US man charged with 1978 killing of British couple

A 75-year-old California man was charged on Thursday with the chilling 1978 murder of a young British couple who had been sailing on his boat in the Caribbean Sea.

Silas Duane Boston allegedly beat and bound Christopher Farmer and his girlfriend Peta Frampton, attaching weights to their bindings and covering their heads with plastic bags before dumping them alive overboard in a fit of rage.

The murders took place between June and July 1978 and their corpses were found on about July 8 floating at sea off the coast of Guatemala.

A probe into their murders went cold even though Boston was interviewed a number of times by investigators about disappearances.

The case, worthy of a crime novel, was relaunched thanks to an investigation into the 1968 disappearance of Boston's former wife, Mary Lou Boston.

Boston allegedly also killed her, according to the criminal complaint.

He was arrested last week at a convalescent home in the town of Paradise, in northern California.

He appeared in federal court on Thursday in a wheelchair and entered a not guilty plea.

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