The Game Show and the Murder | Full Episode

[Music] this was different than any homicide we've ever really had this was a homicide that occurred in someone's bathroom from the the first moment when we walked in and saw Becky's body it was different she was shot 14 times and there was one miss so there were 15 rounds fired my mom called my phone she was understandably hysterical and uh she just kept saying Becky is dead you never expect to get a phone call saying your sister's dead it doesn't seem possible she was an incredible nurse but she was made to be a mom I can't imagine someone looking at someone so beautiful and kind and still thinking that she should take her life from her she must have been so scared this brutal crime has had the Quincy Community on edge and our residents living in fear how big a story was this initially it was huge were people scared that there was a killer loose definitely how is this happening in our small town make sure you lock your doors turn on exterior lights there were in the area right next door within a week of of her being murdered they're breaking into cars they're trying to break into houses it wasn't a random Prowler it was an execution you don't kick down a door chase them into a bathroom shoot them once and then shoot them that many more times in a random act this was somebody who was there with a purpose did you think you'd probably be a suspect I mean you're the estranged husband in the in the middle of a very contentious divorce I had to kind of make an assumption that yeah I probably was going to be a suspect we learned that he was on Family Feud it's time to play family Fe he gave a silly answer to a silly question the question was what is the number one regret that people have from their wedding day what's the biggest mistake you made at your wedding honey I love you but said I do not my mistake not my mistake I love my wife it wasn't said with any malice or or or bad intentions it was supposed to be funny it was the second most popular answer on the board I do it got attention to the case but it had nothing to do with it what's the first thing then you did looking for evidence we had the detectives go around to all the neighbors to see see if they had any video that's her house over there yep that's and this is the neighbor's driveway this is the neighbor's driveway you'll see this person walk across looks like they have gloves on can't see a face at all can't see a face he can't see hair he can't really see anything else that's not Tim in that video you can't tell who it is can you absolutely say with certainty that that is Tim Nick based on the video evidence alone absolutely not that's one piece of the puzzle he had everything to lose if that's him and nothing to gain I wholeheartedly do not believe he had anything to do with the death of Becky did you kill your wife Becky no I did not murder Becky the idea of of murdering someone let alone the mother of my kids is not any part of who I [Music] am [Music] [Music] Josh Jones and Laura kek have prosecuted hundreds of cases 11 and 10 seconds but no case has troubled them quite like the murder of Becky bnck you put yourself in in the mind of Becky bnck in the last moments of her life the fear that she had to be feeling you can't walk out of that house and not be affected by it Becky was just 41 years old when on the afternoon of February 23rd 2023 her own father discovered her lifeless on the bathroom floor of her Quincy Illinois home she'd been dead for hours shot a total of 14 times none of the wounds were immediately fatal it took her minutes to die was an emotional response for both of us to to realize not just that she had been executed but that her last minutes were lying on a floor alone in the dark in extreme pain waiting to die Quincy is a quiet town along the Mississippi River where violent crimes are rare and unsettling she was a nurse who had three children I think people were just horrified that a mother of three young boys could be shot and killed in her own home Sarah Riley is Becky's older sister and her only sibling she lives in in New York but was away on vacation with her husband Brett Riley when they got that lifechanging call you just want to wake up and have it not be real it's a living Nightmare how fast can we get to the airport fly back to New York unpack our swimsuits and pack funeral clothes and get out to Quincy Illinois and just holding each other up in screaming grief how would you both describe her selfless that that really captures it she thought of everybody that was in her life as somebody important and somebody special the kids were her world Becky's Three Sons ages 12 10 and 5 were not at home at the time of the murder they were staying with their father Tim bnck about a mile away the couple was in the process of getting divorced Tim says that when he couldn't reach Becky on the 23rd he contacted her father he said hey I haven't been able to get a hold of her either I'm going to go over to the house what happened to Becky should have never happened and it just it still doesn't at times it still just doesn't feel real police quickly determined that the killer had broken into Becky's home by prying open an upstairs window in one of the children's bedrooms this video shows a police officer later reenacting how investigators believe the asent scaled the house the person had climbed up on there there was a patio chair that was pulled over they walked past Becky's windows in her bedroom and then they went to a room of one of the boys and they pried open broke the window open went in you could almost Trace their path to Becky's room they had kicked in or broken in the door violently Becky then ran into the bathroom turned around and got shot what time do you believe the Intruder entered the house so it would have been around 1:11 in the morning uh because we know that at 1 1111 and 10 seconds Becky tried to call 911 on her cell phone she dialed 91126 and the phone was knocked out of her hand and it was found behind the door nothing appeared to be stolen and neighbors didn't see or hear anything but there was evidence left behind a partial shoot Print near the point of entry eight spent 9 mm shell casings and small pieces of plastic on the floor around Becky's body we thought it was unusual when we saw that it was like okay what is this detectives canvasing the neighborhood looking for surveillance video didn't have to go far Becky's Nextdoor neighbors the highman had installed a camera on the side of their house after a car break in more than a year earlier it pointed at their driveway which ran alongside Becky's house what does it record it records movement so anytime it senses movement it will notify us on our phones the Hyman's camera didn't capture anything on the night of the murder but it did capture something unusual about 24 hours earlier we've slowed down some of the videos so you can see them better at 1:05 a.m. a person was seen walking down the driveway towards the back of Becky's house and what appeared to be that same person was seen again 48 minutes later this time walking in the opposite direction the camera had also captured a similar incident about a week earlier on February 14th Valentine's Day I saw that one in the middle of the night and texted Becky immediately I told her we just saw somebody in the driveway and she responded not till the next morning and what did she say when she responded that's when she told me that she hadn't seen anything but she thought she had been hearing voices in her backyard and her motion like go on and she was very paranoid at the time the highman thought it was a neighborhood Prowler looking for something to steal but now with Becky dead they began to wonder and investigators did too officers went around the entire neighborhood trying to find more video and we were able to find a video from a house and we were able to find video from the Quincy bus barn and those videos showed a person riding a bike in the direction of Becky's house after analyzing the recorded times of the videos authorities began to suspect that the person seen on the bike was a same person seen in the driveway every time you see a person at the Heyman residence you see a person riding a bike down the road just a few minutes before you see a person on that highman video and even though there was no video from the highman residents on the morning Becky was killed there was video of a person on a bike riding in the direction of Becky's house right before the murder and in the opposite direction right after and this is not a part of town that people ride bikes in the middle of the night in Winter and so when you have this surveillance video and it exactly matches the timeline that's suspicious but there was one big problem you can tell absolutely nothing from the videos only that the bike did not appear to have reflectors on the wheels I mean you can't see whether it's male female it's terrible the video is terrible authorities needed more leads and they would get one from Becky's sister that would Point them in a very specific Direction when Becky's Sister Sarah and brother-in-law Brett learned of her murder they say one person came to mind as the prime suspect Becky's estranged husband Tim bnck I told Brett it was Tim of course right away right away Tim and Becky met when they were students at Quincy University but it wasn't until 2 years after graduating that they began dating and how would you describe Becky back then happy fun she was beautiful the two eventually moved in together married and started a family Becky quit her job in pharmaceutical sales to become a stay-at-home mom while Tim continued his successful career in the recycling industry I thought this was it you know I'm going to be 85 and sitting on a porch in a rocking chair with her talking about how good life was but things didn't turn out that way she was very happy with their marriage for probably the first five years uh and then you know things started to change he got for aggressively more manipulative and controlling and he didn't do any of the work ever at the house Shannon zanger is Becky's close friend when she'd come over and we'd talk husbands as wives do she felt like she was shouldering most of the load I thought man I really have a partner here and she doesn't seem to have that partnership Shannon and Sarah say the relationship only became more strained when Becky decideed to go back to school to become a nurse he not only did not support her he did not increase his time with the boys while Tim acknowledges that he wasn't in favor of Becky taking on a career in nursing he says it was out of concern for her well-being because of the stress piece of it were you worried you'd have to pick up more of the work with the kids not at all I I've always been involved with the kids every day in January 2021 after 11 years of marriage Tim filed for divorce although he wouldn't discuss the specifics of why he filed he hinted that it had to do with what he saw as a change in Becky's personality after she became a nurse she struggled with patience and stress a lot especially when it came to the kids and it it created some conflict but Sarah says Tim is just making excuses is and she believes the reason Tim filed for divorce is because he couldn't control Becky she says Becky was a loving mother and tried in vain to salvage the marriage she wanted to go to marriage counseling with him and he refused whatever the reason for the divorce might have been one thing is certain things between the two soon turned contentious according to divorce documents they fought over just about everything money the marital home and custody of the kids I don't understand why it got so contentious if you were the one who wanted to get out yeah I was the one that wanted to get out and I tried on several occasions but there are details that I'm I'm not that are hard to talk about that happened in the divorce in the months after Tim filed for divorce Becky began voicing concerns about Tim's Behavior she sent this text to a friend he has screamed in my face he shove me in front of the kids and has thrown things across the room and she texted another friend I truly believe Tim has serious mental health problems and he is becoming more vengeful and unpredictable but Tim says it was Becky who was vengeful she told people I had an affair which is untrue she tried to tell people that I was an alcoholic which is untrue she was telling people these things because she was angry about the divorce at one point Tim sought an order of protection against Becky he alleged Becky stocked and harassed him he also referenced an incident where he said Becky had become combative during a disagreement at a parent teacher night ask the letter you to stop harassing me and stop I'm not harassing you I'm asking he offered this video of the incident as proof make a copy for I don't want you to take me stop doing this don't take me I don't I didn't ask you to take me do you really think she was trying to hurt him in that video I don't think anybody was trying to hurt anybody I think you have two parents that were having a disagreement and didn't know how to deal with it Casey schn was one of Tim's divorce attorneys the judge didn't grant that order of protection not Grant it no days after Tim filed for that order of protection and more than a year before her death Becky sent her sister Sarah this text if something ever happens to me please make sure the number one person of interest is Tim she would later make similar statements to friends I said what did he do and that uh text was prompted by uh the murder of one of her um colleagues one of the the nurse that she knew was murdered by um her partner that scared her she felt like this could happen this is real I never understood where that came from we would get into arguments and sometimes we would get loud but that's all it amounted to Sarah says she recommended Becky seek help from a domestic abuse organization and eventually Becky filed for an order of protection against Tim in her petition she alleged that Tim entered her residence without permission she also said that he repeatedly falsified interactions between the two that order of protection was not granted but a judge did ultimately order Tim and Becky stay away from each other's residences except when exchanging their kids and the judge also ordered Tim to return a 9mm handgun that Becky had gifted him when they were together he was into um you know recreational shooting she wanted that particular gun back because the gun was in her name but Becky never got it back and it was a 9mm handgun that was later used to kill her I have not seen that gun in 3 years I didn't have it Becky was killed one week before the divorce case was set to go to trial when Sarah informed law enforcement of their history Tim became a person of interest authorities kept digging and days later they found a bike with no reflectors on the wheels just like the ones seen on those surveillance videos how close was that bike that you found to Tim's house less than half a block they then executed a search warrant on Tim's house in car as Tim looked on and on March 13th 2023 just over 2 weeks after Becky's death Tim bnck was arrested and charged with her murder I can't even fathom the idea of considering murdering somebody like I can't Tim's divorce attorney Casey schnock would become his defense attorney and she says she's convinced police got it wrong he knew how much those kids meant to her and how much she meant to them he wouldn't do this to them he wouldn't when Tim bck was arrested it made national news he competed on Family Feud as his whole town cheered him on but his local hero status is over in large part because of that appearance he made alongside his parents and brothers on the game show Family Feud all Timmy talk to her to married people what's the biggest mistake you made at your wedding honey I love you but said I do the episode was filmed in 2019 nearly two years before Tim filed for divorce but because of the charges he now faced it had people talking and there was also chatter about Tim's appearance in his mug shot although it was no surprise to Becky's family we had seen through social media the deterioration of his appearance and that went hand in hand with the deterioration of his mental state over the course of the divorce but Tim says that's not the case and that he had been growing out his hair for a fundraiser for cancer research I'm not a violent person I'm not an angry person I've never been that way Tim's attorney Casey schnock was determined to prove his innocence she says just because Tim and Becky were going through a messy divorce it doesn't mean he killed her it wasn't pretty but the things that they were fighting over were not Monumental things you know there were a number of friends um Becky's friends who said that she expressed great fear of Tim mhm yeah that's a lot of girl talk I've never seen any pictures of her with bruises of marks any allegations of him beating on her nothing but Adams County Prosecutors Josh Jones and Laura kek say even though there may not have been physical abuse there was emotional abuse evident in Tim's text to Becky what do his text messages reveal so I would say what they reveal is somebody who wants power and control he wants wants to control the relationship he wants to control how people perceive him Tim denies that she wasn't the one that was emotionally abused I tried to create space I tried to stay out of her life and Tim says he has an alibi for the time of the murder he says he was home with their three kids they were sleeping over that night because Becky had asked him to keep them an extra night she told him that she wasn't feeling well and he said that's fine that's how you want to see two people in a divorcing situation act with kids but Jones and kek believed Tim saw an opportunity she showed weakness to a predator that's what predators do when they see a weakness they attack and they also say that explains the intruder's point of entry an upstairs window in one of the kids bedrooms if you're a random Intruder why do you go to the second floor window you go past not just one window but three Windows um that are possible entrance points and just happen to get lucky that it's a little boy's room that's not there that night but schn points to what she says is a lack of physical evidence tying Tim to the crime no murder weapon or bloody clothing was found and while police did seize pairs of Tim shoes they weren't able to MCH them to that partial shoe print found at the scene they took every single pair of athletic shoes that they thought would be a match they didn't find any that that were a suitable match schnock also points out that Tim's DNA wasn't found on that patio chair that investigators believe was used by the killer to climb onto Becky's roof nothing on that was connected to Tim they took every pair of gloves from Tim's car housee and and that they could find and none of those gloves had any anything that linked him to this crime but if Tim didn't kill Becky who did if I knew that answer I would have given that name or whoever it was a long time ago Tim's attorney says that she believes investigators should have given more weight to the idea that it could have been a random Prowler who killed Becky in a Breakin gone wrong remember police found those videos of a person on a bikee and a person walking down Becky's neighbor's driveway Tim insists it's not him in those videos you cannot say with any degree of certainty who that person is on any of those videos all you see is a bike without reflectors and even though a bike with no reflectors on the wheels was found less than half a block from Tim's house schn says that doesn't mean anything his DNA was not found on that bike and we don't even know that the bike that was found is the same bike that was in the video but prosecutors Jones and kek say they did find evidence tying Tim to that bike we were able to download information off his phone and we found that Mr bnck had a what I'll call burner or fake Facebook account with the name John Smith and they say that John Smith Facebook account appeared to have been looking at this bike for sale it's a blue Schwin with no reflectors on the wheels just like that bike that was found mean I have a fake Facebook account I'm not proud of it but people do it it isn't it a bit of a problem though that on his phone he gets AAR for that blue bike sure are there similarities sure but that's not the only abandoned bike that's been found around town Jones and kek say they're confident they got the right guy the detectives followed the the evidence exactly where it took them and there was one inescapable conclusion that it was Mr bnck but despite their confidence they soon fac quite a challenge when Tim was arrested He was ordered held without bond he had a right to a speedy trial which he took meaning prosecutors would be required to try the case within 90 days of Tim's arrest we were going to be ready come hell high water but did they have enough to prove their case Beyond A Reasonable Doubt juries expect a confession they expect that DNA evidence that says one in 500 million we're going to have to show them that that's not what we have here what do you make of Tim bla Nick's answer on Family Feud take a look at the case evidence at 48 hours.com on May 23rd 2023 exactly 3 months after Becky bnck was gunned down in her home Tim bnck went on trial for her murder the defendant looked down at Becky and he pointed a gun at her and he pulled the trigger prosecutors Josh Jones and Laura began by methodically laying out the evidence they say points directly to Tim starting with those odd pieces of plastic that were found around Becky's body they say investigators determined that they were shreds from an Aldi grocery store bag and then in the defendant's house we found stacks of Aldi bags he'd fired through an Aldi bag either in an attempt to muffle the sound or to catch his showc casings and prosecutors say that in the process DNA was left behind on a piece of that plastic an expert testified that it was more likely than not that Tim was a contributor and Tim also couldn't be excluded from DNA that was found under Becky's fingernails that was three times more likely to have come from the defendant or a male relative from the lineage of the defendant in this case is driving Reasonable Doubt but defense attorney Casey schnock says that evidence is far from definitive everybody in town has Aldi bags that they're hoarding they could have came from Becky's house with with DNA from him well because they transferred stuff back and forth for the boys in Aldi bags there was DNA found under Becky's fingernails and it was just as likely to be Tims as any one of the boys prosecutors also told the jury that police found this crowbar in Tim's basement and they called an expert to the stand who testified that she compared it to Tool marks left on the window that was PRI open at Becky's while there were micros opic consistencies she couldn't say with scientific certainty that that crowbar made those marks the experts said that that was inconclusive inconclusive leaves a jury guessing and speculating which they are not allowed to do the jury heard about the couple's acrimonious divorce and from Becky's sister and several friends who testified about those fears Becky had raised about Tim several of them acknowledged that they regretfully didn't take steps to help her how could Tim do that I've known Tim forever when she reached out to people that's what they said in hindsight of course like oh we should have done more there's only one person that believed it was true and that was Becky herself and the prosecution argued that the timing of the murder is significant remember Becky was killed one week before the couple's divorce case was set to go to Tri trial and prosecutors told the jury there was something even bigger than money in custody that was going to come into play Becky didn't want their three children to be around inc's father UNS supervised they didn't tell the jury why but we uncovered these court documents that reveal Becky had gathered Witnesses who she said plann to testify about Tim's Father Ray bnck and would allege that he had a history of perversion and abusing minor children many years earlier the alleged victims were not Becky and Tim's children Becky sought an order of protection against Rey but a judge denied her request in a letter Ray's lawyer wrote that Ry vehemently denies the claims and that he has never been charged with any criminal offense stemming from the allegations information was going to come out that he didn't want to come out and he started to feel like he was losing control the prosecution pointed out that on the day of Becky's murder hours before anyone except her killer knew that she was dead Tim brought a kid's basketball hoop to his father's house he's doing that because he knows Becky's not going to be a problem anymore Becky didn't want those boys around Ray and in Tim's mind that problem was solved because Becky was dead I really don't buy that I why not because the boys weren't restricted from seeing Ry to begin with they just couldn't see him without supervision so andn says those allegations old news so all of those allegations were in pleadings that her attorneys had filed and at that point were already a matter of public record it doesn't make sense that he would throw his life away over a divorce and keeping information out of the public eye that quite frankly was already out but the prosecution wasn't done the jury was also shown numerous damaging searches found on Tim's phone like how to open my door with a crowbar how to make a homemade pistol silencer and how to clean gunpowder off your hands it was mindboggling it was mindboggling yeah and remember that person caught on camera in Becky's neighbor driveway on Valentine's Day about a week before the murder well prosecutors say that right after that sighting Tim made more than 200 searches online for a specific license plate and a car VIN number it turns out that that license plate and VIN number belonged to a man whom Becky was dating and his truck was parked in Becky's driveway at the time and for somebody with power and control issues you realize that your prior significant other is now on a relationship with somebody that they're spending the night on Valentine's Day and then the minute you get back to your home at 1:10 in the morning you're searching their license plate number and their VIN number that's somebody who's lost control timman says he had learned about Becky's new relationship months earlier I actually didn't care it sounds like you were kind of obsessed cuz no he declined to go into more detail about specific trial evidence citing legal proceedings but his lawyers spoke for him I mean if I'm going to be checking out my husband's new girlfriend I'm going to be doing it late at night after my kids are asleep so it's just a coincidence that the night you see that Prowler at the next or neighbor's driveway and his truck is there it's just a coincidence that just minutes later Tim is doing research on the VIN number and the license tag that's not Tim in that video what about the searches that were found on Tim's phone there's no date or time as to when those searches were done so we don't know if they were done before the murder and we don't know if they were done after the murder before they rested the case prosecutors dropped one more piece of evidence these spent shell casings that were found in Tim's home an expert testified that she compared them to the shell casings found at the crime scene and determined that 27 of them had been fired from the exact same gun used in the murder each firearm leaves its own fingerprint on every shell casing that it fires it was the same gun that killed Becky bnck that fired these shell casings that were found in Tim bnck residence that's the expert's opinion at the end of the day it's subject to human error like anything else but when it was the defense's turn to call witnesses it chose to call none you could have brought in your own expert to say those did not match I guess we could have but we were strapped on time and funds you've got a man's life on the line and he didn't want us to do that it was a risky move but one that may have paid off for the defense because when the jury began deliberating they took a vote and there was a hold out sometimes you just need one when the jury began deliberating after a Six-Day trial Tim bck was on edge it was miserable because I was essentially waiting for them to decide my fate inside that jury room one jur was undecided our stomachs were nuts we were Beyond stressed but 4 hours later a verdict when they passed the paper from the jury box to the clerk to the clerk that was very difficult to know that there's a possibility that he could get away with it would the clerk read the verdicts please we the jury find the defendant Timothy bnck guilty of first murder guilty it was a sense of relief that they had found him guilty but it was also a sense of these three little boys have not lost both parents it's not a celebration when we sat down with Tim bnck it was just over a month after his conviction he was still awaiting sentencing did you ever imagine you would be here no no never at times it's felt like I'm watching somebody else's life from the outside like it it it it can't be me but the only thing I can do right now is what we are doing filing an appeal I have to I have to believe in that process cuz if not tell me what you're thinking right now my kids I just want him to know that I love him and I miss him I'm innocent I didn't kill Becky but Becky's sister says Tim is right where he belongs he called my dad to set him up to find her that alone shows how cruel he really is as agonizing as our pain is I want him to understand his worst crime was against his children and that's the message Sarah delivered directly to Tim during her Victim Impact statement right before he was sentenced on August 11th 2023 your children's future will be forever impacted by your crime they are already suffering maybe you should have Googled childhood PTSD in between your internet searches for homemade silencers and VIN numbers judge Robert Adrien had the option of sentencing Tim to anywhere between 45 years to life Mr bnck you researched this murder you planned this murder you broke into her house and you shot her 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 times the court believes that the appropriate sentence would be natural life in prison life in prison without the possibility of parole prosecutors Jones and kek say the punishment fits the crime but even they don't consider it justice if I had a magic wand I would bring Becky back to life Tim can spend the rest of his life out of prison that would be justice but I can't what we can do is we can hold her killer accountable and that's all we can do now Becky's family is left to focus on all they have left of her memories and the loves of her life her three boys who are now living with her parents we will all work together to make sure those boys have the life they deserved and we started a Gund me to um support the boys and Becky's family and friends hope that Becky's mission in life will now become her Legacy Becky would have wanted positive change to happen she would want somebody else's life to be saved if we can learn anything if somebody reaches out to you and says that they're scared they believe that their partner or whoever it is is capable of violence we need to believe them and make an active effort to make sure they're [Music] safe [Music] an attempted murder caught on video and a crime scene investigator is the victim it's a miracle she's alive my life changed forever but the number one suspect has a bulletproof Alibi someone wanted me dead next Saturday on CBS and streaming on Paramount Plus

Channel: 48 Hours

Views: 4,255,170

Keywords: 48 hours, cbs news, becky Bliefnick, murder, Quincy Illinois, Family Feud, tim bliefnick, erin moriarty, full episodes, full episode, true crime, the game show and the murder

Id: gHbFUhxpTV0

Length: 41min 59sec (2519 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 06 2023