Shivangi Sinha
In November 1994, the police responded to a call from a house in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where they found Maryann Fullerton unconscious. She was in her hot tub when her husband, Tim Boczkowski, placed the call for help. Before she could reach the hospital, she passed away, but there was something unusual about the case. As the police looked deeper and drew parallels with another similar case from North Carolina, a lot began to make sense. In ID’s ‘Fatal Vows: Drowning in Tears,’ the timeline and details of the case are explored in depth.
Maryann Fullerton Got Married 18 Months Before She Passed Away
Maryann Fullerton was born on March 25, 1959, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her parents, Loretta and Llewellyn Fullerton, raised her with a great deal of love and care and encouraged her to choose a path in life that suited her. She was bright and beautiful, with a kind smile for everyone she met. In the early 1990s, she met Timothy “Tim” Boczkowski after he had moved from North Carolina. He had been married before to Elaine Boczkowski and had three children with her. His sons were called Todd and Randy, and he had a daughter named Sandy. However, after Elaine’s passing in 1990, he moved his family to a new town, hoping to begin a new chapter in his life.
Maryann was very much in love with him, and in June 1993, the couple tied the knot and began their life together. From the outside, everything in the household seemed perfect. They were a churchgoing family active in the community. On November 7, 1994, Tim called 911 and reported that he had found his wife unconscious in the hot tub at their home in Ross Township. When first responders arrived, they noticed him trying to revive her. As she was being rushed to the hospital, Tim insisted that she be taken to Allegheny General Hospital. However, by the time she reached there, she had passed away. The cause of her death was determined to be asphyxiation, and she also had multiple bruises on her face and neck.
Maryann Fullerton’s Killer Was Also Connected to the Death of His First Wife
While Tim Boczkowski insisted that he had simply found his wife, Maryann Fullerton Boczkowski, in the hot tub, the police found that hard to believe. The bruises on her face did not suggest a simple drowning, and furthermore, Tim himself had several fresh scratches on his arms and side that he could not properly explain. The police also began looking into the death of his first wife, Elaine Boczkowski, on November 4, 1990, in Greensboro, North Carolina. The manner of death in both cases was similar, with the cause determined to be asphyxiation in each. There were several other similarities as well.
Friends and family of Maryann claimed that Tim had been alleging she was drinking a lot more than usual, but they did not believe that was true. Even when Elaine had passed away, he had told the police that she had been drinking before getting into the tub, just as he claimed in Maryann’s case. On the way to the hospital with his second wife, Tim also told one of the officers that he hoped he would not be the one blamed for it, which seemed quite odd. According to investigative reports, one of his kids reported that there had been an argument in the house before Maryann passed away. During the investigation, police discovered details they deemed highly suspicious — Tim had taken out a $100,000 life insurance policy on Maryann, with himself as the beneficiary. Elaine also had a life insurance policy for which he was the beneficiary.
Tim Boczkowski is Serving His Life Sentence in Pennsylvania Today
Tim Boczkowski was first taken to North Carolina to be tried in Elaine Boczkowski’s case. In November 1996, he was found guilty of first-degree murder and was handed a sentence of life imprisonment. Then, in May 1999, he was convicted of the first-degree murder of Maryann Fullerton Boczkowski in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. He was initially sentenced to death, but that sentence was vacated in 2004 because prosecutors had allowed his extradition to North Carolina during the legal process, which went against proper legal procedure. He was instead given a mandatory life sentence without parole for the same. In 2018, North Carolina’s parole commission granted him parole. He is currently incarcerated at SCI Greene in Franklin Township, Pennsylvania, serving his other sentence.
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