‘MURDER AT SEA’ SUSPECT DIES
A former boat skipper has died awaiting trial in the US accused of killing two Manchester graduates nearly 40 years ago. Silas Duane Boston, 76, had been in custody 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.
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 M.E.N.
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 the boys.
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. from America yesterday 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 and Peta 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’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 appealed to Greater Manchester Police’s cold case unit to revisit the deaths in late 2015.
It led to GMP contacting the retired detective who had investigated the original case and who handed over records 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 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.”
Their decomposed bodies were later found floating in the sea about 200 metres from the beach off Punta De Manabique.