MANSFIELD — John Boyle, the Mansfield physician who murdered his wife 35 years ago, will remain in prison for at least the next five years.
The 82-year-old Boyle had his latest attempt at parole unanimously denied by a five-member panel of the Ohio Parole Board after an Aug. 20 hearing.
The board made the decision public on Friday and the former osteopathic doctor will not have another parole hearing for at least 60 months. He remains in the Marion Correctional Institution.
Boyle killed his wife, Noreen, on New Year’s Eve in 1989 and then drove her body to a new home he was buying in Erie, Penn. He used a rented jackhammer to dig a hole in the concrete floor of the basement and put her body inside it.
He then covered the spot with indoor-outdoor carpeting and placed a shelving unit on top of it. Mansfield police Lt. David Messmore worked to solve the crime and the resulting trial in June of 1990 was one of the most sensational in Richland County history.
Boyle was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison for aggravated murder and also abuse of a corpse. He will have spent at least 40 years behind bars before he is again considered for release.
“The board recognizes Mr. Boyle’s conduct, education and rehabilitative efforts,” the board cited in its rationale.
“Nonetheless, the board finds that the unique elements of the offense, the community opposition communicated to the board and the lack of insight relative to the degree of victimization release would not promote the interest of justice rendering him unsuitable for release at this time,” the board wrote in its decision.
(Below is the Ohio Parole Board Decision and Minutes released on Friday by the Ohio Dept. of Rehabilitation and Correction.)
The board said “there is substantial reason to believe that as the unique factors of the offense of conviction significantly outweigh (Boyle’s) rehabilitative efforts, the release of (Boyle) would create undue risk to public safety and/or would not further the interest of justice nor be consistent with the welfare and security of society,” the board wrote.
When the parole board unanimously denied Boyle in 2020, it said, “given the seriousness of Offender Boyle’s crimes, marked by extreme brutality, callousness reflected in his treatment of the victim’s body and extended victimization, his release at this time would create an undue risk to public safety, thereby rendering him unsuitable for release.”
Authorities believe Boyle struck his wife in the head and then suffocated her with a plastic bag. He was sentenced immediately after the jury’s conviction by former Richland County Common Pleas Court Judge James Henson.
For nearly three decades, Boyle publicly denied any role in the death of his wife, who had filed for divorce in November 1989. For a long time, he even denied the body found in Erie was that of his wife.
However, during a prison interview with his son, Collier Landry, for the documentary, “A Murder in Mansfield,” Boyle said he and his wife were arguing and she “came at me” with a knife. Boyle said he pushed Noreen Boyle and she fell, striking her head on a wooden table.
He claimed to have attempted to administer CPR, but “she was lifeless, she was dead.”
“I panicked,” he said in the documentary. “I put the plastic bag over her head because I was afraid to look at her, scared to look at her.”
