The Boardman Murders Update /// Part 1 /// 692 | Forensic Files

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[Music] the great state of Ohio has 88 counties for this week's True Crime Story we head
to Mahoning County and so one of 14 townships in Mahoning Boardman Ohio Boardman is a suburb directly south of
Youngstown in the early 70s life in Boardman was changing changing how its thirty thousand or so citizens felt
about their town Boardman was a safe town and a great place to raise a family but was that still true who could be
sure and with the story we are presenting this week you'll see why parents started
implementing stronger curfews demanding to know their children's whereabouts and
telling them to not walk alone and even in a group always to be looking over your shoulder
50 years ago this week a 12 year old Boardman boy Bradley bellino was abducted in murder his case remains
open and not for a lack of effort the Boardman Police Department did everything in their power over the
course of five decades to find Justice for Brad in the bellino family they have tried everything every
resource even calling on other law enforcement agencies for help and yet the person or persons
responsible remain a mystery the following is from the Akron Beacon Journal the headline
nothing was normal the weekend of slang and the article reads normally when he left his best friend's house after an
afternoon of playing basketball Bradley bellino went directly home normally Don templeman's parents drove Bradley the
several miles to his home normally Bradley 12 would be talking to Don on the phone the next day setting up
another Rendezvous for basketball talking or walking but Easter weekend wasn't normal
sometime after he left the templeman house at 7 30 PM Friday Bradley was sexually molested strangled
to death and stuffed into a trash bin where his body was discovered that Tuesday morning
his body still bore the red white and blue jeans and the T-shirt what the devil made me do it emblazoned across it
that he was wearing when he left the templements quote if Brad left here after dark we would drive him home said
Mrs templeman but Friday I was shopping and my husband was sick so Brad left on his own
Don didn't hear from him again Bradley's parents Mr and Mrs Joseph bellino didn't report their son missing
until Saturday afternoon apparently due to a misunderstanding about whether he would stay overnight Friday with the
templements the coroner investigator stated quote we hope to be able to pinpoint the time of death more
accurately when our lab tests are complete the headline was right nothing was normal that weekend not for
anyone in Boardman and it would be a long time before things would start to feel normal again
because unfortunately this was not the first of its kind for Boardman and sadly it would not be the last
Bradley's murder was sandwiched right between the murders of two other boys from Boardman
that's right three murders three kids all in the span of less than five years as one writer from Boardman put it there
was a dread a pail that hung over the community for some time that period of time for the community was one of
distress and horror evoking the words of Buffalo Springfield he wrote There's Something Happening Here what it is
ain't exactly clear this is true crime garage and this is the true crime story of the still
unsolved Boardman Ohio murders [Music] with you [Music] with you that was one of the trailers that we had
for our four-part series titled the Boardman murders that we released last year starting with Part One released in
the last days of March 2022. that series episodes 567 to episode number 570 on your true
crime garage radio dial if you want to go back and listen to those now if you have not been paying attention to the
Boardman murders case out of Boardman Ohio located in Northeast Ohio there have been significant updates in this
case we are talking Long Island serial killer sized updates in the Boardman cases when we featured the True Crime
Story We honed in on three unsolved homicides in Boardman Ohio from the early 1970s the three we focused in on
were the murders of Thomas Baird he was 15 years old who was attacked when walking home on the evening of December
4th 1970. he was found either slumped over or lying on the ground with severe head injuries he would later die from
those injuries the next unsolved homicide that we covered was that of 12 year old Brad
bellino Brad was last seen walking home from his friend's home on the night of March 31st 1972. Brad Bellino's lifeless
body was discovered found in a dumpster five days later on the morning of April 4th 1972.
we discussed the Youngstown Vindicator newspaper article the infamous article that everyone in Boardman thinks of when
they hear the name Brad bellino and how could anyone forget the headline read refuse man makes Grim Discovery and
right there on the front page of the newspaper for everyone to see including kids that happened to look at their
parents reading the paper or the newspaper sitting on the kitchen table a large black and white photo positioned
above the fold on the front page the picture showing two Boardman police officers both obviously quite cold
standing outside standing next to a small dumpster now that boy's body is in that dumpster
the killer had placed him there the dumpster was partially filled and Brad's body was covered over with cardboard
boxes and waste eventually Brad's case just like Thomas Baird's case went cold the third case that we featured in the
four-part series was that of David Evans he was another Boardman boy age 13. David went missing on Friday January 17
1975. David like Brad was a little smaller for his age but David was a mighty little man now oddly enough and
this is just one of those haunting parts of a story that just sticks with you little David was actually last seen by
his own father so David was seen at approximately 6 PM by his father in the neighborhood where the Evans family
lived father sees son and talks to son David at the intersection of stilson place and Withers drive this is just
about two dozen houses away from the Evans home David told his dad that he had checked
out the ice on Boardman Lake to see if it was thick enough to skate on but found that it was not so he was on his
way home David never made it home isn't David diabetic David is diabetic and required
an insulin shot every 12 or so hours with the paper stating that he would been due for his next insulin shot the
next morning at 7 30 a.m before breakfast at 11 30 pm on the night he was last seen David's
red knit hat was found at stilson place in Withers Drive intersection so this is
very near where his father last saw the boy snow was trampled and about a three foot
circle around this hat this winter hat and let's remember David was shy and reserved especially with strangers and
his parents didn't think he would willingly go off with a stranger so he is not the type to Hitch rides we
talked about in our original coverage that Brad bellino was quite the opposite very outgoing very adventurous and was
known to hitchhike for six days Volunteers in law enforcement searched for David Evans on the ground and even
in the air with a helicopter from the National Guard sadly the search ended in a bad way on
Thursday January 23rd David's frozen body was found in the bushes of a parking lot at the northeast corner of
Market Street and Boardman Poland Road routes 7 and 224 respectively the location is approximately about
a half mile or so from where bran Bellino's body was found in the dumpster now the question 50 or so years ago when
the homicides took place in Boardman was could these three homicides be related all connected to one another or
committed by the same perp or perpetrators well with one murder it shocks the community when you have
another body found it starts shocking that whole region and so then law enforcement and
armchair detectives are going to start looking into the similarities of these crimes and the differences of these
crimes to see if they're connected and these cases really became especially that of Brad bellino really came
became almost something of urban legend there in Northeast Ohio and it makes sense I mean these this is how horror
movies start off a child on the streets disappears and then days later is found dead now there
were similarities in these cases but there were also some differences as well and the similarities would be that you
have three youngsters all males walking home and the evening or night time and then they are found two of them
found dead one of them found severely attacked so Thomas Baird lost Consciousness he was found unconscious
beaten about the head and when they recovered him they took him to the hospital the story of his attack seems to be
quite different than the what could have happened to David Evans and what could have happened to Brad bellino with Evans
and bellino there weren't any real theories at the time here you have a missing kid goes missing for several
days and then is found placed almost somewhat concealed in both situations where where with Thomas Baird
he's kind of lying out in the open and he's found in the story that went along with Thomas Baird's case was that he had
been jumped by some older boys or boys his age and again the similarities here would be the ages
Brad bellino David Evans 13 and 12 years old Thomas Baird 15 years old and one thing that's that's very strange about
this case here Captain is child victims but they're different there is a significant difference in the
victimology in my opinion here you have bellino who's 12 Evans who is 13. both of these boys you would say that 15 is
not too far of a stretch from 12 to 13 and then Thomas Baird who's 15. however what we actually have here is Bolino and
David Evans were quite small for their age these boys they could have Bolino could have passed for eight
Evans could have passed for 10. and Thomas Baird very much 15 years old going on 16 so somewhat of a different
victimology there but you can't get over the fact that all three of these boys are walking home at night by themselves
and it's very rare for a community of this size to experience the homicide of three children
three male boys within the course of less than a five year span well like you said you have two of the victims that
were concealed and then one that was not that raises the question is that a difference in these cases or did
the perpetrator just not get a chance to conceal the other body exactly and here's the thing too Captain what we
have here is what our findings were when we looked into this case and this was one of those cases where we had the
opportunity the rare opportunity to spend more than 10 days or two weeks on the case we did
this in a four-part series span over two weeks so that allowed us to one dive into this case
and be very thorough with it well in advance leading up to that two weeks but also gave us an additional
seven to ten days to review everything that we had so we were really able to focus in on this case the other thing
too we were able to get a hold of the police file for the David Evans case well like you said some of these cases
became Larger than Life they became folklore so when you normally have cases like that
let's take them missing person case like Mara Murray or you take the Amy mihalovic case a lot of
information starts coming out about the victims their families and possible suspects well when you have multiple
victims multiple crime scenes there's a lot to explore there and then on top of that you also want to try to figure out
a are they connected or and B why 50 years why do we have a child homicide that that goes unsolved goes
cold for this many decades and then oh by the way we got two more that happened in the same area around the same time
and so that is something that really needs to be explored now what are some of our findings were
was there there's some weird portions to this story first Thomas Baird homicide they said
that from from day one now mind you he did live for several days in the hospital before passing away
Brad bellino very obvious homicide the poor boy was found with a belt wrapped around his neck discarded in a
dumpster and very obvious signs of homicide and the injuries and so on and so forth
clear now with the David Evans portion not so clear his diabetes and the required
insulin shots made this a rather tricky case and this was for the experts not just us here sitting in the garage
the coroner had decided that he died of natural causes basically he dies due to his diabetes and not getting the
necessary insulin shots right and the police department Boardman PD God bless him look
Nobody's Perfect people make mistakes we're fallible we're human beings I get it coroner see
something makes a scientific assessment and comes up with the conclusion that oh
he died due to the diabetes Boardman police department they go back to the corner and say not so fast
we see a lot of reasons why we think this is a homicide we we want you to change your ruling from
natural causes to homicide why because that gives them that provides them different resources to
investigate this as a homicide now ultimately they do not get that reversal on that decision
what happens is Boardman PD they decide we see reasons why this is a homicide let's go back to the the scene of where
David Evans is last seen by his father we talked about this when we covered it when you find that winter cap
on the ground in the middle of the intersection snow around it trampled over and you have a boy that the parents and
the teachers and everybody are saying no no no this kid would not have just got into a vehicle with somebody
you find that cap in the streets because somebody snatched that kid off of the street
so you have signs of an abduction you have him missing for days before his body's found
and then on top of that he has some significant injuries to him there was some kind of
hole or puncture Mark in in the small of his back there was also he had a broken wrist
now what they were able to determine is that the broken bones occurred after he was dead
and so what the police are are saying is look this kid didn't die of these natural
causes and then break his own arm trying to hide his own body this body was concealed he didn't crawl
into the bushes to try to stay warm he was 20 houses from his house walking home he
would have just went home and this is not a kid that ran the streets so the police are saying we have reason
to believe that this is a homicide and God bless them they kept it marked as that labeled entitled as that
for their efforts going forward regardless of what the coroner said now we agreed with law enforcement here
and went against the coroner and said yeah we see every reason why this is a homicide now had the person that taken
this boy not intended to kill him one could make that argument we don't want to make that argument but we could
we could see how one could make that argument but at the end of the day when you abduct somebody hold them captive
and then deny them the necessary medicine that they require to live that's a homicide
and that's what Boardman PD was saying [Music] this show is sponsored by betterhelp
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the windows to the walls cheers to you Colonel cheers to you Captain you know what time of year it is it's NFL
preseason which means Fantasy Football Draft season 2 shout out and and cheers to everybody out
there that's organizing their drafts and you can you can smell it you can smell the beers and the hot dogs
just wafting in the wind stinks there were significant updates in this case as we said now typically for long
time listeners you know that we would put these updates on our other show off the Record now the reason that we did
not include these updates on off the Record quite simply was when the update in the Brad bellino case occurred
we were on Hiatus that was when we were on a bit of a break we were transitioning from the stitcher Premium
app to the Apple podcast subscription show that we have now so for those of you listening on an Apple device if you
haven't already go check out our other show off the Record I'm telling you you're gonna love it
you can check it out for free there is a free trial period that you can do if you
just want to have a little taste yeah so back to our findings and and a lot of people had this theory that the blino
case that the David Evans case was connected that's right but we we highlighted it
circled it in red and underlined it about 10 times because we reviewed the information and we couldn't
everything leaned toward they should be connected that they were very likely connected now we get this huge update
we're talking about the Bolino case we covered and our four-part series came out roughly on the 50 year anniversary
the 50-year marker of Brad Bellino's case being cold and we called it cold because that's that's just the common
terminology to use but really truly and we had not confirmation of this but some
suspicions of this that this case bolino's case was being worked pretty good pretty regularly
behind the scenes in a kind of a quiet closed door manner the Boardman PD never really gave up on the Brad bellino case
so this update comes out January of this year late January when WKBN first news 27
reported the update in the Boardman murders cases and they State here Boardman Township
Police announced Tuesday they believe they know who is responsible for the 1972 murder of a 12 year old boy in a
press conference Chief Todd worth said they believe Joseph Norman Hill a former Township resident who died in 2019 in
the state of California is responsible for the April 1972 strangulation death of 12-year-old Brad Lee Bolino
worth credited former Chief Jeffrey Patterson who reopened the case in 2001 and sent clothing of Brads to the state
Bureau of Criminal Identification and investigation that had DNA on them that did not belong to the boy
after a series of tests that took years through several private firms and Ohio BCI investigators were able to link
Joseph Hill to the crime worth said BCI says there is 98.2 percent probability that Joseph
Hill's DNA is the DNA that was found on Brad I'm going to step outside of this article just for a second to clarify why
it's not a more significant match okay 98.2 percent very close to being 100 percent right
close enough for me keep in mind Joseph Hill had already passed away by the time
the DNA had led them to his family tree right and Joseph Hill lived in California in 2019 when he died and he
was cremated so they were not able to exhume Joseph Hill and collect his DNA what they were able to do
is trace this DNA through family trees which led them to Joseph Hill being a 98.2 percent
probability that the DNA found on our murder victim belonged to Joseph Hill so how significant is this to this case
well it's extremely significant because ultimately they're going to close the case based off of this now the as to the
significance of the probability 98.2 percent I don't have any quotes from the scientists to to tell us how many you
know out of how many millions or billions or trillions of people that means that we can Whittle it down to
Joseph Norman Hill but what we do have is the law enforcement experts so we have a quote from the police chief
that says we believe there is sufficient evidence that if he were still alive we
would present this case to a grand jury and then we also have the Mahoning County prosecutor
who said that her office reviewed the file and also believes that the case would be taken to a grand jury
and the prosecutor praised the work of the investigators saying that they never abandoned the case and stuck with it
over the years as DNA technology advanced and she's exactly right and and I believe the the chief is right too you
here you have the police chief and the prosecutor saying if this dude were still alive we'd take
this DNA evidence along with everything we have in the file and we would take it
to a grand jury let the grand jury decide if we are charging this guy with murder and taking his ass to court
she goes on to commend the police and their work that they did saying over 50 years
had gone and they did not let it go they didn't stop one of the reasons worth said that he
went public was because police want to know if any other people in the township ever had
any contact with Joseph Hill he said law enforcement in California were also looking into other cases to
see if there is any link to homicides that they have after Joseph Hill moved from Ohio to California yeah that's
interesting and then we have another officer his last name is kakasik he said at this presser that Joseph
Hill's name never came up in the investigation and in fact he was never he wasn't just never considered a
suspect his name did not appear in their case File and so they're announcing to the public
back in January not only are we finally able to close the Brad bellino case but on top of that we are asking anyone
who may have information about Joseph Hill please call our detectives the Boardman
detectives at 330-726-4144 and we've seen law enforcement do this quite a bit in other
cases they go on to discuss the crime a little bit here in this article saying the boy's body was found at about 8 A.M
Tuesday April 4th 1972 in a trash container behind iceley's on Boardman Canfield Road a tan
belt was wrapped around his neck and his clothing was in disarray investigators said he was sexually assaulted before he
was killed this is really this little part of the case has always intrigued me yeah me too when we
covered it Captain we spent a good deal of time 20 or 30 minutes or so of of that garage episode pouring through the
inconsistencies and the story about Brad bellino being missing and also the inconsistencies involving the evidence
surrounding this homicide one of those inconsistencies that we discussed was this belt so
they find him with this tan belt wrapped around his neck it was the belt that was
used to kill the boy and it was reported that this was a child-sized belt and we
where we had the the discrepancy was with the items that was found with the boy and there were two versions of that
story one version is that he was found without a belt so leading to the possibility that the the murder weapon
actually belonged to the boy that it was taken off of his person and then used to
kill him the other version of that story was Brad bellina was found with a belt on
and also this belt was found on him wrapped around his neck right meaning that it wasn't his belt correct and so
they did a lot of investigating on this belt which late which leads me to believe that probably the latter is true
that he was probably found wearing a belt or at the very least police take the belt to bolino's family and parents
and say was this the belt that your son was wearing and they say either he didn't
wear belts or no that was not his belt and it was definitely a child-sized belt but if he in fact was wearing a belt or
if Brad if this was not his belt then you have to wonder did this killer was he driving around looking for a
victim with his preferred murder weapon that he came prepared to do what he did to that kid
and we know that they spent a significant time investigating the belt because there were there was a there's a
mall in the area back then and they went to that mall looking and trying to find
if they could find anything that stood out to anybody like did you see a grown man in here buying a child's belt and
he's he's without a child when he's buying the belt no I get that but as a parent you buy a lot of things for your
kids without them being in the store with you did anybody did did somebody write a check for a belt something that
we can trace back to the purchaser and ask that person questions so they investigated the belt it's still
kind of an outstanding part of this case there they've not really clued Us in on exactly what is the truth here but
most of the indicators are that it was not Brad Bellino's belt they go on to say in the article the Mahoning County
coroner at the time Dr David balenke said in news reports the boy's death was quote the act of a degenerate end quote
Boardman police said they had some leads immediately after Brad Bellino's body was found but they also stated what they
termed quote phony information you know we talked about the inconsistencies and the stories and this
is what they're addressing here at the presser which they said was hampering their investigation there was some
thought remember we discussed this well captain there was some thought that Brad's death
could be connected to the 1970 beating death of 15 year old Thomas Baird of Afton Avenue who was found December
3rd 1970 on Lake Park Road badly beaten he died of his injuries 10 days later worth said police will re-examine The
Baird case as well as the case of David Evans 13 whose body was found in a parking lot
near us 224 and Market Street in January 1975 a few days after he was reported missing
worth said in autopsy showed that David Evans died of natural causes and Baird's
death was also different than Brad's but police will check the cases again to make sure there is no connection with
Joseph Norman Hill two days after Brad was found Township police chief David Hartsock
told reporters detectives had quote two good leads to pursue the belt used to strangle Brad was also sent to the state
Bureau of criminal investigation for analysis a neighbor told a newspaper reporter
that Brad was a gentle boy with a sunny disposition Brad had been at a friend's house on that Friday that he was killed
and investigators estimated that he had been dead for about 48 to 72 hours before he was found police said Brad was
last seen April 1st hitchhiking but the mother of the boy Brad was visiting said
that that had to be a mistake she told a reporter Brad had been at her Applewood
Acres Home on March 31st and was allowed to stay until 9 pm but about 7 30 p.m that evening he called for a ride when
his father didn't answer the mother of Brad's friend said he then left this was one of those parts of the story that we
had to examine as well because there were several people not just this one person that said hey
the following day after this kid was already missing I saw him trying to hitch a ride there were a couple reports
that had said that they had seen him playing basketball or out riding his bike and so there was a lot of
speculation and controversy a little bit going on at the time there in Boardman of people not agreeing on exactly when
Brad was was killed well one I think because you have a younger victim it's a shock to the
community and then the manner in which he is found is a double shock so law enforcement has to do like a double
due diligence because of the like you said this becomes like folklore instantly well and the article gives us
further insight into that of the Killer and continuing on the police chief said that Joseph Hill was a truck driver who
drove for a local water Bottling Company he was 32 years old when Brad was killed
and then moved to California in 1978. so keep in mind Brad was killed in 1972 Joseph Hill the killer moves from
Boardman Ohio to California in 1978. roughly six years later right Joseph Hill again he died in July of 2019 in a
nursing home in California and as we already said his body was cremated the police chief worth and Captain alcat
the police chief worth and Captain Al kakasik chief of detectives both said at the presser investigators were able to
get DNA samples from hills family members some voluntarily and some through quote other means
they go on to state that there was never a link between Hill or bellino that investigators could find
Brad was found about a mile away from where he was last seen said the autopsy of Brad found that he
had an undigested meal in his system which means he died quickly so those rumors and those statements of
people saying hey I saw this kid after you're saying he was last seen and prior to you finding him
deceased in the dumpster those were either just flat out false or as we suspected when we went through
the information that it was probably people that were really trying to help and if you see a kid I mean this is a
neighborhood this is a town a city that is filled with kids and boys Brad Bellino's age
these are people that probably just really wanted help and there's that other human side too
when the when it's reported hey we're looking for this kid we don't know how or where or when exactly that he went
missing we need the Public's help there's that that natural human side of us that want to go well you know what
that kid he's probably out running the streets we don't want to think that evil snatched up this kid and did something
horrible well the chief is going to give us some insight because based on the autopsy they believe that he died within
two to four hours from leaving his home yeah two to four hours from leaving his friends home and then on top of that
they were able to use some of the items that were found in the dumpster to really narrow that down as well so we
had the mother saying that Brad Bolino left the friend's home at approximately 7 30
right and what we will have from police and this is stuff that we did not learn until 50 years later
but what they were telling us Captain is that based on the items that they found
that had been thrown away and this this was not trash and waste found on top of the boy that the killer had thrown in
there to try to conceal the body from what police could see it looked like the boy was killed
very likely in the in the Killer's car or at least elsewhere and then driven to this dumpster placed
inside and then just left and then the people this is a busy area this is almost the center of town but
this is not that far from where Hill worked right this is not terribly far from where Hill lived or where bellino
lived or or where uh the friend lived I mean we're talking about everything here
is within less with a one and a half mile radius really if you if you want to get down to
it and so there what they're saying is that we found trash items that were discarded by
the businesses that were closed by midnight that night and not just closed doors locked and everything cleaned up
thrown away and then employees gone bye bye for the day and they're saying that trash that they
found on top of the boy unfortunately was trash that would have been discarded that night before anybody would have
left those businesses so they were able to base it off of that and then take it a step further with the autopsy with the
science and say this undigested meal in his system means that he died relatively
quickly after leaving his friends home because he ate that meal at the friend's house right so they are saying chief of
detectives kakasic telling us two to four hours those other sightings of Brad bellino just they were not correct
uh they go on to tell us in the in the article police interviewed several people over the years and used search
warrants to get DNA eliminating people one by one now some notes from that news conference
again the information that is new here the digested meal in his system wasn't such new news to us that was something
that we talked about when we covered it that was something that had been fairly well reported over the years the
news there was was the trash and how they went through all the items in that dumpster to try to come to a conclusion
of When Brad would have been placed in that big receptacle so two to four hours after leaving the
residence of his friend when he was last seen 7 30 p.m ish placed in the dumpster
absolutely before midnight that's new information because based off of what we were told before
he could have been killed and kept elsewhere before being placed in that dumpster but
it sounds like no that's not the case the other interesting thing too the takeaway from that press conference at
news conference is no connection to the Bolino family and after the news conference the chief
of detectives kakasik and chief worth they stayed and they answered any questions that the public or media might
have regarding this case and the the big break and finally closing this case and one of those was time and time again
I think three or four times they were asked to clarify that there's no connection between
murderer and the victim yeah to me it and correct me if I'm wrong here but to me the connection is the area yes and so
it's like especially during that time during that age period that bellino was in he'd walk
around town you'd ride your bike around town there was a lot of things and and parents didn't keep a
super tight eye on on on everything that the kids were doing I'm a child from the late 80s
early 90s and there was less supervision then I can only imagine in the early 70s
and and personality Brad bellino was known to run with his friends to ride his bike everywhere he was known to
hitchhike rides now at the time in the bellino family really shut down right where you have other
cases where you see parents stay in the media and stay at the Forefront of the investigation and be the face of their
child victim for for the investigation that was not so much the case with the bellinos and I think a large part of
that was I think they took on a lot of criticism local and even Beyond the city limits of Boardman
of maybe they weren't great parents maybe they weren't supervising their son enough and this is what happens when you
don't look after your kids I can understand people we've talked about this dozens of times here right
when somebody kills a kid it's a crime against that victim it's a crime against that family it's a crime against other
children and ultimately it's a crime against the community and the community wants its pound of Flesh if they cannot
find the perpetrator they want somebody to point to and say this is wrong and this is what happens when people don't
do things the right way and I get it yeah it's they want to hold somebody accountable and so since we
don't have a solid suspect you know they start pointing the finger at the parents I
mean you see this in a lot of cases I get it these cases are supposed to make you angry if they don't make you angry
You Ain't Human you don't share the same heart that the rest of us have you don't
have the same soul that the rest of us have so I get it but at the end of the day the only person here to blame is
Joseph Norman Hill that piece of [ __ ] he's the killer he took a little boy off
the streets and he killed him and he discarded him in a dumpster like trash he's the only person to blame we
got nobody else to point to right Brad bellino had gone to his friend's house dozens of times and come home perfectly
happy and healthy dozens of times and regardless let's not victim blame me either who
knows did Brad bellino stick his thumb up in the air that night to get a ride who knows and who cares
because this guy went out that night looking for a victim in my opinion if he's driving around with that belt
the belt that we knew we now know killed Brad bellino and belonged to Joseph Hill
he went out looking for a victim that night and unfortunately whether Brad was snatched off the
streets or stuck his thumb in the air and hopped into Hill's car we now know not only the result but who
is responsible right now some other things in that Presser in that news conference that were
follow-up questions that didn't make it into this article right again they are saying
no connection to Brad bellino and this is something that I'm underlining for a reason here because I want people that
haven't followed this case to understand the level of Praise that Boardman PD deserve in the Brad bellino case
50 years they never gave up on this case 50 years they never gave up on this kid
and we know that in 2001 they started doing their DNA and physical evidence work
and in fact I can tell you behind the scenes the porch light project reached out to Boardman PD years ago and said we
want to help you with this case we want to fund DNA genealogy work on this case because we think that it's going to lead
you to the guy that committed the crime right and Boardman PD said thank you you
guys are awesome but no thanks why we we are already doing what it is that you are offering to do wrong it's
also rumored that they're not huge fans of James trainer so they go on to tell us that they thoroughly investigated if
there would be any kind of connection not just from Brad from victim to perpetrator right but Brad's family
and they said there's no connection to they you know Joseph Norman Hill had us had
a son and his son didn't go to the same school as Brad they didn't know each other
the families didn't attend the same church there is they didn't live on the same
street or same neighborhood there was Zero connection from this monster to the Bolino family and the reason why I'm
underlining that is be is to remind everybody that this case didn't take 50 years to solve due to a lack of effort
we've seen it time and time again when you have a stranger on Stranger crime there is virtually nothing to link the
perpetrator to the victim other than this scientific evidence that we had to wait on technology to catch up
to this physical evidence and so goodbye the uh Boardman PD for sticking with this case for so long
and they also tell us to Captain again remember they're asking the public for help for information about Joseph Norman
hill now that we know that he killed a kid in 1972 that he raped and killed a child in 1972. we need more information
on this guy because what else could he have done so they tell us he owned a gold Monte Carlo
at the time and while there were many reports into the police in that file from 1972
none of the vehicle descriptions matched that of Joseph Norman Hill's vehicle at
the time now keep in mind they are not just asking people in Boardman Ohio for information about
Joseph Norman Hill they're asking people everywhere he moved to California in 1978 they're
asking people in San Bernardino California for information about this guy as well
because he lived there for 40 years before he passes away and they go on to tell us that he lived
in 14 different residents after moving to California they do state that we have very little information on Joseph Norman
Hill uh one partly because he moved out to California and according to Boardman PD
they were saying that they believe he moved out there for work reasons but the reason why that they have very
little information about Hill here in Ohio and in California was that he had very little family history we
know he was married we know he had at least one kid but it seems to be a very small family and and maybe he came from
a very small family and his wife came from a small family so there's not a whole lot of people to fill us in on the
blanks in this guy's life his wife passes away in 1993. and interestingly enough one thing we
discussed in our coverage last year was the the rumor mill it had all always been rumored that the police were pretty
certain they knew who killed the first victim or had or had a decent idea of who may have been involved right in the
Thomas bear homicide they kind of confirmed that at afterwards when they're doing some
follow-up questions this was really interesting to me because this is something we we're not clear on when we
did our coverage so somebody directly asked them at the conference any chance Joseph Hill killed Thomas
Baird and police say right there the chief and the chief of detectives tell the persons in the
audience the facts of that case do not match up with the facts of the Brad bellino case
and we believe this is their words and I'm I'm kind of uh summarizing what they said paraphrasing
paraphrasing thank you you're welcome the the facts of the two cases don't don't match up there's there's not very
many similar similarities in the case but then on top of that that we believe we kind of know what happened
to Thomas Baird based off of the police file and based off of the evidence and information that police were able to
collect at the time of the of bear homicide right but but the one part that is key here is they were saying that
while Baird was in bad shape from this attack a lot of health problems with this this
attack and unfortunately we know that he he would later die in the hospital that he was at one point in the hospital
able to communicate with police now this might not be verbal he may not have been
verbal and able to tell them who his attacker was or attackers were but they said that he was able to
communicate with them maybe he was able to write it blink sometimes they do that
you know answer the questions blink once for yes twice for no he was able to communicate to them that he knew his
attacker or attackers um and that I'm guessing captain that that probably carries a lot of weight
with the investigators based off of information that they've already collected leading them to believe that
these two homicides are probably not connected now they did say too you want to talk of
the effort not just the years spent trying to solve the Brad bellino murder case
but the resources too the time and the Manpower woman power people power on this case
and the money that I had read somewhere that they had spent 29 or over 29 000 to
solve this case this is just for money used for test testing physical evidence and Outsourcing that to the private
sector but what they had said in the after this presser was that the twenty nine thousand
dollars in cost or more than twenty nine thousand dollars in cost to solve the case
it sounds like that was the cost over the course of just a handful of years I'd always believed that that was the
money spent on this case for test starting back in 2001 when we know that they were Outsourcing testing this
physical evidence right but it sounds like this is the money that was spent just in a handful of years and that this
case really started heating up behind the scenes in the last few years and that some of this information it sounds
like they knew they knew that Joseph Norman Hill deceased was 98.2 percent the depositor of that physical evidence
that was found on our victim that they knew that for probably several months but we don't get this announcement until
they are able to thoroughly vet this guy or at least attempt to vet this guy and make sure that what the science is
telling them is correct well again you know not to harp on that idea but just because the families aren't connected
that you know we don't know exactly what hill was doing in that town and as long
as you're in that town you would have been connected you would have seen these children these were crimes of
opportunity that's exactly right but you know what fascinates me and and also what really
Echoes a belief that we have said here on this show a dozen times unfortunately if you fall victim or fall prey to
somebody one of these monsters your case or your loved one's case is only as good
as the the police department investigating it only as good as the detective who who catches your case
only as good as the detectives sitting at the desk where the case File Falls and here is a prime example of a good
Police Department great detectives great police chief a great force in general working together working very hard on an
investigation and what's so great here is that this is why you don't give up here's that's what
infuriates me with a lot of these cold cases because you have I could name for you a dozen police departments and if I
can name a dozen that means that there's probably hundreds of them out there that
they have cases that they can tell us yeah we're pretty sure we know who did this the
perpetrator we believe uh that did this is has been dead for some time and so we we got other cases we we can't
devote the resources and the time and the money and I get that you have other cases but when you saw the case like
this when Boardman PD stands in front of cameras in an audience 50 over 50 years
later in the Brad bellino case and closes it out and tells us who did it and he died years ago what that says to
people in that community and everywhere watching and listening that you cannot come into our city
and kill someone and get away with it we will work this thing until it's solved [Music]
three tragic deaths in Boardman Ohio that is the update of the Brad bellino case
stick around for tomorrow's show as we go through David Evans update join us back here in the garage and until then
be good be kind and don't listen [Music] thank you [Music]

The Boardman Murders Update /// Part 1 /// 692

Part 1 of 2

www.TrueCrimeGarage.com (http://www.truecrimegarage.com/)

Last year we covered the unsolved murders of three boys. The murders all occurred in Boardman, Ohio in the early 1970’s. Those episodes are #567 to #570 on your Garage Radio Dial. In 2023 these three cases that remained unsolved for over fifty years, detectives made big breaks in two of the cases. Please join us this week for a couple of happier days in the Garage and we discuss the big breaks, the updates and finally getting the answers for the families and this wonderful community that has been haunted for decades by the killings of three of there own. If you have any further information regarding this case please reach out to the good detectives of the Boardman PD @ 1-330-726-4144

Beer of the Week - Nosferatu Red IPA by The Great Lakes Brewing Company

Garage Grade - 4 out of 5 bottle caps

Brief Summary

The episode discusses the unsolved murders of three boys in Boardman, Ohio, focusing on Bradley Bellino's case and recent DNA evidence linking a deceased suspect.

Key points

Community Fear. The murders created a climate of fear and distrust among parents in Boardman.
The Unsolved Boardman Murders. Explore the chilling story of three child murders in Boardman, Ohio, that remain unsolved.
A Tragic Pattern. Three boys were murdered in Boardman within five years, raising questions about safety.
New Evidence in Cold Case. Police believe they have identified the murderer of Brad Lee Bolino after decades.
Significant Breakthrough. Investigators link Joseph Hill to the 1972 murder of Brad Lee Bolino through DNA evidence.
Community Shocked by Murder. The brutal murder of 12-year-old Brad Lee Bolino left the community in disbelief.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Nothing was normal that weekend.

Describing the events surrounding Bradley Bellino's abduction.

6:22WatchAug 16, 2023

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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