Eric Boyd was 30 years old when he was killed in St. Louis, Missouri, on Tuesday, December 16, 2008. The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department investigated his death, and the Washington Post's homicide database, which tracked killings in St. Louis from 2007 through 2017, lists it as a homicide that remained open with no arrest.
Beyond his name, his age and the date of his death, almost nothing about Eric Boyd has been made public. No news story about the killing, obituary, memorial page or family fundraiser could be found for this account. He surely had family, friends and neighbors who remember who he was, but none of that has entered the public record.
Because so little has been released, even the basic circumstances remain unknown to the public.
The record does not say how he was killed, whether he was attacked indoors or on the street, whether he knew his attacker, what time of day it happened, whether he died at the scene or later at a hospital, or whether anyone else was hurt. It does not say whether investigators ever identified a suspect, and no reward offer could be found.
He was 30 and was killed on a Tuesday in mid-December, nine days before Christmas. His family would have faced the holidays in the shadow of his death, and people who saw him in those last busy weeks of the year may remember something useful.
Eric Boyd is a common name, and searches are dominated by other men, including a man convicted in federal court in a notorious 2007 Knoxville, Tennessee, case, a Florida man killed in a motorcycle crash in June 2008, a St. Louis lawyer and a baseball player. None of them is the 30-year-old killed in St. Louis in December 2008.
The location recorded in the database places his death on the north side of St. Louis, west of Bellefontaine and Calvary cemeteries, near the Penrose neighborhood. These are residential streets of brick homes where many families have lived for years. Anyone who was nearby in mid-December 2008 may remember the police activity that followed his death.
St. Louis had one of the highest homicide rates of any large American city in those years. The city, home to roughly 350,000 people at the time, recorded 167 homicides in 2008 and 143 in 2009, and the Washington Post's analysis found that roughly half of the city's killings between 2007 and 2017 never led to an arrest. Cases with few public details often faded from view quickly.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Eric Boyd could be found in news archives or public records. More than 17 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who knew Eric Boyd and saw him in the days before he died, or who heard talk afterward of what happened to him, may be able to help. Even a small detail, such as a name overheard, a car seen leaving the area or a conversation remembered, can help detectives move a case forward. Anyone with information can call the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department Homicide Division at 314-444-5371, or leave an anonymous tip with CrimeStoppers at 866-371-TIPS (866-371-8477).
