Thirty-three months after their daughter Rosanne Boyland’s tragic death at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Bret and Cheryl Boyland feel new pain every time a media outlet publishes the false claim that their daughter died of a drug overdose.
On Oct. 12, a prominent national newspaper wrote that Ms. Boyland “died of what was determined to be a methamphetamine overdose.”
Within a day, that claim spread all over the internet, even appearing as a snippet on the website of the Merriam-Webster dictionary under the word “die.” A week later, the newspaper corrected the error, but the family said the damage was done—again.
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The Boylands challenged the amphetamine finding, eventually hiring an independent forensic pathologist who said Ms. Boyland most likely died of compressional asphyxia, not from Adderall or illegal drugs.
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Getting anyone to listen has been a never-ending battle.
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