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