The Binge Crimes: Finding Mom's Killer
Finding Mom's Killer | 2. The Stories We Tell
Sun, 02 Mar 2025
As police begin their investigation into Noreen’s disappearance, the Boyle family’s web of lies begins to unravel. 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. 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
Chapter 1: How do family stories shape our perception of the world?
The Binge. Feed your true crime obsession. We all remember the stories our parents told us. Not just the bedtime stories, but the ones our parents told about themselves. The stories that summed up who they were, their place in the world, and the lives we, their children, might someday lead. As a kid, Collier Landry Boyle heard lots of these stories. There was one his dad especially liked to tell.
It was a stunner. The first time Collier heard it, he and his parents were in the dining room of an exclusive country club, hosting a party for his father's medical colleagues. Collier was eight years old, crayons in hand.
So I'm just kind of doodling away, and we have all these doctors and their wives around us. And my father's telling this story of how he was flying a solo mission for the Navy. during the Vietnam War over the South China Sea and he gets shot down in his fighter plane.
Chapter 2: What tales did Collier's father tell about his past?
The smoke in the engines is billowing and he's trying to pull the ejection lever and his F-14 Tomahawk crash lands into the South China Sea. And he cannot get out. And the water is coming in through the cracked cockpit, right? As he's slowly sinking. And he gets out his trusty bowie knife and uses the blade to cut his way out of the cockpit. And he sees an island off into the distance.
And he swam to this island. And he survives in the jungle, eating bark and slugs and waits for the naval team to rescue him. And my mother is listening and nodding because she's enthralled with the story.
Collier's mother has no doubt heard this story many times before, but Collier hasn't, and he's captivated.
Everybody wants to believe their father is a, you know, the savior of the world, right?
From Sony Music Entertainment and Orbit Media, this is Finding Mom's Killer. I'm Steve Fishman. Episode 2, The Stories We Tell.
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Chapter 3: Why is Collier worried about his mother's disappearance?
It's January 1990 in Mansfield, Ohio. Collier Landry Boyle is 11. It's been a few years since he's heard his father tell that story of wartime derring-do. A lot has changed. Collier's mother, Noreen, has just disappeared. His father, Jack, is in tears, telling friends that Noreen has walked out on the family, though he doesn't seem particularly interested in helping the police find her.
Collier, on the other hand, is in a panic. He's established a partnership of sorts with veteran police lieutenant Dave Messmore.
So every day that I go to school, I'm trying to like check in with Dave, whether I ask him to come to the school to talk to me or I'm just checking in with him on the telephone.
He would call me frequently, and I'd talk to him whenever I could. He was just worried, did you find my mother? And I said, no, Collier, not right now. I'm working on it, though. Just to reassure him.
For Lieutenant Messmore, this wasn't just lip service. He was becoming fond of this odd, overly polite kid. Without his mother, Collier seemed all alone in the world, like he needed a parent. Did you feel like Collier was interested in making a relationship with you?
Well, it kind of developed that way. I don't know that he was interested in it, but he had nobody else to confide in.
Right then, Collier needed someone to confide in. The story he'd been telling himself about his childhood had just been rewritten. And in Collier's memory, that childhood was idyllic. When he was growing up, his father was a Navy physician and the Boyles lived on a base in Virginia. A Navy base isn't fancy, but for Collier, it was a place of wonder.
Planes landed so close it felt like they were right next door. He spent hours digging up old military relics in the backyard. And his parents, Jack and Noreen, doted on him. They made a home in which a little boy could forget himself completely, even when his imagination got the better of him. Like one day when he was watching a favorite cartoon.
There was a matador and a bull. And I remember, I'm gonna be the bull. And my mom was like, dinner's ready. And I run with my eyes closed and I run smack dab into our Land's End table and I split my head open. They take me to the naval base where my father worked at the hospital right there, the clinic.
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Chapter 4: What was Collier's childhood like with his parents?
My mom's freaking out and he's stitching me up, you know, and I remember I was like crying and my mom was feeding me like salami and provolone cheese because we didn't get to have our dinner, but he stitched me up. And it was like one of those moments of like my dad being there to save me.
If Collier thought of his father as a hero, then his mother was his soulmate.
I mean, my mother was my whole world. The sun rose and set with her, you know. I just loved being around my mom. I would help her like shop. She loved to go to museums, the theater. She loved cultural things.
Noreen took Collier everywhere. From an early age, he'd join her for lunch dates with friends. He was her escort for plays and art openings, her style consultant when she picked out designer clothes or home decor or fancy jewelry.
I remember one time my mother was like shopping at Tiffany's. There was a Rolex counter. There was this sales girl working at the counter and I got her to let me try on a Rolex. My mother was mortified because first of all, we're not buying you a Rolex.
Second of all, she was mortified that I had talked the sales girl into letting me put this, you know, whatever, $5,000 watch on my wrist and walk around the store with it. I just thought it was fun to play grownup. And she just got a kick out of that because she just was like, that's my little boy. Like he just charms people into doing things for him, I guess.
My mother used to say he's 11 going on 40. That's what she would tell people.
Clearly, Collier wasn't a scrappy little kid coming home with mud on his jeans. Noreen didn't even like him wearing jeans. She dressed him in slacks and polo shirts. She cooked him gourmet meals. He loved her cooking. And she made sure his manners were perfect.
If we were going somewhere, I was expected to behave a certain way, where I was maybe upholding my aristocratic family, if you will.
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Chapter 5: How did Collier's family adapt to life in Mansfield, Ohio?
After all, as Noreen reminded Collier, they came from good stock, money, and glamour.
My mother's last name was Schmidt. We were related to Schmidt's Brewery in Philadelphia. And she was related to Grace Kelly, Princess Grace of Monaco.
It wasn't just Noreen's side of the family. Collier's father, Jack, said that his ancestors were prominent bluebloods from Philadelphia's famous main line, which made Jack and Noreen a good match, both descendants of American Brahmins. They certainly looked the part. Jack was tall and handsome, with a mop of dark curly hair. Noreen was petite, blonde, beautiful.
And Collier, he was their perfect, precocious son, eager to entertain his parents.
My mother had a station wagon where, you know, you have the front seats, then you have the middle seats, then you have the back seat that faces out the back, right? On road trips, my parents would be playing, you know, the Philharmonic. And I'd be over the orchestra pit, which was the back of the station wagon, conducting as if I was conducting the orchestra.
Maybe I was using a soda straw as my baton, maybe. They thought it was hilarious.
For people from a distinguished lineage, a no-frills Navy base was hardly the place to reassert their ancestral glory. Clearly, the Boyles were meant for finer things. So when they got the chance to leave, they jumped at it. In 1983, they moved to Mansfield, Ohio. Now Mansfield, population 50,000, might not have been a hive of culture, but it was a step up.
Jack and Noreen had decided it was time for private practice and a larger payday. The Boyles bought a modest house in a posh neighborhood. They put Collier in private school. And eventually they expanded their family, adopting a little girl from China. Jack's practice took off. Patients liked him and sent their friends. It was a family business. Jack doctored, Noreen kept the books.
Soon the Boyles amassed symbols of success. Three cars, including a BMW and a Range Rover. Noreen started collecting Louis Vuitton purses. Eventually, she'd own seven. Jack had a reputation as a devoted and hardworking physician. He even did house calls like an old-fashioned country doctor. And tagging along was one of Collier's favorite father-son activities.
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Chapter 6: Who is Sherry and how did Collier meet her?
I looked back. And my father is walking with Sherry, talking to her, and he has his arm around her. They're in this very serious conversation. And later on, we say our goodbyes and we get in the truck and I ask my father, who is that woman? He tells me she's daddy's patient and she's terminally ill. And daddy was consoling her. I was like, oh, that's terrible. That's absolutely terrible.
Collier felt bad for Sherry, but he'd done plenty of house calls with his father. He'd seen his father attend to plenty of sick patients. Actually, it sometimes felt like his dad was always out seeing sick patients.
A lot of times he would come in late at night or he would be gone by the morning.
To Collier, it seemed like his dad was never home. In fact, Collier and his mother rarely saw him.
I didn't really know what their marriage was other than it looked normal. But what is normal?
Around Mansfield, there were a few different stories told about Dr. Jack Boyle, the well-heeled husband, the selfless country doctor, the courageous Navy pilot. And also, as some knew, a guy who loved a home-cooked meal, though most of the time he had to fend for himself around the Boyle residence.
He's always saying, you know, he eats on the run and hardly eats. If he goes home, he doesn't cook.
This is Mark Davis. Mark was born and raised on the outskirts of Mansfield, in a big family where there was always room at the dinner table. Soon after he met Jack, he learned about the doctor's chronic malnutrition and offered to help.
I said, well, come on out. My mom's a good cook. You can come on out sometime. So he just kind of absorbed himself into the atmosphere.
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