The Bathtub Killer | Case Files: Dark Waters | Forensic Files

[theme music] NARRATOR: Greensboro in North Carolina. Here, the cost of living and real estate are below
the United States national average, making it a desirable place to live for its population of 300,000.
[dramatic music] - The city of Greensboro is very, kind of fairly safe city to live in.
The city itself has a little bit of everything. One thing in particular about Greensboro
is that you were 15 minutes from anywhere. No matter where you were in the city,
you could get anywhere in 15 minutes. But it was just a beautiful place to live.
NARRATOR: One family who made their home there were the Boczkowskis. Self-made business-owners Timothy and his wife, Elaine,
and their three children. [dramatic music] - Timothy and Elaine Boczkowski lived in the,
I guess, the Northwest section of the town, in an apartment complex called Yester Oaks, probably the more
affluent area of Greensboro. STEVE GOODE: They were very nice apartments, a nice place to live, places for the kids to run and play.
So this part of the city was really very quiet. [ominous music] NARRATOR: But in the early hours of a November morning,
Greensboro Police were alerted to an incident in this quiet part of town. STEVE GOODE: We used to work rotating shifts where
we would work different hours. By 4:00 in the morning, you were ready to go home.
On this particular night, I remember I got a call, though, instead to go to Wesley Long Hospital.
There is a person coming that has had an accident at home, and her name was Elaine.
When I got to the hospital, Elaine was in one of the emergency rooms. They were doing resuscitative things to her,
trying to get her back. They were doing all they could to save her life, but she was gone.
[ominous music] NARRATOR: Elaine's husband, Tim, told them she had accidentally drowned in the bathtub
after drinking heavily. - There had been a party at their church, St. Paul the Apostle Catholic Church.
This is kind of a small group of friends, I want to say maybe 10 or 12 people. Elaine decided to stay behind after the party was over
and help clean up at the church. So Timothy, her husband, went on home. Elaine stayed and got home later.
And according to Mr. Boczkowski, when she got home, she went into the bathroom to take a bath.
[water dripping] She was in the bathroom for a long time. He got concerned that she was in there
so long because according to him, she had had way too much to drink and was intoxicated.
[water dripping] - Alcohol is what we call a central nervous system depressant, so it depresses your reflexes.
It makes you less inhibited than normal. It makes your judgment somewhat impaired
and could cause an accidental slip or fall, or even perhaps unconsciousness. And then you slip into the water and drown.
- After a while he got concerned and knocked on the door. She wouldn't answer the door.
He said that he took the door off the hinges in order to get into the bathroom, because the door was locked.
When he got into the bathroom, he found that she was in the tub, and maybe hit her head on the back of the tub,
and appeared to have drowned. He said that he laid her over the edge of the tub to try to give her some form of first aid.
[tense music] NARRATOR: After mouth to mouth resuscitation failed, Tim Boczkowski told police he called an ambulance,
but it was too late. [water splashes] - Not all aquatic-related scenes involve police divers.
There are several cases every year of people dying or found deceased in their bathtub, pool, hot tub, shower, any kind
of confined water space. And these are just as important to document thoroughly.
However, these scenes can be, in fact, more complex than others due to the limited evidence and
the limited information that one can receive from the case. It's for this reason that it's so important
to be attentive to all details, to put all of the pieces together. NARRATOR: At the hospital, police met Tim Boczkowski,
Elaine's grieving husband. STEVE GOODE: Things were chaotic and she had passed. At that time Tim comes in, I meet him
for the very first time and begin to discuss things with him. There came a point in time where I felt like something
just didn't feel right. What struck me, though, was how cold and just how emotionless that he was.
I was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt because people respond differently.
[tense music] NARRATOR: But officers investigating the scene of the supposed drowning
also made some confusing discoveries. RANDY CARROLL: Elaine was supposed to have drowned in the tub and there was no water anywhere.
Not a drop to be found. One of the Greensboro officers said it was bone dry. [ominous music]
[water splashes] - While water is considered transient evidence as it can dry, which means that evidence will deteriorate
over time, in the time it took investigators to arrive, there is no chance that all aspects of the water
would have been dried. Furthermore, it is very difficult to remove a limp body from a full bathtub.
In doing so, it would have resulted in several puddles and areas of wetness around the bathroom floor, which again
were not present in this case. NARRATOR: Still at the hospital, Officer Goode called his colleague
at the scene of the incident. - We were able to continually communicate back and forth.
I could communicate back what Tim was saying and confirm or corroborate anything that was happening on the scene.
There are certain observations that weren't adding up to what I was hearing from Tim.
He said he had to break into the bathroom. He literally had to force his way into the bathroom
and he did it with a screwdriver. But there were no marks. There was nothing out of the ordinary on the door.
I knew how important it was at this point. In the case that we get Tim down to the police department
and talk to him. He was not necessarily eager to go at first. He seemed reluctant.
I had to try to be empathetic. He just lost his wife, and understand, I'm walking a fine line.
I know how it can look from the outside in. It could look like we were being cold or callous,
but we have to investigate this. We have to know the truth. And he eventually agreed to come-- with reluctance,
but he came. [tense music] NARRATOR: Tim Boczkowski was interviewed. By now, police had compared his account
against what was found at the family's apartment, and statements from the friends Elaine and her husband
had spent the evening with. STEVE GOODE: And he begins to go through the way things unfolded.
And that's when things began to unravel over that next 45 minutes. The first thing he said was that she
was submerged in water, and somehow he was able to pull her out of the bathtub to try to resuscitate her, which would
have flung water everywhere. The only thing that we found in the bathtub was a little bit of vomit, and that's all that was there.
The way he portrayed Elaine to us, she must have been a heavy drinker. - Her friends that were at the party,
in their statements to the police, said that she was not intoxicated at all, was not impaired when she left the party.
So there was a little conflict in the stories there. NARRATOR: An examination of Elaine's body
would start to reveal more. - If this were an accident and, say, someone slipped and fell
in a bathtub, they would likely hit probably their head or some part of their body,
but they would have that one injury. In this case, there were other injuries on the body,
other blunt force injuries. The husband stated that this must have happened when he was providing CPR.
Well, it is true that, occasionally, we do have rib fractures when providing CPR,
but they are very specific. They're very specific ribs and they're in very specific
locations on the body. These were not there. These were not rib fractures from doing CPR.
- On her abdomen, there were some marks that corresponded to the track marks on the shower door.
And so that was very suspicious as well. STEVE GOODE: Tim then told us that he took Elaine and
somehow tried to revive her. And then he draped her over the bathtub rail, the bathtub itself, and was pushing
on her, trying to revive her, at which time she got sick. All of the things that he said, all of those particular facts
didn't line up. Every time I would almost have him beginning to talk and say more, he would start with these scripted,
spontaneous utterances. He would just try to sidetrack the conversation, but he would never, never confess, and never would
say exactly what he had done. JONI JOHNSTON: I think one of the reasons that Tim tells different versions of what happened
in terms of his discovery of Elaine is, I'm not sure he had thought through the exact scenario
of what he was going to be telling. If you're trying to concoct a scenario and you're being asked questions
that you haven't thought through, then it is much easier for you to slip or begin telling different versions of what
happened because you haven't thought that part of the story out. NARRATOR: Tim Boczkowski's story did not add up,
and police strongly suspected foul play. But they would need more than just the muddled account
of a grieving husband if they were to prove he had a hand in his own wife's death.
[dramatic music] In Greensboro, North Carolina, detectives are trying to piece together how a mother of three,
Elaine Boczkowski, could have drowned in the bathtub at her family home. Her husband Tim's account of events
doesn't match what they found at the scene. STEVE GOODE: Tim tried to tell us that somehow she had been drunk in the bathroom
and she had fallen or something in the tub and hit her head. And he repeatedly said that, that somehow she
had hit her head, and that had caused her to be in the water. So he stuck to that story over and over again.
NARRATOR: Police hoped the post-mortem would offer answers as to how Elaine died.
Meanwhile, they started looking into the Boczkowski family. - Hey, Sandy. STEVE GOODE: Tim and Elaine were really the apple
pie family in so many words. - He and Elaine started a little miniature golf ice cream
place out north of Greensboro. And they became active in a Catholic Church in Greensboro,
and developed a little group of friends who socialized together, went to church together,
and that sort of thing. [tense music] NARRATOR: Greensboro proved an idyllic place for the couple
to raise their three young children-- Randy, Sandy, and Todd. RANDY CARROLL: Elaine was very well-liked, well-respected,
a lot of her volunteering and working, helping out took place at different events through their church.
STEVE GOODE: She adored her kids. You can just see that they were just a close knit, just
a wonderful family. - What do you have there, Randy? - A bicycle. - A bicycle? NARRATOR: But detectives soon realized
this picture perfect couple wasn't without its problems. - As we began to pull back the layers of this marriage,
looking at the family unit, what we found out was that both Tim and Elaine were living a very
distant life from each other. They were getting ready to end their marriage. They may have been living under the same roof at this time,
but they were not living as husband and wife. They were just keeping it from the kids
because the kids were-- the children were all little. At the time, they didn't want them to know.
But the marriage was not, not in a good place. JONI JOHNSTON: There were some practical reasons for the fact
that the two of them were still living under the same roof. I know that they were in the process of closing
Tim's business down. Elaine had been raising the kids. She was a homemaker, so they would
have been in a difficult financial situation. STEVE GOODE: Their finances were in shambles.
He had two failed businesses at this point. They were just in a really, really bad place.
It began to make us look and think, OK, we need to maybe look into the background
of insurance policies. We found one insurance policy for $25,000. [tense music] NARRATOR: Meanwhile, friends and associates had gathered
round to support the family. They included estate attorney Kevin Rockford. - Boczkowski said to Kevin Rockford, "can
I speak to you for a minute?" So they went upstairs to get away from the rest of the folks.
And Boczkowski says, "how do I collect the life insurance money?" And Kevin Rockford was pretty much surprised
at being asked that because here Boczkowski's wife had just died just a few hours before.
JONI JOHNSTON: Tim and Elaine had met in the 1970s. And they met at a Catholic singles function.
So they were pretty young when they met, and they had been together for many years.
It's difficult to get a business off the ground. And he was struggling with that.
And I think that contributed to some of the stress in the marriage. But I also think that people change over time.
And when you get married and you have three children, and as you get older, I think it's pretty natural
to reevaluate your marriage, but also to reevaluate who you are. And I think that was something that
came out a lot about Elaine. [tense music] NARRATOR: By now, police had the results of the post-mortem.
- Every death doesn't result in an autopsy, you know, normal deaths where people die from old age and
that sort of thing. Typically, autopsies are performed in suspicious deaths. In this case, the autopsy was performed
in Chapel Hill, which is about an hour from Greensboro. - The autopsy showed some immediate red flags.
MICHELLE DUPRE: One of the important things is the toxicology results and report.
In this case, blood was taken and other fluids and toxicology was examined. There were no drugs and no alcohol found in her body.
Contrary to what her husband had said of her heavy drinking the night before. - We were just told by a husband
that his wife was literally about drunk and had been drinking all night, been drinking wine,
and that she was just falling down drunk. That was a lie. NARRATOR: The autopsy also couldn't
conclusively show whether Elaine had died by drowning that night. [water splashes]
- When we talk about drowning, it could be any one of five manners of death. It could be accident, suicide, homicide,
natural, or undetermined. We have to basically rule out other causes of death when we're talking about drowning.
It is a diagnosis of exclusion, and it's often very difficult to prove. There was no water in her lungs, which
is not totally unusual because there is such a thing as a dry drowning, where the larynx has a spasm.
It's called a laryngospasm, and it prevents water from entering the lungs. But in this case, the rest of the story
just didn't make sense. SARAH MORMINO: The pathologist was able to determine the cause of death as asphyxiation.
However, they were unable to determine if that asphyxiation was due to a drowning or other means,
leaving the manner of death ruled as undetermined. [tense music] STEVE GOODE: When we saw the results of the autopsy,
we could not pursue a case. NARRATOR: It was a serious blow to the investigators,
who strongly suspected a murder may have been committed. STEVE GOODE: We have guidelines we have to follow.
We just can't make things happen, regardless of what we know. Even if we know what the truth really is,
there's nothing we can do. We knew that he had some part in Elaine's death. We knew it, but we couldn't unequivocally prove it.
We did not have enough probable cause. The level of frustration was out the roof,
because I only had a limited amount of time to accomplish this. After speaking to him for about 45 minutes,
the interview was interrupted to allow him to leave. - Straight away, they looked at it as a suspicious death
but couldn't charge him. - We were thinking, we just let a killer go free. [ominous music]
- I can remember the first time we went camping, and Mike and I-- NARRATOR: In North Carolina, suspected murderer
Tim Boczkowski has walked free, despite police suspicions that his wife Elaine's death in the family bathtub
was no accident. RANDY CARROLL: After Elaine Boczkowski was killed, the husband was not charged with a murder.
The medical examiner was not able to determine a cause of death, so the case just kind of went on hold.
- Tim never came off the radar of our Criminal Investigations Division at Greensboro.
No one had forgotten what had happened to Elaine and that Tim was there. This case never really went cold for us.
It's just that we didn't have enough. NARRATOR: The following year, Tim Boczkowski
left Greensboro, taking his three children and returned to his home state of Pennsylvania.
JONI JOHNSTON: I think his decision to move back to Pennsylvania was practical in the sense
that he's got a support system there, he's got extended family there. He's got three young kids now that he
has to raise as a single dad. And I also think that he saw it as a fresh start. So I think to some extent, maybe
there was a little bit of erasing his past and starting over again. RANDY CARROLL: He started attending a Catholic Church.
They had some kind of group for young adults where they could come and socialize, and
that's where he met Maryann. They developed a relationship. She got to know Randy, Todd, and Sandy,
and was close to the children. And so their relationship developed to the point to where they married.
STEVE GOODE: Let me ask you this, too. What kind of man, after his wife has been dead
for less than a year, starts going to singles events and finding him another wife?
RANDY CARROLL: To kind of compare Maryann and Elaine, for starters, they looked a lot alike.
And everybody commented on that, how he picked another wife and got involved in a relationship with another woman that looked
a whole lot like Elaine. So that was a little uncanny. Maryann was also well-liked.
It's really interesting how the folks that knew Maryann in Pittsburgh had a lot of the same things
to say about Maryann that was said about Elaine, that she was involved with the church,
that she was a good mother. JONI JOHNSTON: It's hard to know what to make of the fact
that she is so physically similar, and also their interests are similar. I mean, the fact that this happens so quickly
makes me think it's a little bit more than that. That's not just that he's picking somebody who's a type,
but that he's picking somebody in a way that is a replacement. And that I wonder how much his unresolved issues
around their marriage and her death played into him picking somebody who is so similar to Elaine.
I mean, one of the things that does make things a little bit easier for the kids is how strikingly similar
Maryann looks to Elaine. - Randy, Todd, and Sandy loved her, saw that they had a chance at having another mother.
STEVE GOODE: But in the course of all that, we were at a standstill about anything
we could do on this side. All we could do is watch and hope that he behaved. [ominous music]
NARRATOR: But almost four years to the day after Elaine's death, detectives back in North Carolina received an astonishing phone call.
- We were notified by Pennsylvania of what had happened to his second wife. NARRATOR: Medics and police had been called to the family home.
Yet again, it seemed tragedy had struck Tim and his family. His second wife, Maryann, was found dead
in their backyard hot tub. - That right there was probably the darkest day in my law enforcement career.
RANDY CARROLL: That evening, he and Maryann were in the hot tub. They had a hot tub at the back of the house.
And he claimed that Maryann had been drinking way too much beer. He said she must have had something like 15
or 17 beers that night while they were in the hot tub. He leaves her in the hot tub by herself
while he goes inside to take a shower. So he comes back out after a while and supposedly finds Maryann just in the water
in the hot tub, unconscious. So he gets her out of the hot tub, somehow, calls 911, says he found his wife in the hot tub,
that it appeared that she had drowned after having too much to drink. [water splashes]
- When called to an aquatic-related scene looking at a case of an accidental drowning,
the victim is unlikely to have any injuries, as a lot of the times that is simply from someone dying from
being unable to swim in water, becoming fatigued in water, or becoming unconscious in water.
In Maryann's case, things were a little different. Upon examining her body, she had several bruises
along her neck and chest that led investigators to believe that something else might have occurred.
It was reported that Maryann had been in the hot tub for 15 or 20 minutes prior to paramedics arrival.
A body that has been in such a warm environment for so long would have had extreme skin wrinkling, especially
in her fingers and toes. The presence or absence of the skin wrinkling would have been a quick way to determine if that part
of the story was true. STEVE GOODE: The police department had the same suspicions that we had
in Elaine's case in Greensboro, but he wasn't able to cover his tracks as much on this particular case, and it started unraveling
a little bit quicker. There's a fascination here with water. His next wife died around the Jacuzzi.
He claimed that he tried to do CPR, and the detectives noticed he had one of those little portable CPR masks.
We even carried them back in police days. And he had somehow had a CPR mask sitting around the house.
RANDY CARROLL: All the paramedics and whatnot found that to be a very unusual circumstance,
that a husband would use a breathing device to resuscitate his wife. NARRATOR: Then police made a connection
that would change the course of this investigation. - Buck Boczkowski, the father, gets there.
And one of the detectives overhears Buck Boczkowski asking Timothy, the husband, "do they know about
the first wife in Greensboro?" One of the detectives overhears that and goes over to Timothy and Buck Boczkowski and say,
"what are you talking about? Has he been married before?" "Yeah, he had a first wife, who died
under similar circumstances in Greensboro. Another accident." In addition, Timothy was heard to say, "I hope they
don't try to pin this on me." That was another statement that came out that sort of piqued the curiosity
of the law enforcement there. NARRATOR: Pittsburgh Police immediately contacted officers in Greensboro.
RANDY CARROLL: The detective in Pittsburgh talks to Detective Ken Brady, the Greensboro police detective,
and says, "do you have a file on Timothy Boczkowski?" And Kim Brady says, "got it right
here on the corner of my desk. It's been here for four years." - I began to think, we let him--
we let him kill again. NARRATOR: In Pittsburgh, Maryann's body was taken for an autopsy.
MICHELLE DUPRE: Initially, it could be a very plausible explanation that this was an accidental drowning.
But upon further investigation, we noticed that there are injuries to her back and to her legs.
These could possibly even be defensive injuries, especially the ones on her legs.
Because when we try to defend ourselves, we use everything we have. We use our arms and our legs.
Now we're starting to look at a totally different story. In addition, small punctate hemorrhages
were found on Maryann's skin. And basically, this is going to lead us to thinking
that this was strangulation. The injuries would not come from simply being in a hot tub.
RANDY CARROLL: There were more physical findings that the pathologist was able to make in connection
with Maryann's case. There were bruises and scratch marks. STEVE GOODE: Tim did have physical scratches,
defense marks, on his body that he could not explain away. And the detectives immediately picked up on that.
- The medical examiner in Pittsburgh was able to conclude that it was a violent death,
a homicidal death. NARRATOR: Police had now charged Tim Boczkowski with Maryann's murder.
Next, they turn their attention back to the death of his first wife, Elaine. RANDY CARROLL: So looking at all
that, including physical findings in both cases, Dr. Butz was willing to take another look
at Elaine's autopsy. And then concluded that it was a violent, intentional death.
And his opinion as to the cause of death was positional asphyxiation. It basically means a compressing of the diaphragm.
If the diaphragm can't move up and down, you know, you can't get enough oxygen in the lungs to survive.
And we believe that it was over the bathtub because she had the track marks and that he compressed the diaphragm
long enough for her to die. STEVE GOODE: In both cases, the MEs found little to no water
in both of their lungs. It had nothing to do with water as their cause of death.
Once that happened, once it was considered a murder, we were able to make our case.
[ominous music] NARRATOR: Tim Boczkowski was arrested and charged with two murders, leaving
his three children stunned. - When my father was arrested, I was 10 years old, you know, I just lost my mom.
I lost my stepmom, and now I'm losing my father. And it definitely, definitely messes with someone's psyche.
Just the whole mental aspect of it, you cannot wrap your head around. NARRATOR: For the officers back in North Carolina who
had put the case into Elaine's death on hold, news of Maryann's death also had a profound impact.
- When he killed Maryann, it did open the door for us then to be able to make the case for Elaine.
If Maryann had not died, I don't think we would have ever been able to make the case
and bring Tim back to North Carolina. The only word I can come up with is bitter--
bittersweet, because we could not stop that second murder. [ominous music] NARRATOR: In the US.
Timothy Boczkowski is awaiting trial in two separate states. Police believe he has killed not one wife, but two, using
almost identical methods. But it seems his deeds may now finally be catching up with him.
- When you look at the timeline here, Tim, on November the 4th of 1990, he murdered
Elaine here in Greensboro. Less than two years later, he kills the next wife. Two
- Stories that were just eerily similar. Drinking too much and drowning in the bathtub.
And then four years later, almost exactly to the day, wife number two has too much to drink and
drowns in the family hot tub. Boczkowski claimed that both were accidental. I mean, I thought the odds were one in a million
that that could be true. [water splashes] - Drownings are a difficult diagnosis to make.
In Elaine's case, we look at all of the injuries on her body. We look at the fact that there were more than one head wound.
We look at the fact that there were these track marks on her abdominal area. There is no other explanation except this
was a violent death. This was a homicide. So in looking at all the evidence from Maryann's case,
being in a hot tub with similar circumstances involved, the injuries would not come from simply being in a hot tub.
Something is amiss. Somebody is not telling the truth in this case. - It's almost like the fact that they
have no consequences for that first murder emboldens them to think, now I know how to do it,
and now I know how to murder somebody and get away with it. And I think this is a big motivator for them,
or at least a disinhibitor to if they have the motive to do it again. NARRATOR: And in both marriages,
things weren't what they seemed on the surface. STEVE GOODE: We know he killed his first wife.
A lot of questions are left unanswered, such as what was the real motivation. After all, he did cash in on the $25,000 insurance policy.
The marriage appeared to have gone cold. There could have been jealousy on Tim's part, we don't know.
But in the aftermath of it, we find out that they really are not a couple. The marriage has just dissolved and that they
no longer love each other. TODD BOCZKOWSKI: And their marriage, that really changed a lot of things.
The ice cream store, it fell apart financially and just wasn't a success as they hoped for.
And that was another stress point, another sticking point. He kind of got bored and decided
to read my mom's journal, and that's where he found information that he did not like.
He found out that she had written romantically about somebody from church, from our church.
He didn't like that. And he felt betrayed. He felt angry. NARRATOR: But police thought Boczkowski had another motive.
- Can money be a motivation to murder? Can money be a motivation? RANDY CARROLL: In terms of the amounts,
the life insurance policies, in Elaine's case, it was 25 grand. And in Maryann's case, it was $100,000.
So he learned how to make it more lucrative and four times more lucrative. - I would really be interested in knowing what story Tim told
himself about that life insurance policy, because I would think that he made up a very good story to tell himself
about why he got that policy. I think he would have told himself that, hey, we're
a family now, and if something happens to Maryann, I'll need money to help with the kids or whatever.
But I think he absolutely knew deep down that the option for murder was there. He had done it once, he would do it again.
NARRATOR: Detectives also suspected his methods had evolved across the two killings.
STEVE GOODE: He had a CPR mask because he had learned from the first time when he was doing CPR on Elaine, he got chunks of vomit
in his mouth. And so in preparation, he had bought a mask. He had learned something from the first time he had killed.
That particular facts stuck out to me about Mary's case. NARRATOR: But with two murder trials in two different states,
bringing Boczkowski to justice would be a complex task. STEVE GOODE: We have two completely
different legal systems. Each case was handled in its own way. They had to abide by Pennsylvania laws and
then North Carolina the same. So what had to be decided was, who was going to get him first.
And we ended up having him extradited back and we were able to try him here in North Carolina.
[ominous music] When we went to trial with Tim here in Greensboro, all this information was seared into our minds.
We were ready. We were confident in our case. RANDY CARROLL: You think about everything
that you can present in evidence that you can argue to the jury. Stuff like this is a one in million chance
that that occurred. I have to have evidence to support that. So it was very important for me to get that evidence
from Pittsburgh, so that I could then argue the possibility that these two deaths could occur accidentally in the same fashion
is astronomical. One of the things I like to do when I argue to the jury is I'll get over in front of the defendant
at his table and point at him. And so I'm looking at him while-- I'm in his face, basically, and he's not responding at all.
You get a lot of these guys they'll even talk back to you in court. But, he was stoic, non-compassionate.
He was just emotionless. STEVE GOODE: You would think that being a part of a case
like this and finally seeing it come to a conclusion would make you feel just-- I don't know, better?
Better? Well, the truth is, when guilty, the guilty plea was read, we were all exhausted.
He was given the maximum sentence for North Carolina for the murder charge. - I think he served about 22 years.
I think he got paroled in 2018. I convicted him in November of 1996. So, yeah, that's about 22 years.
NARRATOR: The courts hadn't finished with Boczkowski, though. STEVE GOODE: After he was found guilty in North Carolina,
he was taken back to Pennsylvania to stand trial, where he was found guilty of that second murder.
[ominous music] He was initially given the death penalty in Pennsylvania. There was some appeals that happened happen
and it was reverted back to a life sentence. RANDY CARROLL: It's a very unfortunate case, primarily
because of the children. You've got these three children who are going to have to live the rest of their lives
without either moms, with their dad being incarcerated. - Say, Randy, what's in that box?
TODD BOCZKOWSKI: I was a child, and it was almost as if our relationship froze in time.
[happy chatter on video] I have all of these things inside my head and my heart is being pulled in two different directions.
And that's when I made the decision to go visit my father. [ominous music] I wanted to confront him in a way that I didn't before.
And so I came up with this idea of pretty much giving him an ultimatum of you either
tell me what really happened or you will never see or hear from me ever again. And he was, instead, wanting to hide behind his legal appeals.
And then I discovered a week later that he had written a letter to my brother. And in that letter, he took responsibility
for taking the life of my birth mom, Elaine. [somber music] When it came to my stepmom's death,
my father maintained his innocence, which was just absolutely mind-blowing, you know.
I mean, just the physical evidence alone just makes it absolutely ridiculous. - I interviewed the three children
before I tried my case. You wonder how it affects those kids. I can tell you how sad it is because I
lost my first wife and-- [emotional pause] my daughters were 9 and 6. So I can only imagine.
- My relationship with my father right now is nonexistent. I last had conversation with him in 2018.
I wrote him a letter and it was a final letter. It was more or less a goodbye letter.
[happy chatter on video] Forgiveness is something that I think a lot of people just misinterpret or misunderstand.
Forgiveness is nothing about the other person. It's a gift, and it's a gift that you give yourself.
Just because I forgive him doesn't mean that I need or want anything from him. The reality is is he took someone's life, my mom, Elaine,
and then my stepmom, Maryann. He deserves to be where he's at. Plain and simple.
[ominous music] [theme music]

A woman allegedly drowns in the bathtub, but her husband's story doesn't add up.

In this chilling true crime series, detectives, pathologists and police divers work together to decode complex crime scenes where victims' bodies are discovered in water.

For More FilmRise Check Out Our Other Channels: FilmRise Television: https://www.youtube.com/⁨@UCVVXDVee0JZ2dlPYtpdTZVg FilmRise Movies: https://www.youtube.com/@FilmRiseMovies Highway to Heaven - Full Episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@HighwaytoHeavenFullEpisodes

Brief Summary

Timothy Boczkowski is suspected of murdering both his wives, Elaine and Maryann, in similar drowning incidents.

Key points

The Tragic Drowning of Elaine Boczkowski. Elaine Boczkowski's drowning raises suspicions as her husband's account doesn't match the evidence.
Tim Boczkowski's Alibi Unravels. As police investigate, inconsistencies in Tim's story about Elaine's death come to light.
A Shocking Second Tragedy. Just four years after Elaine's death, Tim's second wife Maryann is found dead in a hot tub.
Suspicion Arises. Tim Boczkowski's past comes back to haunt him as detectives uncover similarities in his wives' deaths.
Murder Charges. Tim Boczkowski is charged with the murder of his second wife, Maryann, after evidence suggests foul play.
A Complex Trial. Boczkowski faces trials in two states, complicating the pursuit of justice for his victims.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Things were chaotic and she had passed.

Officer Goode recounting the hospital scene.

6:02WatchMar 17, 2026

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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