Witnessed: Devil in the Ditch - Finding Mom's Killer | 6. The Confessions of Jack Boyle

Episode Date: April 7, 2025

35 years after Noreen’s death, Steve gets a call from Jack and Collier has an excruciating decision to make. Binge all episodes of Finding Mom's Killer, ad-free today by subscribing to The Binge. Visit The Binge Crimes on Apple Podcasts and hit ‘subscribe’ or visit GetTheBinge.com to get access.  The Binge – feed your true crime obsession. Finding Mom’s Killer is part of The Binge - subscribe to listen to all episodes, all at once, ad-free right now. If you want to hear more about Collier's story follow him @CollierLandry on all social platforms. From serial killer nurses to psychic scammers – The Binge is your home for true crime stories that pull you in and never let go. Follow The Binge Crimes and The Binge Cases wherever you get your podcasts to get new stories on the first of the month, every month. Hit ‘Subscribe’ at the top of the Finding Mom’s Killer show page on Apple Podcasts or visit GetTheBinge.com. The Binge – feed your true crime obsession. A Sony Music Entertainment and Orbit Media production. Find out more about The Binge and other podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts and follow us @sonypodcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hello. This is a prepaid debit call from Jack Boyle, an inmate at the Marion Correctional Institution, to accept this call from... Hey Jack, can you hear me? Yes, yes, I hear you. Okay. Jack Boyle and I have been speaking regularly for several months. I sometimes wonder why he makes the effort. I ask a lot of intrusive questions. So what did you think when you learned that Sherry was pregnant?

Well I was kind of surprised. She was on birth control pills. Still, Jack keeps calling. He also emails me via the prison's messaging system, GTL, and via the post office, sends documents and photos of himself in prison. It seems he has things to tell me. He mentions, among other things, that he wants to come clean. But I know there's another reason he's in touch.

Maybe the real reason. Jack knows I'm speaking to Collier. And Jack, he still wants to be a father to his son. He used to sleep on the floor next to his crib, you know, all those kind of nervous father things. He was a good baby, a good young man, and I expect he still is. I still wanted to have a relationship as my son and a father.

I always wanted that. I never, I want that to this moment. But Collier hasn't responded to an email from Jack in 16 years. And this moment right now is complicated. Jack has been behind bars for almost 35 years. Jack is up for parole later this year. He's already been denied twice. He'll be 82 when he sees the parole board.

This may be his final chance. And Jack is convinced that Collier holds the key to his freedom. His input as a victim, son of the victim, child of the mother killed, you know, it's important stuff. You think it really all comes down to Collier at this point? Yeah, I really do, yeah. Yeah. You have one minute remaining.

And don't forget, the last picture I sent you, would you scan it to Collier? Yes, definitely, I will. Tell him I said hello and I love him. I sure will. Thank me, say hello and I love him. I sure will. Thank you for using GTL. A few days later, we help Collier navigate the prison bureaucracy and set up his own email account. There's a message waiting for him.

So I have an email from my father. Bumper, please let me know if this email gets through to you, hoping this works, Dad. To the point, very succinct. I've put up some boundaries, obviously. And boundaries are good for protecting one's mental health. But it is, in a way too, it's nice to, you know, be able to communicate with them. So I guess here we go.

Nice to hear from. Kyle, you're starts typing. Hi, Pop. What do I say? Nice to talk to you. Long time. I don't, I don't really know. I mean, it's been a while, right?

So now I'm analyzing what I wrote, because he's my father and he might be critical of my writing. So now I'm like, oh, I don't saying, let me grammatically correct this really fast. I guess some things never change. All right, it's ending. Should a son rescue a father who may not deserve to be rescued? Collier has a decision to make. From Sony Music Entertainment and Orbit Media, this is Finding Mom's Killer. When a young woman named Patty vanishes without a trace, her best friend launches a desperate search. The trail leads to Kat Torres, a charismatic influencer with millions of followers.

Her social media presence showcases a picture-perfect life, and she promises her followers a spiritual awakening. All they have to do is follow her lead. But behind the glamorous posts and inspirational quotes, a sinister truth unravels. From Wondery, Don't Cross Cat is a chilling investigation that asks the question, if an influencer promised you a dream life, what would you sacrifice? Based on the Brazilian true crime saga that captivated a nation, Don't Cross Cat is a story of ambition, control, and the lives destroyed by empty promises. What starts as

an investigation into a missing persons case explodes into a story of manipulation, coercion, prostitution, and human trafficking, all orchestrated behind a curated social media facade. When influence turns into control, how far would you go to get everything you always wanted? Follow Don't Cross Cat on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of Don't Cross Cat early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. Now streaming on Paramount Plus.

Name's Conrad Harrigan, family man. And if you cross my family, well, you'd better pray. From the underworld of Guy Ritchie. We shake the right hands, break the wrong ones. Comes the next great crime series. And when someone forgets their place, I've got a man for that. For themselves. Starring Tom Hardy, Pierce Brosnan, and Helen Mirren.

We've got everyone where we want them. Mob Lad, new series now streaming on Paramount+. At this point, Jack Boyle and I have spoken for hours and hours. Oh, wow, this guy was calculating. My wife isn't thrilled that I spent so much time chatting with a convicted wife killer. But if someone wants to understand what really happened, you have to talk to Jack.

Jack is the black hole at the center of this story. For years, people who followed this murder talked and talked about Jack. But Jack, he wouldn't talk to anyone. The things I'm talking with you, I've never talked to anybody after the trial. I tried to sequester this as painful and bad as it was in a part of my mind that I wouldn't have to ever think about again. On the witness stand almost four decades ago,

Jack swore he had nothing to do with his wife's death. He said he had no idea how she ended up buried in his basement. But it's been a long time since that testimony. A lot has changed. Jack says he's changed. He says he's ready to tell what really happened to Noreen. So let's call this Jack's version. Jack starts at the beginning, the night Noreen disappeared. It's a little before

three in the morning on December 31st, 1989 at the Boyle residence in Mansfield, Ohio. Eleven-year-old Collier is asleep in his bedroom, upstairs, with his Batman clock and his Garfield toys. Noreen retired early to her bedroom, also upstairs. Jack's mother is staying with them for the holiday. And when I came home at night, my mom made a cup of tea and put a piece of cake out for me. She came and put it and was on that table. So, with the cake, of course my mother being proper, there was a cake knife and a little

cake fork and all that stuff. Noreen's bedroom is across the hall from Collier's, but according to Jack she isn't there because she's marched down the stairs to the first floor living room. The living room has been pretty much Jack's bedroom for years. He sleeps there on the couch, usually undisturbed. But tonight, he says, Noreen shakes him awake. I never expected that kind of behavior from her where she would be so irate.

According to Jack, Noreen is furious. And there's something else unusual about her. She wasn't wearing clothes. Well, so was she naked? No, she had her panties on, that's all. That's unusual. That's like, what is going on? That's unusual. That's like, what is going on?

This is a couple that hasn't slept together in years. I think maybe she wanted to get me upset over the divorce. Oh look, you're going to lose something terrific. Terrific. According to Jack, Noreen picks a fight about... well, about everything. The Boyle's divorce proceedings officially started about a month earlier, and Noreen, according to Jack's theory, is just now coming to grips with her future. He reasons that after years of being a physician's wife, with the leisure time and the disposable income that comes along with it, Noreen hates the idea of working again,

which is what a judge said was in her future. When the judge said that, I think that blew her whole world up. But back to the living room. Noreen and Jack are arguing. She started, you know, ranting and raving about, she was like, Mansfield, she didn't like this town. She should have never left Philadelphia. She should have never married me, you know.

And, of course, I was adding more logs to the fire. I said, well, I guess you're right. You shouldn't have married me. Jack says he was surprised by Noreen's intense anger. Their relationship was frosty, not heated. I just, I never, never saw that anywhere in her. As Noreen and I were sitting there and she was getting more upset, I'm pretty sure she grabbed the knife.

The cake knife. She could have grabbed the fork, but I'm pretty sure she grabbed the cake knife. I waved it in front of me. A cake knife is pretty much a butter knife, blunt and rounded. So Noreen is up now, waving the cake knife. Jack sits on the couch below her, then stands up. He's six foot three, she's five four. That's when I pushed her away from me.

And I backpedaled off the sofa and hit the floor. And of course she went the other direction. There was another chair off on the side, a single chair with a footstool, and that's what she hit her head on. That footstool. A heavy wooden footstool. Now according to Jack, Noreen is lying motionless on the floor.

So what does Dr. Jack Boyle think? I said, I gotta get out of here. I went up to grab my little gym bag. I didn't know where I was going to go. Probably go back to my office and sleep on a chair or something. So I was upstairs probably 10 minutes, maybe 15 minutes. And then what happened? You come down and what? She was right there on the floor where I left her and I said,

Oh my God, now what? And she's not getting up. Noreen is not moving at all. And then I went to kind of battle stations looking for a pulse and looking for a breath and I said, oh my God. Jack said he did CPR, chest compressions for 15 minutes. All went downhill from there. Jack, what are you thinking?

This is unbelievable that this has occurred. You know, like, oh my god, I just can't look at this. So Jack is staring at Noreen. She's on her back, motionless, almost naked, She's on her back, motionless, almost naked, lying on their beige living room carpet, her head next to the footstool. What did she look like? Oh boy, she looked, in a sense, she looked serene and quiet

as if she was sleeping. You know, in a sense, she looked peaceful. I just couldn't, I just emotionally could not look at her body like that, her face. What was wrong with her face that you couldn't look at it. I Mean the fact that she was dead Jack goes to the kitchen and gets a garbage bag white and opaque He slipped it over Noreen's head And the reason I tied it doesn't want the bag to come off.

So you're sure she was dead? I'm positive. I am positive, which is all part of my panic. I was like, what am I gonna do? What do I do? I don't know what to do. And somewhere in all that disjointed thinking came the idea, says, oh, I could take the body up to Erie and bury the body.

To Erie, to the house he'd bought just two weeks earlier. The stupid jackhammer was in the car. It was just an incidental thing. Jack had rented the jackhammer two days earlier to do home repairs, he said. The prosecution claimed this was evidence of premeditation. So I think those were just happenstances. And what was the instinct about the tarp? Oh, the tarp? Yeah. The same thing. I mean, what am I going to do here?

The tarp happened to be convenient. It was on the back porch. Again, trying to figure out how am I going to correct this or fix this, even if I'm able to fix it, who knows. I figured, let me dig up the basement. That's where we went. So Jack lifts Noreen's body onto the tarp, wraps her, and carries her to his pickup truck, which is in the driveway. The automatic light from the garage suddenly turns on.

No one's around. He places Noreen on the seat in the second row. And then Jack returns to the couch, turns the news on the TV, takes a shower. Collier comes downstairs. Jack tells Collier, Mommy took a little vacation. And then he puts the kids and his mother into his other car, the Range Rover, and drives them to McDonald's for breakfast. After that, he runs an errand to Columbus an hour away, apparently not showing any of the panic he recently experienced. In the afternoon, Jack takes his pickup truck on a three-hour drive to Erie. The trip to Erie is one he'd planned on making for good sometime soon, leaving behind his

old life, starting a new one. Now with his wife's body in the back seat of his pickup truck, Jack carries his past with him. On the road to Erie, Jack recalls a spitting rain, so wipers on, the highway slick. Jack doesn't speed, not his nature. It's quiet in the car. So in your irrational thinking, what are you thinking? The mindset was to keep moving for somehow, maybe psychologically thinking I'm distancing myself from the tragedy by

moving, by driving to Erie. When he arrives at the house on Wolf Road, Jack opens the garage door with the key he'd fortunately retrieved just a day before. He carries Noreen's body into the house, into the kitchen. Yeah, I was happy. I was happy. The house is completely empty. The sound of Jack's footsteps must echo. The basement stairs start at the kitchen. Jack can't reach the light switch. It's awkward with Noreen's body in his arms, so he sets her down for a minute. The basement is huge

and silent except for the hum of the furnace. Jack heads to a nook at the far end where he and his girlfriend Sherry had discussed putting a kid's playroom. He fetches the jackhammer. Jack places the tarp with Noreen inside against a wall, the bag still over her head. He figures out how to work the jackhammer. It makes an incredible noise, bouncing off the concrete floor and walls. Luckily, his neighbors aren't close. It takes several hours to jackhammer through the basement floor and dig out the dirt below with a shovel. Then there's the body.

I just kind of drugged it, dragged it over and put it in the hole. Such a naive day of trying to, I think it's going to go away on its own or disappear on its own. Thinking if I covered it up, it would never be discovered and I would never have to see it again or think about it. For me, the most disturbing part is what happens next. How does Jack move through the world after burying his wife? He acts as if nothing has happened. He washed his clothes to get rid of the evidence, he drove back to Mansfield and took a shower, and calmly, blithely, he proceeded to tell lie after lie.

In the ensuing weeks, no one notices that Jack is under stress. Maybe he's not. Maybe the panic has just melted away. Sherry doesn't sense anything crazy going on? Well, I guess I must have been because no one ever said anything to me. So I must have had some kind of, kept up some kind of affront. So that's Jack's version. And whatever truth value one assigns to his account, it makes me think of one of the last

things Jack told the jurors shortly before they found him guilty. I'm human and normal just like you. Jack, I don't think so. As for Jack's assertion that Noreen's death was an accident, well it does fit the details. Why was Noreen's body naked when cops dug it up? Because Noreen came downstairs naked. The thuds collier heard, Jack falling and Noreen falling. The footsteps collier heard in the hallway, Jack's as he went to a closet to grab his getaway bag. The blunt force trauma listed in the autopsy, the result of noreen falling against the footstool.

And then Jack doesn't have with him the concrete to fill in the grave or the astroturf to cover it. He buys those days later. Maybe he didn't plan this in advance. But for me, another question looms over Jack's account. Jack was the only one present when Noreen died and when she was buried. There's no way to verify many of the details. A lot of people are going to say, well, he's lied so much in the past, why should I believe

him now? Well, they're absolutely correct. I mean, I have lied in the past, and I admit to that, to doing that. Noreen's death will always remain a tragedy forever into eternity, and I'm the one responsible for that, accidental or otherwise. Accidental or otherwise.

Let's consider this a minute, because even if you accept that Noreen's death was an accident, that the evidence used to prove premeditation was really just happenstance, and that the true reason for the body in the basement is that Jack simply panicked, there's another problem with his story. How about the blunt force trauma that couldn't have killed her?

No, it wasn't that bad. According to this expert in autopsies. Okay, Martin, let's try one. Remember, big. You got it. The Ford It's a Big Deal event is on. How's that? A little bigger. The Ford It's a Big Deal event. Nice. Now the offer? Lease a 2025 Escape Active All-Wheel Drive from 198 bi-weekly at 1.99% APR for 36 months with $27.55 down. Wow! That's like $99 a week!

Yeah, it's a big deal. The Ford It's a Big Deal event. Visit your Toronto area Ford store or Ford.ca today. How many autopsies do you think you've done? Well, over 10,000. I love the work. Cutting open dead bodies is fun? Solving mysteries is fun. Okay, let's not waste time.

Go ahead. What do you want to know? This is Dr. Donald Jason. He's been a medical examiner for 40 years, a professor for 20, and my guess is, impatient forever. I asked him to review the autopsy report and evaluate the cause of death. Jack told me Noreen died after hitting her head on a footstool. He said he tried to resuscitate her to no avail.

In his telling, the plastic bag was just a cosmetic thing. He couldn't bear to look at her face. According to the original autopsy, Noreen did suffer blunt force trauma, which Dr. Jason concurs could have come from the fall. She did have a head trauma. It could have knocked her out. But here's the surprise.

That's not a cause of death by itself. So the cause of death? Plastic bag suffocation. So wait, it's not the blow to the head that kills her. That only knocked her unconscious. It's the bag that Jack slips over her head. Could Jack Boyle, an experienced physician, have accidentally missed that Noreen was still alive

when he came down the stairs? He saw her motionless on the carpet. He says he checked her pulse and her breathing. I mean, is there any chance you were premature with the bag over the head? Well, there always could be, I'm sure. So accidentally or otherwise, it appears that Jack did in fact kill Noreen by suffocating her. Why didn't he just admit all this from the start?

Say it was an accident. He might have been charged with a lesser crime, spent a lot less time in prison. Why look at the jury and swear you had nothing to do with her death? Jack says he was basically trying to get away with it. He didn't have a plan. He had panic. So he went to the witness stand and he lied, whatever came into his head.

Though, Jack, you did stick with the lie for years, well past the point of whatever initial panic gripped you. I mean, I know full well that I was responsible. I was guilty. the point of whatever initial panic gripped you. But now, it's as if a switch flips. It's weird. Jack now says he takes responsibility for Noreen's death and for lying his ass off, but still somehow believes he was railroaded. Seriously. That's the word he uses.

Old timers. According to Jack, they were all in cahoots, and the other members here in town. Old timers. According to Jack, they were all in cahoots, including his own lawyer, the judge, the prosecutors, and certainly Dave Messmore, who he says shaped Collier's testimony. You know, you got to sit back and look and wonder about a lot of things.

Maybe these guys had it out for me. And maybe Collier did too. What Collier did... The army were... So here we go. Daddy's the bad guy and he killed Mommy. I'm never going to talk to Daddy again. But now Collier is talking to Daddy again, though with reservations. Anyways, I'm sort of struggling a lot lately with what I'm going to say to my father,

because it's been so long. I don't know. I have. One result of my conversations with Jack, an overflowing mailbox. Jack wants to show me all the programs he's completed in prison. Cager rage, victim awareness, resolving conflict. Jack must have taken every course the prison offers. Toastmasters and flag etiquette are among his credits. Jack is also a peer social worker recruited by the administration and a religious advisor.

Jack says all this has made him a different person. You have to hit the rock bottom and then when you hit the bottom then you can start to move forward. Rock bottom was 1997. Sherry had left him unaware that Jack had lied to her too. He'd exhausted his legal appeals. He felt like life was over. Thinking about suicide, thinking about harming yourself, thinking about what a terrible person you are, thinking about there's no future anywhere in anything you do. Then one day, Jack is sitting in the prison's dayroom among inmates watching TV, playing cards. He's leafing through the Old Testament when he feels something.

It was not the skies opening up and the flutter of angels wings and starburst or whatever. I just had a very warm sense and a calming presence all over me. And that's when my actual life turned around. Did God forgive you? Well, yes, God does forgive. But will anyone else?

In 2010, after two decades in prison, Jack was finally eligible for parole. He was denied. The board told him to try again in 10 years. So in 2020, he did. He was denied again. What am I doing wrong that they don't want me out of prison? And they keep telling me keep doing what you're doing. Should I take any special program? No. Should I do something special? No. Just keep doing what you're doing. And so Jack became convinced that Collier was blocking his parole.

And as Jack sees it, Collier speaks for his mother, which gives him a powerful voice. I mean, he just has to say, I love you, daddy. I think you were a bad boy, and you should stay in prison. Well, they're going to take that as keeping me here for life. That's how they do. In the past, Jack had tried to enlist Collier's support. I had asked him, by way of emails, he would write a letter of support supporting my parole.

And of course, I never got an answer back. It's not funny. I don't know why I can't think of the right word. But you know, because of this whole thing, he's now become my arch enemy so to speak. Of course if anyone has good reason to oppose Jack's parole it's Collier. The question now is will he ever believe that his father's crime is forgivable? I think my father was controlling. I think he's a psychopath. And I think he wanted to have control of my mother. And he wanted her to be right underneath his feet.

I'll give her some sick twisted shit. Okay. Collier doesn't buy the accident version. But guess what? None of this means Collier opposes Jack going free. How are you feeling about his parole? opposes Jack going free. How are you feeling about his parole?

I don't know how I feel about his parole. I visited Collier one day at his apartment in Santa Monica, California. At 47, he's nearly the same age as his father was when, well, when everything happened. These days he's more so cow than Midwest. He's got bleach blonde highlights, a gym addiction, ambitions in the entertainment industry. He lives in a nice one-bedroom apartment that's part workspace.

It's lined with tripods and cameras. There's a podcast studio upstairs. Yes, Collier has a podcast. It's autobiographical. Hey movers, welcome back to another episode of Moving Past Murder. I'm your host, Collier Landry and what's going on? Never gets old. It really doesn't. I love doing it. So Collier is still captivated by his family history.

He doesn't always seem to want to put it behind him. Instead, he goes deeper, keeps on burying secrets. He's learned a lot about his father's. One day talking to his aunt, his mother's sister, Collier learns about Noreen's secrets. He's learned a lot about his father's. One day talking to his aunt, his mother's sister, Collier learns about Noreen's secrets. For instance, there are the stories his mom told about her wealthy childhood as a member of Philadelphia's Schmidt Brewery family. I remember asking these questions about my mother to her and learning about that the brewery didn't exist. We didn't come from this wealthy family, which I mean I guess probably deep down inside I realized.

Noreen's roots were modest middle-class just like Jack's. One reason they connected I guess. Another was that they were both in on a con, both trying to appear more than they were. I imagine them at a dinner table of guests, one listening to the other spin fictions about their pasts. In a lot of ways, I almost deified my mother. But when I found out about that, I think it almost humanized her, in a way, with me. It kind of knocked her down off Olympus a little bit. And she came down to the land of the mortals,

and I realized that she was a human being with real flaws. Collier made peace with his mother's lies. Jacks are different. They hurt people. And for Collier, that's fraud. His father's parole is fast approaching, and he still isn't sure what to do. But other people are. I went 30 years with Collier trying to convince him

that his dad was a liar. And he'd say, well, maybe he'll get out and he can live with me. Dave Messmore is 81 now, the same age as Jack. He retired decades ago. Unlike Jack and Collier, he doesn't seem to have changed much. The same stoic, mustachioed, mild-mannered cop who showed up on the Boyle's doorstep

and actually listened to the hyperarticulate 11-year-old worried about his mom. Dave's still devoted to Collier. What does he think about Jack living with Collier? I said, oh, that's a good idea. I said, it's just a matter of time until he kills you. You're the one that testified against him. If you think he doesn't forget that,

you're very, very mistaken. As far as Dave is concerned, Jack should die in prison, and he'll tell the parole board that again this year. Nothing Jack can do about this roadblock. But Collier, despite the influence of Dave, has a more complex view. On one side, you have this man who's a monster who did all these very destructive things.

On the other hand, he's my father, and I do love him, and I want to make sure he's OK. Since we helped set up his email, Collier's been sending Jack photos of himself, his girlfriend, his dog. But he's nervous about speaking on the phone, and they've arranged a call. So I don't know, I don't know what his, what he's going to say or do or anything like that. So it's just, it's all a lot.

It's a lot. Then one day after years of silence, Collier's phone rings. Thank you for using GTL. Dad, you there? Hello? Can you hear me? Can hear you, can't you hear me?

I can hear you. I just couldn't hear you. Now I can hear you. Yeah. The prison's phone system is spotty, which seems like a metaphor. Will this father and son be able to hear each other to connect? As it happens, the Super Bowl is on as Jack calls. The pair has always talked sports. And Philadelphia, Jack's hometown, is competing.

So, the game is about ready to have its first snap. The Eagles, Kansas City won the toss and deferred to the Eagles. I hope they win. They deserve it. They worked hard this last couple years to get there. So we'll see what happens. With the ice broken, they chat about family illnesses. Yeah, they're a family again, apparently. And then Collier turns to the subject that's on both their minds.

What is your plan with August? August is when Jack expects to go to the parole board. I'm all prepared. I'm prepared that there's not a problem or anything there. What are you talking about? A place to go after I leave here, you mean? Yeah. Yeah, right. And I will go to the Tynway Embark house in Franklin County for 90 days.

Jack has a halfway house lined up, but that's only for a short time. So then where would you go? That's a good question. I think I should be okay in terms of getting some kind of a job without any problems. You know, I'm a hard worker. I go where I gotta go, so I'm good.

You know. Jack is optimistic about making parole. He's optimistic about a lot of things. Apparently, Jack believes that at 82, he will jump back into the workforce, fend for himself. He must know that the parole board wants assurance that a parolee won't be a burden on society. What Jack really needs is a family member to take him in. Weirdly, it's the same situation Collier once faced. And so Jack asks about a subject that's constantly on his mind.

You're not speaking about putting me in your garage or something, are you? I don't have a garage to put you in anyways. And then the phone cuts Jack off. Collier can't hear his dad. His words become a kind of absurdist monologue, which I find heartbreaking. Hello?

Dad, can you hear me? I think I lost you. I'll wait for it to circle back around. You there? You there, Pop? Hello? Dad, can you hear me? Later, I asked Jack about the call. His first call with Collier in years. Jack felt great about it, relieved. He felt a real connection. I asked him, do you have a room for me or a place in the garage? And then he said, no, I don't have a garage in my house.

So that was like a joke about, um, if daddy moves in with Collier, daddy's going to move into the garage. That kind of thing. Just a joke kind of thing, that's all. Was it? Yeah, and then you backed off. Yeah, I didn't want him to think I was obligating him to find a place for me to live in his house. I mean, he may offer that down the road, I don't know.

Jack and Collier roommates, I'm not too sure about that. Neither is Collier. I don't feel vengeful towards my father and me investigating with Dave and the trial and him going to prison and all of that. I think that I was satisfied with that outcome that was the vengeance. But it doesn't mean that we can skip down

the yellow brick road holding hands and being like, ah, everything's great. Part of me feels sad for him, like feels sad because he's my dad. Like he's going to be released from prison and not have the, you know, everything has changed so much. It almost feels unfair to release somebody like that. I can't take care of him.

I don't even know. I don't even know what to say. It's a lot. It's a lot. It's a lot. Man. I'm going to figure it out. This is all the stuff I think about on a continual basis. All the time.

I mean, look, I, um... about on a continual basis all the time. I mean, look, Collier's thoughts drift between sadness, love, practicality, and even vengeance. He wavers. I understand. You understand. Jack has ruined people's lives. He undid Collier's.

Like, is my support even necessary at this point? He's been in there for 35 years. I mean, let the guy out. Collier says, the guy. He doesn't say daddy. he doesn't say pop. Maybe it's not personal at this point. The boy who put his father in prison is gone. Today, his life is his own.

Maybe Collier is in his way, free of his past, free to use it, no longer subject to it. And so maybe Collier can extend that chance to his father to allow him the ultimate grace, to be untethered from his past. 35 years is a long time. So yeah, let the guy have his shot at freedom too. Forgiveness is a blessing, of course, for the one who receives,

but maybe more so for the person who offers. Unlock all episodes of Finding Mom's Killer ad-free right now by subscribing to the Binge Podcast channel. Not only will you immediately unlock all episodes of this show, but you'll get Binge access to an entire network of other great true crime and investigative podcasts, all ad-free. Plus, on the first of every month, subscribers get a Binge drop of a brand new series. That's all episodes all at once. Search for The Binge on Apple

podcasts and hit subscribe at the top of the page. Not on Apple? Head to GetTheBinge.com to get access wherever you listen. Finding Mom's Killer is a production of Orbit Media. Creator and host, Steve Fishman, that's me. Our senior producer is Drew Nellis. Our producer and production coordinator, Austin Smith. Our story editor, Emil Klein. Fact check by Ryan Alderman.

Mixing and sound design by Scott Somerville. Our lawyers are at Davis-Wright Tremaine. From Sony Music Entertainment, our executive producer is Jonathan Hirsch. Special thanks to Emily Rasek, Steve Ackerman, Katherine St. Louis, Sammy Allison, Fisher Stevens, Rhea Julian, Dan Bobkoff. At WME, we'd like to thank Evan Krasik, Marissa Hurwitz,

and Ben Davis. We want to also thank Carl Hunnell at The Richland Source for the generous use of his podcast studio. And a really warm thank you to Collier Landry for sharing his story and for his production assistance.