Episode 144: The Murder of Amy Boyer
Amy Boyer was incredibly kind, smart and well liked. She grew up in Nashua, New Hampshire. Amy worked really hard in school and graduated from Nashua High School in 1997. She had the perfect personality to work in healthcare and was in the final year of school to become a dental hygienist. Amy was working two part-time jobs, one of them being at a local dental office.
On October 15th, 1999, 20-year-old Amy was leaving work and had gotten into her car at about 4:30pm to head home for the night. As she was sitting in her car getting ready to drive off, a man got out of the car next to her, approached her, and called her name. When she looked up, he shot her eleven times with his 9mm semiautomatic handgun. The man then turned the gun on himself and shot himself in the head.
Amy’s friends, family and local law enforcement were shocked by this and did not know where to start in trying to figure out why someone could have done something like this.
The shooter was identified as 21-year-old Liam Youens. He had gone to the same school as Amy, but her friends and family said that she barely even knew that he existed. Liam was strange, kept to himself and did not have any friends. He ate alone at lunch and when he went home to his busy house with his mom and five older siblings, Liam would lock himself in his room and spend hours on his computer. When police searched his computer, they found violent video games, website search histories of mass murder and shootings, graphic and pornographic images, and many pictures of Amy Boyer.
Liam also had his own websites, one dedicated to personal information about Amy and one he used as a personal blog where he shared photos of his gun collection, idolized school shooters, ranted about how he was lonely and hated his appearance, and his plans to harm and kill others. The first photo on the website page was Liam in sunglasses posing with an AR-15, and below it he had written “Who am I? Well if i had 20 people buried in my backyard my neighbors would have described me as ‘Quiet, basically kept to himself.’ ”
Liam described falling in love with Amy at their church youth group in eighth grade, and how he perceived her saying hello to another male peer several years later as a direct and personal rejection. Over the next eight years he obsessed over her and wrote about violent thoughts to kill her.
In November of 1996, Liam was angry at his mother after she told him she wouldn’t pay for plastic surgery to fix his “sunken chest” and he threw a china cabinet down the stairs. When his mother called police, he threatened suicide as he was being arrested. He was convicted of criminal threatening and criminal mischief and was ordered to attend anger-management classes, which he did not take seriously or benefit from. Despite his prior conviction, Liam bought a gun, and then five more.
While obsessing over Amy, Liam began targeting another former classmate named Owen. Police believe that Liam thought that Owen and Amy had had a relationship. Liam showed up to the UNH campus, where Owen was a student, at least four times. He also brought a gun with him to work at a 7-11 after Owen had come into the store. On his website he detailed how he wanted to kill Owen, as well as plan a school shooting at Nashua High School.
After he graduated high school, Liam attempted to go to college but dropped out and instead spent his time festering in his room and spending hundreds of dollars on a website called “Docusearch” for Amy’s personal information. He obtained her Social Security number for $45, found her address and the address of the dental office where she worked. On September 30th, 1999, Liam drove to the office and observed Amy there. He returned to the office for the next few days to observe her and figure out her work schedule, making posts on his website about how he would park next to her and shoot her through the window as she got into her car at the end of the day. He did just that on October 15th, 1999.
Amy’s mother and stepfather, Helen and Tim Remsburg, contacted lawyers David Gottesman and Anna Barbara Hantz out of Nashua, New Hampshire to see what could be done about getting justice for Amy. Their main argument in court was that the website Docusearch that Liam used to obtain Amy’s personal information should be at fault as they provided the information that led to Amy’s murder. In court, it was discussed that Docusign called Liam to verify his identity to ensure that the purchases of Amy’s information weren’t fraudulent, taking more steps to protect him than her. They also failed to look into Liam and his criminal history.
The state Supreme Court sided with Amy’s family and the case was settled out of court, with the attorneys saying that Amy’s mother and stepfather “feel that the principles they set out to establish have been accomplished. But no matter how much money they receive, it will never bring their daughter back." The case had a major impact on private investigation. It is now a federal crime to lie to a bank or financial services company in order to gain information, and since this case there’s been a domino effect with the expansion of privacy policies from different companies.
Image sources:
weremember.com - “Amy Boyer”