Suspect charged with strangling woman in Chicago garage had violent history
CHICAGO (CBS) –Prosecutors said a Chicago mother was killed by someone she knew well.
The accused killer, Lawrence Boyle, was in court on Friday, and so was CBS 2's Suzanne Le Mignot. She had the latest about the suspect's violent past.
Prosecutors said the victim, Sierra Jamison, had known Boyle for 10 years and started a romantic relationship with him just a few weeks before she was murdered.
Jamison was interviewed by the CBS 2 Investigators about a story on how Black women are more often targeted for certain crimes. She had been the victim of an attempted carjacking in 2022.
"My thoughts are on that I don't know why a lot of people want to target young women," Jamison said.
Prosecutors said Boyle, 63, strangled Jamison, 30, on Monday. Jamison had gone to her garage to park her Jeep on the 7800 block of South Indiana Avenue. Prosecutors said Boyle was waiting inside.
At first, the machine worker at a cup manufacturing plant said he thought Jamison had a gun, but when he realized she didn't, he continued to strangle her until she went limp. He took her cell phone and then covered her body with a green tarp.
Jamison's brother saw Boyle leaving the garage after she had parked her Jeep, according to prosecutors. He told her brother that Jamison threw her cell phone at him and then went to the store. A short time later, Jamison's mother went to the garage and found her daughter under the tarp.
Assistant State's Attorney Anne McCord Rodgers told the judge, "He used his two hands to suffocate the life out of someone he was in a dating relationship with."
Records uncovered by CBS 2 Investigators show Boyle was charged in 2011 with domestic violence, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. A month after his arrest, the case was dropped. Boyle was also convicted in 1993 of child abuse in North Carolina and was out of prison by 1999.
In court it was also revealed Boyle served two years in the North Carolina Department of Corrections for a breaking and entering conviction and had a 1997 misdemeanor conviction for assault of a woman.
He's now accused of an even more heinous crime in Chicago, making Jamison's words from just last month so haunting.
"I guess because we're women and they think we're easy to target," she told CBS 2. "I guess that's the situation. I guess that's the issue, because we'll probably be more vulnerable to give up and let go whatever the case may be."
Prosecutors said Boyle admitted to his ex-wife and police to strangling Jamison. The judge ordered he be detained.