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Welcome to True Crime Garage. Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, thanks for listening. I'm your host Nick and
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page and pick you up something snazzy. And that's enough of the business. All right, everybody gather around, grab a
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chair, grab a beer, let's talk some true crime. We are in Boardman, Ohio for part two of
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this week's true crime story and we already discussed the first two still unsolved cases. The first being that of
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Thomas Bard who was killed in December of 1970. He was found badly beaten. Actually
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found by a police officer. Thomas was unconscious when found, taken immediately to the hospital, placed in
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intensive care where sadly he passes away days later, never regaining consciousness. Police are never able to
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ask him any questions about who attacked him or how he was attacked or why. Brad Bellino was the second in this sad
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series. He was abducted on the last day of March, 1972 and according to the coroner's report,
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he was killed more than 24 hours after he leaves his best friend's house and his body is found on April 4th, 1972.
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There were unconfirmed sightings of Brad on that Saturday, but police have said since that they don't believe those
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sightings to be accurate as they have information and evidence that suggests that he was held somewhere by his captor
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until he was killed. Then at some point, the killer or killers place him in that trash
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container where he is found on April 4th. The killer or killers possibly, I say likely Captain, covering him with debris
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before leaving the scene. Now, both of us have reviewed this picture and I want to describe this picture to the
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listeners. What it is is we have a normal looking trash truck that comes around and picks up, you know,
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everybody's trash and it picks up the dumpsters and it empties the trash from these dumpsters right into the back of
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the trash truck that has the trash compactor back there. So, we've all seen those, but this is 1972 when Brad
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Bellino's body is found and all the papers refer to this dumpster as a trash container, which I
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think is much more fitting once you see the picture, you go, "Okay, I don't know
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that I would call that a dumpster." You know, nowadays when we say the word dumpster,
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you think of these very large objects. I mean, I'm I'm 6'1 and a lot of times these dumpsters come up to my shoulders
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or, you know, almost my chin, I guess. Luckily, I've never been in one, never had to go dumpster diving,
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but I'm saving that for my my senior years, but um the this years. Yes, the gold years. The this is
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a container that is considerably smaller than what I would call a dumpster and you see the two officers standing next
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to this dumpster. So, the refuse collector, he spots the boy's feet sticking out of it
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and goes over and tries to push them down thinking it's just a mannequin, right? Because this is in a in a
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shopping area of town. You know, normal trash, store type trash in these in these trash containers that he's
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collecting. And he quickly figures out, "No, this is this is a body." He calls the police.
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I've seen the reports, Captain. I think the police were on the scene 7 minutes after It's like 6 or 7 minutes
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after he calls it and and in this picture, we get a really good idea of the size of this trash container because
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we have two officers who are responding and they're standing next to this trash container in this
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picture. And again, you can see this picture, it's pretty readily available on the internet, but if you want to
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guarantee to find it, go to porchlightonline.org and click on news. It's like the first
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thing that comes up. We'll also put it on our social media at truecrimegarage on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram.
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Yes, and this is the picture that is really like now infamous in the town of Boardman. This is one that I've heard
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over the years and seen discussed on message boards over the years where people will say, "Yeah, I grew up in the
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'70s in in Boardman, Ohio and I saw that picture." This picture was in the newspaper. This picture like scared the
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hell out of children and and parents, of course, because you you you are seeing the body recovery site. One thing I
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wanted to ask you before we move on too far here, get your opinion on. I've always kind of
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struggled with this. If I had not seen this picture and somebody told me that that boy's body
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was found in a dumpster, I would tell you that I would lean on the side of two perpetrators or at least two people
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dumping the body to get it up that high and into a large dumpster. This, Captain, it appears to me and I'm again,
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I'm judging off of these two officers who appear to be average height, this appears to me like this trash
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container probably comes up to their waist, maybe maybe their above their waist, yeah.
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Yeah, belly button or elbow level. Um The kid, Brad, is listed as approximately 80 lb.
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I've never won any strongman contest. I don't think that's ever going to happen for me, but uh
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you know, what What do you think? Do you Do you lean more towards two people? Obviously, it would be
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easier for two people to put him in there, but I don't think necessary. I think even if it was a large dumpster,
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it's not impossible to just say that there was one perpetrator, but I think what your point
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is is because this one is only waist height, that it would be pretty easy for somebody with maybe not even that much
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strength to be able to put him inside that dumpster. Yeah, I think all you have to do is get something that's 80
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lb, unfortunately dead weight, and you have to be able to get it up to probably your
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chest height to to put him in there. And we don't know how he was lugged, but I would
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imagine the way that this goes down and because this case is unsolved, you always have to kind of look at these and
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go, "Okay, well, why is it unsolved?" Well, it's unsolved because unfortunately, the killer wasn't
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witnessed by anybody, right? The The abduction, we don't know at what point Brad was intercepted between his house
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and home between his home and Dawn's house. Right. We don't know if he willingly hitched a
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ride and got in the wrong car. We don't know if somebody pulled up and had to grab him off the street or maybe two
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people grab him off the street. All we know is that this is a a sexual assault homicide
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and involving a juvenile victim and but you you look at these things and go why are they unsolved? Okay, well, we we
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know no witness for the abduction however happened whether he no witness of him getting into a vehicle willingly.
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And we also don't have we don't have a witness saying well, I saw the the body being dumped as well. So
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I'm picturing under the cover of darkness middle of the night vehicle pulls up as close as they can to
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this trash container. Maybe they know the trash schedule or or know it loosely. If this were me if I were the
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perpetrator and and remember we've discussed this plenty of times. The the killer's goal when you see a
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sexually related homicide the killer's goal we don't have to get too far into that to know what it is. That's already
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taken place up to this point. Now once the murder is committed the killer or killers have a problem.
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They have a body that they need to get rid of. I'm guessing here Captain that it may be no coincidence
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that this trash is being collected that morning early morning 7:55 a.m. is when the truck pulls up to empty this thing.
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And if nobody spots him in that container beforehand well, he's he's off to the incinerator
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or off to the landfill wherever that trash truck was going and may have never been discovered at all and maybe that
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was the killer or killers intention. And you pull up there the night before under the cover of
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darkness maybe in the middle of the night 1 2 3 in the morning place him in there and then attempt to
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cover him up as much as you can with some of the debris in the boxes that are already found in that container.
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Well, I believe this case because of the time period it if it would have happened
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if it would have happened in the last couple years I think this case would have been solved very quickly.
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Because like you said at some point unless the murderer lured him into his house or into their house
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that there's multiple crime scenes so there'd be evidence on there'd be evidence on Bradley.
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Right? On his clothes there'd be fibers. There would be and if he was placed somewhere else now
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look he could have been sexually assaulted and murdered within a vehicle and then placed in the the trunk
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of that vehicle and driven around for a couple days. It's it's also a rural you know, it's on the outskirts.
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In in the sense where like we said you have shopping centers and stuff but couple miles down the road you can find
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a place to dump a body and that didn't happen here. This this body was dumped in a trash can so again that I think
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that leads to your idea of the person possibly knowing trash schedule or it could just be as
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simple as I have this victim in the back of my car. I got to get rid of it some point. Maybe I go out to my car and I
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can really start telling that there's a dead body in my car and now I I'm panicked and I can't go look in a
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rural area for the best dumping spot. I have to now just find a place to put this victim. Right. And it feels like to
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me it it feels like a poor choice of driving to what sounds to me to be one of the busier areas of town back then.
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We should we should state that the population back then would have been between 30 and
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35,000 people and as the captain pointed out you have this is a growing town. Boardman is a
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growing town where you have parts and pieces of it that have a lot of homes and have a lot of shops and businesses
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and things like that but there are also country roads. There are also roads where the businesses are way off of the
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way set back from the road and that's some of the spaces that had Brad made the entire trip from Don's house to his
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house. That's kind of given the the landscape of what he would have traversed during that time. And so it
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seems a little odd to me for someone to drive into this busy area of town to dispose of the body but I guess if
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you have a situation where for whatever reason you you don't have the ability to bury because what I'm
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getting at is I feel like the killer hoping to get lucky that the trash is actually collected with with
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him still there is your hope that you're you're getting lucky in concealing the body. Where
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there's other ways and avenues of doing that but for whatever reason this killer
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or killers just chose not to. Well, like you said maybe this murderer knows the the trash schedule
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and that and that was a part of their plan or they just know the schedule of that
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building. I mean this is in the 70s. A lot of these towns shut down by 10:00 at night. No restaurants would be open.
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May maybe most of the bars would have been closed by that point. There might not have been much of a night life for
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this town in the 70s. The third victim in this series takes us to January 1975. This is when another boy aged 13 he goes
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missing on Friday January 17th 1975. This is David Evans. This was a a great little kid. I know
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they they all are and I'm not picking a favorite here Captain but I very much enjoyed reading about David Evans who he
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was how he was in a lot of ways he was very much a lot like Brad and probably a lot like the other boys that were 12 or
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13 years old growing up in Boardman Ohio in the early to mid-70s. David went to Boardman Center Middle
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School the same as Brad. He played in the band. He got good grades. He didn't have a ton of friends. David
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was not extremely outgoing or quite as adventurous as Brad as reported to me. the piccolo. I I wanted for you being
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the musician I wanted to find what instrument he played and I I could not find that. Well, it's the piccolo and
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that's why he didn't have a lot of friends. David is said by most or all that I could find anyway to be more reserved.
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More likely to sit back observe and study people rather than just to dive into situations.
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David like Brad was a little smaller for his age but David was a mighty little man. This kid had the will and
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determination to overcome the obstacles of life. David was born with what all of the
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reports are calling a narrow left hand. So this is a hand that for whatever scientific biological
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reason never fully formed before his birth. So his left hand was a thumb and two fingers.
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However, David never let this minor issue set him back in any way. David just like Brad played baseball and as we
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all can imagine any game where one will be catching throwing and batting will well, could get quite difficult for
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David's situation. Well, and maybe not so hard once that fingers and and hand that you do have grows to full size but
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especially when you're a kid, you know, throwing a baseball or throwing a football when you're a kid with small
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hands is it's hard enough let alone telling you have half of a hand. I'm sure there were even those at the time
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that thought maybe David would never be able to participate in certain sports because of
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the situation but not this kid Captain. David's father would later tell the papers that David spent most of one
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entire summer when he was off from school learning to play with this added difficulty.
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So this kid I'm sure with a little help with you know, from his parents siblings and
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and friends taught himself to play ball so that he could go and sign up and play
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baseball but with this added difficulty. Yeah, and again with this uh handicap it would make playing certain
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instruments a lot more difficult. Mhm. And he wasn't obviously afraid of doing that. He wasn't going to let it set him
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back. He was going to do the things that he wanted. He was going to to try to do the things that he thought would
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bring him enjoyment and it seems like he was very successful with that and that's
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one thing that kind of it was inspirational to read about that and and really makes this story even sadder. Now
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oddly enough here's another little nugget to this story that is just one of those haunting parts of a story that
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really just kind of sticks with you. This is something that having learned this I will not be able
00:19:01
to shake this from memory when it comes to David Evans case. As far as all of the reports go
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and I'm going to say this twice cuz it might take a second to set set in here. David was last seen by his own father in
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passing. Okay, so David was last seen by his own father in passing. The way that this works is is just like
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this. So David was last seen at 6:00 p.m. by his father in their own neighborhood
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at the intersection of Stillson Place and Withers Drive. This is just about two dozen houses away from his own. So
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roughly 25 houses away from where he lived is the last place that anyone has ever reported to have seen this boy
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alive. Now, what's weird about this? So, David is is walking home. He's He's returning home.
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He went to Boardman Lake. Apparently, he had been checking on the lake from time to time to see if it had
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frozen over so he could skate on it. Well, he went and checked that day and it's my understanding, Captain, that he
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did not bring ice skates with him. He was going to check to see if it would be thick enough to skate on at some point.
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Right. He goes to the lake. He finds that no, the the ice is still not thick enough, and so he's returning
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home. And now we know this because he happens to bump into his father. His father's driving out of the
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neighborhood, leaving. His father was attending night classes at Youngstown University.
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So, at this intersection, you know, he sees his boy, rolls down the window. David walks over and talks to him for a
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little bit, tells him he went to the lake, the ice isn't thick enough. Dad says, "Hey, I I'm going to my night
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class. Are you going home?" "Yes, I'm going home." "Okay, I'll see you when I get back."
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Well, that's ends up not being the case, unfortunately. David's father returns home from his class and finds
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that David is not at their house. David never made it home that evening. Well, like you said, it's
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10 10 12 houses away. It's It's It's about two dozen houses from from his his home. So, it's very very close.
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This This boy is almost home. Yeah. He's minutes from being at his house. You know, threat level midnight at this
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point. Exactly. So, of course, the Evans family, they immediately jump into search mode. So,
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it's not a long period of time for his night class. So, David not there is not No alarm bells are going off until the
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father returns and says, "Wait a minute. I saw him on my way to my class an hour and a half ago
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and he was very close to home telling me that he was next stop was home." Right.
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"I'm going home, Dad." The first thing that they do, they're in search mode. They call the
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high school, which was hosting a basketball game that night. They wanted to see, well, maybe
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did he bump into a friend and they decided to walk to the high school and watch the basketball game or maybe he
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had a change of heart and went to the basketball game himself. They very quickly confirm with teachers there that
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no, David is not at the high school. Nobody saw him there that night at the basketball game.
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They call his friends to no avail. Now, the scary part is when they start calling hospitals looking for their son
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to see if maybe he was involved in some kind of accident. And no, they still no David. So, very
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soon after making these calls and doing a little bit of searching themselves, they call the Boardman Police
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Department. They tell them that their 13-year-old son, David Evans, did not return home
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earlier that night. They told police David was 4 ft 10 in tall. This is going to sound almost like I'm reading
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the same description of the Bolino kid that we talked about in yesterday's episode.
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David Evans was 4 ft 10 in tall, about 80 lb. He has medium-length blonde hair, brown eyes. He had scar tissue on his
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left eye. This was from an operation that he had at some point. He had the narrow left hand that we
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discussed. They said that he was wearing a blue plaid jacket with some red in it. It had
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fleece lining and a fleece collar. He was wearing suede ankle-high shoes, a maroon and blue sweatshirt, blue
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jeans, and most likely his medical ID. So, David was diabetic, would often wear a medical ID to tell anybody if should
00:24:01
you find me and I'm not awake, I'm unconscious, I have diabetes. All right. So, what I see here, Captain,
00:24:09
is a case that appears to be you know, it's it's a couple years later, but it appears to be very much like the Brad
00:24:16
Bolino case and again, victimology Victimology is almost the same. Almost the same kid.
00:24:24
And uh like you said, height, weight, and also just the circumstances. Yes. It's It's getting dark
00:24:32
and the kid is returning back to his home on foot. Friday nights, too. I believe both of these are on Friday
00:24:40
nights and they're both Friday evenings. And really, if if Brad is abducted after
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7:30 and he was in fact en route to his own house, that trek could only have taken
00:24:53
him at at the longest, what? 45 minutes, an hour? So, he should have been home by
00:24:59
8:30-ish. Yeah. And I know I know these are kids that are given the time, so we don't have,
00:25:04
you know, Don always says it was about 7:30. So, 8:30, 9:00, he should have been home.
00:25:09
David Evans is spotted by his father at 6:00. We're getting a good time from David Evans' father because David Evans'
00:25:16
father has an appointment to make, too. He doesn't want to be late for his own class. So, he knows I saw my son and and
00:25:22
he's going to give us a very accurate time frame of 6:00 p.m. And And again, as you pointed out, he's
00:25:28
he's just blocks from his house. He's just blocks from his house at this A couple differences right away, though,
00:25:34
is is in Bradley's case, we he could have had a distance to get to to go home, Yeah. making it easier to
00:25:43
want to hitch a ride from somebody. Yep. As far as David's case, he was you know, like you said, 20-some houses from
00:25:52
his his house. I wouldn't assume that somebody would jump in a car. The major differences here are a few and and you
00:25:59
got into some of those. Some additional information here, as we said, David is diabetic. From my understanding, David
00:26:05
required an insulin shot. I believe it was roughly like every 12 hours. So, he would have been due for his next
00:26:13
insulin shot the next morning at 7:30, around breakfast time. So, the the major scary part here for the
00:26:23
family is this is not a situation where okay, he might turn up tomorrow, but if he doesn't
00:26:32
in a couple days, he'll turn up. No, this is This kid needs his shot or bad stuff is going to start happening.
00:26:40
Right. And so, with Brad, with his case, we got this adventurous kid, maybe hitchhikes rides. David is much more
00:26:49
reserved. Everybody said there's no way this kid would have gotten into anybody's car willingly. He wouldn't
00:26:55
even approach the vehicle and talk to the person. So, a little bit difference in personality and then of course, the
00:27:02
medical issues with David. And then there's the this scary scary fact that oh my god, if if I
00:27:09
if this is the knife in the heart if you're a parent with a kid who's only been missing a short period of time. At
00:27:17
11:30 p.m. that night, David's hat that he was wearing. He was wearing a red knit hat
00:27:27
was found at Stilson Place and Withers Drive. That intersection, the same intersection that his dad last saw him.
00:27:36
And this hat is confirmed by the parents to be that of their son's, David Evans.
00:27:43
They said that the police said that snow was trampled in about a 3-ft circle around this hat. This to me points to an
00:27:53
obvious abduction. All right, we are back. Cheers to everybody. Cheers to you, Captain. Hope everybody's
00:28:33
having a good week and we're finding you well and let's get back to our true crime story. Before we jump
00:28:41
back in here, Captain, I want to shift gears just very briefly because there's something that I wanted to test out here
00:28:48
on our show. You know, you and I and the garage listeners, we understand that this show and listening to the show,
00:28:56
being a part of the garage group is more more than just about this. It's about trying to do some good along the way. I
00:29:04
wanted to try a little experiment and I'm hoping that the listeners will join in and help us with this. We are very
00:29:11
lucky to have a great audience, a lot of listeners, people that are very engaged,
00:29:17
and people that want to make good change themselves. And when we've covered cases, it's very common.
00:29:25
I'm going to peel back the curtain here and let the listeners take a look behind
00:29:29
the scenes for a minute. But very often when we cover a case, we usually will get some information in
00:29:37
the case. You know, we've we've seen this with missing persons cases. We've seen it with unidentified
00:29:42
remains cases. We've also seen it with uh cases with that there are suspects and information that's still needed in
00:29:50
cold cases where we receive some information or we have been told, "Hey, when you guys covered this, we received
00:29:58
a few tips." Now, I wanted to see if we could turn this into a bit of a crowdsourcing
00:30:05
technique and see if this works. Because we have such a great audience all over the world and a very engaged audience, I
00:30:15
wanted to see if we could pull something off. And I know that the Delaware County
00:30:20
Sheriff's Office, they have an outstanding warrant for a man named Thomas Blankenship. And I'll give a
00:30:26
brief description of him here, but we'll put a picture up on our social. I want everybody to to send this out to
00:30:35
everybody to retweet it, to send it to other people, to see if we could track down somebody that law enforcement is
00:30:41
looking for. He's described as 6'2", 175 lb, gray hair, brown eyes, and he is again wanted
00:30:51
by Delaware County Sheriff's Office, which is in Central Ohio, but he has ties to West Virginia and really ties to
00:30:58
all kinds of cities in the great state of Ohio, but that doesn't mean that he is in any of those locations. So, share
00:31:06
his picture, share his information, and let's see if we can get a tip on his location and his whereabouts so that he
00:31:13
can be arrested and that warrant can be served. Now, we were talking about this David Evans case
00:31:20
and how immediately to me, Captain, his hat being found kind of trampled in the snow
00:31:28
at that intersection looks to me like we always talk about There was Somebody was killed in their
00:31:34
home. There was no sign of a struggle or no sign of a break-in. This to me is sign of an abduction because it's sign
00:31:41
of a struggle right there in the streets where somebody probably pulled up, maybe one or two persons, they have a
00:31:48
confrontation with this boy and grab him and put him in their car. You know, we have
00:31:55
we have his family, we have his teachers, we have his coaches that are saying David was shy and reserved, especially
00:32:02
with strangers. His parents said he they didn't think they that he would willingly go off with a stranger. He's
00:32:08
not the type to hitch rides. He's shy, reserved. Again, this is echoed by everybody that knew David, his teachers
00:32:15
and his baseball coach, and the hat trampled in the snow points to a sign of a struggle and then an
00:32:22
abduction right there in the street. Again, a difficult situation because you just saw your son
00:32:29
within the last couple hours. Then you go back and you're retracing his steps, at at least the steps that you know, and
00:32:35
and pretty quickly you find like you said, a sign of a struggle or at least a sign
00:32:43
of something's not right here. Yeah, there's something There's something happened. I mean, you heard the initial
00:32:49
suspicions that the parents had that maybe he went elsewhere, went to the high school basketball game, and they
00:32:55
checked and called friends and called the high school, and you're you're being told no over the phone, but you're still
00:33:02
hopeful, and then you find his hat Right. trampled in the snow, and now that like
00:33:08
confirms that, "Oh, we might be looking for him in the wrong places because he probably didn't go
00:33:15
somewhere willingly." Now, I want to talk about the the police work that was conducted in the search for David Evans.
00:33:23
The Boardman Police Department did a great job. I mean, these cases we say that they're unsolved, and it's all
00:33:31
these years later, but from everything I have seen, Captain, and everybody that I've spoke to, these cases are not
00:33:38
unsolved because of a lack of effort by the Boardman Police Department. No, they brought in
00:33:45
everybody that they could think of in and went to every They They went to every effort to try to locate these
00:33:52
kids, in David Evans' case, for 6 days. We got volunteers, we got law enforcement searching for David on the
00:33:59
ground. They even brought in a helicopter from the National Guard to try to help search and
00:34:06
find David Evans. The retired Boardman Police Chief, Glenn Bowers, was in it and remembers overlooking the snow in
00:34:16
Boardman Park and parts of Mill Creek Park. The Boardman Police really worked this missing case well, as I said. They
00:34:24
did all the right stuff, calling on other agencies. At one point, Captain, they will even seek the help of the FBI.
00:34:32
Now, the FBI kind of denies this request, and I say kind of because while they didn't
00:34:40
put any agents They didn't dedicate any agents to the case. They did say, you know, if you need our crime labs or you
00:34:50
need use of some of the resources that we have that you don't, we are happy to help you. Just, you know, send us your
00:34:56
stuff and we we can test it, we can help analyze anything that you want, but they
00:35:00
never dedicated an agent to the case. And I believe they were from what I've been told and what it
00:35:07
looks like to me, they requested the FBI's help several times. So, that's why I say that
00:35:14
these cases don't remain unsolved due to a lack of effort. And this is not a situation where we have a
00:35:22
police department that's going, "No, we don't worry, we can handle this." Right.
00:35:26
Uh no, they're saying, "Yes, please. Anybody that wants to help, we will accept your help. Let's Let's band
00:35:32
together and find out who who did this." Well, I wish because like you said, this is a community that's
00:35:38
under 40,000 people. So, it's just It's not that these people It's not that law enforcement in these
00:35:45
areas are incompetent. They're just inexperienced with some of these things. And even though
00:35:50
this is there's a trend now going in their community, even more of a reason to reach out for
00:35:57
outside sources and and for to connect with other law enforcement agents that have been through this process multiple
00:36:05
times. And just again, not not better, just more experienced. And that's exactly right. And what we've seen here,
00:36:13
too, I want to go into the kind of the thoroughness of the Boardman Police Department and in their efforts to find
00:36:22
David Evans. So, I've seen documentation that the Boardman Police officers were actively
00:36:29
calling the high school and the hospitals and other people at this after being told by the parents, "We've
00:36:36
already called you know, those locations." And they're saying, "No, that's cool.
00:36:42
We're going to call them as well." They immediately called the state highway troopers, notifying them to be on the
00:36:47
lookout for this missing boy. And they called surrounding jurisdictions and agencies as well to be on the lookout
00:36:54
for this boy. So, if somebody was transporting him somewhere or by chance if he had run away for some reason, that
00:37:01
maybe he would be spotted elsewhere. Now, David Evans' case is different from Brad's
00:37:09
in the sense that Brad's had a lot of unconfirmed sightings that again now we believe to be
00:37:16
inaccurate based off of what the police have said about the investigation about their case. David Evans was was not the
00:37:24
same way. There There was one or two situations where somebody called in and said, "I might have seen the Evans boy."
00:37:30
or "This person might have information on the Evans boy." Now, one thing that the police did and did
00:37:37
very well in this case, too, is they canvassed the area, the neighborhood, because we have a crime scene that is
00:37:42
much smaller to work with than the potential abduction scene of Bradley Bellino, right? We have that
00:37:50
intersection where his father says, "I saw him there, spoke to him there at 6:00 p.m.-ish."
00:37:56
And in that same intersection, near that same intersection, his hat is found. So, police canvassed that neighborhood,
00:38:03
David Evans' own neighborhood, knocking on doors, and they took notes on every address. You know, who lived there, if
00:38:10
they did talk to somebody, if they saw anything, if they heard anything. Most of the people really didn't see anything
00:38:15
or hear anything. There were a few people that said, "I think I might have saw something, but at the time didn't
00:38:20
know if it was anything." The The best possible piece of information was somebody having seen a vehicle
00:38:29
where they thought that they saw a struggle between two people. And the The problem with this this witness statement
00:38:36
is it was actually two witnesses that gave different statements. It was a husband and wife that were returning
00:38:43
home, and they lived near that intersection, and they happened to be returning home roughly about the time
00:38:50
that it would be believed that that David was abducted. He's last seen by his father, talks to
00:38:55
his father. He's only 20-some houses away from his his destination. Yeah. So, we're talking about a very small time
00:39:03
period of in which something bad could have happened. Right. And so, this husband and wife, again, they have
00:39:09
different stories of the same story. And it's not that it's not that either not to be believed,
00:39:17
it's just these are normal people going about their everyday lives, and they're they're witnessing something that is
00:39:24
only important later when you know that a child has gone missing. It's not important at the time, and
00:39:31
there was obviously nothing alarming enough about it for either them to take notice.
00:39:36
From the report I have read, obviously one of this married couple was driving, the other was in the passenger seat. And
00:39:43
they had varying sto- stories, and these stories varied simply because the person
00:39:47
driving said, "Yeah, I thought I saw this, but keep in mind I was paying much more attention to
00:39:52
the road and where I was going. I wasn't looking all around or paying attention to what might be going on with
00:39:59
with uh pedestrians." So, some information, unfortunately, it doesn't help the police too much because
00:40:07
it's it's very vague information, and it's a little unconfirmed when we have two people saying that they saw slightly
00:40:14
different uh things. Now, this, too, like Brad's case, was well reported in the newspapers at the time.
00:40:22
The Vindicator covered this case and interviewed the police and family daily, uh and continued to after
00:40:33
after his body was found. And unfortunately, he's he goes missing, he's reported missing late on the 17th
00:40:40
of January. And one thing we got to keep in mind, too, not only is this kid diabetic, so you're
00:40:46
scared of that. We talked about there being snow on the ground. It's it's freaking cold out there, right? As
00:40:52
a parent, you're like, "My god, my kid's out there missing, and it's freezing." So, he's found his body is found January
00:40:59
23rd, 1975. Basically, David is missing for 6 days before he's found. Yes, last sighting at 6:00 in Oddly
00:41:10
enough, he's found in the evening hours of the 23rd. And what's really weird about that, too, being found on the
00:41:17
23rd, and we'll get into that information, but you know, we talked about the FBI trying
00:41:24
to get the FBI involved. There was a call. So, at 1:10 p.m. on the 23rd, this is
00:41:31
the same day that his body would later be found. A man called the the police department
00:41:38
and spoke to the dispatcher. And it was a very short call. All the man said was, "Do you want the Evans
00:41:45
boy? Don't hunt." Now, this is 1975, so my guess here, Captain, is that that this may not have
00:41:55
been recorded, and this is just the dispatcher taking a note and then typing up a report immediately afterwards. But
00:42:02
according to the dispatcher, the caller was a male caller, and the caller said, "Do you want the
00:42:09
Evans boy? They don't hunt." And then the caller hung up the phone. I'm only bringing that up because I'm hoping
00:42:15
somebody can tell me what to make of it. I don't know I don't know how to take that. The best
00:42:20
way that I can take that is that I know in other cases that we've covered that there have been phone calls received or
00:42:28
letters sent that later were confirmed to be just a complete hoax that had nothing to do
00:42:34
with the actual case when the case is solved. But this to me, almost like I thought when I first found this
00:42:40
information, oh, maybe we're getting some kind of ransom request. But it's such a short conversation, and
00:42:46
then again, the odd thing is the boy's body is found just hours later. Yeah, when you get that call initially,
00:42:53
like you said, "Don't hunt." What's that mean? Does that mean don't go looking for the child in in in rural areas? Does
00:43:01
it mean that he's going to be in the city somewhere, or is this a set up call to set up some kind of negotiation for
00:43:08
ransom? But then, like you said, David's found a few hours after this phone call.
00:43:12
The other thing that's an interesting thought on this phone call, too, here, Captain, is that
00:43:19
the Evans family, and this was not made clear while he was still missing. I believe
00:43:26
this information only came out in the papers after his body was recovered, but his family had said
00:43:34
that they were receiving strange phone calls before he even went missing, that they
00:43:40
were getting uh hang-up calls, which again could have everything to do with the case or could mean absolutely
00:43:46
nothing at all. It's just it's too difficult to decipher. What's tough, too, when you have kids of this age,
00:43:52
this is the perfect age where kids are playing around on the phone. Or when you called your buddy,
00:43:58
I I I had I had several friends that I would call, and if their their dad answered the phone, I'm
00:44:04
hanging up cuz he was mean and scary. You know, if the mom Right. If the mom answered the phone, it
00:44:10
was like, "Hey, is Tommy there?" You know, anytime when you hear phone calls, you know, or or suspicious
00:44:17
phone calls, it makes a juicier story, but that doesn't mean it has anything to do with these
00:44:23
kids going missing. Right. And it was the '70s, and you know, I'm I'm not proud of this, but uh you know, me and
00:44:30
my buddies used to hear people make prank phone calls on the radio, and we thought it was hilarious, and we would
00:44:36
try to do our own, which were not very funny at all, to be honest. But mine were great.
00:44:41
Yours were fantastic. We should have recorded those. Um It was illegal, too. Right, right.
00:44:47
His His body, unfortunately, was found roughly at 5:00 p.m. on January 23rd, 1975. So, the body is spotted by Hugh
00:44:57
McCall. He's a realtor, and he is his company is at 12 Boardman-Poland Road. This is
00:45:06
not terribly far away from where Bellino's body was recovered. Again, this is more in the businessy area of
00:45:15
Boardman, where both bodies are recovered. Now, mind you, yes, it's almost 3 years later. But so, the way
00:45:24
that this works, Captain, is Mr. McCall, he's at work all day at this location, at his, you know, realty firm.
00:45:34
And him and his wife are getting ready to leave. His wife works for him or works with him there.
00:45:41
And they're getting ready to leave, and while they're leaving, he's spots something
00:45:49
in the bushes, or as he puts it, in the bushes. And when he goes over to look and investigate to see what it is,
00:45:57
unfortunately, it turns out to be David Evans. Which makes you wonder if if the call saying "Don't hunt" means
00:46:06
the kid is going to be found within the city. That's what I was trying to think about there, that that maybe there
00:46:14
is some that there's something going on with that call because he was found so close
00:46:20
to to the time the same time frame. But So, McCall calls the police right away, and he says, "I think I found the boy
00:46:29
that you are looking for." So, obviously, he knows what he's seeing. He knows he we have a body here, and
00:46:37
he's phoning it in to police. And the dispatcher hands the phone to the detective because this is what everybody
00:46:45
at the police department has been working on for 6 straight days, right? So, this is, as you pointed out, threat
00:46:53
level midnight, right? Everything's extremely important here, and now this is this is the biggest call.
00:46:58
Well, and more so in this case because, like we said, there was there was another case before this that
00:47:04
Yes. So, the cops Look, the the Thomas case, the Bradley case, and the David case are probably the three
00:47:13
biggest cases in that, you know, time period that have ever happened to this small
00:47:20
law enforcement department. Yeah, and you have a lot of these guys, a lot of the officers and and the
00:47:27
you know, the men and women of the Boardman Police Department have all worked Now, now they're sitting
00:47:34
there going, "I'm [ __ ] And in the course of 5 years, I'm working my my third child homicide case?" I mean, so these
00:47:43
guys and and the women of Boardman Police Department, they don't forget this stuff. And so, they they know the
00:47:49
severity of it. I could only imagine the stress that it put on on these good people who are trying to do everything
00:47:56
that they can to return these children alive, first of all, and then, if if need be,
00:48:04
bring some justice for the victim and the victim's family. So, the dispatcher hands the phone to the
00:48:13
detective. It's Detective Balog who's working this case. He There's two or three that worked this case
00:48:21
really really hard here over the course of a couple of years, the the early parts of the investigation, and then
00:48:28
obviously uh would have been replaced at some point. But the detective gets on the phone and says, "Would you repeat
00:48:34
what you just said?" And Mr. McCall repeated, "I think I found the missing boy that you were looking for."
00:48:42
And Mr. McCall goes on to say he is behind the Famous Recipe Fried Chicken restaurant on Route 224. So, Mr. McCall
00:48:50
was asked to give his location and his telephone number, which he does. He gives his business location.
00:48:55
He was told to wait there for the police, wait behind the Famous Recipe Fried Chicken building. Now, his wife,
00:49:03
while he's you know, this is 1975, so he's he has to run into his business to make this
00:49:10
phone call to police. His wife thought, "You know what? Well, somebody should watch over the scene
00:49:18
until either my husband returns to watch over it or the police arrive on the scene."
00:49:23
Very smart and good by her. She says that she went over and stood there and and tried to watch over the scene, but
00:49:30
at some point, she she couldn't do it. It it at some point, it it broke her down, and she had to to leave. So,
00:49:38
she's still there, but but not directly at the scene and the police are there very, very quickly. They basically find
00:49:46
David Evans frozen there at the scene. Remember we talked about it being cold. He's been gone for 6 days.
00:49:57
And everything that I've reviewed, Captain, it it seems very difficult and I've not seen anybody report when they
00:50:04
think he was place there. I do know that Mr. McCall and his wife both said the same thing that obviously
00:50:12
we didn't notice him there until till we called it in. Or we would have went over
00:50:18
and checked before and called it in. And these two are going in and out of work each day. So, there's a lot of reason to
00:50:25
believe that Well, hold on because they're real estate agents, right? Yeah. They're going in and out of their
00:50:30
building probably more than most people because they're part of their job is to leave their office and to show people
00:50:37
houses. Unless they're bad at their job. All right. They're not staying busy. But again,
00:50:44
smart dumping spot because the person wouldn't be constantly within their office.
00:50:51
And if you knew the vehicles that were spo- if you knew the vehicles that were connected to that building and you knew
00:50:59
that the vehicles were gone then you would know when there was a good opportunity to leave a victim behind.
00:51:05
And one thing I do not like and I'm I'm not happy to report this to the garage listeners because
00:51:12
I do not have a good understanding on how this on where he was found. So, I don't have
00:51:20
a good understanding on what kind of landscaping we have here because in some reports it's stated as he's found
00:51:27
near an embankment or having been thrown over some type of embankment and then other reports say
00:51:35
just like the one we reported where he's found behind some bush bushes. Now, could the bushes and the embankment all
00:51:41
be the same location? Yes. Right. I don't have a picture of it from 1975 to tell you what it exactly it looks like.
00:51:48
All I can do is go off of words from people that are not here to tell me what it looked like. What else do we know
00:51:55
about David when he was found? You said he was frozen. Yes, he was frozen. So, the way that this has been
00:52:01
reported is that what the McCall's say that they saw when they were getting into their car was that they saw a knee
00:52:07
sticking up in the snow in the bushes. That's why they go over to investigate. It's not just that they saw some random
00:52:14
thing. They saw what looked to be a person or a part of a person. So, they see this
00:52:21
knee sticking up in the snow in the bushes. The newspaper reported that David's body
00:52:27
he was found when he was found he was on his back with one knee bent and one leg
00:52:31
straight. His hands were on his chest. His clothing was pulled up to about the neck area.
00:52:39
Uh but they believe police believe that this is because he was dragged. So, that
00:52:44
somebody pulled up and when they were disposing of the body, they got him out of their vehicle and then
00:52:52
then had to drag him along the way. So, I guess if you're being dragged by your feet, it would
00:52:57
naturally push your your shirt up as you're being dragged along the ground. Right. The coroner told the newspaper
00:53:05
that an X-ray showed that David's left wrist had been broken. And that there was and I I want to
00:53:14
clarify on this. His words to the newspaper is that there was a half inch in diameter
00:53:22
by half inch deep perfectly round puncture wound that was found on David Evans's back. This would
00:53:30
be roughly about 3 inches above the belt line and it's not directly in the center
00:53:36
of the back. The way that it looks to me, Captain, that this is would be a little bit to the right.
00:53:42
And they don't seem to understand what could have caused that hole and I I do want to report here that this report
00:53:51
is probably the most accurate because this is the coroner saying it's a half inch in diameter and a half inch deep,
00:53:58
but I've also seen this reported as big as 1 inch in diameter and 1 inch deep and as small as a quarter inch in
00:54:05
diameter and a quarter inch deep. So, a little inconclusive on the exact size of
00:54:11
that, but the interesting thing here is we're told per the coroner that the wrist he could
00:54:19
confirm that the wrist was broken after the boy's death. They didn't know exactly what caused
00:54:26
this puncture wound or this hole, but what they could say is that it didn't come from a knife
00:54:32
and it didn't come from a bullet. I guess the other thing that we should clear up here, too, is they go on to say
00:54:37
that it did not it was not consistent with an insulin injection as well. So, unfortunately,
00:54:47
we know that David Evans is diabetic. The cause of death was determined to be a diabetic coma.
00:54:55
Right. This is going to cause a lot of problems for the investigation in in my opinion and from what I've seen that has
00:55:03
taken place over the years. So, because he dies of you know, I guess natural causes, this
00:55:11
diabetic coma, there in there becomes a debate if this is a homicide or not. Well, like you said, we have three
00:55:21
three young boys that go missing that are found. All three looks like some version of homicide.
00:55:32
Like you said, you could debate this about David's. Where to me it leans more so that this
00:55:39
is a homicide is because we almost have a secondary crime scene with some kind of struggle
00:55:47
and he he's obviously he'd taken away from where he was heading to or he he him not ending up at his house
00:55:59
to me means that this is a crime. And you are spot on, my friend. And I'll tell you what, and that's why I'm giving
00:56:06
mad kudos and props to the Boardman Police Department because shh again, we've seen this situation
00:56:13
where a coroner an autopsy is conducted and we have someone who rules it an OD or uh
00:56:22
or an accidental death or in this case uh diabetic coma and then the police department in that area just
00:56:31
doesn't do anything with it because No. And was there any sign of sexual assault?
00:56:36
there is no sign of sexual assault which or no obvious signs of sexual assault according to the coroner. And that I
00:56:42
think further complicates the case. Now, kudos to the Boardman Police Department
00:56:46
because they go, "Okay, well, this is this is a suspicious death." You know, and that's how we're going to
00:56:52
treat this going forward. We can't we don't have the coroner backing us up saying that this was a homicide,
00:56:59
but we can say given the evidence that we have that we believe it to be a suspicious death and they they treated
00:57:06
it as such. So, they didn't just close up shop once he was found. They continued to investigate this for years
00:57:12
and did a lot of really good boots-on-the-ground work. And you even have the the the police officers and
00:57:20
detectives who have come out and they said, "No, look, this is why it was a homicide,
00:57:25
right? And we believe that this was an abduction because as you pointed out, the kid said he was going home. He was
00:57:31
very close to his home when he said he was going home. His hat is found in the snow. His hat is found in the snow
00:57:38
trampled. So, obvious signs of a struggle. Probably somebody grabbed him off the streets, put him in their
00:57:43
vehicle. And then here's the other thing. He's not just going to die of a diabetic
00:57:48
coma as soon as he's, you know, at 6:01 p.m. right after his dad finds him or talks to him.
00:57:56
No, he didn't need that insulin shot until 7:30 a.m. the next morning. So, he's not going to start to get into
00:58:02
trouble with that until the next morning. So, again, somebody kept this kid. Kept
00:58:09
him where? I don't know. But the other thing they were able to determine was the
00:58:15
the contents of his stomach. The contents found in his stomach did not match up with what was known to be his
00:58:21
last meal. So, signs of a struggle in the street. He obviously was somewhere for a long
00:58:28
period of time before his diabetes took over. And he ate a meal and it's it's reported
00:58:35
to be a a considerably large meal. So, he was fed something or ate somewhere. And the police have gone on to say,
00:58:44
"Look, the the broken wrist, this took place after he died." He didn't just sneak off in the middle of the night,
00:58:52
hang out somewhere all night long even though he knew that he needed an insulin shot, eat a meal somewhere, and then
00:58:58
decide to curl up in the snow behind these bushes and die and then break his own wrist
00:59:04
afterwards. You know, so that they're they're pointing out that there's obvious signs
00:59:09
to seasoned detectives and seasoned police officers that are saying, "We have signs that are pointing to not only
00:59:17
an abduction, but then somebody having dumped the body after the boy died." With you.
00:59:27
With you. And Captain, this is such a large case spanning the course of 5 years, three different
00:59:48
homicides. Next week, we're going to revisit these cases. We got much more to discuss in
00:59:53
all three cases, as well as are they connected? And if so, who are some of the suspects that could have been
01:00:01
involved in these murders? Thank you so much for joining us. Make sure you subscribe to the podcast.
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