Maureen Boyle's Blog, page 2
September 16, 2023
Researching
Soon after wrapping up Child Last Seen, I resumed research on a book I was putting off for years. I did some preliminary work - interviewing some witnesses, reading some news articles - but delving into the case was difficult. It is a dark case that touches on the inhumanity of some individuals. It is a case that shook a community and shattered hearts. It is a story that needs to be told.
In the upcoming months, I will be reading more about fingerprints, tire tracks and the law. I will be interviewing more people. I won't be reminding people of their pain or resurrecting difficult memories. Those never go away. They are always just below the surface.
When this book is done, I hope people remember the victim, remember evil is where you least expect and sometimes justice takes the long road.
March 31, 2023
New book coming soon
When a child goes missing, the world appears to stand still for his or her loved ones. When the child is gone for decades, the world as they know it is shattered. There is that ever dimming hope that the child will be found alive. It happens sometimes, families know, and that is the hope that keeps them going.
My next book, Child Last Seen (Black Lyon Publishing), will be out in a few months and I will explore what happens when a child goes missing, when police suspect who is responsible for the disappearance and how one person made a difference in solving the case. It is a story of standing up for what is right, what is moral and the importance of giving a family answers.
Stay tuned for more in the upcoming weeks.
October 13, 2022
Puzzles left unfinished
As a child, I was drawn to mysteries. The short stories in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine and Ellery Queen, Carolyn Keene's Nancy Drew series, the books by the legendary Agatha Christie and the darker, true crime books, such as Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, where the answers are chilling.
As an adult, I am still drawn to mysteries. Now, I read police reports, court documents and dense science books on topics such as bone fragments. I interview the families of the dead and try to bring, on the page, life to the lost. I keep trying to answer that question that eludes psychiatrics, psychologists, criminal profilers, detectives, prosecutors and judges: Why do people intentionally kill? Sometimes mental illness is the cause. Sometimes rage overtakes reasoning. But there are still those cases, the horrific ones, the ones that shock, the ones that rip the heart, the ones considered "cold cases," that nag the brain, that defy logic.
Cold cases are like unfinished puzzles. The four corners are neatly intact. So is much of the middle. It is often that one in the middle, that center piece, that is missing. Without it, there is no solution.
That center piece is often found in the memories of people close to the killer or close to the scene.
As I continue writing and researching my third book, I am in awe of the strength people show in the face of adversity. I am also heartened by those who come forward, who help bring the families of the dead some justice, who do it because it is the right thing to do.
There is still one case, the 1988 murders of nine - and likely 11 - women in New Bedford, Massachusetts where that center piece remains missing. I covered that case as a reporter for the Standard-Times of New Bedford and it was the subject of my first book, Shallow Graves: The Hunt for the New Bedford Highway Serial Killer. One day, I hope to write the final chapter to that story. One day, I hope someone comes forward with that final puzzle piece.
August 27, 2022
The heat of summers past
It is the heat everyone remembers. Even the harbor breezes failed to ease the blistering temperatures and suffocating air. By the time things cooled, eleven women were missing. All but two eventually were found dead near or along highways circling New Bedford.
Every summer, when the temperatures hit 90 and when, some years, that stretch of heat continues for weeks, the families of the eleven are drawn back to that time in 1988 when there was still hope the women would return.
It would take the cooling months for that hope to vanish.
Eleven women went missing between March and September of 1988. Nine were found dead. Two remain missing. The first of the nine was identified in November of that year. The last was found in April of 1989.
Did the killer think of the victims each summer as the temperatures rise? Did the killer ever wonder about the families left behind? Did anyone else know what he was doing and remained silent? These are some of the questions so many may ask as the decades pass. There are two questions that need answering first.
Who was the killer? Why did he kill?
If you know who the killer is, call the Bristol County District Attorney's Office Cold Case Unit.
July 30, 2022
Remembering Nancy
It was brutally hot the day two men on motorcycles stopped along Interstate 195 west and stepped into the brush to relieve themselves. It was there, not far into the brush line, they discovered the remains of a woman. No one knew at the time it was the mother of two who had been missing just a few weeks. That identification would come months later, even though her family had already reported her missing to police.
Nancy Lee Paiva went missing July 7, 1988. She was found July 30, 1988. She was finally identified in December of 1988. She was one of eleven women who went missing that summer. Nine were found dead. Two others, presumed dead, have not been found.
Nancy was the mother of two girls, the daughter of two hard-working parents, the sister of a city employee. She graduated high school, enrolled in a secretarial program, worked a wide-range of jobs in the city. Photos of her always show her laughing. Her family remembers her joy. That is what they will never forget. That is what was taken from them.
Someone knows who killed Nancy Paiva in July of 1988. Someone needs to come forward. Her family - and all the families of the dead - deserve that. Nancy's life mattered.
Call the Bristol County District Attorney's Cold Case Unit or message me and I will pass on your info.
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July 5, 2022
Learning with each story
I used to think I would never need to know a second language. Then I found myself trying to interview a young Guatemalan man who escaped a fire.
I used to think I would never need to know geology or chemistry. Then I found myself covering stories about arsenic and gasoline contamination in groundwater.
I used to think I would never need to know the intricacies of archeology. Then I found myself writing about young archeologists uncovering the remains of a teenager decades after she went missing.
Education is lifelong. What you don't know is what you likely will need to know in writing, whether it is for a news outlet or a book. What you discover is all those subjects you disliked so many years ago in school are now fascinating. Maybe it has something to do with not being graded on your knowledge. Learning something for the sake of learning is rewarding. And sometimes it unexpectedly comes in handy.
Knowing a little bit about everything is what important. Learn about the music. Learn about writing. Learn about films. Learn science. Learn languages. Learn about business. Learn about computers. And know history because it does repeat itself.
June 15, 2022
Learning from the dead
To understand how 11 women in New Bedford could go missing initially with little public outcry, you need to understand how it all happened.
It was 1988, before social media, before everyone had a mini-computer in their hand, before so many families were touched by the horror of opiate addiction, before there was a uniform database of the missing. The women went missing one by one. Some were reported missing right away. Some were never reported missing. The first women went missing in the spring, the last in September. No one was found until July. There was no "ah ha!" moment when the first women vanished. At the time, there was always people reported missing to New Bedford police, the names and descriptions on a clipboard strung to the Record Room wall. Sometimes the missing came home within days, sometimes within weeks. Some wanted to vanish for a time but would then return. Those with problems, such as drug addiction, might go into rehab and not tell their families or leave the area or just stay away from loved ones. They always returned. That was the experience of police at the time. People returned home.
That changed in 1988.
The first two women who went missing weren't from New Bedford. Rochelle Dopierala Clifford was from Falmouth but was staying in New Bedford and Debra Medeiros was from Fall River and staying with her boyfriend in New Bedford. They were not on that clipboard in the police department record room. Others later would be on that clipboard in the months that ensued as frantic families made calls and searched the streets
It wasn't until July that remains were found of two women, weeks and miles apart, along area highways.
It wasn't until the near end of summer and start of fall that it was clear there was likely a serial killer in the area. By that time, the killer apparently stopped.
Things have changed in the three decades since the New Bedford Highway Serial Killer stalked the area. Alerts about missing persons are posted on local community Facebook pages. Police departments examine missing person reports carefully and quickly. No one assumes someone "just left" anymore. And people understand opiate addiction and the toll it takes on an individual, families and a community better today. It is no longer the problem faced by "others," although it never really was. Heroin addiction was always that hidden issue in a community, from a city to leafy suburb. Today, people look openly for solutions instead of hiding in shame.
The lessons of 1988 are harsh and hard learned. Be kind. Be understanding. Be watchful. Do not judge. Do not keep deadly secrets.
As we approach yet another July anniversary of the first two dead to be found, remember the families left behind, the two women who have yet to be found and all of those still struggling in our communities.
If you know who the killer is or have any evidence, please contact the Bristol County District Attorney's Cold Case office in New Bedford, Massachusetts.
March 2, 2022
Death on the road
The year 2021 was one of the deadliest years for law enforcement.
Between January and September of 2021, 59 police officers were killed in the line of duty, according to the FBI. That represented a 51 percent increase in the same span in the previous year. And the number of assaults on police officers, according to the FBI, also continued to rise.
The circumstances of the killings ranged - from responding to domestic assaults to vehicle crashes to motor vehicle stops. Some of the circumstances the average person would call "routine." But there are no routine calls in law enforcement.
Those on the front lines deal with the traumatized, the beaten and bruised, the angry, the saddened. They deal with the under medicated and the over medicated. They deal with those struggling with addiction and fight to keep those working to keep the pipeline of drugs pumping off the street. Some days there are wins. Most days there are not.
There are stories behind each law enforcement life lost. It is the story of a person, of a family, of dreams.
I am grateful to all who allowed me to share the story of Saxonburg (PA) Police Chief Greg Adams who was killed in 1980 during a traffic stop. He was remembered as a good man who worked hard and loved his family. Remember Chief Adams and those like him each day.
January 6, 2022
Searching for the lost
What happens when a child goes missing in the 1960s, before the age of photos on milk cartons and Amber Alerts? How do you convince authorities she is not a teenaged runaway during a time where so many were leaving home? How do you live with the fear that she is dead and her killer lives in the community?
These are the questions too many families of the lost faced, not only in the 60s but for decades. These are the questions I am examining in my latest writing project where a teenager hopped in a car - against her mother's wishes - with an older man and his friends. She drove off with them and never returned.
Family and friends suspected she was murdered. For years, police were convinced they knew who killed her. Decades would pass before there was an answer.
The question we may now ask ourselves as we go about our lives, passing those we think we know, is unsettling. How often are killers walking among us?
The FBI Uniform Crime Report estimated that, as of 2019, there were 250,000 unsolved murders in the United States. Some of those killers may be dead themselves. Some may have committed multiple murders. More than likely, most already have criminal records. The killings are in large cities and small, rural communities. The killers, if studies on solved cases prove true, likely knew the victims.
Finding justice for the dead can be difficult. Experts, using FBI crime reports, found only 62 percent of all murders were closed, or solved, in 2017. .
But some of these cold cases are being solved - some old, some new - with increased frequency thanks to forensic science and people finally coming forward with information years, even decades, later.
For the families seeking answers and those in the communities shaken by these crimes, there is hope these killers will eventually be standing in a courtroom facing a judge. Until then, the killers will continue to walk among us.
December 6, 2021
Looking back, moving forward
There are too many painful anniversaries for the families of the women lost in New Bedford in 1988.
There is the anniversary of the disappearance.
The anniversary of the the discovery.
The anniversary of the identification.
Each date spans months across the year. Each date brings renewed sorrow. Each date is a reminder of what is gone. Each date is a reminder that justice is still lacking.
December is the cruelest time, though. . It is the month when most of the women who went missing in 1988 and were found near local highways were finally identified. It is the month when many learned their daughter, mother, sister was officially dead. Some of the women were found during the summer, some weeks or a month earlier. It is in December, though, when it all became a reality.
Eleven women went missing between March and September of 1988. Nine were found dead along or near local highways surrounding New Bedford. Two women have yet to be found.
Remember of these women lost in 1988 this holiday season. Remember their families. Remember the killer has still not been identified. Remember justice needs to be done.
If you have information on who the killer is, please contact the Bristol County District Attorney's Office in New Bedford, Massachusetts.
