Husband charged in wife’s death at Griggs park
Columbus police homicide detectives have charged a Hilliard-area man with murder for fatally shooting his wife, who was found inside a parked car Thursday morning in a parking lot at Griggs Reservoir Park on the city’s Northwest Side.
The victim was identified as 75year-old Kathleen Boyuk. Known by many as “Kathie,” she had worked as the marketing and development director for Action for Children in Columbus, a free childcare referral and child educational resource organization, from 2003 to 2010.
Detectives went to the house that the victim shared with her husband, 77year-old Walter Boyuk, in the 3800 block of Ridgewood Drive in Norwich Township – about 1 1⁄ miles from Griggs
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Reservoir. Walter Boyuk is an attorney who has a private practice in the Brewery District.
An interview with Walter Boyuk and other witnesses led detectives to file murder charges against him just before 7 p.m. Thursday, Franklin County Municipal Court records show.
The initial call to 911 came at 10:57 a.m. about shots fired in the area of a Griggs Reservoir lot in the 3400 block of Riverside Drive near Nottingham Drive. Another caller was a passerby who said there was a woman slumped over the steering wheel of a car in the parking lot at the park.
Columbus police officers responded and found Kathleen Boyuk unresponsive and slumped over the steering wheel of a white Honda Accord. She had a gunshot wound in her upper body.
She was taken in critical condition to Ohiohealth Riverside Methodist Hospital, where she was pronounced dead at 11:36 a.m., police said. Her death is the city’s 132nd homicide this year.
At 12:10 p.m., Hilliard police received a missing persons report about Kathleen Boyuk, said Sgt. James Fuqua, spokesman for Columbus police.
Early in the investigation, Columbus police homicide detectives were confident that the shooting was not random, Fuqua said.
That led them to go to the Boyuk residence to interview the victim’s husband and arrest him later in the day Thursday. jwoods@dispatch.com @Woodsnight