11 YO Goes Undercover to Expose Mom’s Murderer | The Case of Collier Landry

They looked at their cars. - We vacuum garbage from all cars. We tried to see if there was any association with a victim in the car that was not normal, and nothing of value really came out of the office's analysis. - Caught with an unrecognizable body and no physical evidence to back up their claims, police didn't have much to contribute to the upcoming trial. Detective Messmore then visited Collier while he was in foster care. He intended to ask her to testify against his father at trial. But before that, Collier had some questions about his mother. -At this point, both sides of his family completely cut ties with him, claiming that he was too young to testify and that they should not take him seriously.

The detective in front of him seemed to be the only person able to hear and understand him in the turmoil. In a moment of weakness, the boy burst into tears in front of Messmore. - I was a child sitting in a foster home, caught up in this whirlwind of the

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in my hometown. I remember sitting in the bedroom and being in this really dark place. At 12 years old, what will my life be like? I have no family, I have lost my mother and father, my family... Nobody wants to have anything to do with me, right? - Messmore looked him straight in the eyes and told him that there was still a way to fix this.

If he agreed to testify, he could finally prove them wrong and get justice for his mother. Without hesitation, Collier said he did. - When the trial came, of course I wasn't going to lie for him. He wasn't going to say I don't want to testify or anything like that. To me, it felt like a lie, because I know what happened, I knew she was dead, I knew all this. He was working with the police, all that. I knew this was the right thing to do no matter how much it hurt. -Five months later, on June 4, 1990, the trial began and Collier finally came face to face with his father. -Testimony continued today in the most notorious criminal trial in Richland County history, Dr.

John Boyle is accused of killing his wife Noreen and burying her body in the basement of his new home in Erie, Pennsylvania. - The 12-year-old son of accused killer, Dr. John Boyle of Mansfield, finally took the stand. - Will you tell us who you are? - Collier Landry-Boyle. -Collier began by telling the jury about his father's infidelities, remembering his encounter with Sherri wearing his mother's ring, the photographs he found in Jack's truck and the loud noises and screams he heard in New Year's Eve. Later, Sherri also took the stand. - We have here a defendant who was a womanizer and engaged in one affair after another.

Sherri, have you had a baby recently? - Yes I have. -And who is the father of that baby? -Jack Boyle. -The motive, prosecutors say, was to be able to move into that house with his younger girlfriend, Sherri Campbell, who was pregnant with her baby. - In fact, it's better than a soap opera, because it happened in our own city. -I didn't kill Noreen, she never hurt him at all. - A Richland County jury watched gruesome video of Noreen Boyle's body being exhumed from a shallow concrete grave. It was like watching something out of a horror movie, only this was real. - After a month of trial, the jury handed down its sentence. - We, the jury in this

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, find the defendant, John F.

Boyle Jr., guilty of the crime charged in the indictment. -The judge said he wouldn't tolerate outbursts in the courtroom, but they cheered in the hallway when Dr. John Boyle was found guilty of killing his wife Noreen. - But Collier's ordeal was not over yet. For years, members of his family tried to force a new trial. Collier's uncle even went so far as to claim that he spoke to Noreen after the murder and that the body they found belonged to someone else. From his cell, Jack reviewed the autopsy report and found many errors and inconsistencies. This led the prosecution to exhume Noreen's body four years later and perform a DNA test, as the technique did not exist at the time of the trial. -That was where he tried to make a hole, and an important hole, in the prosecution's case.

But the forensic evidence actually backfired and conclusively showed that it was, in fact, Noreen Boyle. - As a result of these events, Collier and Elizabeth separated. He was sent to a loving foster family, grew up in relative normality, and eventually became a successful filmmaker. But his father never stopped harassing him. Every few months he received a letter from prison, and this continued for most of his life. -During those 25 years, my father did everything in his power to get me to forward my testimony to him, to help him get out, anything this man could do to manipulate me. - But six years ago, Collier put his foot down and took matters into his own hands once again.

He set out to produce a documentary that would finally lift the veil on his side of the story. - Now, in the final scene of the movie, I face my imprisoned father in prison. I will have that moment where I can ask this man why. -But Collier never got the answer from him. Jack's disappointment ran too deep. He simply had to accept that he would probably never know why his father did what he did. But what seemed like a failure ended up helping him realize something much more important. -Then I realized something, why he looks towards the past, but what now, what now he looks towards the future. -In a way, his story has never been about why, but always about what now and what he is doing now is helping others overcome their traumas through his own victim advocacy. - So when it comes to resilience, biography is not destiny.

You can be both the author and the audience of your life.