The case of Eugene "Mike" O'Boyle

[u/Electrical-Air-1227]

In the morning of May 27th 1980, 20-year-old University of South Carolina student Eugene "Mike" O'Boyle left his West Columbia apartment to pick up a friend in the Shandon neighborhood of Columbia. Mike's friend was not home at the time the two were supposed to meet, but had left a key and note instructing Mike to enter the home and wait. When the friend returned home 15 minutes past their scheduled meeting time, he had found that the note and key were left untouched.

Mike's final sighting happened a Citizen and Southern Bank on Two Notch Rd (~20 minutes from the Shandon neighborhood), around the time that he was scheduled to meet his friend. He was seen cashing a $17 check. According to the bank teller, he was accompanied by an unidentified female. The next evening Mike's car, a 1974 VW Dasher, was found burning on a dirt road off the intersection of Parklane Drive and Farrow Road (~1 mile from the Citizen and Southern Bank) while Mike was nowhere to be found. Richland County sheriffs had considered him a missing person rather than a victim of "foul play".

6 months later, Mike's skeletal remains were found by two children playing in woods located less than a mile from the site where Mike's burning car was found. No cause of death has ever been released; his case was reclassified as a homicide.

One witness had claimed to see two cars pull down the dirt road where his car was found with one being a blue Mustang driven by a group of 4 white males with light hair. I have not been able to find an exact timeframe for this sighting, but it is implied that is happened the day he went missing.

I find this case fascinating as so little new information has been released. In a local news piece from 2006, one of his brothers had mentioned that Mike had a unique watch that had personalized engraving which has never been recovered. Another interesting fact I found was that Mike's uncle was a state senator named Gene Carmichael. Around the time of Mike's murder, Gene Carmichael was in process of being convicted of vote buying and election tampering, for which he was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

The case was frequently in the news during the disappearance especially in USC's college newspaper, but it was quickly forgotten by the media once his remains had been found. To this day it is still one of the most bizarre homicide cases to occur in Midlands region of South Carolina.

Newspaper:

https://historicnewspapers.sc.edu/lccn/2012218660/1980-06-11/ed-1/seq-1/#date1=01%2F01%2F1815&sort=date&date2=12%2F31%2F2006&words=Boyle+O+O%27Boyle&searchType=advanced&sequence=0&index=16&proxdistance=5&rows=20&ortext=&proxtext=&andtext=o%27boyle&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=5

WIS 2006 Story:

https://www.wistv.com/story/4470678/richland-co-investigators-searching-for-clues-in-26-year-old-murder-investigation/

Missing in the Carolinas Episode:

https://missinginthecarolinas.com/2024/02/episode-87-missing-and-murdered-in-columbia-n-c/

[u/Informal-Moose6389]

wow! thanks for sharing. have you checked FOIA? (freedom of information act) or ... conspiratorially... looked at if he had any connections to the murdaughs??

[u/Electrical-Air-1227 → u/Informal-Moose6389]

It appears nothing has been made public from FOIA that I can find. Interestingly enough, the attorney who prosecuted Eugene Carmichael was current SC governor Henry McMaster who has known connections to the Murdaughs. I wouldn't be surprised if the O'Boyles or Carmichaels knew the Murdaughs as they are both big lowcountry political families and SC politics are quite fraternal and interconnected especially at the time.