00:00:05
in four years time this man suffered the
00:00:08
loss of two wives and his business went
00:00:11
bankrupt
00:00:12
you gotta say this guy's gotta be the
00:00:14
most unlucky person in the world
00:00:16
[Music]
00:00:18
was it bad luck or as one forensic
00:00:21
scientist asked
00:00:22
was it too coincidental
00:00:25
[Music]
00:00:34
[Music]
00:00:38
[Applause]
00:00:42
[Music]
00:00:53
in 1994 36 year old tim buskowski and
00:00:57
his three children moved to pittsburgh
00:01:00
pennsylvania to begin a new life
00:01:03
[Music]
00:01:04
just a few months earlier in north
00:01:06
carolina tim suffered the dual loss of
00:01:08
his business and the accidental death of
00:01:11
his wife elaine
00:01:13
there's things you learn in life and
00:01:14
what your mom can teach you
00:01:19
i'll never have a chance to find those
00:01:21
things out
00:01:23
the memories will never go away but
00:01:25
you kind of like had to put up like a
00:01:27
back seat to that
00:01:29
and kind of like move on
00:01:32
tim started a small company to make
00:01:34
crowns and bridges for local dentists
00:01:38
and just seven months after the death of
00:01:40
his wife he met 32 year old mary ann
00:01:43
fullerton
00:01:45
she met him at a dance
00:01:47
she came home all excited saying
00:01:50
she met the most wonderful man at the
00:01:52
catholic singles club that night and
00:01:55
all her friends figured
00:01:57
you know they hadn't seen her that
00:01:59
excited in a while and it just might be
00:02:01
the person
00:02:02
mary ann soon fell in love with tim and
00:02:05
his kids randy sandy and todd
00:02:09
when the couple married marianne
00:02:11
included tim's children in the
00:02:16
[Applause]
00:02:21
she ceremony to love them
00:02:23
and
00:02:25
cherish them and take care of them as
00:02:27
long as she could
00:02:28
she hugged randy
00:02:31
she kissed sandy she kissed todd and she
00:02:34
was very emotional when she said this
00:02:35
prayer in church
00:02:37
looking from the outside in
00:02:39
you wouldn't have known that she wasn't
00:02:41
you know a real mother per se
00:02:45
they're saying
00:02:46
todd what do you have explain what
00:02:47
you're going to do
00:02:49
but just 18 months after the wedding
00:02:52
tragedy struck tim boskowski yet again
00:02:55
[Music]
00:02:56
shortly after midnight on november 7
00:02:59
1994
00:03:00
tim found his wife unconscious in the
00:03:03
family hot tub
00:03:14
marianne was rushed to the trauma center
00:03:16
of allegheny general hospital but it was
00:03:19
too late
00:03:20
she was pronounced dead
00:03:23
it's probably the worst feeling in the
00:03:24
world
00:03:28
tim told police that he and marianne
00:03:31
went into the hot tub together around 11
00:03:33
o'clock
00:03:35
they ignored or were unaware of safety
00:03:38
warnings that they should spend no
00:03:40
longer than 10 or 15 minutes in the hot
00:03:42
water
00:03:44
and doctors warned against drinking
00:03:46
alcohol in a hot tub
00:03:47
[Music]
00:03:49
tim and marianne stayed in for over an
00:03:51
hour and tim admitted the two had been
00:03:54
drinking
00:03:55
he was really pushing the fact that she
00:03:57
was drinking heavily 13 to 15 beers
00:04:00
that's a lot of beer
00:04:02
later tim left to take a shower
00:04:05
and he said marianne stayed behind
00:04:08
[Music]
00:04:09
when tim returned 20 minutes later
00:04:12
he found marianne's lifeless body in the
00:04:15
water
00:04:16
she was immersed in a hot tub the spa
00:04:19
that had the temperature of
00:04:20
approximately 104 degrees the outside
00:04:23
air in early november
00:04:26
was in the 30s
00:04:27
she probably attempted to get out of the
00:04:29
tub
00:04:30
and had an episode of lightheadedness
00:04:32
because of the blood rushing out to the
00:04:34
cooled extremities and had a fainting
00:04:36
spell
00:04:38
fell into the tub and drowned
00:04:40
marianne's blood alcohol level
00:04:43
was .22
00:04:45
over twice the legal limit of
00:04:47
intoxication
00:04:49
it's never pleasant nor easy to uh to
00:04:52
bash the the deceased they're not here
00:04:54
to defend themselves but the long and
00:04:56
short of it in this case was that
00:04:57
marianne boskowski did have a history of
00:05:00
drinking she had i believe two duis
00:05:04
we had an episode where we had witnesses
00:05:07
that were in the choir with her at
00:05:09
church were concerned about her drinking
00:05:12
once again
00:05:13
tim boskowski
00:05:15
was a widower
00:05:17
you gotta say this guy's got to be the
00:05:19
most unlucky person in the world
00:05:21
to lose both wives in a four year period
00:05:24
how unlucky can you be
00:05:26
[Music]
00:05:31
on the night marianne boskowski died
00:05:34
police investigating the case were not
00:05:36
sure whether it was a freak accident
00:05:39
or something else
00:05:41
on the hot tub lay two wet beach towels
00:05:46
on the bottom of the tub lay the
00:05:48
temperature gauge which had broken loose
00:05:49
from its housing
00:05:51
and a pair of women's eyeglasses
00:05:55
on the deck officers also saw a wet pack
00:05:59
of cigarettes an ashtray two cups and a
00:06:02
small box that held the breathing device
00:06:04
tim used to administer cpr on marianne
00:06:08
until paramedics arrived the device
00:06:11
typically is used on strangers to
00:06:13
prevent disease that was suspicious
00:06:16
a person in his right mind would
00:06:19
want to use this device on his own wife
00:06:22
and
00:06:22
take the time to leave her alone in that
00:06:24
tub to run down in the basement to find
00:06:26
this thing to bring it up
00:06:29
something else bothered police
00:06:32
a scratch on tim boskowski's neck
00:06:35
detectives asked tim to remove his shirt
00:06:38
they saw multiple scratches on both
00:06:41
sides of his waist his shoulder and left
00:06:44
thumb and
00:06:46
his left chin was bruised
00:06:48
the superficial uh scratches on his back
00:06:51
did not bleed
00:06:52
okay uh they were not surrounded by
00:06:55
bruising or black and blue or hematoma
00:06:58
contusions on his body they were just
00:07:00
little scratches didn't necessarily take
00:07:03
a a trained police officer to figure out
00:07:06
that there was really something wrong
00:07:08
here
00:07:08
marianne's family was suspicious
00:07:11
they had heard rumors that tim's first
00:07:13
wife died under similar circumstances i
00:07:17
asked marianne i said i had heard that
00:07:20
she had drowned in a bathtub and mary
00:07:22
and said oh aunt ruth
00:07:25
she choked on something and i said what
00:07:28
in the world was she eating in the
00:07:29
bathtub that she would choke on
00:07:31
and she said
00:07:33
i don't know she said tim doesn't like
00:07:35
to talk about it it gets too upset
00:07:39
police in greensboro north carolina
00:07:41
confirmed that tim's first wife elaine
00:07:44
died in a bathtub accident
00:07:48
four years earlier tim said elaine was
00:07:51
intoxicated when she came home from a
00:07:53
church social function
00:07:56
elaine went to take a bath
00:07:58
tim said he went to bed
00:08:00
[Music]
00:08:01
at the time the couple's daughter sandy
00:08:04
was six years old both she and her
00:08:06
father said they heard a loud noise in
00:08:09
the bathroom
00:08:11
i remember hearing
00:08:13
a thud and i remember getting up and
00:08:15
being the one who woke my dad up
00:08:18
tim said the bathroom door was locked
00:08:20
which he forced open with a screwdriver
00:08:24
inside he found his wife on her back in
00:08:27
the bathtub unconscious submerged in the
00:08:31
water
00:08:32
tim said he pulled her out of the tub
00:08:34
and placed her over the shower door
00:08:35
tracks to try to revive her
00:08:38
he laid her across the tub thinking that
00:08:40
he could get the water out of her
00:08:43
because he felt like she had swallowed
00:08:44
water and that was keeping her from
00:08:46
breathing paramedics rushed to lane to
00:08:48
the wesley long community hospital
00:08:51
where she was pronounced dead
00:08:53
i was in admiration of elaine
00:08:56
i admired her strength
00:08:59
i admired her freeness to laugh
00:09:03
she had such beautiful qualities
00:09:06
at the scene
00:09:08
police found vomit in the bathtub from
00:09:11
tim's resuscitation efforts but no water
00:09:14
in the tub or nearby
00:09:17
how do you get her out and not be wet
00:09:20
how do you get her out and not be water
00:09:22
everywhere
00:09:23
like what happened to the water
00:09:26
that was the thing that kept freaking me
00:09:27
out
00:09:28
even the shower door tracks were
00:09:30
completely dry
00:09:32
[Music]
00:09:33
brenda vance was a rookie police officer
00:09:35
in 1990 and the same size as tim's first
00:09:39
wife elaine
00:09:41
disturbed by the lack of water in the
00:09:43
boskowski bathroom
00:09:45
vance conducted an experiment in her own
00:09:48
home bathtub
00:09:50
the officer wanted to see how much water
00:09:52
it took to submerge her head
00:09:56
we start filling the tub up
00:09:57
[Music]
00:10:00
when there's enough water in the tub
00:10:01
that it started getting up right here on
00:10:03
my face my head is floating up
00:10:05
an unconscious person is just going to
00:10:07
float right up
00:10:08
so that didn't make any sense to me
00:10:11
second thing was before i could get
00:10:13
enough water in there the overflow valve
00:10:15
has taken the water out
00:10:17
so i could never submerge myself in my
00:10:19
tub
00:10:20
you know we proved
00:10:21
his story just didn't hold water it no
00:10:24
water there it did not happen that way
00:10:27
elaine baskowski's autopsy revealed no
00:10:31
water in the airways
00:10:33
forensic pathologists say water is not
00:10:35
always present in the lungs of drowning
00:10:38
victims
00:10:39
three parallel lines marked the lower
00:10:42
chest and upper abdomen
00:10:44
consistent with the shower door tracks
00:10:46
on the boskowski's bathtub
00:10:49
the explanations that he offered for the
00:10:52
marks on the body
00:10:54
couldn't be refuted by the autopsy
00:10:56
findings when he said i put her over the
00:10:59
edge of the tub to to try to resuscitate
00:11:02
her or an attempt to save her life well
00:11:04
we we have a mark that's consistent with
00:11:06
putting a body over the edge of a tub
00:11:08
the toxicology report showed elaine's
00:11:11
blood alcohol level was
00:11:13
zero
00:11:14
she was not inebriated as tim claimed
00:11:19
despite the inconsistency
00:11:21
the coroner ruled the cause of death
00:11:24
undetermined
00:11:26
well he called undetermined because i
00:11:28
don't really believe a story but i can't
00:11:31
say that it didn't happen that way but
00:11:32
i'm suspicious but you know there's just
00:11:34
not quite enough there
00:11:36
i understand why she made the call that
00:11:38
she did to begin with
00:11:40
i think
00:11:42
to answer your question directly i think
00:11:44
she did the best she could under the
00:11:45
circumstances
00:11:48
i also believe that
00:11:50
that she probably felt very badly
00:11:52
personally when the second woman died
00:11:56
but
00:11:56
if tim boskowski got away with murder
00:11:59
the first time
00:12:01
would he be lucky enough to get away
00:12:03
with it again
00:12:05
with wife number two
00:12:08
[Music]
00:12:12
tim boskowski had been married two times
00:12:16
both wives died under suspicious
00:12:18
circumstances the first in a bathtub the
00:12:22
second in a hot tub
00:12:25
friends and relatives say the two wives
00:12:27
strongly resembled each other
00:12:30
and they actually wore their hair style
00:12:32
the same
00:12:33
it was ironic because they both wore
00:12:36
glasses that were coke bottle thick
00:12:40
and that was another similarity
00:12:43
both of them were very much involved in
00:12:45
the catholic church
00:12:47
the investigation into the death of
00:12:49
tim's first wife was inconclusive
00:12:52
investigators were hoping for more in
00:12:55
the autopsy of tim's second wife
00:12:58
it is impossible to know exactly what
00:13:00
happened
00:13:01
but we can piece together some things in
00:13:04
an intelligent and logical fashion the
00:13:07
medical examiner found 53 bruises
00:13:11
externally and internally
00:13:13
on the upper arms the back and the upper
00:13:17
neck
00:13:19
we find some bruising and hemorrhaging
00:13:21
on the lips and at the base of the gums
00:13:23
at the inside bottom portion of the lips
00:13:26
then we find these bruises on the arms
00:13:29
that are strongly suggestive of
00:13:32
fingernail impressions we do have
00:13:34
several areas of focal hemorrhage
00:13:36
in the neck in those small muscles we
00:13:39
call strap muscles because they resemble
00:13:41
small elongated rectangular straps
00:13:44
and we find small hemorrhages in the
00:13:47
surrounding soft tissues
00:13:49
pressure to the side of the neck halts
00:13:51
the blood flow in the carotid artery to
00:13:53
the brain
00:13:54
and pressure to the vagus nerve
00:13:56
alongside the carotid slows the heart
00:13:59
muscle and respiration
00:14:02
bradycardia as we call it that slowing
00:14:05
of the heart can set the stage in some
00:14:07
instances uncontrollably unpredictably
00:14:11
quite erratically
00:14:13
of a
00:14:15
cardiac arrhythmia an abnormal beating
00:14:17
of the heart
00:14:18
in other words the heart just stops
00:14:20
beating the lungs then stop functioning
00:14:23
and in a matter of four to six minutes
00:14:25
you're dead
00:14:27
dr wecht says
00:14:28
marianne boskowski
00:14:30
did not drown
00:14:32
i think that mr boskowski strangled her
00:14:36
i think he applied pressure
00:14:38
to her neck i think that he
00:14:41
held her arms he may well have held her
00:14:43
underwater although we don't have any
00:14:45
definitive evidence of prolonged
00:14:47
immersion in water i think that it was a
00:14:50
staged
00:14:52
drowning i think that
00:14:54
the death is due to strangulation
00:14:56
marianne's blood alcohol level
00:14:59
.22
00:15:01
was proof she was intoxicated
00:15:04
dr weck says being intoxicated made it
00:15:07
difficult for marianne to fight off her
00:15:10
attacker
00:15:11
the official ruling
00:15:13
asphyxiation
00:15:15
due to compression of the neck
00:15:17
as the medical evidence
00:15:19
incontrovertibly in our minds indicated
00:15:22
he strangled her to death in plain
00:15:24
english it's not that easy
00:15:27
to get away with something the second or
00:15:29
third time that you try to do it
00:15:32
if tim murdered both of his wives as
00:15:34
alleged
00:15:36
what was the motive
00:15:38
when prosecutors interviewed marianne
00:15:40
voskowski's family and friends they
00:15:43
learned that tim and marianne had
00:15:45
recently been on a cruise
00:15:47
and all was not happy
00:15:49
marianne said if things don't get better
00:15:53
when i by the time i get back i can
00:15:55
always leave and i'm taking the children
00:15:57
with me
00:15:58
there was evidence tim's first wife
00:16:00
elaine was planning to divorce him as
00:16:02
well
00:16:04
as a grown woman in her 30s a mother she
00:16:06
was discovering rock and roll from the
00:16:08
60s and 70s she
00:16:10
she was really pursuing
00:16:14
a wholeness as an individual
00:16:16
i don't think he killed the woman that
00:16:17
he married
00:16:19
i think he killed the woman he was
00:16:20
afraid of tim's first wife had no life
00:16:23
insurance to speak of but tim purchased
00:16:26
a 100 000 life insurance policy on his
00:16:30
second wife
00:16:31
if and when the time came
00:16:34
that he ever had to kill her he would do
00:16:36
it and this time he'd have a lot more
00:16:38
money than he got the first time
00:16:40
even after these two suspicious deaths
00:16:44
the children steadfastly defended their
00:16:46
father
00:16:48
they say that he's innocent
00:16:51
hope they're in counseling
00:16:54
[Music]
00:16:56
tim boskowski was arrested and charged
00:16:59
with first-degree murder in the deaths
00:17:01
of his first wife elaine and his second
00:17:04
wife marianne
00:17:06
boskowski insisted he was innocent
00:17:09
the evidence does not support that
00:17:11
charge
00:17:14
prosecutors in greensboro believe tim
00:17:16
followed elaine into the bathroom that
00:17:19
night in 1990
00:17:21
a later interview with one of the
00:17:23
children revealed there was an argument
00:17:26
before elaine got into the shower
00:17:29
tim forced her over the edge of the tub
00:17:32
and held her there for four or five
00:17:34
minutes
00:17:35
preventing her from breathing
00:17:38
at some point in the struggle
00:17:40
elaine vomited before she died
00:17:45
the lack of water in and around the
00:17:47
bathtub
00:17:48
and the bruises on elaine's body told a
00:17:52
tale of violence
00:17:55
in tim's second marriage to marianne
00:17:58
there were problems once more
00:18:01
he just you know killed the first one
00:18:03
why not kill the second one
00:18:05
got away with the first one he figured
00:18:06
he can get away with this one
00:18:10
pittsburgh prosecutors believe tim and
00:18:12
marianne argued in the hot tub possibly
00:18:15
about her drinking or her interest in
00:18:18
having children of her own
00:18:21
the evidence suggests
00:18:22
tim quickly overpowered marianne
00:18:25
possibly covering her head with the
00:18:27
beach towels to muffle her screams
00:18:31
marianne fought for her life
00:18:33
splashing water onto the deck
00:18:35
and scratching tim's back
00:18:38
tim knew from the first murder that
00:18:41
strangulation victims sometimes vomit
00:18:44
this may be why he used the cpr
00:18:46
mouthpiece in marianne's case as
00:18:48
protection while performing cpr when
00:18:52
paramedics arrived all a charade
00:18:55
and all just to play
00:18:57
the acting
00:18:59
he was a terrible actor by the way
00:19:02
tim's defense lawyer says that his
00:19:04
client had no motive to kill his wife
00:19:08
tim's business up here was successful
00:19:11
they had a new house
00:19:12
things were going well for them the only
00:19:16
bone of contention that anybody could
00:19:18
point to at the time was that they had
00:19:20
some arguments over the kids
00:19:22
and if that's a reason to charge a man
00:19:25
with murder then we're
00:19:27
we're all in trouble
00:19:29
in the greensboro case and the
00:19:31
pittsburgh case tim's defense claimed
00:19:34
that both of his wives had underlying
00:19:37
heart conditions that caused accidental
00:19:40
death
00:19:41
if you believe in fairy godmothers and
00:19:43
things like that and you're prepared to
00:19:45
believe that uh something with a hundred
00:19:48
billion to one odds it can happen then
00:19:51
maybe you could argue that
00:19:53
in greensboro north carolina the jury
00:19:56
found tim boskowski guilty in the first
00:19:59
degree murder of elaine
00:20:01
wife number one
00:20:03
he was sentenced to life in prison
00:20:07
in the murder trial of marianne wife
00:20:09
number two
00:20:10
it was the same verdict guilty
00:20:13
but that jury sentenced boskowski
00:20:16
to death
00:20:18
i think
00:20:19
his sentence should be
00:20:21
tie
00:20:23
bricks around him
00:20:25
chain it chain them to him rather and
00:20:27
throw him in the allegheny river and let
00:20:29
him see what it's like to drown
00:20:31
but you're not going to use that i was
00:20:34
always against the death penalty
00:20:38
having lived through this situation
00:20:42
i've changed my views
00:20:44
tim boskowski continues to maintain his
00:20:47
innocence
00:20:49
his children say their father didn't
00:20:51
receive fair trials because jurors in
00:20:54
both cases heard about both deaths
00:20:57
well without forensics of course this
00:20:59
case would have been missed and if a
00:21:02
case like this happens in a jurisdiction
00:21:04
in which there is no competent forensic
00:21:07
pathologist it could well be missed you
00:21:09
know the marks on the neck very very
00:21:12
subtle very minimal
00:21:14
she left the message for all of us with
00:21:16
the trauma about her body that proved
00:21:18
that this wasn't an accidental drowning
00:21:21
he basically told the same story twice
00:21:23
with two wives
00:21:24
you know
00:21:25
and in both cases uh neither story held
00:21:28
water you know so he was basically just
00:21:30
all wet
00:21:33
[Music]
00:21:44
[Music]
00:21:58
[Music]
00:22:07
you
