Forensic Files - Season 8, Episode 8 - All Wet - Full Episode | Forensic Files

in four years time this man suffered the loss of two wives and his business went
bankrupt you gotta say this guy's gotta be the most unlucky person in the world [Music]
was it bad luck or as one forensic scientist asked was it too coincidental [Music]
[Music] [Applause] [Music] in 1994 36 year old tim buskowski and his three children moved to pittsburgh
pennsylvania to begin a new life [Music] just a few months earlier in north carolina tim suffered the dual loss of
his business and the accidental death of his wife elaine there's things you learn in life and
what 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 back seat to that and kind of like move on
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 32 year old mary ann fullerton 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 it just might be the person
mary ann soon fell in love with tim and his kids randy sandy and todd when the couple married marianne
included tim's children in the [Applause] she ceremony 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 looking from the outside in you wouldn't have known that she wasn't
you know a real mother per se they're saying todd what do you have explain what you're going to do
but just 18 months after the wedding tragedy struck tim boskowski yet again [Music]
shortly after midnight on november 7 1994 tim found his wife unconscious in the family hot tub
marianne 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 tim told police that he and marianne
went into the hot tub together around 11 o'clock they ignored or were unaware of safety
warnings that they should spend no longer than 10 or 15 minutes in the hot water
and doctors warned against drinking alcohol in a hot tub [Music] tim and marianne stayed in for over an
hour and tim admitted the two had been drinking he was really pushing the fact that she
was drinking heavily 13 to 15 beers that's a lot of beer later tim left to take a shower
and he said marianne stayed behind [Music] when tim returned 20 minutes later he found marianne's lifeless body in the
water she was immersed in a hot tub the spa that had the temperature of approximately 104 degrees the outside
air in early november was in the 30s 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 marianne's blood alcohol level was .22 over twice the legal limit of
intoxication it's never pleasant nor easy to uh to bash the the deceased they're not here
to defend themselves but the long and short of it in this case was that marianne boskowski 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 once again tim boskowski was a widower you gotta say this guy's got to be the
most unlucky person in the world to lose both wives in a four year period how unlucky can you be
[Music] on the night marianne boskowski died 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 marianne until paramedics arrived the device
typically is used on strangers to prevent disease that was suspicious a 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 in the basement to find this thing to bring it up something else bothered police
a scratch on tim boskowski'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 chin was bruised the superficial uh scratches on his back
did not bleed okay uh 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 a trained police officer to figure out
that there was really something wrong here marianne's family was suspicious they had heard rumors that tim's first
wife died under similar circumstances i asked marianne i said i had heard that she had drowned in a bathtub and mary
and 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 i don't know she said tim doesn't like
to talk about it it gets too upset police in greensboro north carolina confirmed that tim's first wife elaine
died 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 [Music]
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
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 paramedics rushed to lane to the wesley long community hospital where she was pronounced dead
i was in admiration of elaine i admired her strength i admired her freeness to laugh
she had such beautiful qualities 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 even the shower door tracks were completely dry
[Music] brenda vance was a rookie police officer in 1990 and the same size as tim's first
wife elaine disturbed by the lack of water in the boskowski bathroom vance conducted an experiment in her own
home bathtub the officer wanted to see how much water it took to submerge her head
we start filling the tub up [Music] when there's enough water in the tub that it started getting up right here on
my face my head is floating up an unconscious person is just going to float right up
so that didn't make any sense to me second thing was before i could get enough water in there the overflow valve
has taken the water out so i could never submerge myself in my tub you know we proved
his story just didn't hold water it no water there it did not happen that way elaine baskowski'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 boskowski'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 to try to resuscitate
her or an attempt to save her life well we we have a mark that's consistent with
putting a body over the edge of a tub 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 well he called undetermined because i don't really believe a 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 that she probably felt very badly
personally when the second woman died but if tim boskowski got away with murder the first time
would he be lucky enough to get away with it again with wife number two [Music] tim boskowski had been married two times
both wives died 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 and they actually wore their hair style
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
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 the medical examiner found 53 bruises externally and internally
on the upper arms the back and the upper neck we find some bruising and hemorrhaging
on the lips and at the base of the gums at the inside bottom portion of the lips
then 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
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 beating of the heart in other words the heart just stops
beating the lungs then stop functioning and in a matter of four to six minutes you're dead
dr wecht says marianne boskowski did not drown i think that mr boskowski 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 the death is due to strangulation marianne's blood alcohol level
.22 was proof she was intoxicated dr weck says being intoxicated made it difficult for marianne to fight off her
attacker the official ruling asphyxiation due to compression of the neck 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 if tim murdered both of his wives as
alleged what was the motive when prosecutors interviewed marianne voskowski's family and friends they
learned that tim and marianne had recently been on a cruise and all was not happy
marianne 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 there was evidence tim's first wife elaine was planning to divorce him as
well as a grown woman in her 30s a mother she was discovering rock and roll from the
60s and 70s she she was really pursuing a wholeness as an individual i don't think he killed the woman that
he married i think he killed the woman he was afraid of tim's first wife had no life
insurance to speak of but tim purchased 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 it and this time he'd have a lot more
money than he got the first time even after these two suspicious deaths the children steadfastly defended their
father they say that he's innocent hope they're in counseling [Music] tim boskowski was arrested and charged
with first-degree murder in the deaths of his first wife elaine and his second wife marianne
boskowski insisted he was innocent the evidence does not support that charge prosecutors in greensboro believe tim
followed elaine into the bathroom that night in 1990 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 died the lack of water in and around the bathtub and the bruises on elaine's body told a
tale of violence in tim's second marriage to marianne there were problems once more
he just you know killed the first one why not kill the second one got away with the first one he figured
he can get away with this one pittsburgh prosecutors believe tim and marianne argued in the hot tub possibly
about her drinking or her interest in having children of her own the evidence suggests
tim quickly overpowered marianne possibly covering her head with the beach towels to muffle her screams
marianne fought for her life splashing water onto the deck and scratching tim's back
tim knew from the first murder that strangulation victims sometimes vomit this may be why he used the cpr
mouthpiece in marianne's case as protection while performing cpr when paramedics arrived all a charade
and all just to play the acting he was a terrible actor by the way tim's defense lawyer says that his
client had no motive to kill his wife 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 murder then we're
we're all in trouble 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 uh something with a hundred
billion to one odds it can happen then maybe you could argue that in greensboro north carolina the jury
found tim boskowski guilty in the first degree murder of elaine wife number one he was sentenced to life in prison
in the murder trial of marianne wife number two it was the same verdict guilty but that jury sentenced boskowski
to death i think his sentence should be tie bricks around him chain it 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 going to use that i was
always against the death penalty having lived through this situation i've changed my views
tim boskowski 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 very very subtle very minimal
she left the 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 uh neither story held
water you know so he was basically just all wet [Music] [Music] [Music] you

A woman's death in Pennsylvania triggers a homicide investigation into another woman's death in North Carolina. The similarities in the cases were striking, and examiners must determine if the suspect's story about accidental drowning is all wet.

Forensic Files is the longest-running true crime series in television history. Evidence and interviews with experts help solve real crimes, disease outbreaks and accidents around the world.

#truecrime #forensicfiles #fullepisodes Click here to watch full episodes from Forensic Files - Season 8: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gAB0hcY3Z0&list=PLC4mqmKvz1IbdnLKfCt8--pOV0xEpMIP5 Forensic Files is the longest-running true crime series in television history. Evidence and interviews with experts help solve real crimes, disease outbreaks and accidents around the world.

Brief Summary

Tim Boskowski's two wives died under suspicious circumstances, leading to his conviction for their murders.

Key points

Tim Boskowski's Tragic Losses. In just four years, Tim lost two wives and his business, raising questions about his luck.
Suspicious Circumstances. Both of Tim's wives died under mysterious conditions, leading to investigations and suspicions.
Murder Charges. Tim Boskowski was arrested and charged with the murders of both his wives.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

You gotta say this guy's gotta be the most unlucky person in the world.

0:14WatchDec 16, 2021

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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