Coleman feared for her life, court hears
Testifies she was beaten, forced into sex by Boyle
Amid the shocking detail of Caitlan Coleman’s testimony about what she says was the wide-ranging nature of the abuse her husband Joshua Boyle inflicted upon her, one thing stands out in its stark horror and implications. Coleman was testifying Friday for the second day about her long and tumultuous relationship with Boyle, including the five years they spent in captivity in Afghanistan as hostages of the Taliban-affiliated Haqqani network, and approximately three months in Canada afterwards. The pair, Coleman now 33 and Boyle 35, were freed by Pakistani troops in October of 2017. Coleman was reviewing text messages, retrieved from her cellphone by Ottawa police after Boyle’s arrest and sent by Boyle, with prosecutor Meaghan Cunningham. One, dated Dec. 6, 2017, simply read: “Skellington forums.” Asked what that meant, Coleman said that “for a large portion of captivity and since being released,” Boyle
had made it clear to her he “was not happy with me as his wife … and my duty as his wife was to find (other) women for him.” Skellington was a cartoon character in a Tim Burton movie called The Nightmare Before Christmas, and she said, the two-word order from Boyle meant that she should seek out those fan forums, mostly populated by “teenage girls … He wanted me to go on these forums and seek out women for him.” She didn’t do it, she said, but she certainly knew what it meant. Boyle is pleading not guilty to a raft of criminal charges, including sexual assault, assault, forcible confinement and issuing threats. Coleman’s evidence, of course, hasn’t yet been tested by cross-examination, widely regarded as a crucible for truth-seeking. But her testimony, delivered via closed-circuit television from a room adjacent to the courtroom, was extraordinary. Coleman has remained composed throughout the describing of her own protracted degradation — how verbal cruelty, when they were first involved as teenagers, progressed to physical assault during the latter half of their captivity and then blossomed into something truly malevolent during their first months of freedom. On Nov. 25, 2017, for instance, Boyle texted her: “I don’t tell you you are beloved often enough. Life is still pretty roughshod for us but I hope you have a good day.” Coleman was, she said, utterly bewildered by this. By this point in their marriage, she said, she genuinely believed he wanted to kill her, not only because he told her so frequently — that he would kill her if he were a secular man — but because of the escalating physical violence. “I could see that was the eventual end,” she said once, meaning her own death. He certainly had not said anything remotely kind to her in years. But three minutes later, Boyle texted her again. “1. Oops, wrong addressee. 2) April Fools! 3) Expect painful biting tonight.” That, she said, was the real Boyle she had come to know. By then, according to her testimony, he was regularly slapping or punching her in the face. He occasionally choked her. He had a “bag of BDSM (bondage, domination, sadism, masochism) equipment,” which he kept in the bedside table and from which he frequently withdrew ropes to bind her ankles and wrists together. He routinely threatened her, she said, sometimes with how he’d like to kill her, or with anal sex. He had forced sex upon her, preferably so that he didn’t have to see her face. He would either discipline her formally — he called this “chastisement” — and spank her, once with a broom handle, or he would spontaneously whack her, because he was angry. She wanted to leave, she said, but was too afraid to try. She was almost permanently deflated, sad, that it had come to this, “at just how bad my situation was,” as she put it once. And there were some extra, or new, twists to this too. The media gaze was upon the former captives; there were journalists knocking at the door, officials trying to help. Boyle “was so focused, he felt the world’s eyes were on us … we have to look like a happy family … I knew it was very, very, very important to Josh that we present a certain image to the public.” So, when in public, “we would act more like partners,” she said. He would still tell her what to do, but would couch his commands in a “Dear wife” manner. She wanted to tell someone — her mother, her sisters — but “without a really good plan on how to survive” didn’t dare. And then, in December of 2017, there came the Rules, a written list of what he expected of Coleman, and a separate regime of “heavy exercise” for her because he wanted her thinner, down from her weight that month, 137 pounds, to 115 by the end of February. Among the Rules: “You must plan interesting sex minimum twice a week”; “You must take only cold showers” for improved “stamina” and “self-control”; “You must ask for chastising every time you think you have failed.” There was a separate column for “Spent,” by which, Coleman said, Boyle meant “I must satisfy him to the point he would ejaculate, twice a day, every day.” He told her, Coleman said, following the list to the letter “wouldn’t make me a good person, but would be the bare minimum.” For Christmas that year — it was a season Boyle loathed, she said — he choked her until she couldn’t breathe. The trial continues Monday.
MY DUTY AS HIS WIFE WAS TO FIND (OTHER) WOMEN FOR HIM.