Wayne Clifford Boden was convicted in 1972 of killing four women, three in Montreal and one in Calgary. The Canadian Press, looking back on the case in 2013, wrote that forensic evidence left on the victims was what secured his conviction. In the literature of forensic dentistry his case is cited as an early North American conviction in which an expert compared marks on victims with casts of a suspect's teeth: the orthodontist Gordon Swann gave that evidence against him.
Boden was still serving his life sentences twelve years later when he slipped away from a prison escort in downtown Montreal during a day pass. Police caught him within about a day and a half. The escape, and the discovery that American Express had issued him a credit card while he was in prison, led to questions in the House of Commons and to an internal inquiry at the card company.
Three women were killed in Montreal and one in Calgary, and in 1972 Boden was convicted of all four killings. The women's names, their ages, and the dates and places of the killings beyond the two cities have never been confirmed on the public record.
The wire service's 2013 summary describes the evidence that convicted him as forensic evidence left on the victims. A 2020 review of bite-mark evidence in criminal investigation, by C. Y. Gómez, a forensic dentist with the Argentine Federal Police, published in the Gaceta Internacional de Ciencias Forenses, describes the same evidence from the dental side. Gómez writes that Swann, an orthodontist, presented evidence linking marks found on the victims with Boden's teeth.
How Boden came to be arrested, and where and when, remains unknown, and so does the course of the investigation in either city.
Bite-mark comparison, the method at the center of Boden's case, sets marks found in an investigation against plaster models of a suspect's teeth. Gómez's paper places the Boden case near the start of the method's use in North American courts, describing his 1972 conviction as the first criminal conviction of its kind in North America. The paper then turns to the case of Ted Bundy, which it calls the best known of all because of its police history and its treatment on film.
Gómez's paper is a general review, not a study of the trial: it gives no count of the points of comparison Swann found, and it names neither the court nor the verdict. The claim that the case was a first in North America is the paper's own; The Canadian Press said only that the evidence sealed his conviction.
The Canadian Press, in its 2013 list of notable inmates of Kingston Penitentiary, says Boden was convicted in 1972 of the killings of the three Montreal women and the Calgary woman. In May 1984 the wire service described him as serving life sentences for murdering three women in Montreal and one in Calgary, and wrote that the sentences had been imposed five years before 1977, the year he obtained an American Express card.
Gómez's 2020 paper gives the outcome differently: it says that in 1972 Boden was sentenced to three life sentences for the murder of four women. The difference between three sentences and four victims is unexplained, and The Canadian Press did not give the number of life terms.
Which court tried him, whether he pleaded guilty or was found guilty by a jury, and whether the Montreal and Calgary cases were heard separately all remain unknown.
Boden served part of his time at Kingston Penitentiary in Kingston, Ontario. When the penitentiary closed at the end of September 2013, The Canadian Press published a list of its best-known inmates, and Boden was on it. When he was held there, and for how long, is not known.
In 1977, five years into his life sentences, Boden applied for an American Express card and received one. The company's vice-president and general counsel in Canada, Bill Inwood, confirmed this to The Canadian Press in May 1984. The address on Boden's application was Correctional Services Canada, and the company was reported to have assumed that he was an employee of the prison service.
American Express had no record that the card had ever been used, the wire service reported, but its annual fee of $35 had been paid regularly. The company opened an internal investigation after the card came to light in the days following his escape.
On a Friday in May 1984 Boden was let out of the maximum-security prison at Laval, Quebec, on a day pass. According to the Canadian Press report, the stated purpose was to buy books on computers. His escort was an unarmed arts and crafts teacher from the prison, and in Montreal Boden gave the teacher the slip.
He was free for about 36 hours. Police recaptured him on the Saturday.
Reports disagreed about whether he had the American Express card with him while he was out. The director of the Laval prison, Robert Caron, said Boden had left the card at the prison before he went out on the pass. Montreal newspapers, quoting police sources who were not named, reported that he had the card on him when he was recaptured.
The escape reached the House of Commons. The Solicitor General, Robert Kaplan, told the House that prison employees who had allowed the pass could be fired. "I think giving out the pass was a mistake," he said, and he told members he expected disciplinary measures to follow. According to the Canadian Press report, the escape had been raised in the Commons on the Monday after his recapture, with questions about the reasons that had justified letting him out.
The number of life sentences. The Canadian Press in 1984 wrote of "life sentences" for four killings without giving a number; the 2020 forensic-dentistry paper says three life sentences for four murders. The figure is unexplained.
The credit card during the escape. The Laval prison director said Boden left the card behind; Montreal newspapers, citing unnamed police sources, said he had it when he was caught. The point remains unsettled.
The first conviction of its kind. The description of the case as North America's first conviction on bite-mark evidence comes from the forensic-dentistry literature. The Canadian Press summaries do not make that claim; they say the dental evidence sealed his conviction.
The victims' names, the dates of the killings, Boden's early life and the date of his death all remain unconfirmed.
1972: Convicted of killing three women in Montreal and one woman in Calgary; sentenced to life imprisonment (Canadian Press, 2013 and 1984; Gómez, 2020).
1977: Applies for and receives an American Express card, giving Correctional Services Canada as his address.
May 1984 (a Friday): Slips away from an unarmed escort in Montreal while on a day pass from the maximum-security prison at Laval.
May 1984 (the following Saturday): Recaptured by police, about 36 hours after the escape.
May 1984: Solicitor General Robert Kaplan tells the House of Commons that granting the pass was a mistake; American Express opens an internal investigation.
September 2013: Kingston Penitentiary closes; The Canadian Press lists Boden among its notable inmates.