The Boardman Murders /// Part 4 /// 570 | Forensic Files

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All right, everybody gather around, grab a chair, grab a beer. Let's talk some true crime.
Where we left off yesterday, Captain, we were trying to determine if these cases
were in fact connected to each other. And you go, "Hey, you kind of come up with the idea that maybe they're not
connected. If there was a connection, it's probably between the Balino case and the Evans case. Why did you make me
sit through all three?" Well, people from Boardman will tell you, and anybody that has studied this case on the
internet over the years, they know that you can't talk about one of these cases without discussing the
other two. They kind of come as a package deal here. We got three youths that are killed in a span of just five
years out of an area of Ohio, Boardman, Ohio, with only roughly about 30, 31,000
people. So, a very rare occurrence and it would be uh we'd be remiss if we didn't speak about all three cases.
Again, all three cases still unsolved and from what we've been told from police is that while they may not be
connected, we are still under the impression that if we are able to make an arrest
or get information in one case, it may provide information or possible leads in the other cases as well. And all three
victims deserve for there to be a spotlight on their case. Correct. And we have a situation here where it's been so
many years later, decades later, and we have loved ones and friends and family of these victims that are passing away
due to time. And they've not received the answer nor the justice that they deserve as well. So, we are happy to be
highlighting and spotlighting these three cases for you last week and again this week. Now,
we are in our final episode. And as promised, we said we would get to suspects. But part of that involves
local rumor, local speculation, and theories. So, Captain, which would you like to dive into first? Should we give
a roundabout summary of the local theories at the time and the ones that have survived over the decades and then
get into the suspects? How would you like to do that? Yes, let's start with the theories.
So, and I'm sure you have probably heard some in addition to these ones that I'm
about to bring up. But the general theories that were going on at the time, again, these could pertain to one case
or all of the cases. But the local theories and rumors in the '70s and the ones that have survived
till this day are that a priest or priests were involved in one if not more of the murders. There's been a brown van
story and other mysterious van stories that have lasted the the last five decades.
There's also, of course, in any of these cases, we always talk about the old pervert roundups. So, you're going to
have your sexual predators and and local known perverts that would be part of any
theory. There's also the quote-unquote security guard theory. And I mean, really, there was when you
have cases that don't have an answer, we don't have an arrest, they often are going to lead to public
speculation. And then, let's take that a step further further. No, let's take it
two steps further because we have three murders in total in five years. Of course, there's going to be local
speculation and concern and theories. And a lot of these have, again, lasted for now five decades. Well, let's start
off with the security guard theory. And we know his name, but it'll make sense why we're just going to call him
security guard. And that's for his own protection. Correct. So, I'm now going to reference
Carolyn's article from porchlightonline.com. And she says there was a security guard
that worked at a place near Brad's house. This is where Don Templeman says that he and Brad did spend a lot of
time. Now, it sounds like based off of her article that a lot of people in the community thought that he was a very
good suspect in at least the Brad Balino case. And Don Templeman even says that he
suspected this man, too. Especially very early on. Now, so a little bit of information from that article about this
security guard is that he liked to talk to boys, uh even Brad and Don when they would
come in. He would hang out there. And the boys, you know, would come in and look at these rocks and geodes and
whatnot. But he would really chat up the youths while they were there. He did have a criminal history. This and
at least according to one Boardman officer, this security guard had a or security officer had a fascination with
police and possibly even with younger boys or teenage boys. Now, I read up on this guy quite a bit.
To say that he had a fascination with police is a bit of an understatement. The information that I found that he
would go out of his way to brief to befriend police officers, try to become buddies with them. He even had a
an outfit tailored for himself that very much looked like the local police officer uniform.
Yeah, I heard speculation that he actually applied to be a police officer at one point.
He did. And not only that, he was This is This is where it gets even more weird. Okay, so he applies to be a
police officer. I don't know what happens there, why he doesn't get the job, what have you. Sometimes they only
need so many people on the force. But what he does at some point is he tries to start up his own police department,
which he calls it He calls it some form and I'm not going to get into too much of the the details of this, but he does
call it like some kind of police outfit, right? Like that's what he's advertising. And basically, what he's
doing, it's really when you when you boil it down, it's really he's offering He would have been smarter to call it a
security business because that's all it was was he was going around to local businesses and saying, "Look,
this is our uniform. This is what our car looks like." It basically looked like a police cruiser.
And I've been trained as a police officer. I've worked as a security guard for all these years. I'm starting up my
own police force. And if your business pays us a monthly fee, we will make sure that after hours,
when you your business is locked and closed up and and not during business hours, we will come around once every
hour checking the doors, checking the windows, making sure that your business is safe and secure. Now, mind you,
that's not a horrible business plan considering it's 19 '70s. Right. It's the early '70s. We don't have our Simply
Safe security systems. We don't have our ADT security systems like we have them today. And so, if you had an area where
you thought that, well, my business might be become under attack or I could I could stand to lose a good deal of
money or property damage, it might be worth it for me to hire this outfit to come around. You know, we do have a
police department. We have a very good one based off of the information I've seen and how they investigated both the
Bellino case and the Evans case, but that doesn't guarantee me that somebody is coming around once an hour to check
on my business. But what's idiotic about it is don't call the police department,
just call the security. Right. And and so I think this plan actually worked cuz from what I heard, he didn't just run
security as far as the rock and gem shop, but there was other businesses in that area that he was known to be a
security officer at. So multiple locations. Uh even and not being able to confirm, but possibly even connected to
the plaza where that's important and one of the reasons why this guy became a suspect was
there was a security guard, quote unquote, not knowing if it's the same guy that was heavily involved in the Bellino
case and and wanted to know information and he was a security guard at the plaza. I believe the security guard
we're talking about and the security guard at the plaza is the same guy. That is correct. And then what makes him even
more interesting as far as our case goes is that he is referenced to the Hollywood, Florida Police
Department as being a potential good suspect for Adam Walsh's murder. And I'm going to
read this for you because other than this statement here, I can't find good reason
uh to in to include him in the Adam Walsh story, but this is legit. This isn't something
that the Colonel wrote or that the Captain wrote here. This is from uh 1996 uh the Palm Beach Post staff writers.
There's a couple of staff writers there that did a a look back on the Adam Walsh case. And
one thing that they list here is potential suspects other than Ottis Toole who ultimately confesses and then there's
been a debate ever since in fact if in fact he was the one that killed Adam Walsh.
But one of the suspects listed here is our, quote unquote, security guard that we're talking about from the Youngstown,
Boardman, Ohio area back in the '70s. He's referencing this thing from 1997 that says
last August, so 1996, last August, so 1995, is when these reporters are saying Ohio
police told Hollywood detectives about this security officer, a prime suspect in the 1972 Ohio murder of a
And here's where Here's where you hate to see them get facts wrong. Of a 10-year-old. Uh they're actually talking
about the Bellino case and he was 12. Detectives learned that the security officer was arrested in Florida in 1982,
1983, and 1985. In December of 1995, they went to Central Flor- to his Central Florida
home where they believed he lives. They have been unable to contact him. Okay, so
whatever sketchy behavior he was up to in the Boardman, Ohio area in the '70s ultimately leads to him moving not just
out of town, but out of state. Right. And then they are referencing him in this Adam Walsh case
as a potential suspect based off of what the Ohio Police Department is telling the Hollywood
detectives decades later. And this is based off of they know that sometime after
the Boardman cases, he moves to There's been several states that have been referenced as to where he may have moved
to. South Carolina being one of them and then of course Florida being one of them
because we know that he has arrest, according to this statement, in Florida, one in 1982, one in '83, and one in '85.
So police were hot on him for the Bellino case and so much so that it sounds like they
were warning other jurisdictions that had what they deemed to be somewhat similar cases that were unresolved,
unsolved, that hey, you should be aware that this guy is in your area. He was a good suspect
for us all these years ago and he was in your area at the time of your unsolved child homicide that you have. Well, he
was also convicted of sodomy in Ohio. Correct. So he was convicted of sodomy in in that area where he was a security
guard at multiple locations, there was a shack or a shed, like a work shed. He ended up sodomizing a local kid that
lived in the neighborhood similar to like the Bellino case. Then what happens is they're questioning him in the
Bellino case and a lawyer says, "Hey look, how about you give my client a polygraph test?
If he passes this test, then obviously he didn't do the Bellino murders, you have to then drop the charges in the
sodomy case." Correct. So the lawyer then sets up a lie detector, but it's all done underneath
the the lawyer's supervision. They use their guy and what I heard from um local sources was he passed the test
and since the police chief, which I don't know why he ever agreed to this, had to then drop the sodomy charges. I
heard from again from local sources saying that once the local cops reviewed the results of the lie detector based on
the way they give lie lie detector tests, that he would have failed that. Yeah, so let's do a little follow-up
here before we move on from the security officer. And this is kind of a good news, bad news scenario, but that
information that we were just talking about in the Adam Walsh case, well, that was from 1996. So now let's fast forward
over 20 years later to an article that ran in the Youngstown Vindicator. The title of this is
new DNA testing being used in effort to develop leads into 1972 murder case. The body of 12-year-old Bradley Bellino
was found in a dumpster behind the Boardman Plaza. Again, this is from 2018 written by John Darnell Jr. And this is
some good reporting right here, Captain. This says more than 46 years ago from the date of this article,
12-year-old Bradley Bellino left home at noon, apparently walking to the home of
a friend, Don Templeman, in Applewood Acres. A criminal complaint obtained by the Boardman News says that
about 7:30 p.m. on March 31st, the boy failed to return home. The following day, Debbie Bellino notified police at
about 3:20 p.m. that Bradley was missing. Three days later at 8:02 a.m. on April 4th, employees with Vary Bros.
Trash Company called police saying they found a body in a dumpster behind the Boardman Plaza. Patrolman Glenn Bowers
answered the call and the body was identified as the Bellino boy. A belt from JCPenney was found strapped
around his neck. The strap bore teeth marks and body fluid, not Bradley Bellino's.
This was later discovered on the boy's pants. On April 12th, 1972, then Mahoning
County Coroner, this is the Dr. Blinky that we've talked about, ruled ble- ruled Bradley
Bellino's death as the result of strangulation. Dr. Blinky said the interval between the onset of death and
actual death was sudden. A death certificate certified by the doctor said Bellino died on April 1st, 1972 around
9:00 p.m., little more than 24 hours after he was last seen. 46 years later, the Boardman Police
Department is using new forms of DNA testing in hopes of developing new leads in the case. The Ohio Bureau of Criminal
Identification has already completed some tests and we have sent samples to a laboratory in Virginia for additional
testing. This is a statement by Police Chief Todd Wirth. Testing done by BCI, which is the Ohio
Bureau of Criminal Investigation, or sorry, Criminal Identification, measured results against upwards of
700,000 DNA samples in a database in Ohio as well as against millions of DNA samples
in a federal database. Quote, "We are now looking at familial DNA to see if we can develop a new lead in the case." End
quote. For years the Bellino case stood dormant until 2001 when the Boardman Police Department revisited the case and
could not develop any new leads. Sources suggest a list of at least 20 possible suspects was developed. Quote, "Only
four or five of those people seem to stand out." This according to the police captain.
One man who was reportedly been eliminated from the suspect list in the Bellino case is now said to be living in
South Carolina. According to court records, that man was indicted by a Mahoning County Grand Jury in July of
1971 for the rape of a Boardman boy. His name is given here, but there's no reason to to give it on our podcast.
Right. Former Boardman PD Detective Robert Rupp. Rupp was one of the guys that worked
this case for years, uh if not decades. He says in this article he was stunned when the indictment was dismissed. This
is referencing what you talked about there, Captain. And this is just bizarro stuff. He was stunned when the
indictment was dismissed February of 1973. By then, Mahoning County Common Pleas
Judge Clyde Osborne was the one that dismissed it. And then we have Dave Hartsock who
says, "Our police chief at the time made a deal with the man's attorney that if his client passed a polygraph test, then
that indictment would be dismissed." The polygraph test was conducted by Charlie
Brunswick of the Youngstown Police Department, according to this article. And that is Rupp who is saying that in
the article. Right. But its results were disputed by another Youngstown PD officer.
Another source said the polygraph had been arranged by the suspect's defense attorney who is now deceased. And then
we have the officer telling Boardman News and the Vindicator that {quote} totally
unethical {end quote} according to the officer. So yes, that is that is that. I mean, we
have that weird scenario of what you said where the security officer he is somebody they were very much interested
in in the Brad Bellino case based off of the charge he had from 1971 and based off of the recent homicide of the
Bellino kid and then being able to connect him to that Boardman Plaza area, Don Templeman story of yes, this was an
individual that we knew, that we spoke to, that chatted us up while we were at in this rock store, in this geode store.
And for whatever reason, I guess the Captain or or the chief at the time must have believed that they were in a
can't lose situation, right? That this is our prime suspect. I'm convinced he did it. There's no way in hell that he's
passing a polygraph test. Sure, we'll make a deal with the devil. Right. And if you pass the polygraph, I guess we'll
drop this indictment charge. Now, we also don't know the specifics of that sodomy charge.
I I do want to throw something out there. This the detective calling it totally unethical gives us some insight,
obviously, as to his feelings on the case and maybe they did have a good case in that 1971
situation. But we also may have a situation where the prosecutor's telling the chief of
police, "Look, we really don't have anything on this charge. So you can't really lose anything if you
throw it on the table and wager it against the results of this polygraph. Because if he fails this polygraph,
we're going to tear his life apart and we're going to figure out evidence in connecting him to the Bellino case and
ultimately we want to solve the murder. And and we'll figure it out as we go. Boom,
that gets all screwed up because someone at least convinces the judge enough that this guy passed
the polygraph and he goes away. He moves away to Florida, South Carolina. Now, in this
man's defense and the reason why the Captain and I have chosen not to name the security officer
is that based off of this article and other articles that we've seen, when they were working on this DNA, it
doesn't match his. The DNA that they have in the Bellino case does not match the security officer. Does that
completely eliminate him? Probably not. There's a scenario There's scenarios where he could be involved and
didn't leave his DNA on the victim. Right. But as far as the evidence goes, they have DNA. That's going to be their
best evidence in getting an actual an arrest and an actual conviction and that evidence does not lead you to this
security officer. But that security officer is still a a giant pile of [ __ ] Correct. Correct. He's a horrible person
and and it's sad that they made that deal because then a victim another victim and his
family, they don't get the justice they should have got. And just like the detective said in that
article, totally unethical. All right, we're back. You beautiful people. Don't be a
[ __ ] That's my That's my recommendation for the week. Put that down in my notes and remind
myself. Keep that mask on. Couple times a day. Uh cheers everybody out there. Thank you for joining us in
the garage again today, this week. We love you. Don't be afraid to go to the blog and put some
questions or information up there yourself after you're done hearing this. Any way to get out of work, right? If
you're at work and you're listening to this, don't do what the man tells you. Yeah. Spend more time in the garage. Go
to the website. Order some shirts. Donate to the beer fund. There you go. Should we get back to some
of these local rumors here, Captain? sir. Cuz some of them I like more than others and I have some information
prepared on some of these as with others not so much because I I went sniffing around and didn't find much on a couple
of these, but one of the local rumors that has stood the test of time was the priest angle, that either a priest was
involved in one of these cases or priests plural, which is hard for me to say, was
were involved in one or more of these cases. Yeah, supposedly there was a local Catholic priest in the area, not
not far blocks away. Uh kind of a flashy dresser, also had a pretty nice car. He came from money, so
he wasn't making that money by being a priest. He He had that money from old family money. The rumor was always
that he looked at teenage boys in a in a very odd way. On that priest angle, so I
had a lot more information in the Evans case compared to the other cases. I know that
we referenced a story last week called 51 Weeks. I recommended that you go to that website and check out the Boardman
story that that that author put together. That story, it tells you up front that
it's a fictionalized version of the Boardman murders case. One of the theories that the author puts forward is
this priest, these priests that may have been working together, been up to no good and maybe responsible for one or
more of the murders. Now, what I could find in the s- especially in the Evans case
is that they didn't look at any priest. The Evans case and the Bellino case, they had, if you want to call them
suspects, go ahead. They had hundreds of names of individuals that they were looking at. Again, we had people in the
community that were just calling in going, "Hey, that guy's strange. Go check him out." You know, a lot of these
people came onto their radar with really no information or no actual evidence against them at all. So if you want to
call them suspects, if their name appears in the file or for somebody that that the police looked at, you can call
them that. But what I'm here to tell you is there were dozens and dozens and dozens of people that they had their
names that they didn't have any evidence on. It was just simply somebody called in with something and the police
followed up on it. Out of all of the names that I have been able to view and review myself, none of them were priest.
So while you had that local rumor and then you have this fictionalized story that comes out all these years later
that kind of continues that local rumor with the priest, it doesn't seem like it
was anything other than just rumor or an angle. The Captain referenced something
more specific, which could be an angle that held a little more weight in one of the cases or maybe the Bellino and the
Evans case. Now, I can say in David Evans's case, while there were no priest that were looked at, there was certainly
a pastor that they looked at quite heavily. They spent a lot of time and a lot of resources on this Lutheran
pastor. And the reason why they did so was this was a man that really kind of injected himself into not necessarily
the investigation. You know, we talk about that so many times with serial killers and these other cases that are
out there that these offenders, when police have no lead, they might inject themselves into the investigation. This
guy injected himself into the Evans family where he was trying to make a connection
with David Evans's father. And the way that this works out is that the person he worked for, and I I don't
know the I don't want to go through the rank of pastors and priests and things like that cuz it's something I don't
know nor understand. But the pastor that he worked for, this guy was more of like
an assistant pastor at the time. That individual was the one that oversaw the funeral services for David Evans. This
assistant pastor makes his presence at the funeral services, but he's not required to be there. And then days
later, he writes this rather lengthy letter to David Evans's father telling him, you know, how bad he feels and how
he felt some weird connection to the Evans boy and how he followed the case in the newspaper before he was found and
then he was just heartbroken after where was found. And he goes on and on and on.
Would it be totally out of character for a priest or a pastor or somebody from a
church to approach or write to a family that has just gone through the most horrific life experience that you could
imagine, losing your child at the age of 12 or 13, and reach out and say, "Hey, I'm thinking of you. I'm praying for
you." Right. I I I think your boy was something special and that the world is a lesser place because he's no longer in
the world. We talked about David Evans's difficulties that he had in some of his
physical difficulties that he had that he was overcoming. The kid was an inspiration. Would it be totally out of
character for a pastor to say, "Look, you might be in a very dark place right now. I'm letting you know that when you
are ready, you have a home here or you have someone you can talk to here. Maybe the healing can begin here. Maybe we can
help with that." Absolutely not. I'm surprised it doesn't happen in every one of these cases that we have reviewed.
So, on that end, I applaud the pastor. However, some of the police and some of the
detectives were weirded out by this guy enough that they did a pretty thorough investigation on him. I will say this
though, Captain. One thing that I found bizarre in having read that letter that he gave to Devin David Evans's father
Is the lipstick he put on it? No, the I just assume that would be part of it. Right. And doesn't that come with every
letter? And the perfume he sprayed on the letter. He references a check or some kind of
money that he gave to the Evans family. And again, could just be somebody that's
willing to help. That kind of seemed a little out of character for for a pastor or priest, I thought, but No, I don't
think that's odd because what they might have done is at like a Wednesday service or maybe
even a Sunday service, they they take up a collection for the family. That that's
not too odd to me. So, what they do is Boardman PD, they're so off put by this letter or maybe not off put, just doing
their due diligence and taking it the extra step and being very thorough with their investigation. They send this
letter off to an expert and say, "Hey, we can't make heads or tails of this. What do you make of it?" And so, it
takes days if not weeks for them to get back the expert analysis of the letter. And unfortunately, the expert analysis
is exactly what you would have come up with, Captain, and what I would have come up with.
Where you read this letter and go, "Well, on one hand, I can see this guy's just trying to be helpful, and on the
other hand, I can maybe there's something bigger here. Maybe there's some something evil lurking behind all these
kind words." Yeah, the problem with text anytime is that you don't get to hear tone, you don't get to hear the timbre
of the voice. And that's exactly what the the an analysis was. The result was, "Hey,
this guy could just be very nice and welcoming you to his church and to his parish,
or there's something hidden in all these nice words, we can't really tell." So, the the
the expert analysis doesn't really provide much, in my opinion, that that any of us else wouldn't have come up
with, but again, it's being thorough and it's looking into all the different angles in these cases. And I want that
statement That statement should echo what we were saying last week. Yes, these cases are unsolved. Yes, it's been
a long time, but I do not think for a second that it's because of a lack of effort on
Boardman Police Department's behalf. And I say that too because we now know, based off of 2001, they were looking
into the Balino case again, based off of that article. We know that they have DNA
that is not the victim's DNA in the Balino case. That's suspect DNA. They are actively comparing that to local,
state, and federal databases. They've not found a match. We're now working the familial angle with the DNA and hoping
to come up and find our suspect in the Balino case using that new method and technology. So, that's many local
rumors, but that's not even the end of it. No, it's not. So, there's one, and this is kind of called the old Bob
story. So, law enforcement discussed other rumors of men in town that people called
police to report as possible suspects. There was a {quote} old Bob who lived near Applewood Acres on the corner of
Matthews Road and Glenridge who kept cases of beer and marijuana that he'd give to young boys in the neighborhood
in return for sexual favors. He was arrested a few times. He is now since passed away, but he was a local suspect
at the time. But the police go on to say in Carolyn's article, {quote} there were a lot of
those types of things out there {end quote}. There was a projectionist at the theater in the Boardman Plaza near
Isaly's dairy that chased around young boys. There was a pizza shop in at Southern
Boulevard and Indianola where a man worked and tried to trade pizza for sexual favors. That better be some
damn good pizza. And as far as the brown van that we talked about, right? Don Templeman remembers a brown van. This is
Brad's best friend. A brown van following him and Brad around the day that Brad later disappeared. Law
enforcement said that there were hundreds of vehicles people reported in connection to Brad's murder, not just
the brown van. They go out of their way to reference an orange Corvette. I had seen an orange Charger referenced
in a couple of things as well as other dark-colored vans and a red Ford truck. I mean, there's
just no end to the amount of vehicles that were listed in the Balino case of possible vehicles of interest. The
police are saying none of those tips led to anything but dead ends. But again, a
lot of times they're not getting the best of information, right? They're not saying, "Hey, I saw the I saw the
Captain driving his psychobilly Cadillac down the road and here's the license plate." No, they're they're not getting
that. They're getting, "I saw a guy driving a brown van or I saw a a a mysterious or strange or an odd red
truck." You know, and so there's not a whole lot you can do with that other than catalog that information, and then
later when you're reviewing your suspects, do your suspects have any ties to vehicles that match those
descriptions? Right. And and again, we cross-reference some of these rumors because back to the
the priest, like we said, he was known to be a flashy dresser and drive a nice car.
Now, what somebody's definition of a nice car it varies. So, did he have some sports
car? Did he have a orange Charger? Did he have a orange Corvette? Possibly. But that brown van, I think it's also
connected to those local rumors of that treehouse that I was telling you about. Yeah, and the thing that's scary about
the brown van is Don Templeman's own words, who he says, "Look, I've always been and will remain to be suspicious of
that brown van to this very day." And he says, "You know, I I remember this van passing us three or four
times." And he said that he can't help but wonder all these years later, "Did Brad
leave his home and was he then again followed? Now he's by himself, followed again by this brown van.
Whoever's in the brown van, however many people, we don't know." They wait for him to get to a dark spot
or a spot where they don't think anybody's going to see anything go down, and they either offer him a ride or
grab him and pull him into the van. What we know about Bradley is that he would accept rides. So, if that's connected to
the treehouse, if it's connected to this guy that would offer money and other things for sexual favors, that kind of
goes with my theory of what I believe happened to to Bradley. And that will bring us to yet another
suspect, and I feel fine naming this individual, and it will become clear why here shortly. But this is actually from
a Youngstown Vindicator article from January 20th, 1975. So, what's going on at that time? Well,
we already have the two homicides that took place years earlier. But during this time frame,
David Evans is missing. He His body has not been found yet. It won't be found until the 23rd. This article comes out
on January 20th, so we can make the assumption that all of the information in this article, if it's not dated, it
was from the 19th or prior to that. The article reads, "May link suspect to two boys' deaths." And as you will hear
here, that they are still trying to parse out, trying to decipher if we have a situation where uh some of these
deaths and murders are connected. So, the article reads, "Boardman and Stow police are attempting to link the death
of a 14-year-old Akron boy whose skeleton was found in Stow, Ohio on November 15th with the brutal death of
Bradley Balino, age 12, whose body was found April 4th, 1972. The connection may be a Kent man who is
being held in lieu of bond in Summit County for kidnapping a 13-year-old Akron boy
there, assaulting him at the Barnett's Motel on November 2nd, and then assaulting him
again in Mill Creek Park on November 3rd in stabbing him. The Bellino youth had been sexually assaulted and strangled.
He had been missing from home 5 days. And then they say found in the woods. Detective Robert Brisbane of the Stow
Police Department said this morning the body of the Akron lad was found in a wooded area in the city's southeast
section. There was no sign of clothing on the boy and identification had to be made through dental records. Brisbane
said homicide has not been ruled in the Akron death. However, {quote} we're treating the investigation like a
homicide. {end quote} Detective Steve Balog of the Boardman police said the two departments began attempting to make
the link about a week ago but were interrupted with the disappearance of another young boy, David Evans, diabetic
son of Mr. and Mrs. Peter Evans, was last seen walking home Friday. Brisbane said the Kent man was given a polygraph
test but it proved inconclusive. He said their investigation is continuing and the Kent man who may have Boardman ties
still is {quote} a suspect. This next part of the article is titled in custody by November 5th. Authorities have ruled
out the suspect in the Evans incident since he has been in custody since November 5th after the Mill Creek Park
incident. The body of Bellino The body of the Bellino lad was found in 1972 when a refuse pickup man went to the
rear of the Isaly Dairy Store to pick up the dumpster. A belt was drawn around his neck and his clothing disarrayed so
his upper torso was partially bare and his trousers below his hips. The individual they are referencing in
this article is clearly a very dangerous individual and somebody that they already had in custody by November 5th.
So they're going out of their way to let us know there's no way that this person,
if responsible for Bradley Bellino's murder, he could not have been involved in the David Evans murder because we
already had him locked up at the time that Evans went missing. Right. Well, essentially if you look at the the Beard
case, the Bellino case, and the Evans case, you could take a character like this,
somebody that was from a neighboring area that maybe would go to a smaller area to drive around and look for
victims. You could make an argument in the Beard case that maybe he wasn't there wasn't some
confrontation from somebody at the skating rink that somebody tried to abduct him and he didn't go willingly
and that's what ultimately caused his death. But a character like this could be responsible for all three murders.
So the individual that we are discussing is a man named Richard Lawler. Now, he is an interesting one and I think that
not only do we have the police at the time back in 1975 saying, "Look, we were investigating Lawler for a
possible connection to the Bradley Bellino case." All these years later when you review his known crimes and
then apply the suspected crimes that he would may or may not have been involved in to that, he certainly
becomes an excellent suspect because we know he was active at the time of Bellino's murder. So I'll read a little
bit from cleveland.com to tell you who this Richard Lawler is. And thankfully he's in prison and he
still remains there to this day. It says Lawler's string of crimes began in November of 1974 or known string of
crimes began in November of 1974. This when he was 21 years old, he abducted a 13-year-old boy in Akron and took him to
a Salem motel. So you You're going to hear some of the things that were referenced in that last article that we
reviewed in this newer article. And it says they're offering more detail here. And I apologize for these details.
But it says at that motel he tied the boy up and stabbed him several times. It actually says it he later tied him to a
tree and stabbed him and cut the child several times. The boy was still naked at the time. A passing jogger in the
park ended up scaring the attacker away. Ended up scaring Lawler away. I am of the firm belief, Captain, that Lawler
would have murdered this kid had he not been interrupted. Lawler then struck again in September of 1975. This time he
This time he abducted a 7-year-old victim from Akron's Kenmore area and took the boy to the woods behind the
Akron Baptist Temple. The victim, who is now 50 years old, this article is a couple years old,
sent a letter to the police to the I'm sorry, the prosecutor's office describing what happened. He told
prosecutors that Lawler asked him to help find his lost puppy. Lawler then lured the boy into the woods
where he punched the child in the face, knocked him unconscious, stripped his clothes, and was shouting that it was
the boy's fault for whatever Lawler was doing to him and that he would have to kill him. Lawler then choked him
unconscious again and left him in the woods for dead. Now, what we have here, Captain, is These are a couple of
attacks that this man, he was very much a young man at the time in the mid-70s, these are some attacks that he committed
and the victims got away. Now, if if, I say if, I would encourage all of you to go to block parole.com. It's a
website that we've referenced before here in the garage. blockparole.com where you can sign up and sign the
petition to uh encourage the state of Ohio to block individuals parole. And specifically, I would recommend that you
sign up to block Richard Lawler's potential parole. My understanding is that uh the last time he came up for
possible parole, he was denied and his next hearing, I believe or possibility, will be 2028. Don't quote me on that, I
don't have it in my notes. But at the end of the day, what we learn about this individual is he He has killed. He has
killed a a young boy that would fall into very similar victimology to some of the boys that we've been talking about
in the Boardman case. We know he was active in the Youngstown area at the time with abduction, with rape, sexual
assaults, murder, what have you. And again, the victimology seems to line up with that of the Evans boy and the
Bellino kid. And so he is someone that I think is a an interesting potential suspect. We do have prosecutors that
were at his uh parole hearing that did tell everyone, "Hey, this guy, after we locked him up for one murder and for all
these other assaults that he did, he told law enforcement that he has killed five or six other kids." Now, we don't
know if that's true, obviously, or they would have convicted him of those cases.
He told law enforcement that this was not his only murder victim. And again, we know he was active in this general
area around this general time. So I think he falls into a good suspect and double down that we know he was looked
at in 1975 for the Bellino murder. So he was somebody that was on their radar and
luckily for all of us, he's been locked up ever since. One, you have to take his claims serious
and the reason why is what we've learned through the last 500 and some episodes is normally serial killers are not going
to admit to child murders. Now you got this guy that you locked up and you convicted on a child murder and
he's telling you, "Hey, I've I've killed more children." Yeah, and one thing I don't want to add more scary elements to
already a scary story here, but pictures of Richard Lawler from the mid-70s when
we have these pictures because he was in court facing these charges. His picture
was taken by the papers at the time. And of course, when he was arrested as well.
He is a young-looking dude. And I know that he's 21, 22, 24 in in all the pictures that I've reviewed. He is a
young-looking dude. And what I mean by that and why I think that's scary, especially in the Bellino case where we
have a kid that was known to hitchhike. Again, that's just my theory. We don't know that that's what happened. But we
have a kid that was known to hitchhike, admittedly by his parents and friends. If a guy pulled up and he looked like a
teenager, offered somebody a ride, I think that I think that lets your guard down a little bit.
It's less threatening. Yeah, Look up pictures of Richard Lawler. Go You don't have to. Go to
blockparole.com, sign that petition. You'll see pictures of him there. And block his parole and I'll tell you what,
if this guy pulled up, even if he was 23, 24 at the time, he could have passed for 16 or 17 even behind the wheel of a
vehicle offering a ride to somebody else. Another suspect where his known crimes are similar and that kind of
characteristic, his profile, that kind of person could be responsible for all three murders. Let's get into another
suspect. Well, yeah, we're going to go from one really scary, terrible, horrible person to just another
demon that happened to be roaming this country. And this is a man named Wayne Chapman.
Now, some of our true crime friends out there will know this name. Others, this might be a a newer name to you, but this
guy is a serial child sex offender. Okay, this is an individual that committed sexual acts against children
time and time again repeatedly throughout the course of his almost entire life span. He started
assaulting other kids when he was just a kid himself. And it carried on well into his adult
years. And I believe if he wasn't locked up, he was looking to assault children.
Was he a murderer? That's certainly up for debate. But this is an individual that was highly involved in in producing
child pornography and selling it to other individuals. He was also He was also busying his time
trying to lure children away. And he was He had a preference He had a preference
for boys. And as far as I could see, all of his known crimes were against boys. Now,
he was an individual that was locked up for a decent amount of time. He does get
charged at some point. And the reason why he pops up on the radar is based off of, again, proximity to Boardman, Ohio.
And also his admitted information that he gives to police. What we have here, Captain, is a
situation he's driving. He had this van, and I don't want to give a description of this van because I've been given a
few different descriptions of this van. And supposedly he used the same van for years and years and years. And I don't
want to throw it out there not knowing which one is more accurate. Uh I have two kind of different descriptions of
this van. But what I do know is that at some point he's pulled over. And when he's pulled over, the police officer
notices a bunch of strange pictures inside this man's van. And these are pictures of him with boys.
And these are There are dozens of these pictures. Well, again, hashtag ban the van. And I believe it's also possibly
other individuals whose faces were not So, he ran around in these rings, these child perpetrator horrible offenders. He
ran around with some other guys that were into the same things that he was into. And so, when they arrested him,
they ended up charging him with a local crime. And this took place in another state when they arrested him. However,
when they find all these dozens and dozens of pictures, they're going, "How many horrible things has this guy
been involved in?" And when they start talking to him, they're like, "You know, we want to know where you've been, what
you've been up to, uh especially since you've been an adult." Because I believe he was kind of a
a younger adult at the time, maybe 30s when he got arrested. Again, this case is so big and there's so many notes. I'm
I'm failing to find the the piece of information that I wanted to be able to spout here for you. But Well, don't
worry. Your pay will be deducted. Thank you. And I know that he has ties to many
other states. We're talking Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, possibly Illinois. I mean, it's Ohio.
It's all over the map. Now, what I did was I ended up hearing this individual. His name is
David McGrath. And he wrote a book on Wayne Chapman. Some of you may know Wayne Chapman's
name from David's book. Some of you may know Wayne Chapman's name from There was
a an old case and an old documentary. I believe it was called Have You Seen Andy?
And it's about an old disappearance case of a 10-year-old boy from Lawrence who disappeared without a trace in 1976.
The victim's name is Andy Pugliesi. So, some of you may have seen that documentary. I believe it's probably
about 15 years old at this point, but it's a very good documentary. I recommend it.
The documentary claims that Wayne Chapman is the prime suspect in the disappearance of this Andy kid.
And it's I say claims because there are police that say, "Yes, he's somebody we would look at or did
look at, but we don't really know how he came onto our radar." So, I don't know how prime of a suspect he actually is.
But the documentarian did a great job on piecing together Andy's story as well as
possible connections to Wayne Chapman. And then you have David's book, Monster: The Life and Crimes of Wayne Chapman. He
goes on to explain, again, why this guy's a good suspect in this in in this case and this crime and how
he could be tied to others. I spoke with David. David told me that around the time period of these Boardman
murders, that Wayne Chapman lived in Oil City, Pennsylvania. Oil City, Pennsylvania is
in western Pennsylvania. Boardman, Ohio is in eastern Ohio. For those of you that own a map, you will know that the
Ohio state touches the border of Pennsylvania. And so, the proximity between Oil City
and Boardman, Ohio, it's not a terribly big distance. And the other thing, too, Well, hold on. Let me unfold my map real
quick. The other thing, too, is David points out that Chapman had a lot of ties, not just based off of that
statement that he provided to police when he was arrested, "Hey, I've been to all these other cities and I've lived
and stayed for a period of time in some of these other cities and states." But David points out in his book that this
guy ran around with guys that were in other states that were doing things that that he was doing as well as
probably some things that were even worse, if you can imagine, even worse than what Wayne Chapman was doing or was
capable of. And that he believes that it's through him creating and producing this child pornography and then selling
it to people that he made these connections and these friendships. And so, who knows
how far and how wide the evil tentacles of this Wayne Chapman monster would span
over the course of time and distance. Again, another good suspect. It's it's the profile of the person. And And And
initially, I think law enforcement, when these crimes happen, they start looking at people that that
they've already arrested. We've seen this in the Delphi case. We've seen this in the Amy Mihaljevic or or JonBenét
Ramsey. When there's crimes against children, they start looking at who has already
committed crimes and who can fit that profile initially. And there's a lot of suspects that you
could, again, make a very intelligent argument that could be responsible for all these as long as
they were not arrested at the time, obviously. And I'll tell you what, I actually located some of my notes
while you were speaking there, Captain. Chapman was arrested in New York state in 1976.
And it was after that arrest, shortly after that arrest, that he admitted to sexually assaulting at least 15 boys.
And he put those ages between 7 and 10. And from locations of Providence, Brockton, Webster,
uh Concord, Norwich, and then in communities in Pennsylvania, New York, and Virginia. I mean, the list
goes on and on and on. This case becomes complex because there are three cases. And then the first question is, are they
connected? But I I think we should just We We probably could talk about this case for another few hours. Let's go
case by case and and and go over what you think happened. So, let's start with the Beard case. So,
with the Thomas Beard case, I think that it's probably just what police have told
us that that they they've locked into this theory over the years that he was attacked by a peer or his peers. And
that it was probably an unintentional homicide. That he was killed as a result of that attack. And as we said earlier,
he's found later found and then placed in the hospital. I actually, if you know, if I had to
make wagers on these cases, I actually think that probably all three of them are not connected. If there is a
connection, it would be between the Bolino and Evans case. I'm kind of locked in on my thought that
Bolino probably accepted a ride or was even looking for a ride on his way home, and he just got in the wrong vehicle.
And don't Don't anybody come at me and say I'm victim blaming here. Um I'm just saying that that's what I
think happened. And I don't think that he put himself in a bad position. I think that that's just, unfortunately,
what happened. Maybe somebody like Richard Lawler picked him up. Or somebody like Wayne Chapman. Or one of
Chapman's goon friends picked them up. Or it could be any other weirdo. I I I see a sadistic nature to
the Bolino case, where I would believe that a Richard Lawler type would be more likely to have committed that crime. The
Evans case is very difficult for me to put an opinion on, other than the fact that I believe, 100%, that this kid was
abducted, based off of the hat being stomped into the ground, the location in which he was last seen, and the time
frame. I really believe that somebody grabbed him. There's a chance that, given the neighborhood and in the lay of
the land, that it would be it would be better suited and more likely that two individuals were involved in the
abduction of David Evans. Now, were they of the sadistic nature that the the killer was of Brad Bolino?
I don't know. We Because he gets sick at some point and then he dies. He slips into this coma at some point and dies.
So, we don't know it's really too hard to difficult and too difficult to decipher what would have happened if
that had not happened. Would they have let him go? Or would there be no sexual assault at all? It's very difficult to
say what took place in that situation. My gut with the Evans thing tells me that
someone or someone's may have bit off more than they could chew, right? That they took they took
this kid and maybe they took him for reasons other than murder. And I really wish
I just really wish that this would have been ruled a homicide. I know that the Boardman Police Department treated the
investigation as such, but I really wish that this would have been ruled a homicide.
I'll start with the Beard case. I agree with you. It's probably an individual or
multiple individuals. My problem with it is that if there's multiple individuals, they're more
likely to have more rumors. Maybe somebody confesses to being there but not being really a part of it. I believe
somebody heard something, whether that's a rumor or confession. Maybe you're drinking with your friend
one night and he confesses to being there. Somebody has heard something, somebody
has seen something. And if you saw something, you should be saying something. Enough, you know, enough is
enough. Do not protect these people, whether you think it was an accident or not
or or so a situation that just got out of hand. This child died, didn't get to pursue a life. One victim becomes many
victims because of his family, friends, and all of his loved ones. So again, I think somebody saw something.
They need to say something. As far as the Balino case goes, I think Don's gut feeling about this brown van is correct.
And if that brown van is connected to the treehouse and those rumors, I think that makes some sense. Older
gentleman or maybe even late teens offers some booze, offers some money, offers whatever for sexual
favors. It gets out of hand. Again, a 12-year-old can't consent. That is rape. This person is a rapist. This person is
a murderer. I think another situation where somebody probably knows more and they just haven't ever spoke up
about it. At maybe out of fear, maybe out of shame, maybe they were a person that did sexual favors for money or
drugs or whatever. And and they're not coming forward because of the shame. Again, I think somebody knows something
more. I think we're going to be lucky in this case because of the DNA and by the
testing that I think we're going to get answers in this case. And I 100% agree with you
on the Evans case. I think that the intent probably was rape and murder. And they just never got to that because
of his medical condition. But but it's sad. And again, there's three kids that didn't get to go on and
and create a future. And who knows what they would have become. And I feel very bad, especially in the Balino case,
because there's misinformation, I think. Mhm. And some kind of confusion and that
might just because time passed and people misremember. But that has to be very difficult on his
family because of there's three cases within a small location. Similar profiles as far as victimology.
There's a lot of good suspects. I think those individuals that we mentioned are probably responsible for a lot more
crimes, especially when you're young boy and you're molested. There there's a a shame and the reason
why a lot of these boys don't come forward. And if you were one of these kids, you
shouldn't be ashamed of this is not your fault that any of this stuff would have
happened to you. And and hopefully you can seek out you know, justice or seek out therapy to
to get you through all that. But I mean, it's a Yes, and with the Balino case, I
really firmly believe, Captain, that the the discrepancy in the stories only really remains in the public's mind. I
think that there's clarity amongst the detectives and officers that investigated investigated the Balino
case in the '70s that remains with them and in their file. I think they have a pretty clear
understanding of what happened that Friday and that Saturday. They just don't need to tell us all that
information because again, that case is heating up again. 2018, they tell us, "Hey, we're checking familial DNA." And
it appears that that's continuing to this day. So, they don't want to let a lot of that information out. So, I'm
very hopeful on that end. I'm glad that you brought up the van the Don Templeman van story again
because one thing that I failed to mention with this Wayne Chapman character, and we mentioned his van, but
I didn't give a description of such. The description of of his van is not terribly unlike the description, the
very vague, broad description that Don Templeman provided to police and the media back then. And what's interesting
about that angle to me is that I've been told a couple different things. One, that Chapman Chapman was fully on
Boardman PD's radar at some point. In the '70s or the '80s at some point, it's hard for me to say
exactly when he became or or was on their radar. But I was told two different reasons why he was on their
radar. One was simply that they were calling other jurisdictions and trying to find crimes that they thought were
matching the ones that they were unable to solve in Boardman. The other version of that same story is that
Chapman was on their radar because his van or a description that's very similar to
the van that he was later arrested in was mentioned in the Balino and possibly the Evans case. So, that's really
interesting there on that angle. I'm with you, Captain. I I think that we we have similar thoughts and theories on
this. I'm hoping others will provide theirs to us on the blog at truecrimegarage.com.
If you have any information at all in any of these three homicides, please contact the Boardman Police Department.
Their phone number is 330-726-4144. And I just wanted to give a quick shout-out because like I said, by
covering this case last week, and the information that has poured in, I I just want to thank those people for reaching
out, those local sources, and people like Carolyn Bernardino and Tom Kerrigan for reaching out and and being able to
discuss the case in more details. And I just want to applaud them for their effort to keep
a spotlight on this case. Thank you so much for joining us here in the garage. For more true crime garage,
check out our bonus show called Off the Record. It's exclusively on Stitcher Premium. You can find it by going to
truecrimegarage.com and clicking on the Off the Record link. Captain, do we have any recommended
reading for the beautiful people this week? This week we are recommending Monster by David McGrath. So, this is
called Monster: The Life and Crimes of Wayne Chapman and the machine he fed. In the 1970s, young boys went missing at an
alarming rate in the New England region. Parents and police were stumped by all of the cases of missing boys. Well,
David McGrath, he spent years investigating Wayne Chapman and Wayne Chapman's friends in the circles that he
ran in, and I highly recommend that you check out Monster by David McGrath. You can find that great title and many
others on our website truecrimegarage.com. Just click on the recommended page. Yes. Until next week,
be good, be kind, and don't litter.

The Boardman Murders /// Part 4 /// 570

Part 4 of 4

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Boardman, Ohio is a great place to live and raise a family. Located in Northeast Ohio close to the Pennsylvania border directly south of Youngstown. Back in the 70’s Boardman was growing but some of the citizens were growing concerned that something strange and terrifying had come to town. Three boys were killed in the span of just five years. This week we take a look at these three still unsolved cases. One of the cases is far from cold. Are these cases connected? Who are the suspects? Find out in the Garage!

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Brief Summary

Three unsolved murders in Boardman, Ohio, are examined, focusing on suspects and local theories surrounding the cases.

Key points

Welcome to True Crime Garage. Hosts Nick and Captain introduce the episode and thank listeners.
Theories on Unsolved Murders. Discussion on local theories surrounding three unsolved murders in Boardman, Ohio.
New DNA Testing in Cold Case. Police are using new DNA testing methods to develop leads in the Bellino murder case.
Polygraph Stakes. The stakes rise as a polygraph test could change everything for a suspect.
The Priest Angle. Rumors swirl about a priest's involvement in the case, raising ethical questions.
Old Bob's Reputation. A local man known for troubling behavior becomes a suspect in the investigation.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

This is where it gets even more weird.

Transitioning to a suspicious character's story

8:13WatchOct 25, 2022

Tension

65/ 100Some tension

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