Saskatoon StarPhoenix

Assault probe began as search

Ex-hostage said wife ‘suicidal’, trial hears

- CHRISTIE BLATCHFORD

If there were some oddduck aspects to the 911 call Joshua Boyle made to Ottawa Police or in what he told officers shortly afterwards, they hardly would have identified him immediatel­y as a wife-battering ogre.

Then newly back in Canada after years of captivity in Afghanista­n, Boyle was calling on the night of Dec. 30, 2017, to report his wife and former co-hostage, Caitlan Coleman, as possibly suicidal.

He told 911 she had run from the apartment, perhaps just in her socks, leaving their three children (born while the couple were in captivity) behind. They had quarrelled. She was threatenin­g to harm herself. He said she had a personalit­y disorder.

The last thing he said to the dispatcher was “just try to be gentle with her” and “she is really going through a rough time.”

He didn’t sound frantic, but worried, a bit breathless.

What Sgt. Shane Henderson took from what he saw on his in-car computer was that this was a “possibly suicidal female” and a “suicidal and missing person” investigat­ion, the second-highest priority.

Henderson was testifying Tuesday at Boyle’s trial on 19 criminal charges, including one of mischief for misleading police that his wife was missing.

Coleman, 33, is alleged to be the victim in most of the charges, which include multiple counts of assault, sexual assault, unlawful confinemen­t and threatenin­g. A second alleged victim cannot be identified by a court-ordered publicatio­n ban.

The 35-year-old Boyle is pleading not guilty to all charges.

Henderson got to the Boyle apartment in a redbrick low-rise building within about six minutes, but had time enough to Google Boyle and reassure himself that yes, this was the name he recognized as the guy who was kidnapped in Afghanista­n with his wife.

Boyle, holding an infant in his arms, greeted the police at the door.

He told Henderson he wasn’t sure if his wife had shoes or a jacket on. He said Coleman may have run upstairs, to another apartment, because he heard banging and yelling at that door. (The neighbour later confirmed this for Henderson.)

“He told me he did not want to drag Caitlan back to the apartment, he did not want to hit her,” Henderson told Ontario Court Judge Peter Doody.

Later, Henderson said, Boyle again said he hadn’t wanted to hit her.

He said their quarrel had been about the kids drawing on the walls and “Caitlan as wife not performing her duties, and her roles and responsibi­lities as a mother.”

She was upsetting the children, Boyle said, so he told her to stay in the bedroom. “He offered to have sex with Caitlan if she wanted to,” Henderson said.

Boyle said the tension was rising in part because Coleman’s mother, Lynn, was visiting Ottawa, and “Caitlan was unhappy with the cleanlines­s of the apartment.”

When Henderson asked if she had a cell — police can ping phones to get locations — “Joshua Boyle used a chair and stood above the fridge and retrieved a black flip phone … He said he took her phone away to make sure she didn’t break it. She had broken phones in the past.”

As the police left to look for Coleman, Boyle, according to Henderson, said “he was concerned, as any husband would be, about what Caitlan would say to us when we found her.”

Henderson arranged to meet a couple of other officers at the hotel where Caitlan’s mother was staying.

Just before midnight, Henderson got a call from Boyle; he’d discovered, he said, that Caitlan had taken her passport and the children’s, and he was now concerned this could be an abduction.

Lynn Coleman opened the hotel room door and let the police in. Henderson saw Caitlan Coleman sitting on the bed, recognized her from the picture Boyle had texted him at his request. He saw no visible injuries on her face.

Henderson identified himself. He asked if she was OK and how she was feeling. Coleman asked if Boyle had accused her of assaulting the children or being suicidal. She told him Boyle could be manipulati­ve.

He told her he was concerned that she wanted to commit suicide; she told him she was not suicidal. Her mother confirmed it, and said she had no concerns.

Rather, Henderson said, Coleman told him she had been “assaulted numerous times, including that evening. She said Joshua Boyle threatened to kill her numerous times, and at one point, when they were in Afghanista­n, (he) broke one of her bones.”

And bing bang boom, Henderson’s focus changed from a possibly suicidal missing person to “a partner-related criminal investigat­ion.”

By his own estimate, this change of mind may have taken as little as 15 minutes, perhaps more.

It was, to put it kindly, an investigat­ion of the minimalist sort.

Meanwhile, Boyle was calling him constantly, six times over a couple of hours. Henderson didn’t answer: Coleman was no longer a missing person, though of course, Boyle couldn’t have known that.

Boyle began texting him, saying at one point, “Can you at least tell me if you have found her yet? Just that is OK.” At another, Boyle texted, “Sorry, could really use someone to call me. PTSD would be putting this mildly.”

Henderson formed a plan: if Boyle was holding one of the children when they got to the apartment, he and the other officers would wait until the child was out of his arms before they arrested him. Coleman and her mom would be nearby to look after the kids.

At 3:29 a.m. on Dec. 31, the police returned to Boyle’s apartment. He still had the baby in his arms. Henderson asked him to give the child to him. Boyle did, and the other officers put the cuffs on and placed him under arrest.

When Henderson was describing how another of the kids, upset, came running out of a bedroom, Joshua Boyle tried to flee the courtroom.

The judge told him he couldn’t leave, but took a brief recess.

HE TOLD ME HE DID NOT WANT TO DRAG CAITLAN BACK TO THE APARTMENT.

 ??  ?? Joshua Boyle
Joshua Boyle
 ??  ??

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from Canada