In a letter sent to his in-laws while he was in jail after his arrest, Joshua Boyle blamed his wife, Caitlan Coleman, for once again landing him in captivity — only months after they were freed from a five-year hostage ordeal in Afghanistan.
Following his arrest on a raft of assault and sexual assault charges, Boyle was held in custody for more than five months. He was granted bail in June 2018.
“I seem to be a hostage again. Caitlan appears to be the reason again,” Boyle wrote in the letter, dated Jan. 21, 2018, read in court Thursday.
“Not that I’m angry,” Boyle continued in his letter, “but I’m sure you’ve wondered how things managed to go so belly-up in Afghanistan.“
Boyle has already testified that he blamed Coleman for their capture in Afghanistan. He has said they were kidnapped one day after she loudly blasphemed during an emotional fit in a Kabul guesthouse.
Boyle told court Thursday, his final day of testimony, that at the time the letter was written he was closer to Coleman’s parents, Lynda and Jim, in Pennsylvania than to his own.
To highlight that fact, Boyle noted that while the Colemans financed his 2011 honeymoon trip to central America, his own parents only found out about the marriage after the couple’s capture in Afghanistan. “The Boyles learned we were married, I believe, from the FBI, when the FBI told them,” he said.
In cross-examination, Crown attorney Jason Neubauer suggested to Boyle that he had written the letter to ingratiate himself with the Colemans and to manipulate them into pressing their daughter to drop the charges.
Boyle rejected that idea, testifying that the letter was written to let the Colemans know that no matter what happened, it would not change his deep affection for them. “I had been relying on them for advice for 11 years,” he told court. “I was closer with them than my own parents.”
Neubauer repeated his suggestion that Boyle was “buttering up” the Colemans so that they would ask their daughter to retract her allegations.
But Boyle said he didn’t expect that to happen: “Caitlan’s parents have very little influence on her,” he testified. “As I said, no one controls Caitlan.”
In the letter, Boyle told the Colemans: “I still love both of you and I still love her — crazy and as masochistic as it seems to outsiders.”
Noting that he had by then formulated a plan to divorce Coleman, Neubauer suggested that the only reason for such a sentiment was to manipulate her parents.
Boyle disagreed. “I don’t think I’d say it was crazy and masochistic to love their daughter if I was trying to manipulate them; it’s one step short of saying your daughter is bats–t insane. I don’t think it’s ingratiating.”
In his seventh day on the witness stand, Boyle also revealed that he officially filed for divorce from Coleman after the birth of their fourth child. Boyle said Coleman “ducked service” of those divorce documents three times, forcing him to get an order of substituted service.
Neubauer closed his cross-examination late Thursday, and the defence is not expected to call any more evidence.
Court has heard extensive testimony from both Boyle and Coleman. Both testified that their relationship was deeply troubled and highly volatile, but that’s about all the two have agreed upon.
To hear Coleman tell it, Boyle was a violent and controlling husband who tricked her into travelling to Afghanistan, confined and abused her in captivity, then beat and sexually assaulted her upon their return to Ottawa.
Coleman has told U.S. interviewers that she was more afraid of Boyle than her captors.
To hear Boyle tell it, he was an altruistic and caring husband who was doing his best to manage the violent fits of his mentally ill wife while carrying the burden of caring for their three children, all of whom were born in captivity.
Boyle, 36, has pleaded not guilty to 19 charges, including assault, sexual assault, sexual assault with a weapon, forcible confinement, criminal harassment and public mischief.
In his testimony, Boyle has described himself as a once aspiring war correspondent, and as a masochist and stoic who still sleeps on the floor.
The Crown and defence are expected to make final arguments in the case in late September.
Copyright Postmedia Network Inc., 2019
