Sheri-Lynn McEwan was a kind and loving person, always smiling and happy, said her friend and colleague, Jenny Borton.
A nurse in Health Sciences North’s operating room, and formerly a volunteer firefighter in Estaire, 40-year-old McEwan was known for her love of motorcycles and roller derby (where she was dubbed “Red Rock Crusher,” for her bright-red hair and feisty personality).
She was beloved by her many friends, as well as her colleagues and her family members. A beautiful woman, inside and out, her obituary said, whose smile and giggle will be remembered forever.
Oct. 7 marks 10 years since the Estaire resident was murdered, a cold case that remains unsolved. To this day, the OPP have made no arrest in McEwan’s murder.
“When this happened, nobody could believe it,” said Borton, who had known McEwan for about six years at the time of her death — they were both involved in the Estaire Volunteer Fire Service and both worked at Health Sciences North.
“Not Sheri-Lynn. You know how your mind just won't accept something that has been told to you? That’s how we all were.”
On Sunday, Oct. 7, 2013, McEwan was dropped off at her Estaire home by her friends, after returning home from a weekend trip to Las Vegas. Shortly after she was dropped off, at around 4 p.m., a 911 call was placed from the house.
When first responders arrived at the scene, they found McEwan with serious injuries. She succumbed to those injuries not long afterwards.
Weeks later, more tragedy. On Oct. 27, 2013, her husband, Terry Boyle, was also found dead in the residence he’d shared with McEwan. Foul play is not suspected in his death.
Boyle has never been publicly identified by police as a person of interest in his wife’s death. Friends say he was at work at the time of the murder, and don’t believe him to be responsible. Police also say they know where Boyle was at the time of McEwan’s murder.
OPP investigator: We’re doing ‘everything in our power to solve the case’
OPP Det. Insp. Shawn Glassford, who works out of the provincial police general headquarters in Orillia, was assigned the McEwan murder case three years ago.
He said investigators are doing “everything in our power to solve this case.”
“I can say that some cases are solved quickly, some cases take time,” he said. “This is just one of those cases that’s taken some time. Although it's been 10 years, it's still still under investigation. Officers are still reviewing evidence and talking to people and we're still seeking out witnesses. Anybody that has information, we want to talk to them.”
New DNA evidence analysis technology has cracked several cold cases in recent years, including the high-profile 1998 murder of Renée Sweeney here in Sudbury.
“We’re taking advantage of that same technology,” said Glassford. “I don't want to draw comparisons to the Sweeney case, obviously, other than it was an older case. But, you know, we use the technology that fits the evidence that we have.”
Police remain tight-lipped about many aspects of the case. Glassford would not get into details on what DNA evidence may have been collected from the scene, if there are or ever have been suspects in the case, or McEwan’s specific cause of death.
The investigator continues to appeal to the public for tips. The provincial government has provided a $50,000 reward or information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person(s) responsible for McEwan’s death.
Anyone with tips is asked to phone the OPP at 1-888-310-1122, its tip line at 1-866-220-2505, or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 (TIPS).
“It could be the smallest little tidbit of information that they've maybe thought about, and maybe they think it's too late, but it isn't too late,” he said. “We will assess it; we will look at it. We've got a massive investigative file.”
Although it’s of course preferable to swiftly solve a criminal case, if that’s not possible, sometimes the passage of time can present opportunities, said Glassford.
Sometimes people will come forward with information after many years that “they've kept to themselves for various reasons, and through the passage of time, they want to get it off their chest,” he said.
‘You can only hope that this can come to an end,’ says friend
On the day of McEwan’s murder, volunteer firefighters were called out to a report of a person who was injured at an Estaire address they knew to be McEwan’s home, said her friend Borton, then acting chief of the Estaire Volunteer Fire Service.
“But when we arrived there, we were told to stand down by the police, which was very confusing for us, because they dispatched us; they asked for our assistance,” she said.
“So we didn’t know Sheri-Lynn had passed away until later that night. The entire team stayed at the fire hall … and nobody went anywhere. We just waited to find out what she had done. I didn't know if she had hurt herself falling down the stairs. We just did not know.”
McEwan’s husband, Terry Boyle, the volunteer fire service’s deputy chief, had been at work in Sudbury, Borton said. Once Boyle was called home, he waited alongside his fire department colleagues to find out what had happened.
“At that point, we did know she had passed; we just didn’t know how,” Borton said. “So later that night, the police officer came over and took myself and Terry aside, and he explained to us that there had been some foul play.
“From that moment, Terry - I've never seen a man cry that long or that hard ever in my life. To this day. I've never seen anyone react like that.”
It was terrible burying McEwan and not knowing exactly what had happened to her, a situation that hasn’t changed much in the past decade, Borton said.
“We surmise that there was a robbery,” she said. “We just don’t know, and the police, of course, they couldn’t give us that information at the time. We’re all still clueless. There's lots we don't know, because it's still an open case, and the police cannot share that with us, and I understand that.”
Boyle took his life in the weeks following his wife’s murder, compounding the tragedy of McEwan’s killing.
Borton remembers Boyle being “in a bad way,” said Borton. He stayed with friends following McEwan’s death, and one firefighter checked on him every day.
“It was just horrible to watch Terry go through that,” she said. “They were newly married. They were just the perfect fit. They were so in love.”
Borton, who has been interviewed three times by police over the years, echoes Det. Insp. Glassford’s plea for tips on the case. She also hopes that DNA evidence technology can be used to solve the murder.
“I just hope and pray that someone will come forward with even the smallest little fact that they think is worth nothing,” Borton said. “You never know. There are still eyes on this case … The police, if they keep at it, you can only hope that this can come to an end.”
Heidi Ulrichsen is Sudbury.com’s assistant editor.