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Son Shares His Unique “Search For Justice” in His Mother’s Murder: "I Had No Control"
Collier Landry started a podcast and show to help other families coming to grips with murder.
Collier Landry was just 11 years old when his mother disappeared from their Mansfield, Ohio home during the holidays in 1989. With Landry’s help, police discovered his father, Dr. John Boyle, had killed his mother, Noreen, and buried her body under his new home in Erie, Pennsylvania, all while having an affair and fathering a child with Sherri Lee Campbell. The story was told on Oxygen’s Dec. 15, 2024 episode of A Plan To Kill.
Although more than three decades have passed since Noreen Boyle’s brutal slaying, it still haunts her son every day of his life. He has the unique position of being both the son of a victim, and the son of a murderer.
“We’re all part of a club, or a squad, that no one really wants to be a part of,” Collier Landry said in a new interview with Oxygen. “And the public scrutiny that [murderers’ families] face on a daily basis, because of the actions of someone who they have no control over, right? I had no control over my father.”
Now, Landry is taking his pain and turning it into a new life mission: to bring justice to the families of murder victims and help those grappling with the knowledge that their loved one is a killer.
When did Collier Landry first suspect his father, Dr. John Boyle, was involved in his mother's death?
Collier Landry has made no secret of his close relationship with his mother, Noreen.
“My mother was my rock,” he said to Oxygen. “My mother was the center of my universe, and I think I was the center of hers, and as sort of a constant companion in a lot of ways … that bond obviously lasts a lifetime even when they’re gone.”
Landry knew and suspected that his father was having affairs, and he was immediately suspicious that his father had something to do with his mother’s disappearance just before New Year’s Eve 1989.
“My father, when I came down, I confront him on the couch, and I say, ‘Where is my mother?’ And he says, ‘Well, mommy took a little vacation, Collier.’ I knew that he had done something to her,” he said.
He told Oxygen he saw bruises, cuts, scrapes and scratches on his father.
“Then the overall change in his mood had gone from being a very violent and aggressive guy to being very sort of passive, and it was a very peculiar change in his behavior,” he added.
Landry said his father toyed with him about his mother’s disappearance.
“He would say things like, ‘Mommy, she left, you know? Wherever Mommy is right now, she’s left us in such a state. I wonder what she’s having for dinner tonight. I can’t believe she left us this way,’” Landry said. “It was always like blaming her, which is kinda sick and twisted when you think about it, because he knows that he murdered her and he’s pretending that she is somehow missing and gallivanting around the globe.”
How did Collier Landry feel about testifying against his father at his mother Noreen Boyle's murder trial?
Collier Landry not only helped police prove his father murdered his mother, he also testified against his father at his mother’s murder trial.
“I don’t think the gravity of that hits you until you’re much older,” Landry told Oxygen. “I think that at the time, all I cared about was getting justice for my mother. That was it … and I wanted to see the person who had hurt her go to prison … I was very adamant about getting justice for her.”
A jury found Dr. John Boyle guilty of his wife Noreen’s murder, and he was sentenced to life in prison. His next parole hearing is Oct. 1, 2025. Landry told Oxygen growing up with a father as a murderer was very difficult for him.
“I understand what it’s like to be the son of the perpetrator, and therefore, under such scrutiny,” he told Oxygen. “And you kind of are a bit of a pariah, because it’s very easy for people to cast you aside and say, ‘Well, look, the apple probably doesn’t fall far from the tree.’ And live under that sort of microscope, which is very, very challenging to do.”
What is Collier Landry doing today to help the families of other murder victims and murderers?
Collier Landry has turned his life’s pain into a passion project to help others. He started a podcast called Moving Past Murder on YouTube, where he did things such as read his father’s letters from prison out loud. He then launched The Collier Landry Show.
“I also talk about other true crime cases, and mental health aspects of those cases,” he told Oxygen. “People’s search for justice, how people like myself, who have gone through these circumstances, can come out OK on the other side.”
Landry explained he tries to bring his unique perspective into his work.
“You have former law enforcement that weigh in on this type of stuff,” he told Oxygen. “You don’t really get the perspective of someone like myself, who has not only been the son of a victim, but also [the son of ] a perpetrator, but also had his own life in jeopardy.”
Landry was instrumental in the creation of the 2017 crime documentary A Murder in Mansfield.
“That perspective, I think, that I offer the audience is very unique, and when I examine these cases, or when I talk about what the victims or families are going through, I try to have a lot of empathy because I’ve been there … I understand what it’s like to feel like there’s no hope and you might not get any justice," Landry said.
He hopes that he can help others by sharing his own story.
“I always want to give people hope that you don’t have to suffer with injustice, and you also can lead a good, healthy, positive life to the best of your ability,” he said.
Watch A Plan To Kill now on Oxygen.
