38 years later, that Boston was released because his lawyer showed the police the piece of paper from his ex-wife Kathe, stating that in exchange for the safe return of Justin, she would not support the abduction charge. Although the police strongly suspected him of murdering Chris and Peta, they could not prove it and so they had no option but to release him. The only punishment Boston received was the denial of visitation rights to Justin up to the age of eighteen.

Sergeant Kelly brought us up to date on what had happened re our case: ‘Since that time [his release], Boston has moved, and his present whereabouts are unknown. Boston has had numerous brushes with the law. With his type of background, he is an extremely elusive and conniving person.

‘During my investigation of Boston, he managed to elude law enforcement officers throughout Northern California. This was an extremely intensive search as Boston had possession of the child [Justin] and it was feared he would leave the country.’

Sergeant Kelly’s letter then turned to Boston’s sons, Russell and Vince – the two people we were desperate for the police to interview. ‘Interpol has forwarded the information from Inspector Sacks to Inspector Michael Mergen of the El Dorado County Sheriff’s department. He has made several unsuccessful attempts to locate and interview Boston’s children. This was due to the fact that the children are moved around quite a bit and their whereabouts are often concealed by both of Boston’s parents. Inspector Mergen then forwarded the Interpol information to me on the premise that I would have contact with Boston first.

‘Boston became visibly upset when I informed him of the deaths of Dr Farmer and Miss Frampton. Prior to this he had been very calm and was freely discussing the child abduction case with me. Boston was confused about exact dates except for the telephone call he made to his former wife, Kathe, from Livingston, Guatemala, on July 16th or 17th 1978. He remembered this date because July 16th is his daughter, Vicki’s, birthday and that was the reason he made the call. He called his mother first because Vicki was staying with her but they were on holiday in Utah.

‘In an interview with Kathe, she confirmed receiving a telephone call from Boston on July 16th. She stated that Boston was in Livingston, Guatemala, at that time. It is interesting to note that Kathe states Boston did not advise her of any major repairs to his boat. She was quite certain that Boston would have related any such information to her.

‘About one week ago, I contacted Kathe by telephone for additional information. I advised Kathe of your letter and asked if she could advise me of Boston’s whereabouts. She stated that she had received a telephone call from Boston approximately two weeks ago. He indicated that his children were with him during that time. Additionally, he refused to tell Kathe where he was. Kathe also stated that Boston is quite capable of committing such a crime. She further stated that whenever she makes mention of this investigation to Boston, he becomes extremely defensive.

‘Since that telephone conversation, Kathe has furnished me with three letters she had received from Boston and his children during the time of his trip. The letters are postmarked Livingston, Guatemala, July 15th and July 18th (the same as Miss Frampton’s last letter) and Placencia, Belize, July 31st. The letters do not contain anything of significance. However, I am forwarding them to Inspector Sacks via Interpol. Kathe is also looking up a tape recording which she had received from Boston during the same time. I will forward that if I receive it. I will also be forwarding photographs of Boston to Inspector Sacks at Greater Manchester Police.’

The date 18 July was, of course, hugely pertinent to our case because that was the date of the Livingston postmark on Peta’s last letter (posted some two weeks after they were known to have died). The reference to the tape recording was also significant because in Chris’s belongings was the portable cassette recorder he used to record tapes to send back home and play his music on.

My father, in one of his letters, had raised the question of extraditing Boston to the UK, to which Sergeant Kelly replied: ‘I contacted our local District Attorney, who felt that treaties between the US and Great Britain would allow Boston to be extradited. He stated that the Greater Manchester Police would be responsible for initiating the process. Please be advised that I am deeply sympathetic to your situation and will assist in any way I can. I hope that one day we will achieve more than a circumstantial conclusion to this case.’

To our knowledge, the promised tape recording and Kathe’s letters never surfaced at GMP. It was another example of the hopelessness of long distance communication with Interpol as the intermediary after Sacks moved on to other duties.

In his reply to Sergeant Kelly, penned that same day, my father wrote: ‘Your information regarding the possible existence of a tape recording with Kathe has aroused our interest. One of the pieces of property that we know my son had with him was an Akai multi-band radio/cassette recorder; among the cassettes that he sent to us were some ex-medical advertising tapes over which he had recorded his news. On two occasions the machine had not completely wiped the previous recording, which was faintly audible in the background. The radio/recorder was one of the things that I mentioned to Boston on the only occasion I have spoken to him. He claimed at that time he knew nothing of its existence. Strange object to hide on a small boat!

‘I still have at least one original cassette containing a recording made on this machine. It would be interesting if Kathe can provide another one, especially if it is dated after the murder period.

‘A recent case proved that an electronic tape print can be associated with an individual machine. Microscopic markings made on the plastic cassette case can, on entry to the machine, leave a print. It is also possible to reveal microscopic linear marks along the tape made by a particular machine. Even if Kathe’s tape confirmed an identical machine recording, Boston could claim it was a present prior to their “departure” but it would be one more facet.’

We never received a reply to my father’s letter and in fact we heard nothing more from the Sacramento Police after the letter of 29 July 1981.

When he was let out of jail in spring 1981, we were to learn, almost four decades later, that Boston flew like a bird released from its cage, first to Los Angeles, then to a desolate stretch of beach in Westport, Mendocino County in Northern California. Boston, often with his young son Russell in tow, made several trips down to Baja, Mexico, and then moved there semi-permanently in 1983. It was easy for him to hide out in Baja, especially as he was fluent in Spanish. Just half an hour’s drive from San Diego, it’s ideal for those wishing to escape responsibility – whether criminal, financial, or familial. It offers a life of cheap food, virtually no tax and no questions are asked. You can drink your sorrows away with cheap alcohol under a hot sun and with crime a facet of everyday life, Boston must have felt right at home. He still made regular trips to Los Angeles and San Diego for supplies but lived for the most part in Mexico until around 2012.

We felt that Interpol, the Foreign & Commonwealth Office and the police were no longer interested, and indeed after 1981 we never heard from either Sacks or anyone at GMP at all, presumably because they felt there was nothing else they could do.

Slowly, as a family, we resigned ourselves to the fact that after Boston had got off on a ‘legal technicality’ for a crime other than Chris and Peta’s murders, he had disappeared. Too slippery, the police had given up pursuing him and the case had gone cold. It seemed that Boston and his two children constantly moved around and even though several Californian jurisdictions were now involved in trying to track him down, he was a master in eluding capture. As if that in itself wasn’t difficult enough, the case involved three very disparate countries and, with no scene of crime evidence, forensics or apparent witnesses, no one country was willing to pick up jurisdiction and pursue the case. All this, despite police forces in America and the UK having more than a very strong suspicion who the likely perpetrator was. It was beginning to feel like Boston had committed the perfect murder.

Although they never entirely gave up in pursuing their enquiries, my parents felt they were banging their heads against a brick wall. They had gone down so many avenues only to meet a dead end. Both my family and the Framptons came to a reluctant, very sad acceptance that this extremely tangled international case was too complex for anyone to solve. But the case haunted us and Chris’s absence was the wreckage that we had to come to live with.