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In December 1977, Chris Farmer, a newly qualified doctor, and his childhood sweetheart, Peta Frampton, set out on a journey across the world. They were last heard from in late June of the following year while sailing in Silas Duane Boston's boat. Boston also had his two young sons onboard. The couple's bodies, tied up to heavy engine parts, were discovered off the coast of Guatemala in July.
Farmer and Frampton's families only learned about their deaths in January 1979 via a private investigator. This discovery was followed by a decades-long search for Silas Duane Boston, the last person to have seen them alive. One of Boston's sons, Vince, eventually admitted that his father killed them and was likely responsible for their mother's disappearance.
Boston was finally arrested in December 2016 and charged with the murders. However, the alleged killer died at a hospital in early 2014 before he could be tried for his crimes.
Evil Lives Here on ID is slated to revisit the decades-old killings of Chris Farmer and Peta Frampton in an episode titled Murder at Sea, scheduled to air on the channel this Sunday, August 27, 2023, at 9 pm ET.
Here's an official synopsis for the upcoming episode:
"Vince Boston finds himself an unwitting accomplice to murder, and he realizes his father, Silas, has been killing for years; he embarks on a mission to get justice for his father's many victims, which may include Vince's mother."
Clues from the last letter sent by Chris Farmer and Peta Frampton were used to find their killer decades later
According to The Cinemaholic, Chris Farmer, 25, and his childhood sweetheart Peta Frampton, 24, both from Chorlton, Manchester, were set to travel across the world in December 1977. The couple sent regular updates to their families via letters.
The last letter was sent on June 28, 1978, and Chris and Peta were never heard from again. Their bodies were discovered by fishermen about 200 yards off the shore at Punta de Manabique, Guatemala, on July 8 of that same year. They both drowned and were buried in unmarked graves there.
Several sources reported that in the last letter, Peta wrote that they were traveling from Belize to Honduras with an American man named Silas Duane Boston and his two young sons on his boat, Justin B.
When the couple stopped communicating with their families, they grew concerned and started tracing their whereabouts. Police confirmed that they were on Justin B while sailing to Honduras, but the boat had docked and there was still no sign of them. In fact, the two never used their visas after that.
Farmer's and Frampton's families started relying on a private investigator who learned of their deaths months later, in January 1979. Thus started the search for Silas, who was the prime suspect and the last person to have seen them alive.
Was Silas Duane Boston ever brought to justice for the murders of Chris Farmer and Peta Frampton?
The truth about Chris Farmer and Peta Frampton came out decades later after one of Silas Duane Boston's sons, Vince, admitted that their father murdered the couple. Chris and Silas allegedly got into a fight because the latter had been mistreating his sons while sailing, as per The Cinemaholic.
Vince claimed how his father, Silas "snapped and tried to swing at Chris, but he ducked, and Dad fell into the water." It was nothing major, but Silas felt humiliated and "that’s when everything changed. That’s when he started plotting." He disclosed that Silas then attacked the couple with a wooden truncheon before stabbing Chris with a fillet knife.
The outlet reported that after attacking the duo, Silas stripped them both naked, tied them up, and put plastic bags over their heads. He then bound them to heavy engine parts and told them that he would let them go in shallow waters, but instead threw them overboard into the deep sea.
The deaths of Chris Farmer and Peta Frampton had remained cold for decades until the former's sister Penny found Vince on Facebook and learned of the horrific secrets of the boat in late 2015. Silas Duane Boston was eventually tracked down to a nursing home in Eureka, California, and arrested on December 1, 2016.
Thirty-eight years after the crime, Silas was charged with the murders of Chris and Peta but died in a hospital while awaiting trial in April 2017.
Learn more about the murders of Chris Farmer and Peta Frampton on ID's Evil Lives Here this Sunday.
