In October 1994, Tina Resch (now Christina Boyer) was living in Georgia, and she had a decision to make. It’s not an easy choice – and in a way, it’s a matter of life and death. She had three options.
Her first option was to tell the judge that she was “Not Guilty” for the murder of her daughter, Amber. She and her lawyer can make a very promising case supporting her innocence. She was not at home when her daughter received the blunt force trauma to the head that killed her, nor had she been around the girl for several hours before the traumatic event.
Her boyfriend at the time, a man named David Herrin, admitted to previously physically abusing the girl, and he agreed that he had sodomized her in the past as well – but he was adamant that he beat the girl that day. According to him, Christina killed her daughter.
The problem was that juries can sometimes be a bit unpredictable and if they found her guilty, she could face the death penalty.
Christina was afraid that certain details from her early childhood through her teenage years could sway the jury one way or the other and there was no way of knowing which way that could go. She was abandoned by her mother within her first year, was adopted by a foster family a few years after that. But then, as a teenager, she became famous because of her psychic (or telekinetic) powers, which some people believed in while others were skeptical.
Tina’s second option would be to plead guilty to her daughter’s murder. This did not seem like an appropriate thing to do, as she had been protesting her innocence since the day she was arrested. She and her lawyer could prove that she wasn’t anywhere around her daughter when she received the fatal blows. She also feared that pleading guilty would somehow take the spotlight away from her boyfriend, who she believed to have been the guilty party. After all, he’d already admitted that he had beaten the child on at least two previous occasions, as well as sodomizing the girl.
There was no way that she was ever going to admit to killing her own child.
It was the third option that she ultimately chose when she agreed to enter an Alford Plea (the charge (aggregated battery of a child) in which a defendant maintains their innocence, but agrees to accept whatever punishment is handed out at sentencing. This would allow her to avoid a trial, but it also meant that the death penalty was off the table.
Her sentence – Life in prison plus twenty years, with the possibility of parole.
Even though David Herrin had also been arrested for Amber’s murder, he was tried for “cruelty toward children”. After being found guilty, he received a twenty-year sentence. He remained in prison until November 16, 2011, when he was ultimately released. Christina, however, remains in jail to this day.
Whoa – Back Up A Second…
If you paid attention to the above paragraphs, I’m sure you’ve got to have a few questions. I am assuming that the two at the top of your list are …
- If this happened in Georgia, why are you telling this story as part of The Ohio Project?
- Did you really say that Tina was famous for her psychic and telekinetic abilities?
To begin answering those questions, we need to head back in time.
Tina’s Childhood
John and Joan Resch were two very well-known people, at least in and around the Columbus, Ohio area. The pair were somewhat well known through their church activities, but more so because they fostered a great number of children, some temporarily and others, like Tina, they adopted.
Tina was born on October 23, 1969, and was placed into the foster care system shortly after birth. She was still less than a year old when she went to live with John and Joan, who adopted her two years later. Several newspapers have speculated what abuses Tina endured before being placed with the Resch family, as if that could help explain why she seemed so troubled later in childhood or during her teenage years.
Even though people like to comment about her “troubles”, it didn’t seem like she was among the worst of juvenile delinquent offenders. She acted out some, as kids tend to do. Although, perhaps with her it was a bit more severe.
Then the late 1970s and early 1980s happened. Suddenly (or, not so suddenly, depending on how you view it) there was a sudden uptick in things like psychic phenomena, real and imagined witchcraft, and many of the horror stories were branching out from hideous monsters, vampires, and ghosts into the more realistic realm, and that often involved Children (or teenagers).
For example, in 1972, Stephen King published one of his more famous novels – a story about a teenage girl, the daughter of an overbearing and hyper-religious mother who finds a way to stand up to and get revenge on her relentless bullies after she discovers she has telekinetic powers. (Stephen King – Carrie) … At the theaters, we saw a movie where an All-American family move into a new house in a new subdivision only to learn that the site was once a Native American burial ground and now their house is kind of haunted and one of their kids accidentally wonders off through a portal into another dimension and has a hard time coming back. (Poltergeist, 1982)
There are other great examples, but I’ll stop there. There were also some horrible examples, such as 1982’s Parasite – a film so terrible that really the only good thing you can say about it is that it was the second film Demi Moore ever made.
Also, during this time daytime talk shows began to feature “world renowned psychics” to give messages from the afterlife to audience members. Or you might see them using “the power of the mind” to bend spoons or make the elastic in everyone’s underwear give out at the exact same time (except for Aunt Irmas, but that’s only because we’re pretty sure she wasn’t wearing any).
Around 1984, Tina “discovered” that she had some of these psychic abilities, or that things happened around her and because of her, but she couldn’t control her “psychic gifts”. Still, things would fly around the house, pictures would fall off the walls without being touched or manipulated, dishes in the kitchen sink would fly out of the sink, go across the dining room and around the corner to the living room where they would smash on the floor. Mostly typical horror movie tropes from around that time.
Tina’s parents, John and Joan, believed that either their daughter or their house was haunted or possessed by a demon, so they did what any loving parents would do in such a situation – they called the neighborhood priest to … no, just kidding. They called the local newspaper.
A reporter came to their house and talked with them and observed tables shaking supposedly on their own, a phone (which at the time were attached to the kitchen wall, not little computers in everyone’s pockets) flew across the room even through nobody had been standing near it.
That story became the talk of the town, so then some local television reporters showed up. They came in, interviewed the entire family, and set up cameras to try and get the paranormal activity on film. Sure enough, it wasn’t long before some object would fly across the room, or the coffee table would start violently shaking.
After this, the story caught the attention of James Randi.
In case you are unaware, Randi was known for inserting himself into stories like this and offering a thousand dollars to anyone who could demonstrate and prove their psychic abilities. Things had to be done in certain conditions and safeguards in place. For example, in one famous example, Randi believed that a man turning the pages of a phone book with only his mind was actually blowing on the pages. He surrounded the book with a circle of salt, which he said would remain intact unless air was being used to turn the page. The subject was unable to turn the page with those conditions set.
Randi offered the Resch family a thousand dollars if they would allow him to come in, put his safeguards in place, and try to capture the poltergeist on camera. However, the family declined.
The Story Starts To Fall Apart
After the story had been playing out on the national media for a short time, a startling “discovery” was made.
When the news reporters from the Columbus television station were at the house, before they set up some cameras to try and capture the action for themselves, they interviewed Tina and her parents. After one of the interviews, the camera was left on and it captured something incriminating. Tina walked into view, accidentally (or not) kicked a table, which knocked over a lamp. She screamed and jumped back, startled, and claimed that “The Poltergeist” had knocked over the lamp.
This footage went unnoticed for a while, but when reporters saw it – they immediately felt like they had documentation that the whole story was a hoax.
Up to this point, there were some people who were vocally skeptical about anything paranormal. But there were also many believers who really wanted to believe that supernatural forces were at play. This new evidence of Tina knocking against a table and knocking over a lamp and then claiming it was the poltergeist – that was just too much for a lot of folks and they were out.
In light of this new evidence, the local newsroom started to go through the rest of the video footage they shot that day, looking for any evidence for or against supernatural activity but they found nothing. Which now they were kind of thinking was a bit odd. None of the supernatural activities they captured started in view of the camera. In every instance, the camera would be focusing one way then something would fly across the screen. Or, a noise was heard, and the camera would pan one way or another and focus on an object that had previously been on a shelf or hanging on a wall.
Then the “paranormal investigators” started to notice (and say) the same sort of thing.
Tina didn’t help her own cause when she, too, admitted that a small number of events had been, essentially, faked. One incident she claimed she faked because she was getting tired of the household being overrun with reporters and she believed that if they got the footage they were looking for, they would just leave. Another incident she agreed to faking because the reporters had thus far been unable to gather any evidence, and she just wanted to provide some, however both times she adamantly insisted that the rest of the events were completely, one hundred percent real.
For most of the public, however, once she admitted to lying once or twice – they stopped believing in anything she would have to say.
That Next Chapter
Tina was seventeen years old when she moved out of the Resch home. She had met a guy that she liked, and who seemed to like her – the problem was that her parents didn’t like the guy and didn’t approve of their relationship. The two were semi-secretly married and moved in with each other. But that relationship quickly fizzled out and the two would soon divorce.
Tina would remarry a few years later and would change her last name to Boyer. It was from this marriage that her daughter, Amber, was born. But, by that time, her husband was no longer in the picture, and she was left to raise the girl alone.
That potential changed when she met David Harrin, who although he was abusive toward her and Amber, didn’t reject the pair right off the bat. Although, with her troubled history it’s not always easy to know exactly what she was thinking.
All this time, Tina was still “The Columbus Poltergeist Girl” and still trying to convince what few people would give her the time of day that all (or, almost all) those supernatural occurrences were real.
On May 19, 1993, Unsolved Mysteries would air the thirty-second episode of the fifth season, which would include Tina’s stories and focus on the photos and videos taken by Columbus Dispatch reporters.
What the show did not say (and maybe for good reason?) was that while the episode aired, Tina Rauch (now Christina Boyer) was sitting in a Georgia jail cell, awaiting the trial for the murder of her daughter, Amber.
The Real “Unsolved” Mystery
Even though the television show Unsolved Mysteries did feature a segment on her, their mystery was on whether or not Tina’s psychic abilities, or that whole poltergeist thing was real, or made up. While some consider that to be a compelling mystery – others say it might miss the mark a little. The real “unsolved” mystery should be why things happened the way they ultimately did.
Many people have pointed out that David Herrin, who was caring for Amber the day she died, who admitted to twice physically abusing the small child, who admitted to sodomizing her … he was sentenced to twenty years behind bars and got out early in 2011.
Yet, the girl’s mother, who was not with her child that day, who has protested her innocence this entire time, received a life sentence and has been denied parole (in part) because she refused to admit to and take accountability for the crimes which she was accused of.
While both Tina and David were initially arrested and charged with the girl’s death, the charges against him were, at some point, changed to “cruelty toward children” while she accepted the Alford Plea in the girl’s death. This could legally explain why their punishments were not the same, although to many people it still does not feel right.
Legally, in accepting the Alford Plea, Tina accepted that a guilty verdict would be on the record, even though she insisted that she was innocent. According to the justice system, it’s “Case Closed!”
But, is it?
Can we say we know, for certain, who killed Amber Boyer? According to the evidence, it was David, who was with the child all day that day. Yet, some people still want to put the finger of blame onto Tina, especially because of her plea.
I think a part of that might also include the idea that Tina left Amber alone with her boyfriend, knowing that he could have a violent temper and sometimes that anger was directed at Amber. It’s unclear whether she knew David had abused Amber in the past, physically and sexually, or if she was unaware that such events took place. Perhaps she suspected – but there is no way of knowing for sure.
But if she knew David had anger issues and allowed him to be alone with her daughter – many feel that she’s just as guilty as he is.
Having a rough childhood is no excuse for murder, or any other crime, but this knowledge does help shape the story that came later. Tina was a victim, that much is clear. But was she a victim of herself? Or was she a victim of a set of circumstances and system that is not always best equipped to handle children like herself?
There will always likely be some unresolved mysteries in this case. As I write this, Tina is still sitting in a jail cell while her boyfriend at that time is now free, having served his time and is now (somewhat) free to live his best life.
I just don’t know if that’s fair or not.
