08x08 - All Wet

[bunniefuu]

Narrator: in four years' time,

This man suffered the loss of two wives,

And his business went bankrupt.

You got to say, "this guy's got to be the most unlucky person

In the world."

Narrator: was it bad luck, or, as one forensic scientist asked,

Was it too coincidental?

In , -year-old tim boczkowski

And his three children moved to pittsburgh, pennsylvania,

To begin a new life.

Just a few months earlier in north carolina,

Tim suffered the dual loss of his business

And the accidental death of his wife, elaine.

Sandy: there's things you learn in life

That only your mom can teach you.

I'll never have a chance to find those things out.

The memories will never go away,

But you kind of like had to put up, like, a --

A backseat to that and kind of like move on.

Narrator: tim started a small company

To make crowns and bridges for local dentists.

And just seven months after the death of his wife,

He met -year-old maryann fullerton.

Schumann: she met him at a dance.

She came home all excited,

Saying she met the most wonderful man

At the catholic singles club that night.

And all her friends figured, you know,

They hadn't seen her that excited in a while,

And this might be the person.

Narrator: maryann soon fell in love

With tim and his kids, randy, sandy, and todd.

When the couple married, maryann included tim's children

In the ceremony.

Schumann: she vowed to love them and cherish them

And take care of them as long as she could.

She hugged randy.

She kissed sandy. She kissed todd.

And she was very emotional when she said this prayer in church.

Sandy: looking from the outside in,

You wouldn't have known that she wasn't, you know,

Our real mother, per se.

Tim: there are sandy and todd.

Todd, what do you have?

Explain what you're gonna do.

Narrator: but just months after the wedding,

Tragedy struck tim boczkowski yet again.

Shortly after midnight on november , ,

Tim found his wife unconscious in the family hot tub.

Narrator: maryann was rushed to the trauma center

Of allegheny general hospital, but it was too late.

She was pronounced dead.

It's probably the worst feeling in the world.

Narrator: tim told police

That he and maryann went into the hot tub

Together around :.

They ignored or were unaware of safety warnings

That they should spend no longer than or minutes

In the hot water.

And doctors warn against drinking alcohol in a hot tub.

Tim and maryann stayed in for over an hour,

And tim admitted the two had been drinking.

Waters: he was really pushing the fact

That she was drinking heavily, to beers.

Well, that's -- that's a lot of beer.

Narrator: later tim left to take a shower,

And he said maryann stayed behind.

When tim returned minutes later,

He found maryann's lifeless body in the water.

Herb: she was immersed in the hot tub,

The spa that had a temperature of approximately degrees.

The outside air in early november was in the s.

She probably attempted to get out of the tub

And had an episode of lightheadedness

Because of the blood rushing out to the cooled extremities

And had a fainting spell, fell into the tub and drowned.

Narrator: maryann's blood-alcohol level was .,

Over twice the legal limit of intoxication.

It's never pleasant nor easy to bash the deceased.

They're not here to defend themselves,

But the long and short of it in this case

Was that maryann boczkowski did have a history of drinking.

She had, I believe, two duis.

We had an episode where we had witnesses

That were in the choir with her at church

Were concerned about her drinking.

Narrator: once again, tim boczkowski was a widower.

Waters: you got to say,

"This guy's got to be the most unlucky person in the world."

To lose both wives in a -year period --

How unlucky can you be?

Narrator: on the night maryann boczkowski d*ed,

Police investigating the case were not sure

Whether it was a freak accident or something else.

On the hot tub lay two wet beach towels.

On the bottom of the tub lay the temperature gauge,

Which had broken loose from its housing,

And a pair of women's eyeglasses.

On the deck officers also saw a wet pack of cigarettes,

An ashtray, two cups

And a small box that held the breathing device

Tim used to administer cpr on maryann

Until paramedics arrived.

The device typically is used on strangers to prevent disease.

Waters: that was suspicious.

What person in his right mind

Would want to use this device on his own wife

And take the time to leave her alone in that tub

To run down to the basement to find this thing

To bring it up?

Narrator: something else bothered police --

A scratch on tim boczkowski's neck.

Detectives asked tim to remove his shirt.

They saw multiple scratches on both sides of his waist,

His shoulder and left thumb, and his left shin was bruised.

The superficial scratches on his back did not bleed, okay?

They were not surrounded by bruising or black and blue

Or hematoma contusions on his body.

They were just little scratches.

Didn't necessarily take a trained police officer

To figure out that there was really something wrong here.

Narrator: maryann's family was suspicious.

They had heard rumors

That tim's first wife d*ed under similar circumstances.

Schumann: I asked maryann.

I said, "I had heard that she had drowned in a bathtub."

And maryann said, "oh, aunt ruth, she choked on something."

And I said, "what in the world was she eating in the bathtub

That she would choke on?"

And she said, "oh, I don't know."

She said, "tim doesn't like to talk about it.

He gets too upset."

Narrator: police in greensboro, north carolina,

Confirmed that tim's first wife, elaine,

d*ed in a bathtub accident.

Four years earlier, tim said elaine was intoxicated

When she came home from a church social function.

Elaine went to take a bath.

Tim said he went to bed.

At the time, the couple's daughter, sandy,

Was six years old.

Both she and her father

Said they heard a loud noise in the bathroom.

I remember hearing a thud, and I remember getting up

And being the one who woke my dad up.

Narrator: tim said the bathroom door was locked,

Which he forced open with a screwdriver.

Inside he found his wife on her back in the bathtub unconscious,

Submerged in the water.

Tim said he pulled her out of the tub

And placed her over the shower-door tracks

To try to revive her.

He laid her across the tub,

Thinking that he could get the water out of her,

Because he felt like she had swallowed water

And that was keeping her from breathing.

Narrator: paramedics rushed elaine

To the wesley long community hospital,

Where she was pronounced dead.

Rochford: I was in admiration of elaine.

I admired her strength.

I admired her freeness to laugh.

She had such beautiful qualities.

Narrator: at the scene, police found vomit in the bathtub

From tim's resuscitation efforts,

But no water in the tub or nearby.

How do you get her out and not be wet?

How do you get her out and not be water everywhere?

Like, what happened to the water?

That was the thing that kept freaking me out.

Narrator: even the shower-door tracks were completely dry.

Brenda vance was a rookie police officer in

And the same size as tim's first wife, elaine.

Disturbed by the lack of water in the boczkowski bathroom,

Vance conducted an experiment in her own home bathtub.

The officer wanted to see how much water it took

To submerge her head.

Vance: we started filling the tub up.

When there was enough water in the tub

That it started getting up right here on my face,

My head's floating up.

An unconscious person is just gonna float right up.

So that didn't make any sense to me.

The second thing was before I could get enough water in there,

The overflow valve was taking the water out,

So I could never submerge myself in my tub.

And, you know, we proved his story just didn't hold water.

It -- no water there.

It did not happen that way.

Narrator: elaine boczkowski's autopsy

Revealed no water in the airways.

Forensic pathologists say water is not always present

In the lungs of drowning victims.

Three parallel lines marked the lower chest

And upper abdomen, consistent with the shower-door tracks

On the boczkowski's bathtub.

The explanations that he offered for the marks on the body

Couldn't be refuted by the autopsy findings.

When he said, "I put her over the edge of the tub

To try to resuscitate her or in attempt to save her life,"

Well, we have a mark that's consistent

With putting a body over the edge of a tub.

Narrator: the toxicology report

Showed elaine's blood-alcohol level was zero.

She was not inebriated, as tim claimed.

Despite the inconsistency,

The coroner ruled the cause of death undetermined.

Dr. Radisch: well, you call it undetermined

Because I don't really believe his story,

But I can't say that it didn't happen that way.

But I'm suspicious, but, you know,

There's just not quite enough there.

I understand why she made the call that she did to begin with.

I think, to answer your question directly,

I think she did the best she could under the circumstances.

I also believe that she probably felt very badly personally

When the second woman d*ed.

Narrator: but if tim boczkowski got away with m*rder

The first time,

Would he be lucky enough to get away with it again

With wife number two?

Narrator: tim boczkowski had been married two times.

Both wives d*ed under suspicious circumstances --

The first in a bathtub, the second in a hot tub.

Friends and relatives

Say the two wives strongly resembled each other.

Schumann: and they actually wore their hairstyle the same.

It was ironic because they both wore glasses

That were coke-bottle thick, and that was another similarity.

Both of them were very much involved in the catholic church.

Narrator: the investigation into the death of tim's first wife

Was inconclusive.

Investigators were hoping for more

In the autopsy of tim's second wife.

It is impossible to know exactly what happened,

But we can piece together some things

In an intelligent and logical fashion.

Narrator: the medical examiner found bruises

Externally and internally

On the upper arms, the back, and the upper neck.

Dr. Wecht: we find some bruising and hemorrhaging on the lips

And at the base of the gums

At the inside bottom portion of the lips,

And we find these bruises on the arms

That are strongly suggestive of fingernail impressions.

We do have several areas of focal hemorrhage in the neck,

In those small muscles we call strap muscles

Because they resemble small, elongated rectangular straps,

And we find small hemorrhages in the surrounding soft tissues.

Narrator: pressure to the side of the neck

Halts the blood flow in the carotid artery to the brain,

And pressure to the vagus nerve alongside the carotid

Slows the heart muscle and respiration.

Bradycardia, as we call it, that slowing of the heart,

Can set the stage in some instances uncontrollably,

Unpredictably, quite erratically of a cardiac arrhythmia,

An abnormal b*ating of the heart.

In other words, the heart just stops b*ating,

The lungs then stop functioning,

And in a matter of four to six minutes you're dead.

Narrator: dr. Wecht says maryann boczkowski did not drown.

Dr. Wecht: I think that mr. Boczkowski strangled her.

I think he applied pressure to her neck.

I think that he held her arms.

He may well have held her underwater,

Although we don't have any definitive evidence

Of prolonged immersion in water.

I think that it was a staged drowning.

I think that her death was due to strangulation.

Narrator: maryann's blood-alcohol level, .,

Was proof she was intoxicated.

Dr. Wecht says being intoxicated

Made it difficult for maryann to fight off her attacker.

The official ruling --

Asphyxiation due to compression of the neck.

Borkowski: as the medical evidence,

Incontrovertibly in our minds, indicated,

He strangled her to death, in plain english.

It's not that easy to get away with something

The second or third time that you try to do it.

Narrator: if tim m*rder*d both of his wives, as alleged,

What was the motive?

When prosecutors interviewed

Maryann boczkowski's family and friends,

They learned that tim and maryann

Had recently been on a cruise, and all was not happy.

Maryann said, "if things don't get better when I --

"By the time I get back, I can always leave,

And I'm taking the children with me."

Narrator: there was evidence tim's first wife, elaine,

Was planning to divorce him as well.

Rochford: as a grown woman in her s, a mother,

She was discovering rock 'n' roll from the 's and 's.

She was really pursuing a wholeness as an individual.

I don't think he k*lled the woman that he married.

I think he k*lled the woman he was afraid of.

Narrator: tim's first wife had no life insurance to speak of,

But tim purchased a $, life-insurance policy

On his second wife.

If and when the time came that he ever had to k*ll her,

He would do it, and this time he'd have a lot more money

Than he got the first time.

Narrator: even after these two suspicious deaths,

The children steadfastly defended their father.

Schumann: they say that he's innocent.

Hope they're in counseling.

Narrator: tim boczkowski was arrested and charged

With first-degree m*rder

In the deaths of his first wife, elaine,

And his second wife, maryann.

Boczkowski insisted he was innocent.

The evidence does not support that charge.

Narrator: prosecutors in greensboro

Believe tim followed elaine

Into the bathroom that night in .

A later interview with one of the children

Revealed there was an argument.

Before elaine got into the shower,

Tim forced her over the edge of the tub

And held her there for four or five minutes,

Preventing her from breathing.

At some point in the struggle, elaine vomited before she d*ed.

The lack of water in and around the bathtub

And the bruises on elaine's body told a tale of v*olence.

In tim's second marriage, to maryann,

There were problems once more.

Waters: he just, you know, he k*lled the first one.

Why not k*ll the second one?

Got away with the first one, he figured.

He can get away with this one.

Narrator: pittsburgh prosecutors believe tim and maryann

Argued in the hot tub, possibly about her drinking

Or her interest in having children of her own.

The evidence suggests tim quickly overpowered maryann,

Possibly covering her head with the beach towels

To muffle her screams.

Maryann fought for her life,

Splashing water onto the deck and scratching tim's back.

Tim knew from the first m*rder

That strangulation victims sometimes vomit.

This may be why he used the cpr mouthpiece,

In maryann's case, as protection,

While performing cpr when paramedics arrived.

All a charade and all just a play, the acting.

He was a terrible actor, by the way.

Narrator: tim's defense lawyer

Says that his client had no motive to k*ll his wife.

Herb: tim's business up here was successful.

They had a new house.

Things were going well for them.

The only bone of contention that anybody could point to

At the time was that they had some arguments over the kids.

And if that's a reason to charge a man with m*rder,

Then we're all in trouble.

Narrator: in the greensboro case and the pittsburgh case,

Tim's defense claimed that both of his wives

Had underlying heart conditions that caused accidental death.

If you believe in fairy godmothers and things like that,

And you're prepared to believe that something

With a hundred-billion-to-one odds can happen,

Then maybe you could argue that.

Narrator: in greensboro, north carolina,

The jury found tim boczkowski guilty

In the first-degree m*rder of elaine, wife number one.

He was sentenced to life in prison.

In the m*rder trial of maryann, wife number two,

It was the same verdict -- guilty.

But that jury sentenced boczkowski to death.

I think his sentence should be tie bricks around him,

Chain them to him, rather,

And throw him in the allegheny river

And let him see what it's like to drown.

But you're not gonna use that.

I was always against the death penalty.

Having lived through this situation,

I've changed my views.

Narrator: tim boczkowski

Continues to maintain his innocence.

His children say their father didn't receive fair trials

Because jurors in both cases heard about both deaths.

Well, without forensics, of course,

This case would have been missed,

And if a case like this happens in a jurisdiction

In which there is no competent forensic pathologist,

It could well be missed.

You know, the marks on the neck are very, very subtle,

Very minimal.

She left a message for all of us with the trauma about her body

That proved that this wasn't an accidental drowning.

He basically told the same story twice with two wives,

You know, and in both cases neither story held water,

You know?

So he was basically just all wet.