Rosanne Boyland’s Would-Be Rescuer Pens Emotional Letter to Her Parents

"Her death, her murder haunts me," Ronald McAbee wrote.

Ronald McAbee (in the red cap at center) leans over a prone Rosanne Boyland as another protester does CPR on the lifeless woman on Jan. 6, 2021. Special to The Epoch Times

One of the men who tried in vain to rescue a lifeless 34-year-old Rosanne Boyland on the Lower West Terrace of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, told her parents in an emotional letter that he is haunted by what happened that day and pledged to keep her story alive until there is justice in the case.

“I apologize for it taking me two years to say this, but I am sorry for what happened to Rosanne,” Ronald “Colt” McAbee said in a handwritten note to Bret and Cheryl Boyland of Kennesaw, Georgia. “I am sorry that I couldn’t reach her in time. Lord knows I tried.”

Bret Boyland told The Epoch Times that his family is grateful that McAbee and others risked their lives to help his daughter. “He does not need to blame himself for anything,” Boyland said.

Two years after the turmoil and rioting rocked the U.S. Capitol, Rosanne Boyland’s violent death continues to spark calls for a congressional investigation into why the peaceful protester was beaten while unconscious, and why police standing just feet away did not render aid.

McAbee, then a Tennessee sheriff’s deputy, was one of the men who frantically worked to revive Boyland after she collapsed and was beaten with a walking stick by D.C. Metropolitan Police Department officer Lila Morris.

Federal prosecutors have charged McAbee with a variety of felony and misdemeanor crimes from Jan. 6. Although a Tennessee federal magistrate in September 2021 ordered McAbee released pending trial, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan decreed McAbee should be detained indefinitely. His trial is scheduled for September.

‘Reasonable’ Use of Force?

The Metropolitan Police Department deemed that all uses of force on Jan. 6—including Morris striking Boyland—were “objectively reasonable.” No charges were brought in the case.

“The police beat us with sticks, batons and sprayed us every time we got near her,” McAbee wrote to the Boyland family. “They never tried to help her while she lay there. They pushed people on top of her, beat her while she was down, and stepped on her to beat people reaching for her.”

Rosanne Boyland walked up the steps to the Lower West Terrace tunnel entrance at 4:18 p.m. She shuffled into the tunnel along with dozens of other protesters. Although there had been serious violence in and around the tunnel much of the afternoon, it was calm at the time.

Video still from bodycam footage showing Officer Lila Morris picking up a wooden stick that she used to beat Rosanne Boyland. Metropolitan Police Department/Graphic by The Epoch Times

Two minutes later, police released a chemical irritant gas in the tunnel. Witnesses said the gas displaced the oxygen, making it impossible to breathe. Protesters turned and ran for the entrance, setting off a stampede.

At the same time, police in riot gear pushed the crowd toward the entrance, creating a human pileup that spilled down the concrete stairs. Boyland was among dozens of protesters who fell and were trapped. A Texas man also trapped in the pile held her hand as she lost consciousness.

In “The Real Story of Jan. 6,” police use-of-force expert Stan Kephart said that releasing gas in the tunnel was a reckless decision that violated industry guidelines for the proper use of crowd-control chemicals.

McAbee stood directly next to where Boyland lay unconscious when Morris began striking the woman with a hardened walking stick seized a few minutes earlier from a rioter.

“It’s assault under the color of authority with intent to do great bodily harm,” Kephart said in The Epoch Times film. “She was seriously attempting to injure Rosanne Boyland by striking her when she was in a down position and unconscious.”

Protester Luke Coffee of Dallas stepped in and held up an aluminum medical crutch as a barrier between the crowd and the police line. A group of men then pulled Boyland away from the tunnel mouth. A volunteer in the crowd began CPR. McAbee made room around Boyland as attempts were made to revive her.

The man standing next to McAbee while CPR was performed on Boyland was the late podcaster Villain Phoenix of the Villain Report. He had been shooting video in the tunnel when the stampede began. He said he saw Boyland fall.

“Several people started doing CPR on her. I tried to get her carotid pulse for several minutes,” he said during a live broadcast later on Jan. 6. “… I cut part of her jeans away so I could try to feel her femoral pulse, and I couldn’t feel her femoral pulse at all. I tried for a minute or two on both.

“She had blue lips and blood was coming out of her nose,” Villain said. “She was pretty cyanotic. It didn’t seem hopeful at all. I don’t think that person will be revived.” He did not realize during his broadcast that Boyland had died in the time since he left the Lower West Terrace.

A protester lends aid to former sheriff's deputy Ronald McAbee after he tried performing CPR on an unconscious Rosanne Boyland at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Metropolitan Police Department/Screenshot via The Epoch Times

McAbee and a group of men picked Boyland up and carried her directly in front of the police line. He briefly began CPR before being pulled away by another protester. Boyland was then dragged into the Capitol by officers. Inside, police SWAT team members and paramedics began 50 minutes of efforts to save her.

The D.C. medical examiner ruled Boyland died from an overdose of amphetamine from her prescription for Adderall, not from the stampede or the beating. The Boylands disputed the finding. An independent forensic pathologist hired by the family determined the death was due to manual asphyxia.

“I hold the police accountable every day,” McAbee wrote in his letter to the Boylands. “Her death, her murder haunts me. I tried to bring her back. I tried CPR but was pulled off of her. I am sorry that I failed. I hold myself accountable too.”

Grateful for the Aid

Bret Boyland said he does not want McAbee to feel responsible for Rosanne’s death.

“We would like to thank him for trying to help our daughter Rosanne and attempting to get the officials there to do something,” Boyland told The Epoch Times. “He does not need to blame himself for anything. The Capitol Police and MPD are the ones that should be accountable.

“In the months following our daughter’s death, we watched countless videos of the scene where Rosanne went down and read many protestors’ accounts of the day,” Bret Boyland said. “We have always felt grateful for the protestors who tried to save Rosanne and tried to get the police to help her, even at the risk of their own lives.”

Sarah McAbee said Rosanne Boyland’s death has weighed heavily on her husband ever since Jan. 6.

“I thought it was a beautifully written letter that came from Colt’s heart,” Sarah McAbee told The Epoch Times. “I know he struggles with the reality that even though he is still sitting in jail as an innocent man, he will be able to come home at some point. The Boyland family will never get their daughter back.

“He hasn’t come to peace with the situation because true justice hasn’t been served,” McAbee said. “He tried everything in his power to save Rosanne but couldn’t.”

January 6 detainee Ronald McAbee with his wife Sarah. She said she was touched by her husband's letter to Bret and Cheryl Boyland. Sarah McAbee/Special to The Epoch Times

The letter to the Boylands was not the first Ronald McAbee has written to the outside world since his arrest in August 2021. On his birthday in December 2021, he wrote a letter to his “future free self” from the District of Columbia jail complex and mailed it home to his wife. The letter was, in part, a self-pep talk in which he assured himself, “You will not break.”

In December 2022, McAbee sent another birthday letter to his future free self, this time from the Central Virginia Regional Jail.

In it, he gave thanks that his criminal case and his drive to be released pending trial were getting some serious attention. Then-Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) read portions of an Epoch Times story about McAbee on the House floor on Nov. 16.

McAbee wrote that he is proud that he has endured incarceration—even getting maced and knocked to the ground for refusing to wear a COVID mask in early September 2022.

“You have stayed in the fight and refuse to bow down to this tyrannical government and judicial system,” he wrote. “God has chosen you to carry this burden. Never forget your time in here.”