Murder With My Husband - 205. Murder in Paradise - Chris Farmer and Peta Frampton

Episode Date: February 26, 2024

In this episode, Payton and Garrett delve into the tragic case of Chris Farmer and Peta Frampton, two college students in search of adventure. However, their quest takes a devastating turn when they encounter the wrong individual, leading to the loss of their lives. NEW MERCH!https://mwmhshop.com/ SOCIALS, DISCOUNT CODES, AND MORE, https://linktr.ee/murderwithmyhusband Case sources: “Dead in the Water” by Penny Farmer BBC.com - https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-manchester-48067812 The Washington Post - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/true-crime/wp/2016/12/19/two-tourists-were-killed-at-sea-the-boats-owner-has-been-arrested-nearly-40-years-later/ Variety.com - https://variety.com/2023/tv/global/raw-tv-set-crime-documentary-dead-in-the-water-amazon-prime-video-1235812596/ TheCinemaholic.com - https://thecinemaholic.com/christopher-farmer-and-peta-frampton-murders-how-did-silas-boston-die/ InvestigationDiscovery.com - https://www.investigationdiscovery.com/crimefeed/id-shows/evil-lives-here/two-young-california-boys-forced-to-watch-their-father-kill-couple-during-sailboat-trip Sportskeeda.com - https://www.sportskeeda.com/pop-culture/evil-lives-here-id-what-happened-chris-farmer-peta-frampton The Sun - https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/8994642/paradise-bbc-podcast-murder-guatemala/ The Daily Mail - https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6002523/A-British-couple-hitching-yacht-turned-tale-horror.html Medium.com - https://medium.com/a-place-to-vent/a-less-than-perfect-life-195a063ce4b4 LittleThings.com - https://littlethings.com/entertainment/woman-finds-brothers-suspected-killer-facebook-37-years-later Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Una Chaplin and I'm the host of a new podcast called Hollywood Exiles. It tells the story of how my grandfather Charlie Chaplin and many others were caught up in a campaign to root out communism in Hollywood. It's a story of glamour and scandal and political intrigue and a battle for the soul of the nation. Hollywood Exiles from CBC Podcasts and the BBC World Service, available now on Spotify. You're listening to an Ono Media podcast. Hey everybody, welcome back to the podcast.

This is Murder With My Husband. I'm Peyton Marland. And I'm Garrel Marland. And he's the husband. And I'm the husband. I'm sad to say that we have just been recording for 25 minutes and didn't realize that we didn't press record Okay, everybody deep breaths

Long breasts everything's gonna be okay, but that sucks So now we are gonna go through everything once again and Garrett now knows a little bit of the story at the beginning So the best part is we can zoom through all of this, but you're going to want to listen to this. You don't, don't zoom through and skip. I know some of you skip, just give us three minutes. I'll make this quick. First, merch, merch is available for another week after that.

That drop is gone. So please check it out. It's one of our favorite drops. Seriously, links will be everywhere. Second, we got Patreon and Apple subscriptions. Bonus content, it's all ad-free, so you have no ads. I think it's 100% worth it, and it really does help support us a ton.

So please go and check it out. Ad-free content, bonus episodes, don't miss it. This is where I cut in and tell you guys that a portion of our proceeds on Patreon do get donated to different crime nonprofit organizations. We've had some people be like, you guys don't donate. We just didn't feel the need to talk about it all the time. Everyone on Patreon knows.

So if you do subscribe to our Patreon or Apple or Apple, a portion of your proceeds do go to more than just listening to the show. So thank you, thank you, thank you so much. And now we have my 10 seconds and I guess I'll just tell the story again. And it just got cut out because we weren't actually recording, but we were talking into the mics the entire time. Basically the last week or two,

I've been washing my face with some magical face wash that I found in our shower. I've been using it for like a week or two. It's been amazing. My skin's been clear. It feels good. It doesn't smell the best. I'll be honest. It smells a little funky. But I was washing my face the other day and Peyton comes by and she goes, Hey, what are you washing your face with? Like what are you talking about? Like, this face wash, that's right here. Long story short, I was not face wash. What was it, babe? Garrett was washing his face for the last week,

week and a half, using my vagina wash. Wash made specifically for my vagina, pH, all the girl stuff, all the girl stuff, okay? And if, sorry for the strong language, I guess, vagina, pH, all the girl stuff, all the girl stuff, okay? And if, sorry for the strong language, I guess, vagina, but that's what I was doing. I was washing my face with it, and I had no idea, but I will let everybody know I am still washing my face with it

because there actually was a bunch of dermatologists and other people who said that it's just a pH bouncing. So it's gentle. It's gentle, it's fine. And it's working. So disclaimer, I'm not a dermatologist, I'm not a doctor, but if you wanna try something new, maybe you need some new face wash, go and check it out. That's what I got from my 10 seconds.

We made it short. That was a lot faster. It was a lot faster. So let's hop back, not back into, let's hop into today's episode. Our sources for this episode are dead in the water by Penny Farmer, BBC.com, The Washington Post, Variety.com, TheCinemaHolic.com, InvestigationDiscovery.com,

SportsKita.com, TheSunTheDailyMailMedium.com, and LittleThings.com. Okay, and before I get into the story, I am just going to beg you. I'm going to do it, I am not above it. If you are watching this on YouTube, please, please, please give it a thumbs up, please leave a comment, please turn on notifications.

If you are listening, please leave us a review. And please turn on automatic downloads on podcasts. It just helps us out so much. Share this on your social media. Share it with someone in your life. You guys, like I said, I'm just, I'm not above it anymore. I need your guys' help.

I really, really, really just want the algorithm to pick up the podcast. So please, we love you guys so much and thank you for supporting. That was early, Beggy. You can also follow us on Apple and on Spotify. There's a subscribe and follow button that helps a ton. Let's get into today's case.

So as we've learned by now, not all cases come with that who done it mystery. Sometimes the culprit is obvious. And instead, the question lies somewhere between how did it all go down and why the heck did they do it? Well, today's story is absolutely one of those cases, a crime that went uninvestigated for decades, primarily over issues with jurisdiction since it happened in international waters.

But everyone knew who was responsible, including the suspects, two young sons who actually saw the entire crime happen right before their very eyes. Yet they were forced to keep their father's secrets for years. So getting into it, it's December 1977. 25 year old Chris Farmer and his 24 year old girlfriend, Peta Frampton,

are about to embark on the trip of their lives. For the next 12 months, they'll be going from Australia to North America, down through Central America and beyond, filling their days with once in a lifetime experiences. So Chris and Pita were actually childhood sweethearts who grew up in the suburbs of Manchester, UK. And their romance was an impenetrable one that stood the test of middle school, high school and their college years. Even a small handbag business that the two actually ran together. In fact, their love for one another was so strong

that when Chris got accepted to study medicine at Cambridge University, he turned it down so that he and Peta would keep their decades old promise that they were going to go to college together. So the two enrolled in Birmingham University. Like Peta from Hunger Games? Yes, except she's a girl. Okay.

There Peta studied law while Chris got his medical degree. A goal he'd set for himself early. It was around the age of 10 when he decided to do that. But Chris was the kind of person to always follow through on whatever he'd set his sights on. And it wasn't just the future paycheck that excited Chris about getting his medical degree. He had a longing for adventure, a desire to be challenged, and he knew that practicing medicine was something that could take him to all different parts of the world. A trait that was well-complimented by his outgoing personality. Chris was the kind of person who was always the center of attention. He was larger than life and eccentric, in a way that made people

gravitate towards him. He was the kind of guy who had no problems standing up in a crowd to vocalize what he believed in, to tell someone that their beliefs were outdated, intolerant, or just plain offensive. Chris had principles. The kind of guy you'd be proud to say was your doctor. And Pita either shared or complimented a lot of those same qualities.

She was independent, a go-getter, someone who had a lust for life and was willing to participate in a good adventure, if not just for the story. But Pita was also meticulous, a communicator and a planner, so much so that before their big trip across the world, Pita drafted a will, one that left most of her earthly possessions

to her beloved Chris. However, looking back, that document will read more like a sign of doom than a declaration of love. So on December 5th, 1977, Chris and Peta could not be more excited as they said goodbye to their families in Manchester and arrived at Heathrow Airport for their big trip. The plan was this, for the next several months, Chris was going to be participating in a medical program out of Brisbane, Australia, where PETA had landed some temporary work as a secretary. Once Chris's program concluded, they'd fill it out,

go where the wind took them, which was exactly what happened. Upon arriving in Australia, the couple settled in quickly, making sure to keep up with their phone calls and letters back to their respective families in the UK. Ample Time Off allowed them to enjoy afternoons on the Sunshine Coast, eating delicious food and participating in one of their favorite shared pastimes, sailing. Then in April 1978, Pita wrote a letter home laying out the next steps of their journey.

She said they planned to visit New Caledonia Fiji and then Los Angeles. From there, they were going to make their way down to Mexico. And while Pita expressed her sympathies for Chris, who had a large bag of books that he had to bring along with him to study, she herself seemed upbeat and prepared. They were just making the most of this study and

really doing what they've always wanted to do. I love traveling, but I do not think I could travel that consecutively for three months or whatever. They're going for 12 months. Or 12 months, yeah, it's a lot. Also, while studying for school, like they're doing this. It's an excuse to go somewhere as he's studying for school. Yeah. But like I said, Peter was very organized. She listed to her family all of the vaccinations they'd received, travelers checks they'd cashed and visas they'd secured to ensure the next leg of their travels was seamless. Which it was. The islands were filled with scuba dives and snorkeling

excursions, and when they arrived in the states, they rented a car and drove south from Los Angeles to San Diego and on through the Mexican border. On May 29, 1978, Chris made an audio recording for his brother Nigel's birthday saying how much fun he and Pita were having on their little extravaganza and that they planned now to head east to the Yucatan Peninsula. But on June 6, Pita wrote that they had actually changed their plans. On a bus ride out east, they met another young English couple who was headed to Bolivia, with a stopover in Belize. So after hearing that Belize was home to one of the longest reefs in the Western Hemisphere,

Chris and Peter were kind of tempted to tag along with this couple that they had just barely met. They were craving another great snorkeling adventure. However, this slight adjustment to their plans wouldn't just change the course of their vacation, it would end up changing the course of many people's lives. By the end of June, Chris and Peter found themselves staying in a cheap bohemian motel on an island just off the coast of Belize called Key Culker. And even with its crystal blue waters and white sand beaches, the destination was a hot spot for those on a budget, particularly young backpackers and older fishermen looking for a quick stopover. Which was how Chris and Pita came to

meet a 37 year old American sea men named Silas Dwayne Boston. Dwayne, as he called himself, with his piercing blue eyes and innate charm immediately caught the attention of Chris and Pita at the hotel bar one night. As they got to chatting, they learned that Dwayne was traveling around the islands in his 32 foot wooden sailing boat he'd named after one of his kids. The boat was called Justin B, not John B. He mostly made his cache by ferrying tourists to the many keys off the mainland. However, Dwayne didn't work alone. He'd come from Sacramento, California with his other two sons, 13 year old Vince and 12 year old Russell, who are helping him out

with the small business. Is there any background on how like, how did he end up in Belize with his two sons and now this is what he just does full time? I think because they wanted to start this business, they wanted to make some money. So they literally left California to go here to make money. It was kind of like a cheaper, a cheaper place to live.

There was a need because it was kind of touristy. There were a lot of backpackers. Um, I don't know if they like traveled there and then got the idea, but it's definitely a family business at this point. So at the time, the only thing that set off alarm bells for Chris was the fact that Dwayne was said to be somewhat of a ladies man. So they're here, they're staying,

and they're kind of learning more about this character. If anyone ever says they're a ladies man, I can promise they are not a ladies man. So despite how underwhelming Dwayne was in the looks department, he spoke of how much success he had with women and boasted about having been married five different times. That's not a good thing. Still, with his two young children on board, Chris and Pita felt comfortable enough to

actually hire Dwayne one day for an afternoon excursion. So Chris and Pita, our UK couple are going to go out with Dwayne and his two sons on an excursion. And from Pita's letters, the first trip seemed enjoyable enough. They set out for a day of snorkeling and scuba diving while Dwayne and his boys cooked them lunch with the fish and lobsters. They'd caught that afternoon. The evening ended with a bonfire on the beach, sipping coconuts before a drop off back at their hotel.

It was delightful enough for Chris and Pita to take Dwayne up on another excursion, and then another. Oh man. To the point where over the next few weeks, they became pretty friendly with Dwayne and his sons. And when the couple was finally ready to move on from Belize and travel further south, Dwayne

made them an offer. Rather than take a series of buses, why not let him take them by sea to their next destination, which was Roaton Honduras. So after all, it was on his way to Costa Rica where he'd planned to sell his boat before heading back to the States with the boys. So he's like, we're done with this gig. We made the work. We're heading out anyways. We will drop you off on our way to Costa Rica. And then we're heading back to America and you guys can go to Honduras. I wonder how true this all was. I'm sure we'll get into it. So all Duane asked for in return was $500 for their passage,

which seemed reasonable enough to Chris and Pita. It was nearing the end of June when Pita wrote another letter home to her parents to tell them about the next leg of their journey. She mentioned Dwayne, his two sons, and the Justin B, which is the sailing boat, how she and Chris were quite enjoying their travels and found the journey peaceful. They were even liking the fact that they could catch and cook their own supper. But in that same letter,

it was also becoming clear that tensions on the boat might have been running a little high. Remember, they've been spending a lot of time together with these people. Peter wrote that the ship was not very comfortable, that the lower deck was mostly used for storage, making it too cramped for sleeping. It was overrun with cockroaches and a shower only came

when they docked for the night in a harbor somewhere. Oh no, they shouldn't have said yes. Plus, at that time of year, even the nights were getting unbearably hot, making the passengers irritable in such a confined space. Still, Pita signed her letter with an optimistic outlook, claiming it all seemed worthwhile once she watched the sunset each evening. Hi, I'm Una Chaplin and I'm the host of a new podcast called Hollywood Exiles.

It tells the story of how my grandfather Charlie Chaplin and many others were caught up in a campaign to root out communism in Hollywood. It's a story of glamour and scandal and political intrigue and a battle for the soul of the nation. Hollywood Exiles from CBC Podcasts and the BBC World Service available now on Spotify. So like I said, Pita was feeling okay about the journey, but Dwayne maybe wasn't feeling the same way. And we know this because one afternoon, Dwayne stopped the boat on a small island for a little break.

That afternoon, Russell and Vince came running up to him to show him something they had found on the beach, and it was a handful of poisonous berries. So Dwayne took them from his kids, but didn't warn them or reprimand them. Instead, he said something that stuck with Russell for years to come. He said, maybe I should just feed these to Chris and Pita. At the time Russell, the kid just waved it off. He knew his father had a problem with alcohol and that day on the beach was no exception. So needless to say, Dwayne was two sheets to the wind, but once he nodded off, Vincent

Russell knew better than to leave the berries with their father. So they stole them back fearful that Dwayne might actually follow through on his threats if given the opportunity. That's weird that you would ever even think that that would be a possibility. And I think it says a lot about the type of character Dwayne is that even his sons are like, maybe we should still the berries back. Yeah, that's weird. So on June 28th, 1978, Pita penned another letter updating her parents on

their journey. And this one, she said, after speaking with a lighthouse keeper, they learned it was especially hard to get into the port in Honduras this time of year due to the tides. So they were told they might have to rethink their travels with an unexpected stop in Livingston, Guatemala instead. It also became clear in this letter that Pita and Chris were at the end of their rope with Dwayne and his boys. Like what started is like, oh we're friends and we're going on this journey, you know, we've done all these excursions, it's just not, it's not going well anymore. Pita mentioned how Russell and Vince argued all the time and acted much younger than their age, they're getting annoyed with the two boys, and that a drunken Dwayne was constantly yelling at them, bringing the awkward tension on

the boat to an all-time high. With nowhere to escape to, on the 32-foot vessel, things were becoming untenable. Chris and Pita were essentially over it. Pita signed that letter with lots of love and mailed it out at the next port, but that was it. After that, Pita and Chris's communication back home stopped entirely. That final letter arrived at PETA's parents house in August of 1978. And when days turned into weeks with no word from either Chris or PETA, both of their families sounded the alarm bells. Come September, the farmers in the Frampton's knew it was time to get the authorities involved. The farmers began by reaching out to the foreign and Commonwealth office,

which helped scan the borders of all countries between the United States and Peru. This is, I mean, and this is like something that's hard is they don't know how far they made it. So what country could they even be in by the time something bad happened? Well, also they were in the middle of sea. Yeah. And in the middle of the sea on a ship. I don't, that's so hard. So both families wrote to the consults in South America as well, but nothing produced

results. Chris's father then contacted the harbour master in Belize city trying to dig up any information he could on the Justin B since this is the last known place that they knew their, their, their kids were in October. He received a letter back saying, yes, they had been on the passenger list when the boat left Belize, but the next time the boat docked in Livingston, Guatemala on July 6th, Chris and Peter were no longer aboard the vessel.

Okay. And when the farmers reached out to a commander of a naval base in Honduras, they also confirmed Justin B had never made it to that port. Despite the fact that Chris and Pita had secured visas for Honduras, there was no record of them ever entering the country. So authorities did, however, have the name of one person who might shed light on where these people went. And that was Dwayne. By this point, now mid-October,

Dwayne and the boys had returned to the States. Dwayne was said to be living with his father just outside of Sacramento. So the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office asked a consulate general in San Francisco to look into Dwayne. What a mess because you have to go through all the different legal procedures

of the different countries and justice systems I can't even imagine. Well, and I mean, if we're just playing on theory here, the Duane did do something to them. Probably thought he got away with it. Well, also there's a pretty good chance he can get away with this. Considering where he was and what's going on.

So the Consulate General in San Francisco looks into Dwayne for the British Foreign and Commonwealth office, and here's what they learn. Dwayne had a pretty unsettling criminal record in the States. He'd been accused of assault and rape, and 10 years prior, in 1968, his third wife, Russell and Vince's mom, had also disappeared without a trace. What a ladies man.

When that consulate official visited Dwayne for an interview in December 1978, the 37 year old wasn't exactly forthcoming, but he did seem rather calm and collected without much concern for the whole situation. Dwayne did say however, that he dropped Pita and Chris off at a place called Cabo de Trezpuntas across the bay from the Livingston Guatemala port.

So he's like, oh, I just dropped him off right there. And then I just skidded across and went to Guatemala and that's why they weren't with me. He did this because then they wouldn't have to go through immigration. And then he just continued on without them. After the interview, the Consulate General who'd conducted the interview was certain.

Dwayne Boston was a suspect in their disappearance. I feel like if your record is that bad and you've been charged for rape or armed robbery or something of that sort, you should have to wear a sign on your chest at all times or on your head so then people know. You know what I'm saying? You know people aren't even happy

that sex offenders have to register. There's a pretty wide group of people that don't think that should have to happen. Well, they probably shouldn't listen to this podcast. Probably not. So the consulate's like, okay, reporting back to duty, I'm pretty sure this guy definitely has something to do with the disappearance of Peter and Chris,

but with zero concrete evidence, he didn't feel like there was much they could do to pursue the charges. And from there, the investigation kind of sizzled out, at least for government officials. Obviously, the farmers and the Framptons were hell-bent on keeping the case alive. These are their children, which is when they hired a private investigator named Alfonso de Peña back in Belize to take up the case. Armed with photos of the couple, Alfonso went to nearly every bar, hotel, and restaurant in the country,

asking if anyone had seen them. And come January, 1979, his digging turned up a major piece of information. That month, Alfonso was contacted by a Catholic priest down in Livingston, Guatemala, who said, Back in July, a few local fishermen made a gruesome discovery right near the border of Belize.

About 200 yards from shore, they discovered the bodies of two Europeans, a male and a female in their early to mid 20s. How are they in Belize? They were supposed to be on the ship. Both appeared to have their hands and ankles bound and were tied to heavy engine parts. The woman also had a plastic bag over her head. When they were cut loose, the bodies were brought back to Puerto Barrios, Guatemala

for an autopsy. There it was determined that the couple was still alive when they entered the water, and the cause of death was listed as drowning. After the autopsy, the two were buried in unmarked graves in a nearby cemetery since their identities remained unknown. That is, until the priest passed the word onto Alfonso. When news reached the farmers and the Framptons back in England, they felt pretty certain this probably was their missing loved ones.

But the only way to prove it for sure was to exhume the bodies and compare the dental records. The process took about nine weeks. Imagine waiting nine weeks. It's hard because there's not, they're in a different country, there's just so much you have to go through. But come April, 1979, the families got their answers.

The dental records were a match with the two unknown victims. These were the bodies of Chris Farmer and Peter Frampton. Just as devastating was the complete lack of investigation into the bodies after they were recovered. The Guatemalan police never looked into the crime or even alerted any embassies as far as I'm aware. I mean, they're thinking, okay, these are just two Europeans who are probably traveling. How are we ever going to get to the bottom of this and didn't look any further? Any evidence, including the ropes and engine parts they were tied to, were lost in the shuffle, never analyzed for clues.

Adding to the frustration, after confirming their identities, both families requested that the bodies be placed in a British cemetery. However, there's a strange rule in Guatemala that a body must remain in its original burial plot for at least four years. I don't know. So the families are like, Hey, can we bring, can we just at least bring our kids home? Like, you know, they were young, they were just trying to live their lives. Can we just have them home in a resting spot near us? And they were like, Nope, they got to stay buried for four years. So four more years passed when the trail on Dwayne Boston ran even colder. The families were told they could now exhum

Pita and Chris's remains and have them sent back to the UK. But at this point, both felt since they were already exhumed once and reburied, it was best to just maybe keep them together where they were. Let Guatemala maybe be their final resting place. And with that, four years quickly turned to about 40 as the farmers and the Framptons were left without much resolution. Holy crap. So 40 years basically goes by and they are not able to do a thing.

Yes. There was one person who never let Dwayne Boston leave her mind. And that was Chris's younger sister, Penny Farmer. Okay, so you have to keep in mind, my brother, right? My brother's murdered while he's traveling the world with his girlfriend, who was his high school sweetheart from middle school. And we basically know who did it. Like we know it's this Dwayne guy,

he lives in the States, in California, but there's just no evidence, but we're pretty sure. And Dwayne's gotta be like almost 80 at this point. Right. So let's now cut to October 2nd, 2015. We have Penny Farmer, Chris's little sister who is hell bent on solving this case. And she has to be between 50 and,

or around 60 or somewhere around there's my guess. So Penny was 17 when her brother went missing. She was now in her fifties. She was grown with a husband and kids. She was sitting outside her Oxfordshire home when something dawned on her. Why not look Dwayne and his kids up on the internet? Like the internet's a thing now.

All this time is past. She's probably thinking about his case and she's like, wait, I wonder if I can just find him. So she's looking for Dwayne and she can't find him, but she goes looking for the kids. Remember, one of their names was Vince Boston. So it was as easy as typing Vince Boston into the Facebook search bar

and suddenly there he was in living color. The boy who had most likely witnessed her brother's murder was now a 51-year-old man. He was an aviation engineer in Tucson, Arizona. But there was a post on his page that actually caught Penny's eye. Vince had written a status that read, quote, my mother was killed at 23 with a gun and it went on. Now this struck Penny is odd because she distinctly remembered in their letters, they were told Vince and Russell's mother had disappeared. Yeah.

It was a huge reason she and her family were suspicious of Dwayne in the first place. Like his, one of his wives had disappeared and now they had disappeared. So she was wondering, has something changed in the woman's investigation or was she unraveling some dark family secret? So Penny keeps digging,

eventually uncovering the 49 year old Russell's Facebook page as well, who was also living a seemingly normal life as an illustrator out in Laguna Beach, California. Though Penny didn't stop there, another quick search she finally found father, Silas Dwayne Boston. He has a Facebook, he's got to be like 80, like I said earlier. The now 74 year old man's profile photo showed a more hardened Dwayne with an aging gray beard hiding under a baseball cap and sunglasses. Beneath it all, ladies man.

Penny was sure it was the same monster who'd claimed Chris and Peta's lives. The fact that he even had a Facebook page, in her opinion, was a privilege he should have never gotten. Yeah. Yet here it was, a path forward, a life he had lived. This was a chance for Penny to reconnect with the only people in this world who knew the truth about Peta and Chris's final days. So Penny decides to send a few messages to the sons,

Vince and Russell. And after receiving no response, she decided to bring the case back up to the Greater Manchester Police or the GMP now that she had found them. Now Penny and her family knew the chances of reopening this investigation were slim So when she contacted the GMP and learned that they still had all of the case files, she was kind of shocked Even more when the GMP spoke to a detective named Amy Crosby with the Sacramento police

They learned they had just reopened a case against him. Recently, it was the case surrounding Dwayne's missing wife, Mary Lou Boston. What are the chances of that? Over in the UK, they're like, hey, can you please reopen this case? They contact American police and the Californian police are like, we actually just reopened a different case on Dwayne, the case of his missing wife, Mary Lou. Calm your mind, it always comes back around.

I do not care what you say. And by complete coincidence, Vince, the son had been interviewed by Detective Crosby mere days after Penny had reached out to him on Facebook. So police are actually already talking to the people they want them to talk to just for a different case. So he told the detective it was an open family secret that his father had shot his mother back in 1968, but her body had been missing ever since. So they talked to the son and he's like, yeah,

my father definitely killed my mother, but we just never found her body. Well, he said like, yeah, the son tattled on his father essentially. So Vince said he was about three years old at the time that his mother disappeared. Only he didn't learn the truth about her death until they went down to Belize in 1978. This is now tying us back to our case.

That's when a drunken Dwayne began confessing to his sons that he had killed their mother because she wanted a divorce. She wasn't the only one. He killed dozens of other people as well. At least this is what he told his sons. What in the world? What do you do? Cause the sons are so young as well.

It's like, they're not, what are they gonna do? That's crazy. So this was a statement that the boys actually wholeheartedly believed, which now makes it a little more understanding why they stole those berries back. Cause they didn't want their dad killing their new friends, Pita and Chris. So they were also terrified of reporting after they saw what he did to two English tourists that summer that were on the boat with them. So during that interview, Vince also told detectives the full account

of what he'd witnessed on the Justin B that July. I didn't expect this. I didn't think that they were going to comply and they're just, they're letting it all out. So it's in March of 2016, Penny and her family were finally brought into the GMP's office to hear his statement that he had made back in California. At least getting the details of how and why Chris and Peter had died. So here's what Vince said.

The summer of 1978, Dwayne took his two boys to Belize to dodge an arrest for a statutory rape charge. Holy crap. So they had said, oh, it's just this family business. Like we came here because we thought it'd be good money. No, he was trying to get out of the States. What a scumbag. His plan was to buy a boat, sail along the coast of Central and South America, stay under the radar.

But that was easier said than done for a man like Dwayne. Come July 1st, Chris and Pita were regular fixtures aboard the Justin B, and as we learned from Pita's letters, tensions were starting to run high. One evening, after too much to drink, Dwayne began ordering Russell around, yelling at him to get into the water and untangle the anchor. Russell, terrified of his drunk father, always did what he was told. But when Russell noticed there was nothing wrong with the anchor, he got back on board and began reeling it in to show his father it wasn't stuck.

But that's when Dwayne came up behind him and started beating the 12 year old boy. What? Well, this being such a tiny boat, Chris and Peta bore witness to the entire thing, and Dwayne was just taking it way too far. They had been fighting, they had been yelling, but now this physical abuse was just too far. So Chris stepped in and tried to pull Dwayne off of Russell, his son.

And when Dwayne took a swing at Chris, he missed entirely instead falling off the boat and into the water. Now the drunken Dwayne was absolutely humiliated. Like this is his boat and just tried to punch him when he fell in the water. And even though Chris offered him a hand to get him back on board, Dwayne was not about to consider it an olive branch. Over the next several hours, he replayed the events over and over in his mind to the point where he was set in his convictions. It was time to kill Chris and Pita. This whole thing had just been too embarrassing. He was over it. That's insane to me.

So on the following evening, July 2nd, Dwayne pretended like all was forgiven. He asked Chris for his help pulling up the anchor, and that's when Dwayne snuck up behind him and attacked. He hit Chris over the head with a club repeatedly and tried to stab him with an old broken filet knife until Chris surrendered. Chris suffered in pain until the following morning when Dwayne came to him and Peta and said he'd be dropping them off near Port in Guatemala. But in order to give him ample time to get away, he said he needed to tie them up to slow them down.

He forced them to strip naked, bound their wrists and ankles, and then for the next 36 hours, Dwayne sat and tortured and played mind games with the couple. And the kids are there the whole time? Convincing them that he was going to let them live if they played along. But on the morning of July 4th, both Chris and Pita physically and emotionally were beaten to a pulp.

Dwayne chose not to make good on his promise. He placed plastic bags over their heads and forced his children to help him tie the couple to those old machine parts Then Dwayne grabbed Chris and threw him overboard followed by Pita Ultimately Chris and Pita died trying to defend Russell his there's Yeah, Dwayne's son in a time of need. I don't understand how I Don't understand how someone like that is not in jail before and is some just out in the open. Because he's running away. So I can't even imagine how that must have left Russell feeling in the aftermath of all this.

But as it turns out, he didn't keep this bottled up for all those years like the farmers in the Framptons had first imagined. Apparently both Russell and Vince had tried several times to report all of this to the Sacramento PD and the FBI, even Scotland Yard and Interpol. Only none of those agencies followed up on their statements. No freaking way. How does that happen? Those are young kids. So even after- What? And this is even after Vince joined the US Navy.

That's so frustrating. In 1982, over time, Vince just began to think that his father was the luckiest criminal in the world. Like they had gone and reported and their father was still out, somehow managing to escape conviction for both Chris and Pita and his mother's death back in 1986. But someone who feels that invincible

usually doesn't stop there. But with not enough evidence in every single murder, there's now enough at least circumstantial evidence to charge Dwayne with PETA and Chris's deaths as long as the boys agree to testify against him. But police had one last hurdle to jump through because Dwayne was right. His crimes were out of Sacramento's jurisdiction. So they began looking for ways that they could prosecute Dwayne. They considered extraditing him to Guatemala, but the government there just didn't want to take on this now 40 year old case. They probably didn't care.

Belize claimed the murders were in their jurisdiction since they happened off the coast of Guatemala. Even the FBI couldn't take it on since Guatemala didn't have ties to the U.S. However, the U.S. could claim jurisdiction if the crime happened out in open waters, buying in a boat that was owned by a U.S. citizen. Which it did. So all they needed was more proof that Dwayne owned the Justin B. Turns out Russell the Sun is like, okay, let me get on this. He finds a mountain of useful evidence stored in his garage, a boat flag with the words Justin B written in Dwayne's handwriting photos of them with Chris and Peter. Chris's old cassette tape collection, which he left behind and the old ownership title to the Justin B.

I can't believe I'm still kind of in awe how proactive the kids are being, which is amazing. I thought that they were going to be scared of their dad or something else is going on, but they tried multiple times before to report it. Yeah. So I'm glad that it's going this way. Well, I think now at 50, they're probably like, he murdered my mom. He murdered people in front of us.

Yeah, like who? Like he needs to go to prison for life. Like this is crazy. Yeah. And he beat us. Yeah. As kids. So with this smoking gun, they can now prosecute Dwayne for those murder charges here in the US. Something Dwayne himself never thought would happen. But on December 1, 2016, the 75 year old Dwayne got the shock of his life when he was met at his

nursing home with an arrest warrant. That's what I'm talking about. The following day he was charged with two counts of first degree murder. His trial was set to begin in October 2017. Only Dwayne would never make it. On March 20th, 2017, Dwayne shackled to a hospital bed, took a turn for the worst. He had exercised his rights to end his treatment, had stopped taking his medication, and was now letting his liver and heart problems

get the best of him. In April, Russell came to visit him, figuring now was the time to get everything off his chest. He told his dad he did love him, he did forgive him. Before he died, he wanted Dwayne to answer for one last thing, where did you bury mom's body? Dwayne looked to the US last thing. Where did you bury mom's body? Dwayne looked to the U.S. marshal guarding his bedside, then turned back to Russell and said,

you don't expect me to tell you with him sitting here, do you? Dwayne then proceeded to call Russell a traitor and a snitch, but in all of that, he never confessed to where he buried their mother, Mary Lou. You can catch me unplugging all those machines as he sang all that. On April 24th, 2017, Dwayne died in that hospital bed

just two weeks shy of his first pretrial hearing. As Penny Farmer put it, Dwayne had taken the coward's way out. She said she felt cheated, that she was looking forward to the day Dwayne had to face her and her family in court and hear about the pain he had caused them.

So she went on to write a book about her brother's case and included a quote that I think speaks to how many of the victims' families must feel in a situation like this. Penny wrote, quote, "'Time blunts the intense searing pain of bereavement, but what remains is a dull throbbing ache, a longing for what might have been and the knowledge that a life with them in it

would have been so much richer for us all. And that is the case of Chris Farmer and Peter Frampton. It's hard because I'm glad that, and we knew who did it. So for them, it wasn't really a who did it. It was a more of when does he get caught and then when he does get caught, he dies, and that's just crazy that, no reason. Like a lot of these cases, no rhyme or reason,

just because honestly, he was a bad guy and wanted to kill people, like there was no other reason. Yeah. It's devastating, it's devastating for his kids. Yeah. Devastating for the victims who were just like, supposed to be on the vacation of their life. It trusted this guy to get them somewhere.

But that is all we have for this week. Remember, we have bonus episodes over on Patreon and Apple subscriptions. And we will see you next time with another episode. I love it. And I hate it. Goodbye.