It was New Year’s Eve, 1989. While most of Mansfield, Ohio, was raising a glass to the coming decade, a 26-year-old woman named Sherri Campbell was waiting for a new life to begin. She was heavily pregnant. She was also deeply involved with Dr. John "Jack" Boyle, a prominent local neurosurgeon.
Most people know the broad strokes. The doctor kills his wife, Noreen. He buries her under the basement of a new house. His 11-year-old son, Collier Landry, becomes a hero by testifying against him. But Sherri Campbell is often the "forgotten" figure in this macabre puzzle, the woman who lived in the shadow of a shallow grave.
What actually happened to her? Did she know what Jack was doing with that jackhammer?
Honestly, the details are still chilling decades later.
The Mistress and the "New" Mrs. Boyle
Sherri Campbell wasn't just a casual fling. By late 1989, she was the reason Jack Boyle was tearing his life apart. Jack didn't just want a divorce; he wanted a total erasure of his past. While Noreen was still living in their Mansfield home, Jack was already buying a $300,000 house in Erie, Pennsylvania, for Sherri and their unborn child.
The deception was brazen.
When Jack signed the paperwork for the Erie house, Sherri was right there with him. But she wasn't signing as Sherri Campbell. She signed the documents as "N. Sherri Boyle." She was essentially "playing house" as the new Mrs. Boyle before the old one was even cold.
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You’ve got to wonder what she was thinking. Did she believe Jack’s story that Noreen had simply walked out? Or did she see the red flags and decide to look the other way? When investigators later questioned the realtor, they noted that Sherri looked nothing like the real Noreen. The facade was thin, but Jack was desperate to make it stick.
The Jackhammer and the Pork Roast
The timeline of what happened to Sherri Campbell during those final days of 1989 is a masterclass in psychological compartmentalization.
Two days before Noreen disappeared, Jack rented a jackhammer. He told people it was for "clearing ice" off his driveway. That’s a lot of power for a little bit of sleet. In reality, he was using it to break through the concrete floor in the Erie basement to create a tomb.
On New Year’s Day—just hours after Noreen was murdered—Jack had Sherri cook a pork roast. He had her bring it over to the house. This was a key piece of evidence for the prosecution later. Why? Because Jack was acting like a man who knew for a fact his wife wasn't coming home to cook dinner. He had already replaced her role with Sherri.
Sherri gave birth to their daughter in January 1990, less than two weeks after Noreen vanished. While she was nursing a newborn, the police were literally digging up her basement.
The Trial and the Fifth Amendment
When the case went to trial in June 1990, Sherri Campbell found herself in the middle of a media circus. It was the "trial of the century" for Ohio. People were glued to their TVs watching Collier Landry, just 11, point a finger at his father.
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Sherri took the stand, but she didn't provide the "smoking gun" many hoped for. Instead, she frequently pleaded the Fifth Amendment.
She refused to answer questions that might incriminate her regarding the forged signatures or what she knew about Jack’s activities in the basement. Because she was never charged with a crime, her legal involvement largely ended there. She wasn't the one who swung the hammer or wrapped the body, but her presence provided the motive Jack needed to commit the unthinkable.
Life After the "Bistate Horror Show"
After Jack Boyle was sentenced to 20 years to life for aggravated murder and abuse of a corpse, Sherri Campbell effectively vanished from the public eye.
She had a child to raise—Jack's daughter.
For years, people wondered if she stayed in touch with the man who killed for her. According to various reports and the 2017 documentary A Murder in Mansfield, Jack’s daughter grew up largely apart from the Boyle family's dark legacy.
Interestingly, Sherri’s uncle, Mark Davis, was also tangentially involved. Jack had dumped the broken concrete from the Erie basement on Davis’s property. It seems the entire world around Sherri was being used by Jack to hide his tracks.
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Where is she now?
Sherri moved on. She changed her life, likely changed her name through marriage, and sought the kind of anonymity that a case like this makes nearly impossible. Unlike Collier Landry, who has embraced his story to help others heal from trauma through his podcasts and films, Sherri has chosen silence.
There is no record of her ever visiting Jack in prison in recent years. As of August 2025, Jack Boyle—now 82—was once again denied parole. The board cited the "extreme brutality" and "callousness" of his crime. He remains at the Marion Correctional Institution. Sherri Campbell is a ghost in his story now, a woman who was once a catalyst for murder and is now just a footnote in a case file.
Why the Story Still Matters
What happened to Sherri Campbell is a reminder of how easily people can be manipulated by a "charismatic" professional like Jack Boyle. He was a neurosurgeon, a man of status.
- Financial Control: Jack was moving assets and buying homes under false names.
- Isolation: He moved Sherri to a different state (Pennsylvania) away from her support system.
- Gaslighting: He maintained his innocence for 30 years, only recently admitting to "accidentally" killing Noreen during a confrontation.
If you are looking for closure in the Sherri Campbell saga, you won't find it in a courtroom. You find it in the resilience of the survivors. Collier Landry’s journey has shown that while you can’t change what happened in the basement, you can choose how the story ends.
To stay informed on the legacy of this case, you can follow Collier Landry's work on his podcast Moving Past Murder, where he frequently discusses the nuances of the investigation and his ongoing efforts to advocate for victims of domestic violence. Checking the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (ODRC) website will provide the most current updates on Jack Boyle's status, as his next parole consideration won't happen for another 60 months.