Mother says daughter was afraid of Boyle
She tells trial she believed daughter was extremely controlled
OTTAWA — Lynda Coleman says her daughter, Caitlan, was an unemotional automaton who was afraid of her husband in the weeks after she and Joshua Boyle were released from captivity.
Coleman says she visited her daughter, who she calls Caty, twice in Ottawa in October and December 2017 and on both visits she found Caitlan to be frightened of her husband and always heavily controlling her emotions.
“I never saw anything but this new robot automaton,” said Coleman, 70, who testified Friday at Boyle’s criminal trial.
Boyle, 35, faces 19 charges, including sexual assault, assault and unlawful confinement for offences allegedly committed after he and Caitlan Coleman were released following five years as hostages of a Talibanlinked extremist group in Afghanistan.
Coleman alleges Boyle repeatedly hit her, spanked her, choked her and bit her both in captivity and after moving to Ottawa following their release in October 2017.
The pair were abducted in October 2012 during a backpacking trip to Afghanistan, and freed five years later by Pakistani forces. They had three children while in captivity.
The couple moved to Ottawa after being freed.
Lynda Coleman became teary as she described seeing her daughter for the first time. Caitlan Coleman was in the hospital then.
“I held her hand and that was about all I could do at that point,” she said. “It was wonderful.”
During hospital visits in the days that followed as Caitlan’s heath improved, she said the three young children were often there and Boyle did nothing to help care for them. Boyle would sit by the window, mostly on his phone while Caitlan fed the kids, changed them and shared her hospital food with them.
Lynda Coleman said she ordered in pizza and when Boyle returned to the room “he plopped down on the floor and Caty served him pizza.”
“He never showed any affection, he never showed any respect,” Coleman said.
On a second visit in December 2017, Lynda Coleman said she still felt her daughter was extremely controlled, afraid of upsetting Boyle and catering to him and the children while he did nothing to help.
On one of those visits she said Boyle told Caitlan she had “four minutes” to get the three children into their coats and boots so they could leave their apartment. Lynda Coleman told him that was not possible.
“I think it was at that time that he said, ‘oh right, I have to be nice because my mother-in-law is here.’”
She said the look on her daughter’s face was tense and frightened during the exchange.
Another day, Boyle took Caitlan, her mother and the kids to Walmart and when Caitlan realized she had forgotten to buy rice that Boyle wanted, her face was stricken and afraid.