"How did his phone get in there? In the Puerto Rico Police Department, ninety-eight police officers were arrested for domestic violence between 2007 and 2010; three of them had shot and killed their wives. Less than a week after Jessica emerged from her coma, DeMarco and another G.B.I. Boynton, who was . How did his phone get in there and how was there activity on his phone if he was not in the kitchen with his phone?" The agent who told Mathews, Were gonna have a problem, apologized to the reporter and told her that he was answering questions about a case file that he had not reviewed for months. Then-Griffin Police Department officer Matthew Boynton was arrested on July 28, 2017, for giving a false statement to his own department stating he was not i. I have been suffering for a while now and no one has noticed. Matthew sends another text to his girlfriend, a Spalding County dispatcher, Give me a few. Sanders was forty-three years old and the son of a former Republican state representative; he considered himself a happy beneficiary of the good-old-boys system, he told me, and did not do his work in pursuit of political reform. The men would sit down, and the women would stand behind their men. Community See All. The "Sex and the City" alum, 56, took . Last summer, the sheriff of Los Angeles County, Alex Villanueva, articulated a common justification for not considering domestic violence as a concern: in defending his decision to employ a deputy who had been accused of stalking and physically abusing his ex-girlfriend, he told a local reporter that it was a private relationship between two consenting adults that went bad. The violence was seen as unrelated to job performance, an activity that could be understood only within the context of a relationship. And, the first officer on scene, as recorded by body cam footage, was not interviewed by the GBI for months after the incident. reports, Matthew said. But I never look in it.. Especially because of my children. My kids are at home with her, so I'm trying to hurry up and get back there., I'm driving. Am I recording it? When Willey asked Matthew about it, she said, he told her he intended to burn the bag, which Jessica had packed one night when she was planning to leave him. When the roles were reversed, fathers lost custody in only twelve per cent of cases. Its just a hobby, he said. Who shot Jessica Boynton? A new podcast investigates - KTVB Jones eyes a small child sleeping on a bottom bunk bed in the back bedroom. Denise said that Amy confided that Matthew had once hit her and that their relationship was strained. A Griffin Police Officer's wife herself, the reporter called DeMarco, on Sept. 28, the investigator who was in charge of the investigation for the GBI, to question him about the case and the photo that nagged her, and that for her, called into question how anything they investigated was trustworthy. Behind the closet door: Crime Watch Daily investigates the Jessica Wheres my baby? Jessica asked, once her breathing tubes were removed. For a time, Sanders thought that the source of Gibsons power might be connected to the Dixie Mafia (a gang based in the South), or a gambling ring, or some hidden knowledge that afforded him a lifetime of leverage over Beam. That's the bottom line for me. I'll be back there in about two minutes. So I'm trying to hurry and get back home just to make sure that nothing's going to happen to them.. He never let me go anywhere without me sharing my location with him. She said that, when they talked about what happened to Jessica, he laughs about it. The judges are very swayed by their own reactions to each person, Meier said. In an interview with the police, she said that she found him intimidating. Jessica Lester's friends persuaded her to date Matthew Boynton, a boy in the eleventh grade, by saying, "If you don't like him, you can always break up . Dont make me laugh.. Police Interrogation and Confession of Matthew Boynton, Wife - YouTube 11Alive - BREAKING | Matthew Boynton, who was under - Facebook What Happened to Jessica Boynton? Grisly Truth Could Have Been Covered Jessica Boynton was married to Matthew Boynton, a local police officer and grandson of the county sheriff. Im, like, You dont have to ask me, he said. Woman shot in head says cop husband staged her 'suicide' Updated: 11:14 PM EDT July 28, 2017. To revisit this article, select My Account, thenView saved stories, To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Difference between non-contested & adultery divorce? she wrote. However, the GBIs own photographs, search warrant and evidence log all corroborate that the officers phone was on the kitchen counter after Matthew had already left the apartment. Right, she said, nearly whispering. The following year, Gibson put a female colleague in a headlock and held a Taser against her temple. GRAPHIC WARNING: Jessica Boynton, 19, was found lying in a pool of blood in a locked wardrobe in the home she shared with her husband Matthew Boynton in Griffin, Georgia back in April. It began as a visionary notionthat patients could die with dignity at home. A few months after the wedding, Denise and Amy went out for lunch. And based on the totality of circumstances, all the facts and circumstances, all the forensics, and the conclusion of the case, as well as the GBI's and the district attorney's recommendation, is no, he did not cause her injuries, Yates concluded in an interview with 11Alive for"Trigger: Who shot the officer's wife.". Georgia cop charged with making false statements - ajc The Citizens Police Data Project, in Chicago, analyzed the records of Chicago cops between 2000 and 2016 and found that officers accused of domestic abuse received fifty per cent more complaints than their colleagues for using excessive force. Sheriff Beam can carry a weapon, he said. A second psychiatrist thought she had appropriate mood and affect; appropriate judgment and insight. Her surgeon, Henderson, wrote that she was a very positive person who is embracing the opportunities that a new lease on life afforded her by her recent recovery. He went on, She has a sense of humor and has a gentle and calm personality. Furthermore, she said, there were too many errors and discrepancies for her to have sent a text like that. In April 2016, hours after an argument with his wife Jessica, Griffin, Georgia police officer Matthew Boynton radios for assistance and reports hearing two gunshots coming from inside his home. It breaks my heart! she wrote. Her complaint, which she checked on, was never filed. My dream is that, one day, the Feds show up and say, We want the notebook, he said. I was wondering why, but then it came to pass that her husband was a police officer and his granddaddy was the sheriff, so I understood.. I already know it wont.. Willey had seen a copy of Matthews sworn statement in his car, and she was disturbed that he was lying straight to everybodys face, she later told the police. Is that what you're saying?" closed its case, concluding that Jessicas wounds were self-inflicted. He's meeting his buddy at the local Waffle House. Matthew asked Beam to phone him in the morning to wake him up. For the next three and a half weeks, Jessica remains in a coma with a traumatic brain injurytubes protruding from her brain to alleviate pressure and fluid. I would have picked something different, Jessica went on. Matthew Boynton is the grandson of Sheriff Beam. There was a pool there, too.. GBI begins interviewing neighbors and Matthew interviews with the GBI later that morning. They moved in together in January, 2017, and as they were packing Willey discovered that Matthew had a large gym bag full of womens clothes, along with a retainer with Jessica printed on its case. New Columns From Your Class Correspondents - Cornellians | Cornell She made a full recovery, but doesnt remember a thing. And its inside that closet, where police found her seemingly shot in the head, laying on top of her husbands service weapon. Who shot Jessica Boynton? A new podcast investigates - KVUE (The purposes of such a sweeping request were never clear. She wore hand-me-downs and liked to take nature photographs. It's possible, but I mean it's very doubtful, because he's never hurt me before. I dont think Ive ever had that one before, he said. But Griffin Police Chief Michael Yates said, Officer Boynton was not the shooter and trusts the investigations outcome. The police were notified of said "shooting" by Jessica's then husband Matthew Boynton. Jessica found it darkly funny that it was a missing retainer, and not her brain injury, that ultimately led to Matthews arrest. Jessica and Jacob have a son together, and their living room and kitchen are arranged like a nursery school, with a poster displaying the ABCs, a whiteboard, and wooden coat hangers shaped like trucks. On a shelf by her head was the notebook documenting Matthews infidelity. Jessica told me, Id probably go to jail before Id put the boys back in a situation where Matthew could even think about doing anything to them.. I was going to report this, but, like he said, who will they believe? Another woman, who used methamphetamine, said that sometimes Gibson followed her as she drove. During the investigation, Jessicas sons were permitted to stay with her full time. Matthews service gun was under her stomach. I would have written, I cant do this anymore comma. She said she would have put a period after the line about taking care of the boys, rather than letting one sentence run into the next. They recorded interviews with eight Griffin police officers, some of whom Matthew considered good friends; one informed the agents that Matthew was telling me how she kind of acts crazy sometimes when she dont get her way. The G.B.I. Jessica Boynton was found in a closet bleeding out. Gibson had worked in the sheriffs office for twenty-eight years, and he cultivated an aura of invincibility. At the Griffin Police Department, concerns about domestic violence have apparently been so slight that in 2018 the department hired an officer whose personnel record showed that he had recently been accused by his childs mother of threatening her with a gun. While sifting through pages and pages of the report, a GBI evidence photo caught her attention. I think weve got the right to confront and cross-examine anybody thats gonna be offering testimony, Owen said. Martha was initially skeptical when Jessica got involved with another man who assumed the role of protector. For their sons first Christmas, Matthew took Jessica to her grandparents housethe first time shed seen them in monthsbut before she opened her presents he told her that they had to leave. underwear and dental retainer belonging to his now-former wife, Jessica Lester, . After Jessica was shot, Matthew, then-20, was back on duty with his gun on his hip, before key interviews were conducted and the GBI director wrote an official letter about the cases conclusion, stating that the shooting was ruled a suicide.. Im going to do it my way., Jessicas shooting was the subject of hushed conversations among Wendell Beams staff at the Spalding County sheriffs office. Mike Yates, the chief of the Griffin police, told me in an e-mail that Matthews case had nothing to do with domestic violence. In all my years in law enforcement, when someone shoots himself in the head its one and done, Jessica Whitehouse, a deputy there at the time, told me. Willey wanted to help Jessica because she was scared of Matthew, too. Gibson routinely said to female colleagues, Shut your cock garage. He told a secretary that she should wear a cowbell around her neck, so hed always know where she was. This is not the first time I have had suicide thoughts. No, I cant even get it out of the case, she said. Jessicas only diagnosis was acute stress disorder, which, the evaluator wrote, occurs when an individual is exposed to actual or threatened death. The evaluator added that her symptoms are normal and to be expected through circumstances such as hers.. Have you ever had any thoughts about hurting yourself? Coleman asked. Jessica would not touch a gun, she said. (Through his lawyer, Gibson told me that the headlock-and-Taser incident was all in good fun; most of the other allegations were untrue and are otherwise embellished.). Haha Im sorry I didnt think about that lol, he wrote. I dont know what she is capable of, Judge., Jessicas family agreed to pay a hundred dollars every Sunday so that her visits could be observed by another armed law-enforcement agent. Matthew and Callaway broke up a few weeks later. The shooting occurred on the evening of April 14, 2016. In a composition notebook, Jessica documented the times she assumed Matthew had been with his girlfriend, and she jotted down notes for the lawyer. Jessica Boynton says she's free as a bird'. Something had happened to the mama lions cubs, Kathy said. Jones checks on a locked closet door between the master bedroom and hallway, across from the bathroom. In May, 2017, they broke up. And Jessicas trauma surgeon was not interviewed by the GBI until July 20. Please tell them I love them everyday. Making his way outside, seconds later, he calls for assistance over his radio. She believes that she and Matthew must have fought in the closet, and she never made it outside. After they were married, her grandmother said, it was almost like her personality got squished out of her., Photograph by Danna Singer for The New Yorker. . Jessicas grandmother, Martha, said that initially she had trusted Wendell Beam, whom her husband had known for years, and the G.B.I.s investigative process. "I left the location, I'm back en route, I'm on Carver Road right now. Twice, Matthew called the police on Jessica, for yelling or cursing or poking his chest. I figured out what happened. He didnt find any, and dismissed the protective order. I guess she felt like Matthew could have picked anybody, and for some reason he picked me, her sister, Dusty, said. Recent signers. Good for you, Mr. Owen, Hankinson replied. I mean you can't prove that," DeMarco. . What if Your Abusive Husband Is a Cop? | The New Yorker Matthew claims he received a text from Jessica stating she was going to commit suicide. Jessica was the kind of intuitive mother who predicts a babys dangera fall, a spilled drink, a choking hazarda few seconds before it happens. Especially because of my children. She started crying. If the phone was found by the GBI in the kitchenif the phone is on police body camera footage sitting on the counter by the microwave, and he was outside never returning insidehow is it possible for Matthew to text his girlfriend, while he's calling in shots fired while outside of the apartment? I believe I just heard a shot fired coming from my residence. Did he cause his estranged spouses injury? In the police body-cam videos, the dog is still wearing his leash. There are a lot of questions that I would love to have answered. In reference to my wife. He explained that she was having suicidal thoughts and she told me to take care of the boys. It's a question 11Alive investigators asked a few months ago, when Griffin Police Officer Matthew Boynton's wife, Jessica, allegedly shot herself in the head with his service weapon, inside . Somebody that shoots themself in the head means business. At 12:54 AM, Matthew's phone received a text from Jessica's phone that read like a suicide note. I hold up the white flag., Jessicas older son often cried and clung to her when Matthew picked him up on Fridays, and in the summer of 2018 he complained that his father had hurt him. A key piece of evidence was photographed inside the kitchen after officers arrived on the scene. Although Gibson had been indicted on fourteen charges, he was allowed to plead guilty, in June, 2017, to only two, for violating his oath of office, and he was granted first-offender status. Family grieves death of their 22-year-old son after Gwinnett County double shooting, Online petition to deannex the City of South Fulton has hundreds of signatures, Veterinarian shares summertime safety tips for pets, Who shot the officer's wife? Shortly after Jessica was hospitalized, her aunt Kathy took a photograph of a C-shaped bruise on the back of Jessicas head, and she shared it with the G.B.I. They have won. No one responded to Marthas letters. Credit: GBI/Griffin Police Dept. At the time of the shooting Jessica was looking to make a new start for herself and two young sons. Griffin Police officer Matthew Boynton was cleared in his wife's shooting, but his interrogation still cost him his job. Two months later, Jessica was hired as an assistant teacher at a child-care center in Griffin. She wasnt sure how to unlock the safety lever on the holster. provided images. I would fight you tooth and nail defending it. But, after receiving thousands of documents from Sanders, Martha stopped driving through Griffin, because she was afraid. ! his girlfriend texts him. (Beam refused to talk to me. He claimed to have personally insured Beams election. But Matthew said that hed raise the child as his own. In December, 2014, Jessica had a brief affair and got pregnant again. They decided to get married. Jessica had pale-green eyes, a melodic voice, and blond hair that hung down her back like a slab of wood. A half hour or so later, Browning was lying in bed when she heard a gunshot. He drove to a nearby Waffle House to have a late dinner with a fellow Griffin police officer. On April 15, 2016, in the town of Griffin, Georgia. Had she attempted suicide, it would have been standard for the hospital to provide psychiatric care. There is no public record of the proceeding, but the grand jury chose not to indict Matthew either for making false statements or for violating his oath. At the time of the shooting Jessica was looking to make a new start for herself and two young sons. Notifications can be turned off anytime in the browser settings. If you dont want to be with me anymore, Jessica texted him, Im not going to stay here and play house. Matthew, who had begun spending his free days with Callaway, told her, Its not gonna work for us. And if shes capable of attempting to take her own life, theres a chance that she might do something to these children.. Jessica Lesters friends persuaded her to date Matthew Boynton, a boy in the eleventh grade, by saying, If you dont like him, you can always break up. He was the grandson of the sheriff of Spalding County, where they lived, an hour south of Atlanta, and his friends were football players and cheerleaders. Still peering down at his phone, Matthew also sends a text to his girlfriend, a Spalding County dispatcher. Jacob is gentle and jovial, articulating emotions that Jessica herself struggles to name. Earlier that night Jessica's husband Matthew headed to Waffle House for a late-night bite with a fellow officer, leaving his service weapon . ), After several months, a male officer told a captain in Internal Affairs that he didnt understand why Whitehouses complaint had been ignored. At the time, I was well known in my field by people who had some cloutshe worked in hospital risk management and had friends in law enforcementand what we should have done is pulled some strings, she said. If you do wear makeup and fix your hair, youre a whore., Beam asked Whitehouse to meet him at a park on the outskirts of Griffin. He asked me to go get it out before, and I told him, Youre going to have to.. GPD Chief fabricated, released record identifying Will Sanders as After Gibson left, citizens came forward to say that they, too, were terrified of him. It was like he was spitting in my face, she said. I know that we got into an argument, but that's about all," she said, not remembering much of what had happened on April 15. Eleanor Attwood, a lawyer representing six women who filed civil suits against Gibson, warned me to do all my reporting when the sun was out. Henderson, the surgeon, had written Lowry a letter stating that whatever investigation there was done into this event in no way reflected our observations in the emergency room.. agents canvassed the apartment complex and discovered that Megan Browning and her fianc and a couple that lived next door to Jessica were the only neighbors who had heard gunshots. In the spring of 2013, when she was sixteen and had dated Matthew for a year, she took her grandparents into the kitchen, closed the door, and told them, apologizing, that she was pregnant. After you got on the radio and you were outside communicating on the radio, you never went back in to actually check, check on the kids, the agent questioned Matthew about once he removed himself from the apartment. That is where her memory ends. A G.B.I. On a hospital-admission form, Jessica was described as a 19 year old reported to have shot herself in the right skull. But Vernon Henderson, a trauma surgeon for more than two decades, who treated Jessica, wrote that her injury did not fit with that description; neither of her hands had any evidence of any gunpowder stippling. And her wound was on the top of her skull, which suggested that she would have had to hold the gun above her head, pointing downwarda very unusual direction in which to point the gun at ones self with the intention of committing suicide, Henderson wrote. In December, 2016, Jessica filed a report with the Griffin Police Department, saying that Matthew hadnt returned her belongings. Jessicas grandparents live on two hundred acres of farmland in Pike County, a twenty-five-minute drive from her apartment. Two shots had been fired. It was like she needed permission for everything, she said. Jessica Boynton was married to Matthew Boynton, a local police officer and grandson of the county sheriff. According to a police report, Jessica was very reserved and appeared to be upset. She said that the officers recommended that she not yell at Matthew. Gradually, though, her concerns dissipated. About See All. Unnerved, she went out to the porch, where she heard another. ", Following that phone call, Mathews, perceiving that she was threatened, called the GBIs director of professional standards to file a formal complaint and to gain clarity about what he meant by, Were gonna have a problem.. Thats the game here, he said. Im only concerned with the G.B.I. Matthew signed a sworn statement promising that he no longer had anything of Jessicas. I was scared to death, because I couldnt find him, that she would shoot me, shoot him, and then kill herself.. She just said that she's been experiencing suicidal thoughts right now, she told me to take care of the boys. A nurse told her shed been in an accident. The nurse didnt answer. agent who lived near Spalding County and had worked with Beam on several cases over the years. Who shot Jessica Boynton? A new podcast investigates | wwltv.com By then, Beams reputation had been muddied by the Gibson investigation, and he had been voted out of office. According to the report, GBI investigators never conducted a re-canvass of the apartment complex, and did not talk with the immediate next door neighbor for four and a half months, despite reports from other residents that they heard a single gunshot hours earlier than the officers call claiming shots had been fired. Philip Stinson, the professor at Bowling Green, maintains a database of officers who have been arrested around the country, and he said that, in response to the Lautenberg Amendment, a federal provision that was passed in 1996 and prohibits people convicted of domestic violence from owning firearms, cops accused of domestic violence are often charged with lesser offenses, as a kind of professional courtesy, so they can continue working. Jessica, who still has no memory of what happened that day, states that Matthew is the only one who knows the truth. Wouldnt listen to anybody.. After the visit, Matthew, who had been placed on administrative leave, was interviewed again by DeMarco. is going to do it. He believes that the only two people who know the answers are Jessica and Matthew, and Jessica will never be a reliable source, given her traumatic brain injury, and Matthews account cant be trusted. By Rachel Aviv. I guarantee you he wont a hundred per cent say what happened, he said. According to the order, which Matthew had petitioned the court to issue, probable cause exists that Family Violence has occurred in the past and may occur in the future. Jessica was ordered to have a psychological evaluation. Jessica and Matthew moved into a house across the street from the sheriff, Wendell Beam, and his wife. Browning, who sometimes socialized with Jessica and Matthew, cried throughout her interview. The shooting occurred on the evening of April 14, 2016. Ha! Twice, she later testified, Gibson choked her. A message to Matthews phone is received and marked as read, from his girlfriend--from inside the evidence bag. I would have written suicidal thoughts, not suicide thoughts., She told me that she couldnt imagine using a clich such as I have not been able to recognize the person I see in the mirror., I dont generally even look in the mirror, she said. Matthew called a Griffin police lieutenant for advice. Reliving his steps inside the apartment after he heard gunshots fired, he said, My whole upper body went numb. He did not explain why hed earlier sent word that Jessica was dead. He hears a baby crying as he carefully steps into the bedroom where a dark brown crib is situated. The Officer's Wife | True Crime Network nd police notify Jessicas family that she has died. The officers found a police-issued .40-caliber Glock belonging to Matthew under Jessica's body. Justice for Jessica - Home | Facebook Is she gonna wear a mask or. Justice for Jessica - Facebook We put it on the counter to take a picture of it," he confirmed to Mathews. Jessica was found with a gunshot wound in the closet of the couple's bedroom. Law enforcement was in his genes. At the store, they got into a fight, and when they left Jessica said she didnt want to get into the car. So there was really no need for me to leave. So Im trying to hurry up and get back home, just to make sure that nothing is going to happen to them., Six minutes later, Matthew reported on his police radio that he had heard two gunshots as he was walking up the stairs to his apartment. Then-Griffin Police officer Matthew Boynton was arrested on July 28, . BREAKING | Matthew Boynton, who was under investigation and cleared by the GBI last year for his wife's shooting, was charged with one felony count of false statements and writings, and one felony count of violation of oath of office. Dusty asked him where Jessica was, and he said that she had been taken by helicopter to Atlanta Medical Center. Hi, we're Brendan Keefe and Jessica Noll, the host and - Reddit I dont doubt the findings of the G.B.I., he told me. did not record any interviews with Jessicas family or friends. The agency deferred to its chief medical examiner, who spent ninety minutes on the case and never examined Jessica. At the time of the shooting Jessica was looking to make a new start for herself and two young sons.