(Death roll: the boat rolls from side to side, becoming gradually more unstable until it capsizes.)
By April 2017, time was fast running out for both Boston and the prosecution team who, having gone to extraordinary lengths to construct the beyond all reasonable doubt case against him, like us, were eager to see him convicted.
The gravity of Boston’s failing health was fully apparent on admission to hospital. After a life spent consuming an excess of rum, heavy smoking and illegal drugs, he was now paying the price with congestive heart failure coupled with liver and kidney failure.
The medical director of Sacramento County Jail had previously examined Boston and predicted with medical intervention he would most likely live at least until Thanksgiving in November, and maybe well beyond. Meaning that he would have made the provisional trial date of 2 October 2016. However, with failing kidneys, he was dependent on dialysis. Fully aware that the prosecution team were planning a pre-trial in early May, Boston must have concluded his game was up.
On 5 April, he told his doctor that he didn’t want to live and that he wanted to exercise his right to withdraw medical treatment. That included no kidney dialysis, no food, feeding tube nor anything that would prolong his life.
A domineering, controlling personality throughout his life, he played his last card and extricated himself from proceedings on his terms, thus ruling out having to face justice. It was the equivalent of a skipper scuppering his boat on the rocks.
It seemed the last cruel twist of fate that at this final hurdle we should be denied a few meagre crumbs of justice. I cannot begin to describe a greater conflict of feelings. Yes, we wanted him to die but at the same time we willed him to live, at least long enough to stand trial to face us and his wicked, evil crimes. We were desperate to have our day in court and witness the full judicial process so that punishment could be meted out. We wanted to face the monster that had so brutally and gratuitously killed Chris and Peta and tell him that his actions had brought a lifetime of grief upon so many.
Close to dying, he lay shackled to his hospital bed in a side room with two armed Marshals, assigned by the Federal Prosecutors and the FBI, standing to one side of the bed. His breathing was laboured but he was compos mentis. That he was shackled, despite the fact his health was failing fast, denotes just how dangerous a criminal he was deemed to be.
After weeks of refusing medicine and food, Boston drifted in and out of consciousness whilst his kidneys and liver failed and his bladder backed up with a urinary tract infection. A simple cure with modern antibiotics, but without it, his abdomen festered and rotted from the inside. Pus and bacteria ate away at his organs in a chain reaction of decomposition whilst still alive.
The day before he died, Boston’s chosen next of kin, his son Russell, visited him. He would later describe to me in detail his visit: ‘There were things I wanted to say to him that I had never been able to say before because he would have killed me. It was now or never, so with time against me, I rented a car and drove to Sacramento.
‘I was stunned and frustrated that he was allowed to die before he could answer for what he’d done. Had he continued taking the medication for his kidneys, I’m convinced he would have been alive for the trial, and most likely several more years. It was a shock to everyone involved that he was able to exit that way. It was Dad giving his last “fuck you” to us all. I didn’t understand how he was allowed to basically commit suicide. It made no sense to me that he was allowed to check out on his terms, as his right, but the rights of society and his victims were disregarded.
‘They called me as his next of kin, because he had been unresponsive for a couple of weeks, and now was dying and unable to make his own decisions, those decisions were now passed to me, but it was done when he was so far gone. There were no decisions to make anymore. I asked the doctor why I wasn’t called sooner, when I could have forced him to be on dialysis and his meds, but I never got a logical answer as to why they waited till he was past the point of no return. It was extremely frustrating for me, but apparently they were legally obliged to honour his request. It was ridiculously too little, too late. He’d told me for years he would kill himself, but he never had the balls, until of course he was arrested and he knew his game was up.
‘I wanted him convicted, and I wanted him to answer for his actions. To finally, once and for all, make a statement regarding what he’d done to Chris and Peta, my mom and the countless other people he’d killed, as well as for him to hear and be fully aware that his selfish actions had caused immeasurable pain and suffering for his victims and their loved ones. I also wanted him to tell us where he killed and buried my mom. I realise now he most likely wouldn’t have felt remorse for what he’d done, but I still felt it was important for him to be forced to hear from others just how senseless his actions were.
‘I had made sure the police knew absolutely everything he’d done, including all the crimes I had overheard him talking about to his partners in crime. I was fully aware he would know exactly where that information had come from. I gave them every shred of evidence I could muster because I wanted him to be aware and accept that he didn’t have a glimmer of hope that he’d ever walk out of jail a free man. I wanted him to know his goose was cooked and his only option was to surrender and answer to the prosecutors for what he’d done… on everything.
‘On the day I arrived, his body and mind bounced back one last time. I’m told it’s the body’s last-ditch attempt to survive, which happens when the final moment is near. He was alert and sitting up, aware and interacting with his doctors by answering their questions with nods and gestures. Even repeatedly winking at the cute nurse he’d flirted with weeks before.
‘When I walked into the hospital room, he leaned forward, grimacing and glaring at me. He was seething with me. I started crying. He looked like he wanted to leap out of bed and get me.
‘He gave me his clenched-teeth, signature evil glare. I had always thought that one day he would look at me this way when he was in court, or after his conviction, from behind prison bars or safety glass, when I could explain to him that it was his actions that had put him there, not me. I wanted him to have the realisation that he didn’t make one bad decision, he’d made a lifetime of bad decisions that harmed so many people. I wanted to tell him that if he wanted to be mad at me for snitching on him, that’s his right, but it wasn’t my snitching that put him behind bars, it was his actions and countless bad decisions.
‘It was a huge relief to be able to talk to him. I desperately wanted him to tell me where I could find my mom’s body, as one last sliver of humanity and to try to make some amends for all that he had done to us and others.
‘I said, “I love you, Dad, and I forgive you for what you have done. I will never understand the choices you have made in life and you’re not coming back from this. Answer this before you go, I beg of you to tell me where our mom is buried.”
‘Dad looked at the Marshals guarding him as if to say, “You don’t expect me to tell you in front of them, do you?” Then he looked down at his legs, which were shackled, and his festering body, then he stared back at me as if to say, “You put me here, you fucking snitch!” He didn’t speak at all. According to the Marshals and doctors, the last time he had spoken was two weeks previous.
‘He refused to answer, even though he was fully aware and glared at me. I know his last conscious thoughts were of me facing him, begging him to tell me.’
The not knowing where their Mom’s body is buried has tormented Vince, Russell and their sister Vicki for 50 years. Russell says: ‘I always thought Dad killed her at Last Chance Mine in Foresthill, Placer County but it’s a bit far from Sacramento, and I don’t know that Mom would have gone that far with him. My uncle Kevin, Dad’s brother, said that my dad told him that he killed her near Yuba City in an almond grove but we don’t know where she is.
‘I was just shy of three years old when she died, but I’ve always held tightly onto the few images I have of her. A white Chevrolet Corvair is one of the memories I have of my mom… the Corvair is parked on a street in Sacramento, with large maple leaves on the ground around it. I just remember those tail lights of that car and associate it with Mom. But like a copy of a copy of a copy, I no longer know if the memories I have of her are actually just memories of the memories I’ve held onto all these years.
‘Vince once asked Dad where he buried her and Dad asked angrily, “Why the fuck do you want to know? Do you wanna turn me in?” Vince said, “I just want to put flowers on her grave,” to which Dad said, “It washes out and floods, you’d never be able to find it.” I stayed with Dad for four hours that evening, during which time my sister Vicki spoke to him on my mobile so that she could say goodbye to him. It crossed my mind that you and your mom would have liked to have spoken to him too.
‘Even though he didn’t answer, I know he heard me. He was fully aware and tracked me with his eyes the entire time. I then left the hospital for the night.
‘When I returned the next morning, his mouth and eyes were open and he was unresponsive. He was once again pulled down by his self-imposed ballast. Still physically shackled to his bed with arm and leg restraints, his body writhed. His dry mouth was agape as his breathing was reduced to hours of sporadic gasps of air. His eyelids were frozen open as his tearless eyes stared into the abyss, which awaited his arrival.
‘I drove the seven-hour journey back to Laguna Beach that afternoon and, as I got home, I received a call from the hospital to say he had died.’
Boston was defiant and remorseless to his last gasp of breath. There was no admission of guilt or deathbed confession. The Marshals who guarded him described him as ‘controlling with an evil glare right to the very end’.
Back in England, I was kept constantly informed of Boston’s slow descent into death by the detectives from the Cold Case Review Unit. I felt in limbo, waiting for someone I knew to die. But thankfully I didn’t know him, I knew of him.
Boston died late afternoon on 24 April 2017 – the same date as his mother eight years before. It was just three weeks short of Mum and I flying out for the pre-trial hearing and five months short of the provisional trial date. After 39 long years, for approximately four months sweet justice had been in our sights. With two strong, independent eyewitnesses, we were confident the prosecution team would secure a guilty verdict, indeed we felt it was ours for the taking. For Mum who, along with my father, had played such a pivotal part in the hard-fought battle to ascertain the truth, seeing Boston stand trial represented final closure and this was cruelly snatched from her grasp.
In the end, Boston played his greatest Houdini trick of all and, in choosing to exercise his right to stop medical treatment, he effectively took himself out of the frame and committed suicide, exiting life on his own terms and so avoiding the consequences of his actions – much as he had lived his life.
The only satisfaction we could derive was the fact that he was arrested, denied bail, died in custody, charged with Chris and Peta’s murders, and was awaiting trial.
The day after he died, it was painful to read on Sacramento County Jail’s website the euphemistic word ‘released’. In that, there was no justice – death was too good for him. US Attorney Phillip A. Talbert of the Eastern District of California made the following announcement: ‘Although the recent death of Silas Duane Boston will require us to dismiss the case against him, that dismissal in no way reflects our view of the evidence gathered in the course of our investigation. We were prepared to present that evidence to a jury and to meet our burden of proof at trial. Our hearts go out to the victims’ surviving family members who were not able to see Boston brought to jury trial in this case. Nevertheless, we remain thankful that the hard work of our law enforcement partners allowed the allegations against Boston to be presented to a grand jury and brought to light in an indictment. We are particularly grateful for the persistent investigative efforts of the Sacramento Police Department’s Cold Case Review Unit, as well as the diligent work of the FBI and the Greater Manchester Police Department. The conclusion of this case in no way diminishes their hard work and commitment to justice.’
Combined with a chilling inability to feel remorse or pity, Boston’s personality as a master of deception, a smooth operator and an excellent actor, perfectly fitted the stereotypical personality of a psychopathic killer. When Russell was told that his father was dying, he contacted Professor James Fallon, a neuroscientist at Irvine School of Medicine, California University, who is currently conducting research into the brains of psychopathic killers to determine if they are hardwired differently.
He believes there are genetic markers in some people’s DNA which may give them a predisposition to becoming a serial killer. On his father’s death, Russell contacted the university again to go through what procedure he was required to follow. Wanting to derive a positive out of his father’s life of barbarism and killing, Russell asked Sacramento County Coroner’s Office for Boston’s body to be donated to Irvine School of Medicine. Unfortunately, red tape got in the way and the body was not able to be transferred soon enough, but Russell was at least able to get DNA swabs.
Russell says: ‘I hope, through the diagnosis of his DNA, that some good can come from him. My dad left a trail of death and destruction behind him and people who hated him. He burned so many bridges, simply for the sole purpose of harming those who were unfortunate enough to cross his path. He cut up and burned the clothes of his exes after they broke up. Those ones got away lightly, whilst others he wanted to kill and, in some instances, he succeeded in doing so. There was no reason to do it, other than to scorch the earth around him.
‘I was sad he died because I never got answers to my questions about my mom and I would trade anything to have had him go to trial. Visiting him in hospital was the first time that I spoke to him from my heart because I had been so fearful of him. It was liberating to stand in front of him. Shackled, and with Marshals either side of him, I could say things which in the past would have caused him to kill me. It was only some days after he had died that I realised how much I had been in fear of him. The relief I felt when I knew Dad could no longer show up, bribe me, extort money from me, and threaten me, or others, if I didn’t comply, was intense. When the weight lifted, it was incredible. The monster was dead.’