Retribution after 37 years: a British woman found her brother's killer thanks to social networks

In the late 1970s, two young travelers were mercilessly murdered in Central America. After being tortured, they were drowned in the sea, but for many years the murder went unpunished. Many years later, the sister of the deceased Briton Penny Farmer found her brother's tormentor, but he still escaped justice.

In 1978, a tragic accident occurred. It was then that our heroine's brother and his girlfriend went to travel around Central America. Britons Chris Farmer and Peta Frampton constantly sent letters to their relatives, in which they told in detail about their journey. One of them described how a couple in love met an American family. It was at that moment that Chris and Peta informed their relatives that they were planning to change their plans. The couple was supposed to go to Mexico, but instead they went with new acquaintances to Honduras. Their journey together took place on an American's boat. As Chris later wrote, nothing strange happened there.

Lawyer Peta Frampton and doctor Chris Farmer in 1977 before starting their journey.

Everything would be fine, but when the young couple stopped writing to their relatives, the family began to worry. A month later, Chris Farmer's relatives contacted a port employee in Belize. It was he who said that he saw a British couple in the company of Justin B. The latter sailed with Chris and Peta on a boat to the open sea. When the American returned to shore, the port employee no longer saw the British on board.

Some time later, 2 disfigured corpses were found near Guatemala. According to the conclusion of the medical examination, people were brutally tortured before their death. After that, a load was tied to the feet of the dead and drowned. The families of the British couple were informed about the death of their loved ones only 6 months later.

Chris was 25 years old at the time of his death.

But back to our case. British police interrogated the American several times, but to no avail. Chris' father even spoke to Boston, but Silas answered him rudely, said he didn't know any Brits.

57-year-old journalist Penny Farmer.

In the year of Chris' murder, his sister Penny was only 17 years old. When the girl became an adult, she chose the profession of a journalist.

In 2015, two years after the death of her father, our heroine decided to resume the search for her brother's killer. Social networks came to her aid: Penny immediately found her sons and one of Silas Boston's wives on Facebook. Later, the journalist learned that the Sacramento police had reopened the case of the disappearance of the American's third wife.

Silas Boston in 2012.

The police interrogated the American's sons, and they told the terrible truth. They always knew that their father killed their mother. Moreover, they were on the boat when Silas drowned Chris and Peta. In the 70s, the children reported this to the police immediately after the incident. For unknown reasons, law enforcement officers did not consider this information to be true.

Chris with his killer's sons, Russell, left, and Vince. The photo from Russell Boston's personal archive was taken in Belize a week before the tragic event.

The sons of Boston told the terrible facts of the death of a British couple. Silas brutally tortured the British. He raped Peta in front of her fiance, and then killed the lovers and threw the bodies overboard. According to the brothers, the father sent more than one tourist to the next world in the same 1978. In total, Boston has the blood of more than 33 people on its hands, whose murders the psychopath boasted to his children.

The police found the criminal as well as Penny Farmer – through Facebook. It's ironic, but the killer was killed by loneliness. Interestingly, a nurse created a page in the social network for him, because 75-year-old Silas complained all the time that he had no friends at all.

Silas Boston was never convicted. After spending less than a year in prison, he died in April 2017, without waiting for a court decision. By the time of his arrest, he was already a deeply ill person, but he refused the help of prison doctors on principle.

Penny Farmer has written a book about the death of her brother — in August 2018, her novel "Dead In The Water" (Dead in the Water) was published in Britain.