At the recommendation of the captain, and with Beams approval, an outside agency investigated Gibson and concluded that he was a predator. In the spring of 2015, Beam allowed Gibson to retire, keeping his pension. She told me that, for female officers in many parts of the South, theres no in-betweenyou cant just be a human in uniform. They were made to feel that their presence contaminated the ethos of the department. underwear and dental retainer belonging to his now-former wife, Jessica Lester, . It's possible, but I mean it's very doubtful, because he's never hurt me before. 11Alive reached out to Officer Matthew Boynton, however, phone calls were not returned. We will not be swayed by hearsay, false rhetoric or sensationalism in a manner that would cause harm to the innocent, he wrote. (The purposes of such a sweeping request were never clear. 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? Earlier that night Jessica's husband Matthew headed to Waffle House for a late-night bite with a fellow officer, leaving his service weapon . In September, 2016, the G.B.I. [Im] gonna have to kick that door in Jones relays to the other officers standing on the other side of the closet, barreling through it in just two swift and deliberate kicks. Chris DeMarco, GBIs assistant special agent in charge, arrives on the scene and meets with Griffin Police Chief Michael Yates for a briefing. Unnerved, she went out to the porch, where she heard another. 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.. nd police notify Jessicas family that she has died. Police and Officer Boynton claimed that Jessica tried to kill herself but after Jessica awoke . Haha I'm sorry I didn't think about that lol he sends to her after receiving a text from her--moments following his text from his wife. Dusty approached a group of Griffin police officers and asked whether Matthew had shot her sister. Especially because of my children. 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. GBI begins interviewing neighbors and Matthew interviews with the GBI later that morning. I mean you can't prove that," DeMarco. Contact Justice for Jessica on Messenger. One woman said that he would drive to her house and shine the lights of his patrol car into her windows. Who shot Jessica Boynton? A new podcast investigates | wwltv.com 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. And that's all I needed, so I was on cloud nine.". . While sifting through pages and pages of the report, a GBI evidence photo caught her attention. Ill go ahead and tell you that the boys deserve more structure and more care and love which Im almost positive YOU have. By then, the boys were spending half their time with each parent, switching houses on Fridays. By signing up, you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement. (Beam refused to talk to me. Get off of me! she screamed. It began as a visionary notionthat patients could die with dignity at home. "That was when approximately 24 minutes into the conversation, his demeanor changed and everything flipped," she recalled. My understanding of the laws of physics is that one person cannot be in two places at the same time," Mathews said in an interview with 11Alive. 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. 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. Jessica reported what he said to child-protective services, who helped arrange for the boys to see a child psychologist. Of course, it was through my efforts that we landed that account, but did I get any credit? She agreed, and in May, 2017, Sanders dropped off the bag at the Griffin Police Department. Four of her grandchildren had taken target-shooting classes together, but Jessica had refused to participate. Her head wound soaked into the green and white pillow, where her head rested. Jones eyes a small child sleeping on a bottom bunk bed in the back bedroom. GPD Chief fabricated, released record identifying Will Sanders as "You know, you're trying to match up times of where he is getting these text messages or how he's responding to them, that he has to be in the kitchen. In an interview with the police, she said that she found him intimidating. provided images. But DeMarco insisted to Mathews during their phone conversation, that the timeline was not relevant. 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. But Griffin Police Chief Michael Yates said, Officer Boynton was not the shooter and trusts the investigations outcome. The idea that domestic violence is bad for kids still has not sunk init sometimes barely makes a dent in a case, she said. Im only concerned with the G.B.I. The Link Between Domestic Violence and Mass Shootings, The Corrupt World Behind the Murdaugh Murders. One, investigators said penetrated Jessica's head and the other the wall. Then he called E.M.S. Jessica could see her children for only four hours on Sunday afternoons. Only the pillow under her head was bloody. It was the first time anyone had spoken with her at length about the night of her injury. Jacob is gentle and jovial, articulating emotions that Jessica herself struggles to name. Strangers to Ourselves: Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us. What Happened to Jessica Boynton? Grisly Truth Could Have Been Covered Boynton, who was . She had both of the boys packed and ready to go, Dusty said. If that's what you want to do. Then-Griffin Police officer Matthew Boynton was arrested on July 28, . 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. The psychologist wrote, of the older son, I asked him if he has been happy or sad. Is Jessica Boynton still alive? I didnt know if I was dealing with a possible active active scenario where she still had the gun and she had shot Tyler, he replied. Im glad to know theres still advocacy in the practice in the courts of the Griffin Judicial Circuit. No one ended up testifying about Jessica and Matthews marriage. Matthew called a Griffin police lieutenant for advice. Matthew asked Beam to phone him in the morning to wake him up. Jessica Boynton, 19, was a stay-at-home mom to 8-month-old Tyler and 2-year-year old Tollin. Anybody that went against him would be eliminated. Whitehouse said that Beam seemed concerned, but he said that shed have to write down her complaint. I was scared to death, because I couldnt find him, that she would shoot me, shoot him, and then kill herself.. She could now recall that after she returned from Walmart she went to her closet to put her shoes on, because she needed to walk the dog. He said, Sad. When asked, how come, he stated, because daddy scares me. He went on to say, Daddy was up the hill and hurt me in his house., The sheriffs department in Pike County, where Matthew was living, investigated whether there had been abuse, but Matthew denied the allegation and the department did not find any concrete evidence. And if shes capable of attempting to take her own life, theres a chance that she might do something to these children.. They were becoming estranged, and when something h. Four months later, he was hired as a reserve officer in Braswell, Georgia, a community of four hundred people. Even Gibsons lawyer, Phil Friduss, seemed at a loss to explain whether Gibson had controlled the county, as so many people believed. Will Sanders, the truck driver, reached a similar conclusion. Jessica could not come within three hundred yards of Matthew or her children. Justice for Jessica - Home | Facebook 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. Denise was on a science-curriculum committee with Matthews stepmother, Amy, a teacher in the same district. 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. Then he would handcuff me and put me on the hood of his patrol car and have oral sex with me, she wrote in a statement. Matthew Boynton: The evidence and investigation that led to his arrest She was watching a cartoon about a lion. Her neurosurgeon, Paul King, told me, It seemed most likely that someone else shot her., Jessica had an intracranial-pressure monitor inserted into her brain, to measure swelling, and she was put in a medically induced coma. "How did his phone get in there? My mama told me stories about going to lunch with my father and his friends in the sixties, he said to me. I know that hes a police officer, and Im not really anybody, she said. Bad decisions, he said. Spalding County Sheriff Wendell Beam behind false death notification in Jessica and Matthew moved into a house across the street from the sheriff, Wendell Beam, and his wife. To obtain the search warrant, a lieutenant submitted a sworn statement explaining that there was probable cause that Sanders had been involved in two commercial burglaries; later, the lieutenant said that this was the result of a cut-and-paste error.). If he has to drive to downtown Griffin, he cleans and vacuums his car, so he can easily see if someone plants drugs or contraband. Ad Choices. Here lately I have not been able to recognize the person I see in the mirror. Before being elected sheriff, in 2011, Beam had worked in the sheriffs office for thirty-seven years. Who shot Jessica Boynton? A new podcast investigates | king5.com They rented an apartment in Griffin, in a complex of beige two-story buildings surrounding a swimming pool. ), In a private Facebook message, Willey complained to a friend that Matthews demeanor was emotionless but very authoritative. She had learned about Jessicas shooting after probing stories were published by Sheila Mathews in The Grip, a free newspaper in Spalding County, and aired on the Atlanta television station 11Alive, reported by Brendan Keefe. He hears a baby crying as he carefully steps into the bedroom where a dark brown crib is situated. 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. Two shots had been fired. But according to Mathews, that was not the last number dialed, so it could not have just been a redial accidently called through the evidence bag. For a while, he put clear tape on the doors of his house and car, so he would know if anyone had sneaked inside. I don't know if it's just his job or what, but like I said I don't think he would intentionally hurt me.. 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 . No one responded to Marthas letters. Less than a week after Jessica emerged from her coma, DeMarco and another G.B.I. Dont make me laugh.. In December, 2014, Jessica had a brief affair and got pregnant again. They have won. The Griffin Police Department had not received any complaints about Matthews use of force, but Darrell Dix, a former lieutenant, told me that he and some of his colleagues worried that Matthew had a domineering and one-dimensional approach to his work, which could provoke fights and scuffles. He had not learned that there is a human side of this, too, Dix said. A deputy named Misty Piper said that, after Gibson repeatedly pressured her to have sex with him, she acquiesced, because she felt that, if she defied Gibson, she would meet a similar fate. She finished her high-school coursework online, and almost never saw her friends or family. There is an unwillingness to believe, as if its just preferable not to know this about our culture, Meier told me. But otherwise, he said, Im doneIm out. Now itsa twenty-two-billion-dollar industry plagued by exploitation. They were hurt.. Beam dropped the matter. 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?" When she asked Matthew about the shooting, nothing adds up, she wrote to another friend on Facebook. Her marriage had been crumbling, and she and her husband of six months Matthew Boynton, 20 . In the past thirty years, the criminal-justice system has become more responsive to domestic violence, but family courts have been largely insulated from this cultural change. Jessica, at home with her three boys, still has occasional migraines, weakness in her left foot, and lingering amnesia about the night of her shooting. There's so many useless words thrown in there, then there's so many words left out, she said. At the time of the shooting Jessica was looking to make a new start for herself and two young sons. I can't even get it out of its case, she replied. Owen proposed that Beam supervise the visits. The shooting occurred on the evening of April 14, 2016. The July 29 arrest of former Griffin Police Department Officer Matthew Boynton stemmed from a theft report filed Dec. 19, 2016, by his former wife, Jessica Lester. 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. The sheriffs department does not respond to incidents inside the Griffin city limits, and he was the only one from his office there. Especially because of my children. She started crying. Which is very off that this happened, because I never, ever had any thoughts like this before. He had looked in the master bedroom, and when he didnt see the baby, who typically slept there, he ran outside. Jessica didnt have her own credit card or car, so if she needed something from the supermarket she texted Matthew, who either took her to the store himself or asked Beam or his wife to deliver the item. And its assigned to Matthew. Jessicas grandmother made an appointment with a lawyer who could help her file for divorce. At the store, they got into a fight, and when they left Jessica said she didnt want to get into the car. He would flash his lights and pull her over, and force her to have sex with him. I love you and the boys., A minute later, Matthew responded to a joke from Callaway. Matthews wedding ring had a blue stripe, to signify he was in law enforcement. "Well I don't know. Matthews case was presented to a grand jury in July, 2018. I'll be back there in about two minutes. Am I recording it? Neither Matthew nor Jessica had been given a gunpowder-residue test. In the spring of 2016, less than six months after the wedding, Jessica discovered that Matthew was having an affair with Courtney Callaway, a dispatcher at the Spalding County sheriffs office, a mile away from the Griffin Police Department. We put it on the counter to take a picture of it," he confirmed to Mathews. Law enforcement was in his genes. Mike Yates, the chief of the Griffin police, told me in an e-mail that Matthews case had nothing to do with domestic violence. Is she gonna wear a mask or. Her parents had abandoned her when she was three, along with her sister and brother, and she grew up on a farm with her mothers adoptive parents. He reads another text from his girlfriend, while driving 90 mph. With his gun raised and arms poised, he holds his weapon out in front of him with both hands. I figured out what happened. Its one of their owna police-issued .40-caliber Glock. 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. A half hour or so later, Browning was lying in bed when she heard a gunshot. The shooting occurred on the evening of April 14, 2016. Sheriff Beam can carry a weapon, he said. He enters, checking the master bedroom. A male sergeant saw the exchange and told Beam, who provided Gibson with what he called undocumented counselling. Two years later, Gibson slapped a secretary on the back of the head, telling a male officer, Im gonna show you how we take care of these secretaries. Although the secretary complained to Beam about Gibsons behavior, Gibson was never disciplined. Ive always been such a firm believer in our justice system, she said. Never, she said. My dream is that, one day, the Feds show up and say, We want the notebook, he said. 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.. After getting home around 10:45 PM, a neighbor heard a gunshot from the Boynton home. I dont doubt the findings of the G.B.I., he told me. Custody (full? Her DNA had been found on the gun, which was to be expectedshe had been lying on it. Matthew claims this was around 1 a.m, but the neighbors . Jessica had to wean her baby before starting the job, so on Thursday night she and Matthew drove to Walmart, to buy formula. Immediately following that flip, Mathews said, DeMarco asked if she was recording their conversation. "I left the location, I'm back en route, I'm on Carver Road right now. The notification was made following an April 15, 2016, shooting incident - ruled by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to be a suicide attempt - at the home of Jessica Boynton and her now-estranged husband, Griffin Police Department Officer Matthew Boynton. reports, Matthew said. Whitehouse didnt understand why she was being directed to basically a hiding spot. She recorded the conversation on her phone, so that investigators could look for clues if she disappeared. He later tells investigators that he heard Tyler crying, and then, POP-POP!. The officers found a police-issued .40-caliber Glock belonging to Matthew under Jessica's body. Recent signers. Who shot Jessica Boynton? A new podcast investigates | wusa9.com