Meanwhile, McCracken County Coroner Dan Sims has now concluded that the cause of death in the Paducah homicide case was multiple blunt force trauma to both victims, Billie Potter, 67, and Gerald Boyes, 73. The murder weapon that is believed to have been used has been recovered from the scene, according to McCracken County Sheriff Jon Hayden.
Hayden says the Paducah connection to this story began at around 6:50 pm on Tuesday when a neighbor called 911 from the home after finding the woman who lived there, Potter, unresponsive. Officials arrived and also found the elder Boyes at the home. Both Potter and the elder Gerald Boyes were dead by the time authorities arrived.
West Kentucky Star has learned that the person of interest in the Paducah homicide case, Gerald Robert Boyes, 53 of Jacksonville, Florida, was a man on the run from authorities in Florida.
Lake County Illinois Major Crime Task Force Assistant Commander Tom Nugent confirmed to West Kentucky Star that four sheriff's deputies from two different counties northwest of Chicago (Lake and McHenry counties near the Wisconsin border) cornered Boyes at a pizza place in Antioch shortly after midnight, Saturday, and was shot multiple times by police. He was pronounced dead at the scene.An autopsy was scheduled on the younger Boyes body on Monday in Lake County, Illinois.
Hayden says McCracken County detectives reached out to the Jacksonville-Duval County Florida Sheriff’s Office earlier in the week. Surveillance operations were immediately underway there, as well as intelligence gathering. It was determined through the inquiries being done there, that the son had rented a white 2015 Ford Flex from a car rental agency there on March 9, 2016. The vehicle was supposed to have been returned on March 11, but was not.
Sheriff’s investigators in Florida were able this week to get this vehicle entered into the National Crime Information Center as stolen.
On Thursday evening around midnight, Detective Captain Matt Carter and Detective Sergeant Darrin Frommeyer were on their way to Jacksonville, Florida to meet with investigators there, but then learned that the younger Boyes had allegedly pawned an item at a pawn shop in Villa Park, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, at around 2 pm earlier in the day. The detectives immediately turned around and headed to the Chicago area, arriving there Friday morning.
On Friday in Paducah, sheriff’s detectives began combing through surveillance video that had been recovered from area homes and businesses in the area of where the murders occurred. A 2015 Ford Flex that appeared to be the same vehicle as Boyes had stolen in Florida was seen in some of the footage, on the same day and time as the murders are suspected to have occurred.
Hayden says subpoenas and search warrants were obtained and served throughout the week as detectives continued to obtain records and documents related to this investigation.
Detectives Carter and Frommeyer arrived at the pawn shop in northern Illinois on Friday to recover the item that was pawned by Boyes, which was a wallet that is believed to have belonged to his father in Paducah. Investigators noted that the elder Boyes' wallet was missing when his body was recovered.
Detectives' Carter and Frommeyer met with multiple law enforcement agencies, federal, state, and local in the Chicago area. A special law enforcement Intel bulletin was sent out to the entire northern Illinois law enforcement community on Friday afternoon, alerting them to the stolen vehicle that Boyes was in, as well as that he was a suspect in the double murder in Paducah.
Hayden says teams of investigators conducted surveillance operations in the Chicago area and located the stolen vehicle at a pizza place. The younger Boyes was observed leaving the establishment and getting into the stolen vehicle. As law enforcement officers approached, and after a handgun was brandished, shots were fired and Boyes was killed.
Police in northern Illinois, McCracken County and Florida are now trying to figure out why Boyes was in northern Illinois.
"That's one of the questions we are working on answering," Nugent told the Chicago area newspaper, The Daily Herald.
Hayden confirmed to the paper that Boyes' brother was an Antioch motorcyclist who was struck and killed by a driver in the Antioch area in August 2015.
The paper says Gregory Boyes, 50, was hit by a woman who authorities say was drunk and fled the scene. She later was arrested.
In 1984, Boyes was sentenced to more than 60 years for armed robbery and grand theft in Broward County, Florida, and in 1989 he escaped from a prison in Orange County (Orlando), according to the Florida Department of Corrections. He was released on parole in October 2013 and was listed as a fugitive earlier this year, records show, for apparently violating parole after the rented vehicle was not returned.
Hayden says investigators have learned that the slain couple moved to Paducah from out of state about a year ago. The investigation is ongoing, and more details are expected to be released in the coming days.
On the Net:
Click HERE to read more from The Daily Herald on the story from Antioch
