Phoenix, AZ: Man given triple death sentence in 2004 slayings

by Michael Kiefer - Feb. 4, 2010 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic
Six years to the day after killing three people, including his grandmother and an uncle, a Phoenix man Tuesday was sentenced to death three times by a Maricopa County Superior Court jury.

According to court records, Eric Boyston, 30, was a transient on Feb. 2, 2004, when he shot and killed his grandmother, Mary Boyston, and his uncle, Alexander Boyston, then stabbed family friend Timothy Wright to death. He also shot and wounded an ex-girlfriend and his great-aunt during the rampage.


The court process took years as Boyston was restored to mental competence to stand trial and as his defense attorneys attempted to prove that he was mentally retarded.

But on Dec. 16, 2009, a jury found him guilty of three counts of first-degree murder and two counts of attempted first-degree murder.

According to court records, the rampage began when Boyston became enraged at a former girlfriend's admission that she was seeing another man. He shot her several times as they sat in a car parked in the 3100 block of N. Black Canyon Freeway in Phoenix. She survived the attack but was rendered a paraplegic.

Then he walked 100 feet to his grandmother's apartment where he shot her and his uncle. He walked next door to the great-aunt's apartment and shot her, then returned to his grandmother's home, where he encountered Wright and stabbed him to death.

Boyston fled after trying to carjack a car, but was arrested 10 hours later.