Convicted 'Family Feud' killer maintains innocence in wife's murder
A former "Family Feud" contestant sentenced to life in prison for the murder of his estranged wife maintains his innocence in a new jailhouse interview.
Earlier this month, 40-year-old Timothy Bliefnick insisted in an interview on CBS's "48 Hours" that he "did not murder Becky."
"The idea of murdering someone, let alone the mother of my kids, is not any part of who I am," Bliefnick told journalist Erin Moriarty.
On May 31 this year, a Quincy, Illinois, jury found Bliefnick guilty of two counts of first-degree murder and one count of home invasion in connection with Rebecca "Becky" Postle Bliefnick's February death.
But the now-convicted father of three intends to appeal the decision, per Bliefnick and his attorney, Casey Schnack, in the CBS interview.
"The only thing I can do right now is what we are doing … filing an appeal. I have to … I have to believe in the process because if not …" an emotional Bliefnick said before trailing off.
"My kids … I want them to know that I love them and I miss them," he said, referring to his sons, ages 12, 10 and 5. "I'm innocent. I didn't kill Becky."
Schnack said in her closing statements that Adams County prosecutors made a case against Bliefnick that was "dripping with sympathy" and "lacking in any hard evidence," citing a dearth of DNA evidence and shoddy surveillance footage that couldn't definitively identify Bliefnick.
Bliefnick could not be excluded from DNA found under Postle Bliefnick's fingernails and at the scene – but Schnack said in the "48 Hours" interview that DNA "was just as likely to be Tim's as any one of the boys." Prosecutor Josh Jones said the sample was "three times more likely to have come from [Bliefnick] or a male relative from the lineage of the defendant."
SLAIN ILLINOIS NURSE BECKY BLIEFNICK LAID TO REST
Fourteen of 15 total shots fired hit Postle Bliefnick in her bathroom on the night of Feb. 23 – none of the wounds were immediately fatal, prosecutors told "48 Hours," and her "last minutes were dying on the floor alone … in extreme pain, waiting to die."
Schnack argued that investigators did not put enough stock into the possibility that a "prowler" killed Postle Bliefnick in a burglary gone wrong.
The Bliefnick children were not in the house at the time of the murder – they were reportedly at the convicted killer's home about a mile away. The intruder, prosecutors said, passed Postle Bliefnick's window as an entry point and instead entered the house through one of the boys' empty 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 that are possible entrance points … and you just happen to get lucky that it's a little boy's room that's not there that night?" prosecutors said.
But as Schnack told jurors, no DNA evidence on a lawn chair pushed up against the side of the house to access the window pointed to Bliefnick nor was anything linking him to the crime found on "every pair of gloves from Tim's car [or] house."
Likewise, none of Bliefnick's shoes seized by police matched a footprint found in the home, per "48 Hours."
At 1:05 a.m. the night before the killing, per neighbors' footage reviewed by police and "48 Hours," a figure is seen walking down the driveway toward the back of Postle Bliefnick's house – where her killer made entry the next day – then leaving 48 minutes later.
About a week earlier, on Valentine's Day, a similar incident was captured on the neighbor's camera. That same evening, prosecutors said, Bliefnick made more than 200 searches online for a license plate and car VIN number belonging to Postle Bliefnick's new boyfriend, who was parked outside.
When questioned about the searches, Bliefnick only said that he "actually didn't care" about Postle Bliefnick's new boyfriend and declined to go into further details.
Meanwhile, Schnack said there was "no date or time as to when those searches were done" despite prosecutors' timeline.
"We don't know if they were done before the murder, and we don't know if they were done after the murder," she said, reiterating that the figure spotted on surveillance footage was "not Tim."
Ballistics testing determined that the shell casings found at the scene matched casings found in Bliefnick's basement and a 9 mm pistol that Postle Bliefnick had given to her husband as a gift, prosecutors said – she had requested the weapon back in their divorce proceedings but had never received it.
But Bliefnick said that he "had not seen that gun in three years."
He did not address searches he made for "how to open my door with a crowbar," "how to make a homemade pistol silencer" and "how to clean gunpowder off your hands" in the interview.
ALLEGED 'FAMILY FEUD' KILLER STUDIED CRIMINAL JUSTICE YEARS BEFORE WIFE'S MURDER
At one point, per court documents reviewed by "48 Hours," Bliefnick sought an order of protection and said that his estranged wife "stalked" and "harassed" him.
Later, per the interview, Postle Bliefnick also filed a restraining order, alleging that her husband "entered her residence without permission" and "repeatedly falsified interactions" between the two.
Both applications were denied, but a judge ultimately ordered the parents to stay away from each other's residences, except for exchanging their kids.
Postle Bliefnick also sought an order of protection against her father-in-law, Ray Bliefnick, and court documents reviewed by "48 Hours" reveal that she had gathered witnesses to allege the children's grandfather had a "history of perversion and abusing minor children." A judge also denied this restraining order application, per the filings.
Jones suggested this element could have driven Bliefnick to the murder, saying that "information was going to come out that he didn't want to come out" and "he started to feel like he was losing control."
But Schnack told "48 Hours" that she "[didn't] buy" that her client "would throw his life away over a divorce and keeping information out of the public eye that quite frankly was already out" due to "[previous] pleadings … her attorneys had filed."
The former "Family Feud" contestant was the party who initially filed for separation, per court filings, and said that his late wife told people he "had an affair" and "was an alcoholic" because she was "angry about the divorce."
"I was the one that wanted to get out, and I tried on several occasions," Bliefnick said in the interview. "But … there are details that I'm — I'm not — that are hard to talk about that happened in the divorce."
In September 2021, Postle Bliefnick texted her sister, Sarah Reilly, asking that "if something ever happened to me, please make sure the number one person of interest is Tim."
But in his interview with "48 Hours," Bliefnick said he "never understood where that came from."
"We would get into arguments, and sometimes we would get loud, but … that's all it amounted to," he said.
When Bliefnick's attorney was asked about the ominous text message and numerous other communications in which Postle Bliefnick told friends and family that she feared her estranged husband, Schnack said their correspondences amount to "a lot of girl talk."
"I've never seen any pictures of her with bruises, or marks, any allegations of him beating on her … nothing," she said.