1988 Boyd, Norine 12-20-1988, Rupert, ID - remains identified

[ELL]

NORINE KAY BOYD
LAST DATE OF CONTACT : 12/20/1988

DOB : 03/26/1959 HEIGHT : 5'07"
GENDER : FEMALE WEIGHT : 125 lbs
HAIR COLOR : BLONDE EYE COLOR : HAZEL
RACE : WHITE


CASE INFORMATION :
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SUBJECT WAS LAST SEEN WEARING JEANS AND WHITE TENNIS SHOES. SUBJECT HAS THREE SURGICAL SCARS.

IF YOU HAVE ANY INFORMATION ABOUT THIS PERSON PLEASE CONTACT :
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RUPERT PD 208 434-2267

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http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/b/boyd_norine.html

Norine Kay Boyd


Above: Boyd, circa 1988


Vital Statistics at Time of Disappearance

Missing Since: December 20, 1988 from Rupert, Idaho
Classification: Endangered Missing
Date Of Birth: March 26, 1959
Age: 29 years old
Height and Weight: 5'7, 125 pounds
Distinguishing Characteristics: Blonde hair, hazel eyes. Boyd has three surgical scars on unspecified areas of her body.
Clothing/Jewelry Description: Jeans and white tennis shoes.
Medical Conditions: Boyd may have been suicidal at the time of her December 1988 disappearance.


Details of Disappearance

Boyd was last seen in Rupert, Idaho on December 20, 1988. She has never been heard from again. Few details are available in her case.


Investigating Agency
If you have any information concerning this case, please contact:
Rupert Police Department
208-434-2267



Source Information
Idaho Missing Person Clearinghouse



Charley Project Home

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http://z10.invisionfree.com/usedtobedoe/in...opic=8967&st=0&

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http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,705290874,00.html?pg=1

Idaho family keeps up search for missing woman
By Andrea Jackson

Associated Press

Published: Saturday, March 14, 2009 10:42 a.m. MDT
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ALMO, Idaho — The disappearance 20 years ago of Norine Boyd is a story about family.

With their binoculars in hand and a four-wheeler in tow, Boyd's eldest son, Phillip McDonald, and her brother, Fred McDonald, walked through the City of Rocks last week, searching for an answer to a question that's haunted them every day for two decades: Where is Norine?

On Dec. 20, 1988, Norine Boyd was last seen in Rupert. Her father found her apartment door ajar when he went to check on her after she called him, upset. Christmas music was playing on the stereo. Her purse and presents for her children were undisturbed on the table.

Nearly three months later, on March 10, 1989, hikers found her gray Ford sedan at the base of the Twin Sisters formation in the City of Rocks. Her crushed sunglasses were on the ground next to her belt.

Cassia County sheriff's deputies inventoried the scene: Nine empty beer cans; cigarette butts littering the ground; an empty bottle of Nytol sleep aid and a makeup case containing cross-tops — a form of amphetamine. They said the car, with the driver's-side door unlocked, had been there a long time.

The car was towed away and, three days later, turned over to the bank that held its title. No further forensic examination was done.

Deputies made a brief search of the area and found nothing.

"They treated it like an abandoned car and a runaway," Fred McDonald said. "All the good evidence is gone."

Norine Boyd, 29, the mother of three young boys, had vanished.

In her dreams, Rusty Peterson sees snow falling under a full moon as a pretty young woman walks away from her car, her blue jacket unbuttoned.

The car's headlights are on, illuminating the woman from behind.

Then the nightmare begins. She sees Norine Boyd being buried, her blue jacket now buttoned, by a man in a baseball cap holding an irrigation shovel.

Peterson says God gave her the power to have dreams and premonitions that answer questions no one else can. She reported her dream about the woman in the City of Rocks to authorities on the day Boyd's car was found, but says she started dreaming of Boyd weeks before Boyd was even reported missing.

"When I walked out of there, I felt like they was thinking, 'There's some crazy old woman,' " Peterson said of her visit to the police station. "I mean, I felt like it was poo-pooed, like, 'So you had a dream. So?' "

Four years later, a Cassia County deputy followed up, going to the City of Rocks to see if he could find the scene she described. He found the spot, but nothing else.

The McDonalds also have come to have faith in Peterson's dreams. Last week she accompanied them to the spot where she says she dreamed three times about the burial. Before leaving her home in Declo, she asked the McDonalds to stand in a circle, holding hands to pray to God that they would find Boyd
At Twin Sisters, Peterson led the family through a gate to an area near an old water cistern, where Fred McDonald identified some depressions in the hard ground and said he would return in warmer weather to dig.

Just days later, McDonald was back at Twin Sisters with a shovel. Though he was able to break the hard, cold ground, he found nothing.

Yet he still hopes.

"She's still out there," he said. "We want to do more searching. The ground is frozen."

The search for an answer has turned desperate after two decades of loss.

"My parents are getting older," he said. "I want closure for them."

Necia McDonald says she cried every day for the first 10 years after her daughter disappeared. Two decades on, she sounds bitter at the lack of information from police, who have twice asked her to look at photos of bodies, or answers from anyone.

"I want an end," she said. "It would be easier for me to accept death than disappearance. I know she didn't disappear. She wouldn't have left her babies."

At the Rupert Police Department, Lt. James Wardle holds his hands a foot apart to show how much paperwork authorities have in files about Norine Boyd's disappearance.

But he wouldn't say much about the case, citing an ongoing investigation, or release more than an eight-page summary of the case to the media and Boyd's family.

Boyd's family says Mini-Cassia law enforcement authorities have said little to them over the years.

"I don't think they did much of an investigation at all," said Necia McDonald.

In recent weeks, police have begun showing more interest, the family says, after media started asking about it.

"We've had a hard time getting anything from police," said Fred McDonald. "We'd make phone calls and sometimes it would be nine months to five years before we heard anything. It's been insane."

Police say the case cools with no leads, but they want to solve it.

"I don't want to say it was ignored," Wardle said about the case. "It's a missing-person case with no leads, so without aggressive leads and new information it's kind of hard to stay following up on it. It would just be great to get this off and out and give the family closure."

In 2002, the Rupert police took blood from the McDonalds for DNA analysis. In 2006, investigators realized that the samples were not complete and had never been entered into a national DNA database used to match missing people to found bodies.

Last month, Rupert police took new DNA samples to complete the database listing after New Jersey State Police sent word of a woman's skull found March 5, 1989, in an embankment by the seventh tee of the Stoney Brook Hopewell Valley Golf and Country Club in Mercer County, N.J. The unidentified woman's legs were found in April 1989 in Morris County, N.J.

Forensic scientists say the woman in Mercer County died not long before her head was found — less than three months after Boyd disappeared. Their description comes close to Boyd — same age, weight and hair color. The New Jersey woman had blue eyes; Boyd had hazel — and she was a few inches taller.

Police in New Jersey had drawings made of a re-creation of a woman's face, and to some the resemblance to Boyd is striking — though her family has doubts.

"No," said her father, Fred McDonald Sr., holding a computer printout from New Jersey.

"The nose looks wrong," said his son. "I don't know — maybe."

"Everything else looks close, except the nose," said Phillip, who was 8 when his mother vanished.

Boyd committed suicide. Or she was murdered. Or she suffered some accident. Family members agree they cannot rule out any of those possible explanations. The only theory they discount is that Boyd left voluntarily to start a new life, never to be heard from again.

Her younger brother, Fred, said his sister was a "hippie" with a long history of marijuana use, depression and suicide attempts. He thinks she likely killed herself in the City of Rocks, though he cannot explain why she would have gone to a place she had never been before, some 50 miles from her home, or where her body might be.

"I'm still leaning toward suicide," he said. "But I can't see her going up there by herself. I do know one thing in my heart: She's not alive."

Nor does Wardle, the Rupert policeman, think Boyd simply ran away and has avoided detection for 20 years.

"She hasn't turned up," he said. "She's more than just hiding."

Yet Boyd's life wasn't easy. When she was 16, she ran away from the family's home in Southern California — though she still kept in touch with the McDonalds.

At age 20, she arrived at the McDonalds' new home in Rupert, pregnant with Phillip. She had two more children with two other men, but had settled down and was a devoted mother, her brother said.

She worked a night job at a food-processing plant and managed the small apartment complex where she lived, he said. But she also was involved in the drug trade and had started using cocaine in the months before her disappearance, he said.

Phillip remembers that his mother grew marijuana plants in the closet of his bedroom, and that a police officer in uniform would drop by to smoke pot with her at their kitchen table, after she separated from her husband. Twenty years later, he cannot recall what the officer looked like or what department's uniform he wore, though he said the man always left with a white envelope.

"Now I'm thinking that was drug money," he said.

Rupert police have nothing in their records to confirm Phillip's memory, Wardle said.

Fred McDonald, who says he was himself using drugs at the time, said he believes his sister had run up a significant drug debt, likely by using more cocaine than she was selling.

Might she have been killed because of a drug debt?

"Yes," he said. "But I just don't see anything deep enough that she would have to be killed, and dead people don't pay debts."

In the days before she vanished, Boyd called her sister and said, "I'm in trouble," McDonald said.

The sister later told police she suggested that Boyd seek mental health treatment.

McDonald also said Boyd had a large sum of money before she vanished after taking out a signature loan for as much as $6,000 from a finance company and also collecting rent on the apartments she managed.

None of the money was ever found, police and family confirmed.

Wardle says it will be months before authorities in New Jersey can complete DNA testing that will either establish Boyd as the murder victim or send the McDonald family back to square one.

Until then, the family waits.

"I'm not sleeping at night now," said her brother, Fred. "My wife is telling me to back off. Not this week. I want this for my parents."

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Rupert Police Department
208-434-2267

Agency Case Number: 20020318

NCIC Number: M-682394496

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Detectives Hope to See Cold Case through an Old Lens
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ASHLEY SMITH • TIMES-NEWS

ASHLEY SMITH • TIMES-NEWS Rupert Police Detective Jeff McEwen holds a pair of sunglasses found at the car of Norine Boyd who has been missing since 1988, while Diane Gines looks on in the background.

September 18, 2012 2:00 am • By Alison Gene Smith alismith@magicvalley.com
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RUPERT • “Everything’s going to be OK.”

Those, according to Rupert Police Detective Jeff McEwen, were the last words 29-year-old Norine Kay Boyd spoke to her family before she disappeared on Dec. 20, 1988.

Boyd and her sister spent the day together listening to Christmas music and talking, said Diane Gines, a retired certified crime and intelligence analyst who is working on the case.

Since 2009, Gines, who worked in both the Air Force and the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office in California before retirement, has helped McEwen and Detective Richard Reusze work on the case that has eluded police for 24 years.

According to a Times-News article from 1993, Boyd was reported missing two weeks after Rupert police obtained an arrest warrant, charging her with stealing $992 from a Rupert man. In March of 1989, hikers from Buhl found Boyd’s 1984 two-door Ford in the City of Rocks area near Almo.

According to the article, law enforcement organized a two-day search for Boyd in the area, then waited for snow to thaw to see if her body could be found.

Some speculated she may have committed suicide. Others believed foul play was involved in her disappearance, while some believed she simply ran away.

“There are hundreds of theories,” McEwen said. “I simply want the truth.”

Recently, the team of investigators hatched a new plan to find a trace of someone who may know something about Boyd’s disappearance. Outside Boyd’s car, Cassia County deputies found a pair of aviator sunglasses. Until recently people believed the glasses belonged to Boyd, but now Rupert police have their doubts.

Her family told detectives Boyd was very feminine, preferred girly styles and didn’t remember her owning a pair of aviator sunglasses, McEwen said.

“That’s possibly another person,” he said. “That’s a possible suspect.”

The team hopes touch DNA — DNA that can be left behind in skin cells from casual handling of an object — can help discover who the glasses belong to. McEwen said he attended a seminar about touch DNA and found other agencies have been able to get usable DNA off items like shirt collars and belts.

The group hopes to send the evidence off in the next month, he said.

Though DNA evidence would be a big help, interviews make up the bulk of the work done on the case, McEwen said.

Through interviews and reading documents, the three have built a profile of Boyd — looking at her lifestyle, routines, habits, her likes and dislikes, and goals for her future.

“If she walked in here today I’d feel like I know her,” Gines said.

In each interview, detectives heard similar themes about Boyd, her personality and her lifestyle. She loved her family, she was a good housekeeper, she loved her children and didn’t travel much.

“I think she was really trying to make her life good,” Gines said.

While Reusze and McEwen work on the case in their spare time, Gines volunteers her time. Gines does the bulk of the research in the case — sifting through decades-old newspaper articles, letters, weather reports and other items for any sign that might bring her closer to the truth.

Gines said she has built a timeline and a chart linking everyone Boyd knew and the places she frequented.

“At first everyone said she just left,” Gines said.

As a child Boyd ran away, but at 29 she had three young children and her goals in life seemed to center around raising them well, Gines said.

Looking at similar cases can help to a point, but with so little evidence to go on, it’s hard to match the cases up.

“There’s a lot of missing people,” Gines said. “Her case is so cut and dry. It’s almost like she was raptured.”

In 2011, detectives believed the case was cracked wide open when police in central Washington found human remains at the site of a golf course under construction. An artist reconstructed what the person could have looked like and the resemblance was striking.

“They posted it on the Internet and people were saying ‘that’s Norine,’” Reusze said.

When the DNA was tested, the body was found not to be Boyd, but rather a victim of serial killer Gary Ridgeway, known as the Green River Killer and believed to have killed approximately 70 women in the 1980s.

Hundreds of hours of work have gone into the Norine Boyd case and police are willing to spend hundreds more to bring closure to her family, McEwen said.

“Diane and I believe there’s people out there who have stories to tell,” he said. “It’s just a matter of getting people to come tell them.”
http://magicvalley.com/news/local/detectiv...ab5596d483.html

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Rupert police renew decades-old search for missing woman

By Laurie Welch - Times-News writer | Posted: Saturday, June 19, 2010 1:15 am

RUPERT — Rupert police are renewing their investigative efforts and seeking the public’s help in solving a decades-old mystery.

Norine Boyd of Rupert was 29 years old when she went missing shortly before Christmas in 1988. She hasn’t been seen since.

Boyd, the mother of three boys, lived in and managed apartments at the corner of Ninth and A streets in Rupert. She worked the graveyard shift at Magic Valley Foods and was on a pool team that met at the Drift Inn on Thursday nights, according to a press release issued Wednesday by the Rupert Police Department.

Lead investigator Sgt. Jeff McEwen said the case was reopened after retired criminal analyst Diane Gines joined the department’s reserves last year.

“This is really exciting to have Diane working on this case,” McEwen said. “She has years of service and experience in this type of work and is a definite asset to the department.”

McEwen said Gines, who is volunteering her services, is takinga fresh look at the case. Shehas spoken with people involved in the original investigation and is exploring new leads.

“At this point we felt it would be beneficial to open it up to the public,” McEwen said.

McEwen said the department is trying to establish a victim profile for Boyd.

“We’d like to hear from anyone who knew her or hung out with her or even knew the family,” McEwen said. He said no detail is too small and could be instrumental in solving the case.

According to family members in 2009, Boyd was estranged from her husband at the time of her disappearance.

Boyd’s father stopped by her apartment on the evening of Dec. 20 and found her missing, according to police records. There was evidence that she had been wrapping Christmas gifts, and Christmas music was playing on the stereo.

Her vehicle was located three months later in 1989 at the base of the Twin Sisters rock formation at the City of Rocks. Her crushed sunglasses were found on the ground next to her belt, according to police records.

Police encourage anyone with information about the case to contact the Rupert Police Department, 434-2330, or Crime Stoppers, 436-5353.
http://www.magicvalley.com/news/local/arti...65.html?print=1

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Human Remains Found This Past Weekend May Be Missing Rupert Woman
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By Paul Johnson

Story Created: Oct 15, 2012 at 12:29 PM MDT

Story Updated: Oct 15, 2012 at 4:06 PM MDT
UPDATED INFORMATION: We are getting more information about this story. This, from the Rupert Police Department:

Sgt. Detective Jeff McEwen of the Rupert Police Department, together with Rupert Police Reserve Officer and criminal analyst Diane Gines discovered skeletal human remains in the City of Rocks area of Cassia County. The officers were assisted by a cadaver dog and personnel trained in forensic anthropology. Rupert Police Department detectives were in the area pursuing information connected to the 1988 disappearance of former Rupert resident Norine Boyd when the discovery was made.
After making the initial discovery, Rupert detectives notified officials of the City of Rocks National Reserve and the Cassia County Sheriff’s office who responded and took control of the scene. On Saturday afternoon, the Rupert Police Department was advised by the Cassia County Coroner that the human skeletal remains had been recovered and removed from the site for further testing and analysis. The remains are currently in the custody of the Cassia County Coroner pending DNA identification.
Rupert police officials believe the remains are likely those of Norine Boyd who disappeared shortly before Christmas in 1988 and hasn’t been seen since. Her case has been a focus of the Rupert Police Department in recent years which began to pursue the case again after years of inactivity. Rupert Police Chief, James Wardle, who was appointed Chief of Police in August of this year had previously worked on the case and made it a priority ‘cold case’ for investigation by his department.
Officials from the Rupert Police Department advised members of Norine Boyd’s family of the discovery and are cooperating with other law enforcement officials in helping with the positive identification of the remains.


Cassia County, Idaho (KMVT-TV) Cassia County Sheriff Randy Kidd said that on Friday, October 12, skeletal human remains were located in the City of Rocks area. Sheriff Kidd said that the remains were recovered on Saturday, October 13. Authorities believe evidence at the scene indicates the remains may be those of Norine Boyd of Minidoka County who went missing in 1988. Sheriff Kidd said positive identification is pending after a DNA or Dental records are confirmed.

According to information from old news reports, Norine Kay Boyd was last seen in Rupert on December 20, 1988. She called her father on the phone that day and sounded upset. He went to her apartment and found the door ajar, Christmas music playing and Boyd Missing. Her purse and Christmas presents for her children were on the table. It appeared she had been interrupted while wrapping the gifts.

Hikers found Boyd’s gray Ford Sedan at the base of the Twin Sisters formation in the City of Rocks in March 1989. The driver’s side door was unlocked and cigarettes and Boyd’s belt was on the ground nearby. There was also a pair of aviator sunglasses which her family says weren’t hers. Inside the car, police found nine empty cans of Coors Light Beer, an empty bottle of Nytol sleeping pills and makeup case containing cross-tops, a type of amphetamine.

Just before Boyd vanished, police issued a warrant for her arrest for theft, she was suspected of stealing almost $1,000 from a local man. Boyd left behind three sons.
http://www.kmvt.com/news/breakingalert/174238751.html

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http://www.ktvb.com/news/Skeletal-remains-...-174244521.html
Skeleton found near City of Rocks could belong to missing woman

by KTVB.COM
KTVB.COM
Posted on October 15, 2012 at 1:12 PM
Updated today at 1:39 PM
Related:
Rupert police reopen case of missing woman

CASSIA COUNTY, Idaho -- Officials say a skeleton found near the City of Rocks recreation area on Friday could be the remains of an Idaho woman who's been missing for nearly 24 years.

Sheriff Randy Kidd says skeletal evidence found at the scene leads him to believe the remains could be those of Norine Boyd.

Norine Boyd of Rupert went missing on Dec. 20, 1988. She was 29 years old.

Hikers found her vehicle three months later at the base of the Twin Sisters formation in the City of Rocks. Her crushed sunglasses were on the ground next to her belt.

In 2010, the Rupert Police Department reopened Boyd's case and assigned a retired criminal analyst to continue searching for answers in her disappearance.

Officials say positive identification of the remains is pending DNA and dental records confirmation.

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http://www.kboi2.com/news/local/Idaho-News...-174271581.html

Are human remains those of woman missing since 1988?
By KBOI Web Staff Published: Oct 15, 2012 at 4:07 PM MDT

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Are human remains those of woman missing since 1988?
CITY OF ROCKS, Idaho - Cassia County officials say human remains found in the City of Rocks area over the weekend may be those to a woman who's been missing for more than 20 years.

KMVT in Twin Falls reports that skeletal human remains were located in the City of Rocks area Saturday. Authorities believe evidence at the scene indicates the remains may be those of Norine Boyd of Minidoka County who went missing in 1988.

Positive identification is pending after a DNA or dental records are confirmed.

According to information from old news reports, Norine Kay Boyd was last seen in Rupert Dec. 20, 1988. She called her father on the phone that day and sounded upset. He went to her apartment and found the door ajar, Christmas music playing and Boyd Missing. Her purse and Christmas presents for her children were on the table. It appeared she had been interrupted while wrapping the gifts.

KMVT reports that hikers found Boyd’s gray Ford Sedan at the base of the Twin Sisters formation in the City of Rocks in March 1989. The driver’s side door was unlocked and cigarettes and Boyd’s belt was on the ground nearby.

There was also a pair of aviator sunglasses which her family says weren’t hers. Inside the car, police found nine empty cans of Coors Light Beer, an empty bottle of Nytol sleeping pills and makeup case containing cross-tops, a type of amphetamine.

Just before Boyd vanished, police issued a warrant for her arrest for theft, she was suspected of stealing almost $1,000 from a local man. Boyd left behind three sons.

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Rupert police pursuing lead in 1988 disappearance find human remains

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
October 16, 2012 - 11:48 am EDT



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RUPERT, Idaho — Human remains found in south-central Idaho may belong to a woman who went missing in December of 1988, Rupert police said.

Detective Jeff McEwen and criminal analyst Diane Gines were working on Norine Boyd's case when they discovered the remains Friday in the City of Rocks National Reserve. The investigators said they were pursuing information in the area with the help of a cadaver dog when the remains were found. McEwen said they're now waiting for the results of a DNA test to confirm the identity.

Boyd, a mother of three from Rupert, was last seen on Dec. 20, 1988, about two weeks after police obtained a warrant charging her with stealing $992 from a local man.

She'd called her father that day and sounded upset, according to old news reports, and when he went to her apartment, he found her door ajar, Christmas music playing and presents for her children on the table. Gift-wrapping supplies were also out, but Boyd was nowhere to be found.

Hikers found Boyd's gray Ford sedan at the City of Rocks the following March. Investigators found Boyd's belt and cigarettes on the ground nearby, and empty beer cans, an empty sleeping pill bottle and some illicit drugs inside the car. They also found a pair of aviator sunglasses outside the vehicle, but Boyd's family didn't believe the glasses belonged to her.

After the car was found, law enforcement officers organized an unsuccessful two-day search for Boyd. Then they waited for the snow to thaw to see if her body could be found.

The department never forgot about the cold case, however. McEwen, Gines and other detectives have worked the case for years, and Chief James Wardle made it a priority when he took the job earlier this year.

The Rupert Police Department told Boyd's family about the discovery, and the family issued a prepared statement Tuesday morning.

"The family of Norine Kay Boyd would like to thank all the officers and Diane Gines for all the hours and hours of investigation they performed to give the family closure after 24 years and bring the body of Norine Boyd home. Rest in Peace, Norine. You are finally back home," the family's statement said.
http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/2151...e-Remains-Found

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Rupert police pursuing cold case lead find remains
POSTED: 1:47 PM PDT October 16, 2012

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RUPERT, Idaho (AP) — Police in Rupert who were pursuing leads in a missing person case dating back to December 1988 found human remains in south-central Idaho that may belong to Norine Boyd.

Detective Jeff McEwen, criminal analyst Diane Gines, forensic anthropologists and a cadaver dog searched near the City of Rocks National Reserve, where Boyd's car was found in March 1989. McEwen says evidence at the scene indicates there's "a good possibility" the remains are Boyd's.

A DNA test is pending to confirm the identity.

Boyd was reported missing in December 1988, two weeks after police obtained a warrant charging her with stealing $992 from a Rupert man.

McEwen, Gines and others have worked the case for years. Police Chief James Wardle made the case a priority when he took the job earlier this year.
http://www.ktvz.com/news/Rupert-police-pur...t5/-/index.html

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Human Remains Found Could Be Missing Rupert Woman


A missing person poster for Norine Boyd hangs in the entrance of the Rupert Police Station in September.

18 hours ago • By Alison Gene Smith - alismith@magicvalley.com


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RUPERT • Remains found Friday at the City of Rocks National Reserve may be those of a Rupert woman who has been missing since December 1988.

Norine Boyd was reported missing two weeks after Rupert police obtained an arrest warrant, charging her with stealing $992 from a Rupert man. In March of 1989, hikers from Buhl found Boyd’s 1984 two-door Ford in the City of Rocks area near Almo in Cassia County.

On Friday, Rupert Police Det. Jeff McEwen and criminal analyst Diane Gines were pursuing information connected to the disappearance with a cadaver dog and personnel trained in forensic anthropology when they discovered human remains in the City of Rocks area.

McEwen said evidence at the scene indicates there’s “a good probability” the remains are those of Norine Boyd.

The area the remains were found in is one clue, he said. He would not elaborate Monday on what other evidence was found.

A DNA test is pending to confirm the identity of the remains, he said.

After the remains were discovered, the Rupert detectives notified officials at the City of Rocks National Reserve and the Cassia County Sheriff’s Office, who took control of the scene.

The remains are now in possession of the Cassia County Coroner’s Office, McEwen said.

After the discovery of Boyd’s car two decades ago, law enforcement organized a two-day search for Boyd in the area, then waited for snow to thaw to see if her body could be found. It never was, and the case remained open in the department’s books.

McEwen, Gines and other Rupert police detectives have worked on the case for many years. New Rupert Police Chief James Wardle made the case a priority to solve when he took the job earlier this year.

In September, McEwen and Gines spoke to the Times-News about their work on the case and said they hoped to get DNA off a pair of aviator sunglasses found near Boyd’s car. McEwen said Boyd’s family did not remember her owning that style of sunglasses. Detectives hope DNA on the glasses may lead to another person who was at the scene who might know what happened.

“Diane and I believe there’s people out there who have stories to tell,” McEwen said at the time. “It’s just a matter of getting people to come tell them.”

Realizing all their hard work and research made the discovery an “amazing moment,” McEwen said.

“It was a very special moment,” he said. “We came to know a lot about this lady and her life.”

The discovery of the remains opens up a new dimension in the case, but more importantly could begin to give Boyd’s family some closure, McEwen said.

A statement from the Rupert Police Department said Boyd’s family was notified and Rupert police were working with other law enforcement officials to confirm the identity of the remains.
http://magicvalley.com/news/local/crime-an...mment_form=true

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http://magicvalley.com/news/local/crime-an...1258157823.html

City of Rocks Remains Identified As Rupert Woman Missing 24 Years
5 hours ago • BY LAURIE WELCH

BURLEY • DNA from skeletal remains found in the City of Rocks National Reserve in October has been positively identified as coming from missing Rupert woman Norine K. Boyd.

Now, the investigation has turned to how Boyd ended up there.

Rupert Police Detective Jeff McEwen said Tuesday, Feb. 26, that a University of North Texas examination found that DNA samples taken from the bones are consistent with genetic data from Boyd, who disappeared from her Rupert home in 1988. Boyd was the mother of three boys.

“We spoke with the family before we released the information to the media,” said McEwen. “They are happy to have this closure and to know where Norine is now.”

Boyd’s mother Necia McDonald, of Shoshone, said Tuesday the family is working out the details of internment.

“This is good closure for us,” McDonald said. “We have all the support we need and we all feel at peace with this.”

McEwen and Diane Gines, a Rupert reserve officer, discovered the human remains last October in a rugged area of the national reserve. The two were assisted by a cadaver dog and personnel trained in forensic anthropology. They were in the area following up on Boyd’s cold case when the discovery was made. The officers then notified park officials and the Cassia County Sheriff’s Office, which has jurisdiction.

Boyd disappeared before Christmas in 1988 and her car was found near the Twin Sisters rock formation at the park in March 1989.

Her missing person’s case remained open at the city of Rupert.

McEwen said he’d worked on the case since 2009 and detectives had logged several hundred hours on it over the years.

“When you work on a case for that long you develop attachments to it,” he said. “We’ll see in the coming days as we shut it down just what we feel. We do take some satisfaction that we’ve helped this family find closure in this case.”

McEwen said the Cassia County Sheriff’s Office has jurisdiction over any remaining criminal case, but the Rupert department will offer assistance if needed.

Investigators are still waiting for another set of DNA results, touch DNA taken from a pair of aviator sunglasses found outside Boyd’s car that didn’t appear to belong to Boyd. Officials hope that DNA might yield clues to a possible suspect.

“The case for us is still under investigation and we are still waiting for lab results,” said Cassia County Sheriff Jay Heward. “We are really happy for this family and happy for the Rupert Police Department. They put a lot of man-hours into this case.

Anyone with information on the disappearance of Boyd should contact the Cassia County Sheriff’s Office, 208-878-2251.