Body-in-drum decomposed remains uncovered

A jury at the Victoria Supreme Court in Melbourne in February 09, 2008 found that Frederick Boyle shot his wife Edwina Ruth Boyle, then aged 30, in the head before concealing her remains. During the 10-day trial, Boyle - who pleaded not guilty to his wife's murder - had said he panicked when he found her dead in bed.


Frederick Boyle arriving at the Victoria Supreme Court


Mrs Boyle's sister Valerie Bordley, who lives in Watford, north of London, and had reported her sister missing in 1994, said she thought the case would never be solved.
In evidence, Boyle's eldest daughter Careesa, told the trial that she had heard her parents fighting about her father's affair with Ms Virginia Gissara in the weeks before her mother disappeared. Ms Boyle said that “within days” of her mother disappearing, Ms Gissara moved in with the family. Ms Gissara said she had moved in because she had had a row with her husband and had nowhere else to go.She denied having had plans to co-habit with Mr Boyle prior to his wife's disappearance.She and Mr Boyle separated in 1988. Ms Gissara believed Mrs Boyle, 30 at the time of her disappearance, was alive despite helping the defendant dispose of all her clothes.
She told prosecutor Gavin Silbert: "I always thought Edwina would return. I knew there would be words, but I just always thought she would come back."
Among those in court today were Boyle's daughters Careesa, 35, and Sharon, 32, as well as Mrs Boyle's sister Valerie Bordley, who had travelled from Wales for the trial which started on January 31. Justice Jack Forrest remanded Boyle in custody for a sentencing date in about two weeks.
Edwina Ruth Boyle's sister Valerie Bordley




CARPET layer Frederick William Boyle,58, a British migrant, originally emigrated from Peterston-super-Ely in the Vale of Glamorgan in the early 1970s,the former Cardiff bus driver, kept his murdered wife Edwina for 23 years in a 44-gallon drum, which was taken from place to place when his family moved.

The decomposed remains was discovered during a household clean-up by the couple's son-in-law, Michael Hegarty in 2006 in a 44-gallon drum kept in the backyard of the family home at Carrum Downs, in Melbourne's outer southeast.

Boyle had claimed his wife whom he married in February 1972 had run off with a truck driver when she disappeared on 6 October, 1983.(Careesa, then 11,and Sharon,8)

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