Sister of murdered wife welcomes guilty verdict on Cardiff man

Feb 11 2008 Western Mail

THE family of a Welsh woman murdered by her husband in Australia have spoken of their grief and devastation after the end of their 23-year quest for justice.

Val Bordley, whose sister Edwina Boyle was found dead in a metal drum after being missing for decades, welcomed this weekend’s guilty verdict in the trial of former Cardiff bus driver Frederick Boyle.

He was convicted of killing his wife, whose body was found with a bullet wound in the head, following years of claiming she had run off with another man.

After attending the harrowing daily hearings at Victoria Supreme Court in Melbourne, Welsh-born Mrs Bordley said, “When the verdict was given the tears just flowed and my emotions were all over the place.

“I was in a state of shock for quite some time.

“However it was heartbreaking to hear Sharon [Edwina’s youngest daughter] sob as well and Careesa, her elder sister, just had such a look of disbelief on her face.

“I dread to think how they are ever going to come to terms with this verdict.

“They have been such victims growing up in the belief that their mother had just walked out on them to go off with another man.

“Then to find out after 23 years that she had not run off but been murdered... they had lived a lie for all those years.

“This knowledge gave such mixed emotions for them as their father said he did not do it but had been arrested and charged.

“How could they believe their father could be guilty? No one would want to.

“They now have so much more to come to terms with as this is bound to devastate them.

“It will take all the love and support of people around them to help at this time and quite some time to come.”

Fred Boyle, 58, originally from Cardiff and who emigrated to Melbourne from South Wales in 1972, was found guilty of killing Edwina on October 6, 1983.

When his wife – originally from Peterston-super-Ely in the Vale of Glamorgan – disappeared, he told his children their 30-year-old mother had run off with another man. He had, in fact, murdered her and hid her body in a metal drum.

During the week-long trial in Melbourne, Boyle pleaded not guilty to murder, and also admitted he had made up the story about his wife leaving him for a truck driver.

His dark secret was uncovered by his son-in-law, who opened the drum and found a hessian bag and women’s clothing during a clean-up of the family home in October 2006.

Two weeks later he found that same hessian bag inside a wheelie bin in the garage of the house and discovered Mrs Boyle’s decomposed remains inside.

Mrs Bordley, who now lives in Reading, originally reported her sister missing in 1994 and had travelled to Australia from the UK four times to investigate the case.

Now that the trial is over, she admitted to having “mixed emotions”.

She added, “ I am so pleased that Edwina is now at rest and her name is completely cleared.

“I am pleased that justice is served but feel so much for her girls who have once again had their lives shattered.”

Mrs Boyle’s younger sister Rose Speakman, who still lives in Cardiff, said she had known Boyle well before the couple emigrated in 1972, and it had taken her years to believe Boyle had killed her.

Mrs Speakman, 58, said, “The last thing he said to her before they went to Australia was, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll look after you’.

“Edwina and I were very close and he promised he would look after her and nothing would happen to her.

“He idolised her and she idolised him. That was the last time I saw her.”

Mrs Speakman said she was “shaking like a leaf” when she was told the verdict.

She added, “I was getting worried because the jury was taking so long and we were all thinking ‘he can’t get away with it’.

“I just hope he spends the rest of his life in prison. She was 30 when he took her life away and the children were just eight and 10.

“He had 20-odd years of freedom. To think he had her in the back garden all that time – even now it seems unbelievable.”