A decade after Kelly Boyce's death, law enforcement not giving up search for her killer

Jun. 28—TRAVERSE CITY — It's been nearly 10 years since Kelly Ann Boyce was killed, and the Traverse City Police Department officials said they aren't giving up their search for a suspect in her death.

Boyce was riding her bike home from work when she was struck, killed and dragged down Washington Street by an unknown vehicle in the early morning hours of July 5, 2013.

TCPD's Detective Bureau Capt. Keith Gillis said they don't have enough evidence for a search warrant that would lead to an arrest in Boyce's death.

According to previous reporting, a witness described the vehicle that killed Boyce as either a dark SUV or pickup truck. But the car and the driver have still not been identified.

"As far as police officers involved, we all have our instinct on what happened," Gillis said. "Somebody out there knows what happened — or somebody out there said something to somebody that would lead us to some evidence for prosecution."

Grand Traverse County Prosecuting Attorney Noelle Moeggenberg said that, even though Boyce's death happened 10 years ago, there is no statute of limitations on the charges her office would be seeking.

"Based on the way she was killed, we believe that it would be a type of a homicide charge, which means there would be no statute of limitations," she said.

The person or persons involved also could potentially face leaving-the-scene charges, but those could be affected by the statute of limitations. "But the homicide, that's the one that we could charge forever," she said.

According to Section 257.732 of the Michigan Vehicle Code, vehicular homicide is punishable by up to 20 years in prison and fines ranging from $10,000 to $20,000.

Prior to his promotion to lead prosecuting attorney in Charlevoix County, Kit Tholen had been the lead attorney on this case, Moeggenberg added. Since January 2023, she said, the case was turned over to Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Kyle Atwood and herself.

"We've been working with city police whenever something comes up with the case," she said.

With the help of the Michigan State Police Crime Lab, the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Detroit Division and its headquarters in Virginia and other local agencies, Gillis said they've received several good tips over the years.

But, he explained, "tips don't bring us to the prosecutor's office. We need some hard evidence. Physical evidence, not circumstantial."

"All of these agencies have been with us since the very beginning, and we're not done," he said. "This investigation's open and all of those resources are still in the game to help us do whatever we gotta do to solve this case."

At a Wednesday morning press conference, Gillis said he could not give any details on the leads they've followed or potential suspects since the case remains an active investigation.

They have spent thousands of man hours tracking down information — and they received more than a thousand tips.

"Because this is an open investigation, we're not going to relay in reference to possible suspects or what tips we have or where we're at with those tips," Gillis said. "We're looking to get this out into the community to try and generate more tips; hopefully, new tips."

Traverse City Police Department is now asking for information from the public so they can gather enough evidence to make an arrest in the only unsolved homicide case that remains open in Traverse City.

"Obviously, a case of this nature, we want to make sure that we do exactly how we're supposed to do it," Gillis explained. "We don't want to do a search warrant and have everything thrown out because we didn't do the search warrant right or have enough probable cause for that.

"There's a lot of things that go into play here. We can't go off reasonable suspicion."

With the FBI's technological assistance, their department has gathered 90,000 phone numbers that were identified as being near the scene of Boyce's death within two days of her death on July 5, 2013.

"If we get the right tip, we have the information from that particular day," he said.

Five years ago, then-Grand Traverse County Prosecutor Bob Cooney told the Traverse City Record-Eagle that law enforcement had intensified their efforts in the case.

But Cooney would not say at the time whether authorities had identified any suspects. He said then that a "handful" of very interesting tips were being reviewed by prosecutors and police.

"We wouldn't do that if we didn't think it might lead to a charge," Cooney said in an article published on July 5, 2018.

Cooney also filed an unspecified number of subpoenas since the investigation began after Boyce's death in 2013, including some in May and June 2018. But investigators still lacked evidence to follow through with charges, he said at the time.

"We need the closure to this," Gillis said Wednesday morning.

"She deserves justice," Kelly's mother, Michelle Boyce, said after the press conference. "Guilt's a terrible thing — and you would think somebody would've said something and can't believe somebody else hasn't repeated it."

"How do you look in the mirror everyday after you did something like this?" she added. "You gotta look in the mirror and know what a horrific thing you did."

The FBI is offering up to $25,000 as a reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the individual or individuals responsible for Boyce's death.

"Those people should know that the people that did this, that killed Kelly Ann Boyce 10 years ago, they should know that this is not going away," Traverse City FBI special agent Garrett Croon said. "The FBI continues to allocate resources to this matter, and we will throw every resource available, to include our FBI resources in Detroit and our lab in Quantico, Va., to this investigation and bring those responsible to justice,because Kelly didn't deserve this — and it's not going away."

Croon confirmed that the FBI has deployed resources in multiple states to assist in TCPD's investigative efforts.

Anyone with information in this matter is asked to email the Traverse City Police Department at traversecitypolicedepartment@traversecitymi.gov or call 231-995-5170.