Murder Victim Left a Big Clue Before Her Own Death - Implicates 'Family Feud' Contestant in Heinous Crime
Long before she was murdered, an Illinois woman told her sister who to suspect if she was killed.
The message was revealed last week in the trial of Tim Bliefnick, a former “Family Feud” contestant accused of killing his estranged wife in February.
Last week, Sarah Reilly testified that her sister, Rebecca “Becky” Bliefnick, said her husband should be the chief suspect in her death.
“If something ever happens to me, make sure the number one person of interest is Tim,” Reilly said her sister texted her, according to Fox News.
“I am putting this in writing that I’m fearful he will somehow harm me, come after me, or will try to [do] something to me that takes me away from the kids or the kids away from me,” the text read, Reilly testified.
“He already has lied multiple times to paint himself as a victim and me as the perpetrator when it is absolutely the other way around.”
In a September 2021 text, Becky Bliefnick told a friend that a fellow nurse in the emergency room where she worked was killed by a person with whom she had had a relationship and she “literally had a panic attack” as she thought about Tim Bliefnick.
“I am scared of what he might do and his erratic behavior,” she wrote, adding that her husband took away her guns and ammunition.
During the trial, prosecutors said Tim Bliefnick’s internet search history included instructions on the use of a crowbar, making a silencer, opening a window from the outside and washing off gunpowder from one’s hands, according to KHQA-TV.
In his opening statement, Adams County Assistant State’s Attorney Josh Jones painted a picture of the murder.
“The last minutes of Becky Bliefnick’s life were not spent surrounded by family, friends and loved ones. The last minutes of Becky Bliefnick’s life were not spent in the warm embrace of her three children, Deacon, Greyson, and Arlin. The last minutes of Becky Bliefnick’s life were not spent in love, and compassion, and tenderness. No, the last minutes of Becky’s life were spent in fear, and pain, and terror as she lay on the cold, gray tiles of her bathroom floor slowly bleeding to death,” he said, according to Law and Crime.
Jones said Becky Bliefnick was shot 14 times after her house was broken into with a crowbar and she was chased through the house.
Defense attorney Casey Schnack said it takes evidence, not theories, to win a conviction and ridiculed the story prosecutors are presenting.
“The state’s theory in this matter is that Tim left his 5-year-old, his 10-year-old and 12-year-old home alone in the middle of the night,” Shnack said. “He rode a bike from 16th and Hampshire to 24th and Kentucky road, shimmied up the side of his house and broke in using his crowbar. He walked in through a window, left a footprint on the floor, kicked down Becky’s door and shot her 14 times and then rode that bike back home,” she said.
During the trial, forensic pathologist Dr. Scott Denton said none of the 14 wounds Becky Bliefnick suffered was fatal, according to the Muddy River News.
“The gunshot wounds created defects and bleeding inside her body,” he said. “The mechanism or process of her dying was internal bleeding. One (bullet) that was highest up on her chest and beneath the breast went through her right lung. That was the most serious, the most, I would say, quickly fatal.
“The rest of them are all serious because they’re fatal and they’re going through her intestines and her spine. But the one (bullet) through her right lung would cause shortness of breath, and then the rest of them would cause bleeding also.”
“How long would it take her to bleed to death?” Jones asked
“None of the bullets struck her heart, she did not have any gunshot wounds to the head. So conservatively and fairly, she would have been alive with these gunshot wounds for at least several minutes,” Denton said.
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