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True Crime Documentary - The Tragic Murder of Becky Bliefnick · The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories

0:08
Speaker 1: This time on killers. Caught on camera in Illinois, a
0:12
Speaker 1: father discovers his daughter dead.
0:15
Speaker 2: Do you know what what of cars grow?
0:20
Speaker 3: I can still feel in my chest how brutal and
0:24
Speaker 3: cruel her murder was.
0:27
Speaker 1: As cameras catch a stalker in the night.
0:33
Speaker 4: Was this the act of a prowler? There was nothing
0:36
Speaker 4: taken from the house.
0:39
Speaker 1: And in the UK, a night out with friends ends
0:45
Speaker 1: in murder.
0:47
Speaker 5: And not duty officer heard what he described as the
0:50
Speaker 5: most horrendous screaming he'd ever heard in his life. Just
0:57
Speaker 5: sounds like something bad is happening to her.
1:00
Speaker 6: But we know what happened because the video of hell
1:02
Speaker 6: group quite happened. I heard, I mean.
1:05
Speaker 5: They heard it together.
1:11
Speaker 7: The camera doesn't lie in.
1:17
Speaker 1: The United States, Illinois, the city of Quincy.
1:25
Speaker 7: Quincy, it's on the Mississippi River for about two hours,
1:29
Speaker 7: are so north of Saint Louis, Missouri.
1:33
Speaker 8: I always describe it as kind of an island. Definitely
1:36
Speaker 8: has a small town vibe. It's wide draws I think
1:40
Speaker 8: families in to this area.
1:45
Speaker 1: One of those families was the belief Nicks. Becky and
1:49
Speaker 1: her husband Tim, and they're three young boys.
1:53
Speaker 6: Becky was really almost an ideal mom and It really
1:59
Speaker 6: just brought her way. She had the most memorable laugh.
2:14
Speaker 6: She really loved life and loved her family.
2:22
Speaker 3: Becky and I met in first grade. She's what I
2:27
Speaker 3: feel like most of us aspire to be or aspire
2:30
Speaker 3: for our daughters to be that kindness, but then also
2:35
Speaker 3: just fiercely strong, competitive and extremely intelligent.
2:43
Speaker 1: What kind of test in the world.
2:45
Speaker 9: So, yeah, person to restore someone's faith in humanity.
2:51
Speaker 1: But Becky's father's faith in humanity was severely tested. In
2:56
Speaker 1: February twenty twenty three.
3:02
Speaker 2: One one, Yeah, just found my daughter get in her house.
3:08
Speaker 2: I tried to wake her, and she like, I couldn't
3:11
Speaker 2: move her hands. Your skiffs and her knees were skiffs.
3:15
Speaker 2: And do you believe that she's beyond any hope?
3:18
Speaker 6: Yes, my mom is calling and she was hysterical, and
3:27
Speaker 6: all she could say was Becky's dead. Becky's dead. We
3:33
Speaker 6: don't know anything. It was like everything else in the
3:38
Speaker 6: world had stopped.
3:46
Speaker 5: Do you know what would have cause of she been.
3:49
Speaker 2: Going through a terrible divorce for over two years, if
3:53
Speaker 2: she was reaching the end of her rope? So you
3:56
Speaker 2: believe it was a suicide. I someone to say.
4:01
Speaker 7: That when I arrived at the scene, I saw Becky's body.
4:11
Speaker 7: You could see that she had been shot multiple times.
4:16
Speaker 7: A total number of wounds was fourteen. There were more
4:23
Speaker 7: than one to a hand to suggest a defensive posture.
4:30
Speaker 7: Many of those shots were when Becky was laying on
4:34
Speaker 7: her back on the ground. I could see that her
4:43
Speaker 7: phone was on the floor behind the door.
4:49
Speaker 1: Becky's phone revealed she knew she was in danger.
4:55
Speaker 8: Moments before the murder happened. Becky tried to dial nin
5:00
Speaker 8: two six as if her fingers just got pushed across
5:04
Speaker 8: the phone and right at the end.
5:07
Speaker 1: The last activity on Becky's phone gave detectives an exact
5:11
Speaker 1: time of death at one eleven am.
5:15
Speaker 4: Our suspect pool was is wide as the world. We
5:17
Speaker 4: had absolutely no idea who had been involved, and we
5:20
Speaker 4: started looking at that point for whatever evidence we could gather.
5:28
Speaker 9: There were multiple shell casings that were found around the
5:32
Speaker 9: body of Becky Bliefneck.
5:37
Speaker 7: Intersperseworth. Where all the shellcasings were, we noticed fragments and
5:41
Speaker 7: shreds of a plastic bag, so those stuck out right
5:46
Speaker 7: away as something that was important.
5:51
Speaker 1: While crime scene investigators worked on Becky's home, detectives broadened
5:56
Speaker 1: the search for clues.
5:59
Speaker 7: I directed multiple officers to start scouring area close to
6:04
Speaker 7: Becky's house looking for video surveillance.
6:09
Speaker 8: A neighbor had video surveillance from their security camera system.
6:14
Speaker 8: They did not have any footage of the night of
6:17
Speaker 8: the murder. However, they did have footage of a person
6:22
Speaker 8: walking down their driveway the night before time stamp on
6:30
Speaker 8: Arizona morning. We see this individual and you can't see
6:36
Speaker 8: if it's a male or female, but this person appears
6:38
Speaker 8: to be looking around. They're walking somewhat methodically. So this
6:49
Speaker 8: is that same camera view in the daylight. And then
6:53
Speaker 8: obviously you can see those windows in the back.
6:57
Speaker 1: In the top right corner of the security video, instigators
7:00
Speaker 1: spotted a crucial detail, a broken window.
7:07
Speaker 7: It was obvious that the perpetrator had climbed onto the
7:10
Speaker 7: roof and had forced entry to the house by this
7:13
Speaker 7: back window. The window broke during the entry, perhaps made
7:23
Speaker 7: enough noise to alert Becky, who had been able to
7:28
Speaker 7: shut her bedroom door, but it was obvious from the
7:31
Speaker 7: damage to the door that we observed that the perpetrator
7:35
Speaker 7: had forced that door in.
7:40
Speaker 6: I don't think there's any words to describe how that
7:44
Speaker 6: feels to know that your sister was shot fourteen times
7:54
Speaker 6: in her own home, running away and trying to hide.
8:01
Speaker 4: It was clearly a break in. Was this the act
8:06
Speaker 4: of a prowler? It didn't seem like it was a
8:09
Speaker 4: random event. There was nothing taken from the house care.
8:14
Speaker 1: The scene left clues about a potential relationship between Becky
8:18
Speaker 1: and the person who murdered her.
8:20
Speaker 10: This crime scene does not indicate someone who is committing
8:24
Speaker 10: a burglary, and it's gone wrong. The perpetrator doesn't choose
8:28
Speaker 10: the easiest window to break into. The perpetrator has actually
8:32
Speaker 10: gone up the floor. It feels like there's something going
8:35
Speaker 10: on here that is about Becky and that this person
8:40
Speaker 10: is targeting Becky specifically, which also suggests that it would
8:44
Speaker 10: be someone she has met before. She was shot fourteen times,
8:50
Speaker 10: which is way more than you need, and that to
8:52
Speaker 10: me speaks of someone who is either out to kill
8:56
Speaker 10: or at the very least, once they've made up their mind,
8:58
Speaker 10: they are going.
8:59
Speaker 1: To make or she's dead. Detectives had another look at
9:06
Speaker 1: the timeline on the security footage and made an unsettling discovery.
9:17
Speaker 4: We went back a couple of weeks and we found
9:19
Speaker 4: again a random prowler on that video.
9:24
Speaker 1: The prowler had spied on Becky's house on Valentine's Day.
9:29
Speaker 9: Are they going on a practice run? Are they starting
9:34
Speaker 9: to plan to do it and then something stops them
9:36
Speaker 9: from doing it. There's a lot of questions when you
9:41
Speaker 9: look at the video.
9:43
Speaker 1: Detectives went back through Becky's personal life to try and
9:47
Speaker 1: find some answers.
9:50
Speaker 7: In cases like this, the current domestic partner or the
9:55
Speaker 7: former domestic partner are obviously people of interest.
10:01
Speaker 8: We started to dissect Becky's life and then we soon
10:04
Speaker 8: discovered she was getting a divorce from her husband and
10:08
Speaker 8: it was a difficult divorce.
10:11
Speaker 1: Becky met Tim at Quincy University. Becky studied biological sciences
10:16
Speaker 1: and Tim was doing business studies.
10:19
Speaker 6: He was able to have a conversation with anybody. They
10:24
Speaker 6: were both college athletes, you know. They both were very
10:28
Speaker 6: into fitness and well being. They had been dating for
10:32
Speaker 6: a little while and their relationship was relatively quick moving.
10:40
Speaker 1: Becky and Tim got married in two thousand and nine
10:43
Speaker 1: and had three boys.
10:46
Speaker 6: Becky was thinking about being a doctor, but her number
10:50
Speaker 6: one passion in her life was to have a family,
10:54
Speaker 6: so she initially put that dream on hold. He was
11:00
Speaker 6: the primary breadwinner of the family, and he did very well.
11:05
Speaker 6: He was a six figure income.
11:08
Speaker 1: But being parents created challenges for the couple, especially when
11:12
Speaker 1: Becky went back to her career in nursing against Tim's wishes.
11:17
Speaker 3: Things had changed between Becky and Tim. Most of the
11:21
Speaker 3: burden of child rearing was falling to her.
11:25
Speaker 6: We kind of laughed in a not funny way about
11:29
Speaker 6: Becky being a single, married mother because Tim spent so
11:34
Speaker 6: much time away from the house, and even when they
11:38
Speaker 6: had three kids and she was trying to balance a career,
11:42
Speaker 6: he did not help in any way.
11:47
Speaker 1: Becky and Tim announced their separation in February twenty twenty one.
11:53
Speaker 6: Tim had made her feel worthless for so long. He
11:58
Speaker 6: criticized her parenting ability, her cleaning of the house, and
12:02
Speaker 6: he was especially critical of her body and frequently called
12:08
Speaker 6: her fat and worthless. Becky was relieved when he finally
12:13
Speaker 6: did move out.
12:17
Speaker 10: What we have here is a pretty classic case, of course,
12:21
Speaker 10: of control of psychological manipulation, with the control that Tim
12:26
Speaker 10: was already.
12:26
Speaker 1: Exerting over Becky.
12:28
Speaker 10: The question, of course, is how does a person like
12:30
Speaker 10: this who's already psychologically controlling the other person, who's already
12:34
Speaker 10: made the other person financially dependent and is really curating
12:38
Speaker 10: their life and controlling their life.
12:41
Speaker 1: How is Tim going to behave during a divorce?
12:43
Speaker 10: And unfortunately, what we often see with perpetrators of this
12:46
Speaker 10: kind of intimate partner violence is that you see either
12:50
Speaker 10: the behavior continue or it escalates.
12:58
Speaker 6: Tim was making her life miserable in every possible way.
13:02
Speaker 2: You know.
13:03
Speaker 6: The divorce process dragged on and on and on. His
13:07
Speaker 6: stipulations were that he would not have to pay child
13:11
Speaker 6: support or alimony. He would file continuances to lead her
13:17
Speaker 6: of money. Their divorce process was nearly forty thousand dollars
13:24
Speaker 6: that she had to go into debt for in order
13:27
Speaker 6: to just end her marriage. I think he was just
13:33
Speaker 6: trying to get her to a point where she couldn't
13:37
Speaker 6: take it anymore and would and would give him what
13:42
Speaker 6: he wanted. And she was not that type of person.
13:48
Speaker 1: No DNA fingerprints or witnesses placed Tim at the scene
13:52
Speaker 1: of Becky's murder, so investigators turned to a camera near
13:57
Speaker 1: Tim's home.
14:00
Speaker 7: Video from Quincy Public School Systems bus storage lot, so
14:07
Speaker 7: we can see.
14:07
Speaker 9: It's about twelve fifty five in the morning the night
14:10
Speaker 9: of the murder, February twenty third, and all of a
14:13
Speaker 9: sudden we see motion coming and then there's a person
14:16
Speaker 9: on a bike heading towards Becky's house. So you can
14:21
Speaker 9: tell the person is on a bike, but you certainly
14:23
Speaker 9: can't tell who it is.
14:27
Speaker 1: Moments later, the mysterious cyclist was caught on camera biking
14:31
Speaker 1: in the opposite direction from Becky's house. The footage was
14:36
Speaker 1: recorded just minutes after she attempted to call nine to
14:39
Speaker 1: one one to report the break in.
14:44
Speaker 7: We saw what appeared to be the same individual on
14:47
Speaker 7: the same bike. One thing that we noticed while we're
14:50
Speaker 7: reviewing the video is that there were no reflectors in
14:54
Speaker 7: the wheels of the bicycle.
14:59
Speaker 4: As we continued the investigation, though, it became clear that
15:03
Speaker 4: there was only one person that Becky was really scared of.
15:09
Speaker 6: Becky had said something along the lines of, if anything
15:13
Speaker 6: were to happen to me, the first person of interest
15:16
Speaker 6: should be Tim.
15:20
Speaker 1: Becky's messages to friends revealed her increasing concerns about Tim's behavior.
15:34
Speaker 6: I had asked her to go to our local domestic
15:38
Speaker 6: violence shelter, but there's very little that a woman can
15:45
Speaker 6: do if there's no physical evidence of abuse.
15:50
Speaker 1: After a year and a half of divorce proceedings, Becky
15:54
Speaker 1: then began to experience unexplained events around her home.
15:59
Speaker 6: Becky first cat disappeared. It was obviously traumatic, but there
16:04
Speaker 6: were plausible explanations. She had called me the day after
16:12
Speaker 6: her second cat had died. She broke down in tears.
16:19
Speaker 6: The cat had come in from outside, then all of
16:22
Speaker 6: a sudden started seizing. There was no reason to suspect
16:26
Speaker 6: that there was any health issues with the cat. I
16:30
Speaker 6: think in that moment, she was very fearful. She thought
16:36
Speaker 6: that Tim was probably stalking her. Whenever she would file something,
16:42
Speaker 6: he would do a tit for cat. So she asked
16:46
Speaker 6: for a restraining order against him, and he filed a
16:52
Speaker 6: countersuit to get a restraining order against her. In the
16:56
Speaker 6: court's eyes, it just seemed like two very disgruntled individuals
17:00
Speaker 6: fighting with each other.
17:04
Speaker 10: Even just thinking that your partner or your ex partner
17:07
Speaker 10: is capable of killing your pets is that you have
17:12
Speaker 10: to get to a really dark place in order to
17:14
Speaker 10: think that that's something that they would do. It's hard
17:16
Speaker 10: to communicate that effectively though, because you feel like you're
17:19
Speaker 10: overreacting and saying things like well, I think he killed
17:22
Speaker 10: the cats. I mean that sounds straight out of a movie,
17:25
Speaker 10: and you might not even believe it yourself as you're
17:27
Speaker 10: saying it. But that's exactly what's a horrible about psychological
17:30
Speaker 10: abuse is that it instills these constant questions that chip
17:34
Speaker 10: away at what you know to be real.
17:46
Speaker 7: Once the video from the yard was examined, the person's size,
17:52
Speaker 7: the person's gait when walking was similar to Tim. At
17:57
Speaker 7: that point, he was considered a suspect.
18:03
Speaker 1: A week after Becky's murder, the police had enough evidence
18:08
Speaker 1: to confront Tim.
18:13
Speaker 5: Do you have any weapons on yet?
18:14
Speaker 3: You not, sir.
18:16
Speaker 4: I have a search war for some things on you,
18:19
Speaker 4: as far as it also search more through your house.
18:21
Speaker 8: Okay.
18:22
Speaker 1: They seized his cell phone from his car.
18:25
Speaker 5: Yeah, he's got an.
18:26
Speaker 10: Apple Watch on.
18:27
Speaker 8: No, this is just as trying to watch.
18:29
Speaker 5: It's just an activity.
18:30
Speaker 1: Tracker and a Whoop fitness tracker.
18:36
Speaker 8: I researched this Whoop device. There's a good chance that
18:39
Speaker 8: we could obtain that evidence from that company.
18:43
Speaker 5: There's a question for me.
18:48
Speaker 1: Later the same day, police searched Tim's house.
18:53
Speaker 7: We found a multitude of items that we took into evidence.
18:59
Speaker 7: We found popping bags that matched the fragments of the
19:03
Speaker 7: shopping bag found at the scene of Becky's murder. At
19:06
Speaker 7: her house, and most importantly in particular, a box of
19:12
Speaker 7: spent shell cases.
19:16
Speaker 1: The shells were sent for analysis at the crime lab.
19:19
Speaker 1: While the search of his home continued.
19:23
Speaker 7: We located a Pride tool on a shelf in the
19:27
Speaker 7: basement that was similar to the Pride tool marks in
19:32
Speaker 7: the window at Becky's house.
19:36
Speaker 4: Every time we got a piece of evidence, it pointed
19:38
Speaker 4: to ten belief think it didn't point to anybody else.
19:42
Speaker 1: The evidence was adding up, but it was still all
19:45
Speaker 1: circumstantial under state law. Prosecutors only had ninety days until
19:51
Speaker 1: Becky's murder case had to go to trial.
19:57
Speaker 8: We have this timeline that we know from the video
19:59
Speaker 8: footage from the bush parn and we got from the
20:01
Speaker 8: neighbor's houses. We needed other pieces of evidence.
20:11
Speaker 4: Laura was going through the defendant's browser history. She looked
20:16
Speaker 4: at me and she said, you're not going to believe this.
20:20
Speaker 4: He searched can you match a shotgun shell to the
20:23
Speaker 4: weapon that was used? How can you open a door
20:27
Speaker 4: with a crowbar?
20:28
Speaker 1: Tim also searched how to make a homemade pistol silencer.
20:34
Speaker 1: Detectives believed Tim tried to use the plastic bags to
20:37
Speaker 1: muffle the sound of gunshots because shreds of plastic were
20:41
Speaker 1: found at the scene.
20:43
Speaker 4: Each and every one of these search histories was just
20:47
Speaker 4: another AHA moment, like, Oh my gosh, why would Tim
20:51
Speaker 4: Beliefnik be searching for these things unless he was involved.
20:58
Speaker 7: Based on the video evidence from Quincy Public School's bus
21:01
Speaker 7: storage lot, we knew we were looking for a bicycle.
21:05
Speaker 1: Officers searched every corner of the neighborhood's backyards.
21:10
Speaker 9: They found a bike in the brush within a couple
21:14
Speaker 9: of blocks of Tim Bliefnick's house.
21:17
Speaker 1: The bike didn't yield any forensic evidence, but detectives were
21:21
Speaker 1: convinced it was related to Becky's death.
21:24
Speaker 7: The odd height of the bicycle seat was compared to
21:28
Speaker 7: a bicycle that was located during our search of Tim
21:32
Speaker 7: Beliefnick's house, and they were within a half an inch
21:35
Speaker 7: of each other. There were no reflectors in the wheels.
21:40
Speaker 7: We felt very strongly that we had located the bicycle
21:43
Speaker 7: in the video.
21:47
Speaker 1: Despite mounting evidence against their main suspect, Tim insisted he
21:52
Speaker 1: had nothing to do with Becky's death.
21:55
Speaker 4: Tim Beli wasn't going to take any type of negotiation
21:58
Speaker 4: in this case. It was clear to us from the
22:01
Speaker 4: very beginning that he was going to wun his day
22:03
Speaker 4: in court, and he was going to make us prove it.
22:06
Speaker 6: He could never admit he was failing in some way.
22:09
Speaker 6: He always had to win. In his mind, he succeeded
22:15
Speaker 6: at exactly what he wanted to do.
22:18
Speaker 1: Just weeks before the trial, detectives received a potential forensic breakthrough.
22:25
Speaker 4: The shellcasing matched the shellcasings around Becky's body. Was it
22:32
Speaker 4: that moment that we really felt like, Okay, now we're
22:36
Speaker 4: starting to have a case, and with.
22:39
Speaker 1: Only days to go until opening statements, prosecutors finally received
22:44
Speaker 1: the data from Tim's Whoop fitness tracker.
22:49
Speaker 9: It actually was an amazing piece of evidence because at
22:53
Speaker 9: exactly the time period when the person would have been
22:55
Speaker 9: on the bike traveling from Tim Behliefnik's house to Becky
22:58
Speaker 9: Beliefni's house, committeing the murder, and then riding the bike
23:02
Speaker 9: back to Tim Beliefnik's house, the Whoop is disconnecting from
23:07
Speaker 9: Tim Beliefnik's phone, So Tim Beliefnick probably thought they can
23:10
Speaker 9: track the location of my phone, so I will leave
23:13
Speaker 9: my phone home when I leave to go on these
23:15
Speaker 9: midnight bike rides to Becky Beliefnik's house and they won't
23:18
Speaker 9: be able to track me, but really it actually hurt
23:21
Speaker 9: him because in the end we were able to show
23:23
Speaker 9: that the whoop was disconnected from his phone during those
23:26
Speaker 9: exact same times, at one or two in the morning.
23:31
Speaker 1: On May twenty third, twenty twenty three, Tim Bliefnik stood trial.
23:37
Speaker 1: Prosecutors were certain the timing of Becky's murder was no coincidence.
23:44
Speaker 1: She was killed just one week before the final divorce.
23:47
Speaker 6: Hearing you know, there's a winning and a divorce, but
23:51
Speaker 6: it started to look like Becky was going to have
23:54
Speaker 6: a custody arrangement and child support and alimony, and that
23:57
Speaker 6: would have been a huge loss. So Tim killed her.
24:06
Speaker 1: Ten hours after Becky's death, Tim was caught on camera
24:09
Speaker 1: picking up their boys from school an hour early, his
24:15
Speaker 1: car just visible in the footage.
24:22
Speaker 6: He needed somebody to find her body. My dad had
24:27
Speaker 6: received a call from Tim that afternoon saying he was
24:30
Speaker 6: worried about Becky because she didn't go pick up the
24:34
Speaker 6: kids from school. He wanted my dad to call her
24:38
Speaker 6: to see what was going on. At Tim's request, Becky's
24:43
Speaker 6: father went to check on her.
24:45
Speaker 1: At the house.
24:47
Speaker 6: He found her lying on the bathroom floor. My dad
24:53
Speaker 6: was Becky's person. They were very very close. Tim orchestrated
25:01
Speaker 6: him finding her purposefully.
25:07
Speaker 10: You have this prolonged aggression towards the family as a whole,
25:12
Speaker 10: and this hell that they've had to endure because of Tim,
25:16
Speaker 10: despite all the planning, despite orchestrating the circumstances around the
25:19
Speaker 10: crime scene, despite making sure the kids are out of
25:22
Speaker 10: the house, despite having a silencer for his gun and
25:25
Speaker 10: making it look like a break in. Even he didn't
25:28
Speaker 10: account for everything, and he was still caught on camera.
25:35
Speaker 1: After a nine day trial, the jury read their verdict guilty.
25:42
Speaker 4: I won't forget the look on Becky's father's face after
25:46
Speaker 4: the verdict was read. It really was one of those
25:49
Speaker 4: moments that I think neither one of us will ever forget.
25:55
Speaker 1: The judge imposed the maximum sentence, life without parole.
26:03
Speaker 8: I don't think we would have solved this case without
26:05
Speaker 8: the security footage, because it provided us the timeline that
26:09
Speaker 8: led to everything.
26:15
Speaker 4: I think that the tragedy in this case, more than
26:18
Speaker 4: anything else, is the effect that Tim Bleifnik's selfish acts
26:24
Speaker 4: have had on those three innocent boys.
26:32
Speaker 3: I think it's really important, especially for people who are
26:36
Speaker 3: supporting someone in a domestic violence situation, to know someone
26:42
Speaker 3: doesn't have to physically put their hands on you to
26:45
Speaker 3: abuse you. Becky was being abused emotionally, and I think
26:49
Speaker 3: it's important that we use that word abuse, not dance
26:52
Speaker 3: around it.
26:55
Speaker 6: Becky did so much good in the world. You could
27:03
Speaker 6: tell walking around the corner that she was in the
27:05
Speaker 6: room just by hearing her laugh, thinking about her laugh.
27:12
Speaker 6: It's really priceless. God, that's what all remember.
27:42
Speaker 1: Becky Bliefnik's death at the hands of her husband was
27:45
Speaker 1: a call to action for her friends and family. The
27:48
Speaker 1: issue the danger of emotional abuse by an intimate partner.
27:55
Speaker 1: Only about twelve percent of women are killed by a stranger.
27:59
Speaker 1: The rest are held by what's known as a known person,
28:02
Speaker 1: and so that's either a family member or somebody else
28:05
Speaker 1: that they know, an acquaintance, a friend. And this leads
28:08
Speaker 1: to something called the proximity paradox, which is that you'd
28:11
Speaker 1: think that people who are closest to you emotionally are
28:14
Speaker 1: the safest to be around, but actually those are also
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Speaker 1: the most likely people to harm you. And in the UK,
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Speaker 1: a trio of friends embarked on a night out, but
28:27
Speaker 1: only two would return home. In the UK, Staffordshire, fifteen
28:43
Speaker 1: miles north of Birmingham is Tamworth.
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Speaker 5: Tamworth is a small town. It's a very pleasant, quiet lice.
28:53
Speaker 5: There's a lot of community spirit there. It's not the
28:55
Speaker 5: sort of place you would usually associate with this serious cron.
29:01
Speaker 1: On September nineteenth, twenty nineteen, a worried family reported their
29:06
Speaker 1: daughter missing.
29:11
Speaker 5: Keey Buonca is twenty years old. She'd recently celebrated her birthday.
29:15
Speaker 5: She'd grown up in Tamworth all of her life. Very popular,
29:19
Speaker 5: very loved by all of her friends and family. Keey
29:24
Speaker 5: withdrew for an interview at school at two pm on
29:27
Speaker 5: September nineteenth for what would have been a dream job.
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Speaker 5: She always wanted to work with children, but she never showed.
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Speaker 1: Keeley had gone out for a late birthday celebration.
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Speaker 5: Kealey's friend that had been out with the night before
29:42
Speaker 5: messaged her, but she became concerned when she didn't reply.
29:46
Speaker 5: Concerns grew for her among her friends and family, and
29:48
Speaker 5: she was reported missing to the police at four thirty
29:51
Speaker 5: pm that day.
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Speaker 1: Family, friends and volunteers searched the local area for any
29:59
Speaker 1: signs of Keith.
30:01
Speaker 5: When Keey was reported missing, it immediately gained a lot
30:04
Speaker 5: of interest. Young girl been out for a night out
30:09
Speaker 5: disappeared everyone's.
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Speaker 1: Word for Meanwhile, police officers spoke to two of Keehey's
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Speaker 1: friends who were with her the night before.
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Speaker 5: On the eighteenth of September twenty nineteen, Kiy bonquerd gone
30:22
Speaker 5: into Birmingham with a friend. It was a bit of
30:26
Speaker 5: a belated birthday celebration that night. Birmingham is very vibrant
30:31
Speaker 5: place full of bars and nightlife.
30:35
Speaker 1: Police searched security cameras to track Keeley's movements on the
30:40
Speaker 1: night out.
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Speaker 5: They went to a nightclub called Snobs in the city center.
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Speaker 1: Nothing struck police as unusual, and friends said Keeley was
30:57
Speaker 1: in good spirits. As police began to build a picture,
31:04
Speaker 1: more footage emerged from Birmingham's public transport system. It showed
31:09
Speaker 1: another friend who joined the group, Wesley Street.
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Speaker 5: Kelley had known Wesley since infant school. There had been
31:25
Speaker 5: friends for many years. Wesley Street was known as the
31:29
Speaker 5: life and soul of the party among his friends, he
31:35
Speaker 5: was very popular. Camera from Snob's nightclub in Birmingham showed
31:40
Speaker 5: Keeley and Wesley and their other friend having a good
31:43
Speaker 5: time that night. They had all been drinking, but Keey
31:46
Speaker 5: hadn't had many to drink After about three hours, Wesley
31:56
Speaker 5: and their friend caught a taxi back from Birmingham to
31:58
Speaker 5: Tamworth Town Center.
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Speaker 1: Keeley's friends accounts of the night out were backed up
32:04
Speaker 1: by security footage from a bank. Just before three am,
32:08
Speaker 1: Keey withdrew money to pay for a taxi. Again, nothing
32:13
Speaker 1: seemed to be a mess.
32:17
Speaker 5: After returning from Birmingham and going back to Tamworth, Keey's
32:20
Speaker 5: friends said she could spend the night at her home.
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Speaker 5: Kee declined. She said she was tired and she wanted
32:25
Speaker 5: to spend the night in her own bed, and that
32:26
Speaker 5: she also had an interview at school the next day.
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Speaker 5: She said she would be safe walking home with Wesley.
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Speaker 11: We can see that it's actually quite an ordinary night.
32:39
Speaker 11: Keey wasn't going to access, she didn't drink too much,
32:43
Speaker 11: she took a taxi home with friends, and she also
32:46
Speaker 11: chose to sleep in her own bed, which says to
32:49
Speaker 11: me that she was really focused on the next day
32:51
Speaker 11: and wanting to wake up and be able to present
32:54
Speaker 11: herself in the best possible way for her interview. It
32:57
Speaker 11: tells us something about Keeley's internal world. This was someone
33:01
Speaker 11: who had something to look forward to the next day,
33:04
Speaker 11: so there's no reason why she wouldn't have gone home
33:06
Speaker 11: that night. It really does raise the question about what
33:10
Speaker 11: happened to her.
33:15
Speaker 1: Twenty two hours after she was last seen on security
33:18
Speaker 1: footage at five thirty pm, Keeley's family reported her missing.
33:24
Speaker 5: As the last person to see Keelly alive. Police naturally
33:27
Speaker 5: wanted to speak to Wesley Ward. Start, stop, We've probably
33:31
Speaker 5: got to problem around about eleven is somewhere near that time.
33:37
Speaker 5: I know, colored drugs in the last twenty four hours.
33:40
Speaker 7: Yeah.
33:44
Speaker 5: When police spoke to Wesley, they asked him to take
33:46
Speaker 5: them on the route he supposedly walked to Keelly home
33:48
Speaker 5: that night.
33:53
Speaker 12: We need to take on the room, to have a
33:58
Speaker 12: drive of the room.
34:00
Speaker 5: He said he'd walk home from Tama Town Center close
34:03
Speaker 5: to his house. He said he hugged that and left
34:05
Speaker 5: the near a phone box. Which way would you go home?
34:08
Speaker 5: Normally this way back that way.
34:11
Speaker 12: Yeah, So when you got to that junction, which way
34:14
Speaker 12: did you go? Just went straight back straight back that way?
34:17
Speaker 6: Went okay.
34:21
Speaker 1: But when officers asked for Wesley's phone.
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Speaker 5: She's just part of the investigation.
34:26
Speaker 12: You need to grab your.
34:26
Speaker 5: Phone off you.
34:28
Speaker 1: His demeanor changed. I'm getting the blank. No one blame me.
34:38
Speaker 1: You said when I was at the house.
34:40
Speaker 9: That all I needed to do was speak to the officer.
34:43
Speaker 5: And then I could go and look for Keith.
34:44
Speaker 6: And then I could go and look for Keeley.
34:46
Speaker 13: And then you say you take You're going to take
34:48
Speaker 13: my phone?
34:50
Speaker 5: Now I feel a lot.
34:51
Speaker 1: You're blaming me and scary, and I know I understand
34:54
Speaker 1: that he's scary.
34:56
Speaker 5: I just don't want him to have to.
34:58
Speaker 12: Go through my moover.
34:59
Speaker 11: I this point is incredibly interesting. Wesley seems more concerned
35:09
Speaker 11: about what his phone may reveal about him rather than
35:13
Speaker 11: what his phone may actually offer the search for Keeley.
35:17
Speaker 12: What we're going to look for on your phone is
35:19
Speaker 12: going to be things that relate to you and her.
35:22
Speaker 12: We don't care about you Google. You know, we're not
35:24
Speaker 12: allowed to look for because we don't need to go pictorally.
35:30
Speaker 12: Because he has some transparent mate. That's all it is.
35:35
Speaker 11: This could be because he's panicking, he's nervous, or he's
35:38
Speaker 11: genuinely confused, or it could be because he has something
35:41
Speaker 11: to hide.
35:45
Speaker 1: Wesley's phone was sent off for analysis off all Right.
35:51
Speaker 5: When police questioned Wesley, I noticed he had scratches on
35:56
Speaker 5: his face, and naturally they asked him how they'd been caused.
36:01
Speaker 5: Wesley said that had been caused Boy's dog.
36:03
Speaker 1: That morning, volunteers looking for Keeley concentrated their efforts on
36:08
Speaker 1: the local park, close to where Wesley said he and
36:14
Speaker 1: Keeley parted ways.
36:16
Speaker 5: Keey's uncle went into Wigington Park to search for his niece.
36:22
Speaker 5: He went to look through a railwaite tunnel when he
36:24
Speaker 5: turned and saw some up red which caught his eye.
36:26
Speaker 5: Underneath the brook. He went over and he could then
36:31
Speaker 5: see matted hair and the bracelet on someone's wrist. He
36:37
Speaker 5: immediately knew it was his niece Keeley. An off duty
36:47
Speaker 5: officer heard what he described as the most horrendous screaming
36:50
Speaker 5: he'd ever heard in his life. Keey's body was discovered
36:57
Speaker 5: covered in branches in a brook at the edge of
36:59
Speaker 5: the park. The after the officer went over to the
37:02
Speaker 5: scene and checked for a pulse. What he found none.
37:05
Speaker 5: He noticed that Keety's top is bloodstained. Police immediately launched
37:11
Speaker 5: the murder investigation.
37:17
Speaker 13: I was contacted by Staffordshire Police for a forensic post mortem.
37:21
Speaker 13: The fact that the body is found in a face
37:23
Speaker 13: down position with branches covering the body would necessitate the
37:27
Speaker 13: need for a post mortem to try and build up
37:30
Speaker 13: some sort of picture as to what may have happened.
37:34
Speaker 13: The first thing that I saw was that the clothing
37:37
Speaker 13: had been moved and she was in a state of undress.
37:40
Speaker 13: Now that in itself would highly support the possibility that
37:45
Speaker 13: there's been a sexual assault. The DNA results from any
37:49
Speaker 13: swaps which I took at the post mortem, would be
37:52
Speaker 13: absolutely important in this case.
37:56
Speaker 1: Investigators notified friends that Keeley was dead.
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Speaker 5: Keeley's body was discovered around nine pm that night. By
38:06
Speaker 5: that time, the police were already speaking to Wesley.
38:11
Speaker 1: Then the results of Wesley's phone analysis came in.
38:16
Speaker 5: He stepped to his accounts that he'd last seen Keeley
38:19
Speaker 5: near a phone box by his home, but GPS data
38:22
Speaker 5: from his mobile phone contradict his account. The data showed
38:28
Speaker 5: that at four twenty three he was in Wigginton Park,
38:31
Speaker 5: which is where her body was found. The GPS data
38:35
Speaker 5: from Wesley's phone also showed that he returned to the
38:38
Speaker 5: site five times in twelve hours. They realized he was
38:42
Speaker 5: lying about where he'd last seen her. Wesley started out
38:49
Speaker 5: as a key witness, the last person that saw Keely alive,
38:52
Speaker 5: but he quickly went to be in the prime suspect.
38:57
Speaker 12: Wesley don't need to listen to me this moment. Time
39:00
Speaker 12: give arrest of.
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Speaker 5: Wesley was arrested less than ninety minutes after Kelley's body
39:06
Speaker 5: was discovered.
39:10
Speaker 12: Was all that if any into then yeah, by all
39:12
Speaker 12: means all right because behind.
39:15
Speaker 5: The arts at all.
39:17
Speaker 1: Wesley was taken to the police station to be interviewed.
39:23
Speaker 7: It's just a bit.
39:24
Speaker 8: Scary as fall love, you know what I mean?
39:27
Speaker 12: Yeah, I just said you in the garb back in Tamworth.
39:31
Speaker 5: Now with y'all is to investigate YEA. Once the GPS
39:37
Speaker 5: dated from his mobile phone proved that Wesley and Keeley
39:40
Speaker 5: were together in the park, he changed his story.
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Speaker 1: Wesley admitted he hadn't left Keeley by the phone box
39:50
Speaker 1: outside the park. Instead, they had gone into the park together.
39:56
Speaker 5: His next account was, yes, they were together. He he
40:00
Speaker 5: jumped on a back for a piggyback, She fell, hit
40:03
Speaker 5: ahead and died in his arms accidentally.
40:09
Speaker 13: One of the things about forensic theology is your presenter
40:12
Speaker 13: with a story and you have to test it. You
40:13
Speaker 13: have to see whether or not that fits with what
40:15
Speaker 13: you're seeing in the post mortar room. A dead body
40:19
Speaker 13: doesn't lie. There was no evidence of traumatic brain injury,
40:25
Speaker 13: but there were some more telling injuries. She had multiple
40:30
Speaker 13: bruises within the muscles at the front of the neck.
40:33
Speaker 13: There's only one way that Keeley died, and that was
40:36
Speaker 13: that she was strangled.
40:40
Speaker 1: Wesley was presented with the results of the post mortem.
40:44
Speaker 1: He asked for a lawyer and stopped cooperating, but the
40:48
Speaker 1: police now had enough to charge him.
40:52
Speaker 13: Wesley Street was denying that he had sexually assaulted Keeley. However,
40:58
Speaker 13: the samples did come back positive for male DNA. That
41:02
Speaker 13: male DNA was Wesley Street. Wesley Street changed his story
41:10
Speaker 13: a third time and is indicating that both him and
41:12
Speaker 13: Keeley had consensual sex and during that he placed his
41:16
Speaker 13: arm around her neck. She had become floppy and then
41:20
Speaker 13: he was trying to assist her. That does not fit
41:23
Speaker 13: with the post morton findings. The findings at post morton
41:27
Speaker 13: would indicate that Wesley Street has maintained that pressure around
41:30
Speaker 13: Keeley Bunker's neck in order for her to go into
41:34
Speaker 13: cardiac arrest and die. That doesn't just occur. You need
41:38
Speaker 13: to maintain that pressure for several minutes.
41:43
Speaker 1: On July thirteenth, twenty twenty, prosecutors presented to a jury
41:47
Speaker 1: what they believed really happened.
41:51
Speaker 5: Wesley convinced Kelley to go into Wigginton Park. In the park,
41:57
Speaker 5: Wesley raped and murdered Keeley. He then dragged her body
42:01
Speaker 5: to a brook and concealed her body with branches. After that,
42:05
Speaker 5: he went home and went to bed. Over the course
42:10
Speaker 5: of the next twelve hours, Wesley returned to the scene
42:13
Speaker 5: five times to put more branches on Kelley's body and
42:16
Speaker 5: conceal it further. Wesley gave evidence during the trial he
42:27
Speaker 5: claimed he'd killed Kelley accidentally. Throughout the proceedings, he just
42:31
Speaker 5: seemed very cold and emotionless.
42:37
Speaker 1: But what Wesley hadn't accounted for was additional witnesses.
42:45
Speaker 5: Three further victims came forward that had claimed seemilar sexual
42:49
Speaker 5: predatory behavior against them. Wesley was ultimately charged with five
42:53
Speaker 5: further sexual offenses, including rape and sexual assault. After that,
42:56
Speaker 5: the evidence stacked up against him and fell like dominoes.
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Speaker 11: In total, there were h charges brought against Wesley, and
43:04
Speaker 11: they included the sexual assault of several women, some of
43:07
Speaker 11: which were under the age of sixteen. This has been
43:10
Speaker 11: going on for a number of years. There's a sustained pattern.
43:15
Speaker 11: There's so many reasons why young women will not come
43:17
Speaker 11: forward and report sexual crimes. There's a fear of potential
43:21
Speaker 11: retaliation from the perpetrator, but also there's a real sense
43:26
Speaker 11: that they're holding the shame for the crime, not the perpetrator,
43:30
Speaker 11: and they're having to think about their reputation. They're placing
43:33
Speaker 11: their social group, the impact this may have on it,
43:36
Speaker 11: and often when people report these instances, they're not always believed.
43:41
Speaker 11: So what we're seeing in combination is essentially an environment
43:45
Speaker 11: that's offense permissive, and that really goes a long way
43:48
Speaker 11: to creating and sustaining a cultural silence.
43:54
Speaker 5: In August twenty twenty, Wesley was found guilty of raping
43:57
Speaker 5: and murdering Kilibonka, as well as historic sex offenses against
44:01
Speaker 5: three other victims. He was sentenced to life in prison
44:04
Speaker 5: with a minimum term of thirty years.
44:08
Speaker 11: It's almost like a double life. What happened in terms
44:12
Speaker 11: of his behavior happened behind closed doors. We can really
44:18
Speaker 11: connect with Keeley's sense of surprise, her shock, feelings of betrayal, sadness,
44:24
Speaker 11: anger and confusion because someone who she trusted to keep
44:28
Speaker 11: her safe from men like this was actually standing by
44:31
Speaker 11: her side. What makes this so devastating is that she
44:41
Speaker 11: did ever think that women are encouraged to do. She
44:44
Speaker 11: didn't drink excessively, she stayed with people she knew, her friends,
44:48
Speaker 11: she got a taxi out, even funding it herself, and
44:51
Speaker 11: she even accepted a walk home from someone she trusted.
44:55
Speaker 11: So it really highlights that women can put all these
44:58
Speaker 11: precautions in place, but what it doesn't do is take
45:02
Speaker 11: into account the internal motivations of someone else when they
45:06
Speaker 11: decide to act in harmful, violent ways.
45:17
Speaker 5: Friends and family have left tributes to Kelly at Wigginton Park.
45:20
Speaker 5: It's now a location where they can go to remember her.
45:32
Speaker 11: Kelley was well loved. She was a good friend. But
45:35
Speaker 11: something that really comes through about Keeley, in addition to
45:38
Speaker 11: her kindness and compassion, was her sense of responsibility and
45:42
Speaker 11: wanting to help others.
45:45
Speaker 5: She aspired to work in a school and she always
45:48
Speaker 5: liked to work with children. Her whole life was ahead.
45:50
Speaker 1: Of her
46:07
Speaker 9: In