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store today better sleep starts here [Music] [Music] foreign garage wherever you are whatever you are
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doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man who
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is taking reps with the first team in practice here is the captain we're just trying to take everything one step at a
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time one practice at a time and it's good to be seen and good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling
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of the beers Dance all right everybody gather round grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime
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[Music] the great state of Ohio has 88 counties for this week's True Crime Story we head
00:03:27
to Mahoning County and so one of 14 townships in Mahoning Boardman Ohio Boardman is a suburb directly south of
00:03:36
Youngstown in the early 70s life in Boardman was changing changing how its thirty thousand or so citizens felt
00:03:44
about their town Boardman was a safe town and a great place to raise a family but was that still true who could be
00:03:51
sure and with the story we are presenting this week you'll see why parents started
00:03:57
implementing stronger curfews demanding to know their children's whereabouts and
00:04:02
telling them to not walk alone and even in a group always to be looking over your shoulder
00:04:09
50 years ago this week a 12 year old Boardman boy Bradley bellino was abducted in murder his case remains
00:04:18
open and not for a lack of effort the Boardman Police Department did everything in their power over the
00:04:25
course of five decades to find Justice for Brad in the bellino family they have tried everything every
00:04:33
resource even calling on other law enforcement agencies for help and yet the person or persons
00:04:40
responsible remain a mystery the following is from the Akron Beacon Journal the headline
00:04:47
nothing was normal the weekend of slang and the article reads normally when he left his best friend's house after an
00:04:55
afternoon of playing basketball Bradley bellino went directly home normally Don templeman's parents drove Bradley the
00:05:02
several miles to his home normally Bradley 12 would be talking to Don on the phone the next day setting up
00:05:11
another Rendezvous for basketball talking or walking but Easter weekend wasn't normal
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sometime after he left the templeman house at 7 30 PM Friday Bradley was sexually molested strangled
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to death and stuffed into a trash bin where his body was discovered that Tuesday morning
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his body still bore the red white and blue jeans and the T-shirt what the devil made me do it emblazoned across it
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that he was wearing when he left the templements quote if Brad left here after dark we would drive him home said
00:05:49
Mrs templeman but Friday I was shopping and my husband was sick so Brad left on his own
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Don didn't hear from him again Bradley's parents Mr and Mrs Joseph bellino didn't report their son missing
00:06:03
until Saturday afternoon apparently due to a misunderstanding about whether he would stay overnight Friday with the
00:06:11
templements the coroner investigator stated quote we hope to be able to pinpoint the time of death more
00:06:18
accurately when our lab tests are complete the headline was right nothing was normal that weekend not for
00:06:25
anyone in Boardman and it would be a long time before things would start to feel normal again
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because unfortunately this was not the first of its kind for Boardman and sadly it would not be the last
00:06:40
Bradley's murder was sandwiched right between the murders of two other boys from Boardman
00:06:46
that's right three murders three kids all in the span of less than five years as one writer from Boardman put it there
00:06:56
was a dread a pail that hung over the community for some time that period of time for the community was one of
00:07:03
distress and horror evoking the words of Buffalo Springfield he wrote There's Something Happening Here what it is
00:07:11
ain't exactly clear this is true crime garage and this is the true crime story of the still
00:07:20
unsolved Boardman Ohio murders [Music] with you [Music] with you that was one of the trailers that we had
00:07:45
for our four-part series titled the Boardman murders that we released last year starting with Part One released in
00:07:53
the last days of March 2022. that series episodes 567 to episode number 570 on your true
00:08:03
crime garage radio dial if you want to go back and listen to those now if you have not been paying attention to the
00:08:11
Boardman murders case out of Boardman Ohio located in Northeast Ohio there have been significant updates in this
00:08:18
case we are talking Long Island serial killer sized updates in the Boardman cases when we featured the True Crime
00:08:27
Story We honed in on three unsolved homicides in Boardman Ohio from the early 1970s the three we focused in on
00:08:37
were the murders of Thomas Baird he was 15 years old who was attacked when walking home on the evening of December
00:08:46
4th 1970. he was found either slumped over or lying on the ground with severe head injuries he would later die from
00:08:56
those injuries the next unsolved homicide that we covered was that of 12 year old Brad
00:09:02
bellino Brad was last seen walking home from his friend's home on the night of March 31st 1972. Brad Bellino's lifeless
00:09:12
body was discovered found in a dumpster five days later on the morning of April 4th 1972.
00:09:20
we discussed the Youngstown Vindicator newspaper article the infamous article that everyone in Boardman thinks of when
00:09:28
they hear the name Brad bellino and how could anyone forget the headline read refuse man makes Grim Discovery and
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right there on the front page of the newspaper for everyone to see including kids that happened to look at their
00:09:43
parents reading the paper or the newspaper sitting on the kitchen table a large black and white photo positioned
00:09:51
above the fold on the front page the picture showing two Boardman police officers both obviously quite cold
00:09:58
standing outside standing next to a small dumpster now that boy's body is in that dumpster
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the killer had placed him there the dumpster was partially filled and Brad's body was covered over with cardboard
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boxes and waste eventually Brad's case just like Thomas Baird's case went cold the third case that we featured in the
00:10:22
four-part series was that of David Evans he was another Boardman boy age 13. David went missing on Friday January 17
00:10:33
1975. David like Brad was a little smaller for his age but David was a mighty little man now oddly enough and
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this is just one of those haunting parts of a story that just sticks with you little David was actually last seen by
00:10:49
his own father so David was seen at approximately 6 PM by his father in the neighborhood where the Evans family
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lived father sees son and talks to son David at the intersection of stilson place and Withers drive this is just
00:11:05
about two dozen houses away from the Evans home David told his dad that he had checked
00:11:12
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
00:11:18
way home David never made it home isn't David diabetic David is diabetic and required
00:11:24
an insulin shot every 12 or so hours with the paper stating that he would been due for his next insulin shot the
00:11:32
next morning at 7 30 a.m before breakfast at 11 30 pm on the night he was last seen David's
00:11:40
red knit hat was found at stilson place in Withers Drive intersection so this is
00:11:46
very near where his father last saw the boy snow was trampled and about a three foot
00:11:54
circle around this hat this winter hat and let's remember David was shy and reserved especially with strangers and
00:12:03
his parents didn't think he would willingly go off with a stranger so he is not the type to Hitch rides we
00:12:10
talked about in our original coverage that Brad bellino was quite the opposite very outgoing very adventurous and was
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known to hitchhike for six days Volunteers in law enforcement searched for David Evans on the ground and even
00:12:23
in the air with a helicopter from the National Guard sadly the search ended in a bad way on
00:12:30
Thursday January 23rd David's frozen body was found in the bushes of a parking lot at the northeast corner of
00:12:38
Market Street and Boardman Poland Road routes 7 and 224 respectively the location is approximately about
00:12:48
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
00:12:57
the homicides took place in Boardman was could these three homicides be related all connected to one another or
00:13:06
committed by the same perp or perpetrators well with one murder it shocks the community when you have
00:13:12
another body found it starts shocking that whole region and so then law enforcement and
00:13:20
armchair detectives are going to start looking into the similarities of these crimes and the differences of these
00:13:27
crimes to see if they're connected and these cases really became especially that of Brad bellino really came
00:13:35
became almost something of urban legend there in Northeast Ohio and it makes sense I mean these this is how horror
00:13:43
movies start off a child on the streets disappears and then days later is found dead now there
00:13:51
were similarities in these cases but there were also some differences as well and the similarities would be that you
00:13:57
have three youngsters all males walking home and the evening or night time and then they are found two of them
00:14:08
found dead one of them found severely attacked so Thomas Baird lost Consciousness he was found unconscious
00:14:16
beaten about the head and when they recovered him they took him to the hospital the story of his attack seems to be
00:14:26
quite different than the what could have happened to David Evans and what could have happened to Brad bellino with Evans
00:14:33
and bellino there weren't any real theories at the time here you have a missing kid goes missing for several
00:14:42
days and then is found placed almost somewhat concealed in both situations where where with Thomas Baird
00:14:51
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
00:15:00
been jumped by some older boys or boys his age and again the similarities here would be the ages
00:15:07
Brad bellino David Evans 13 and 12 years old Thomas Baird 15 years old and one thing that's that's very strange about
00:15:16
this case here Captain is child victims but they're different there is a significant difference in the
00:15:22
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
00:15:34
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
00:15:44
David Evans were quite small for their age these boys they could have Bolino could have passed for eight
00:15:53
Evans could have passed for 10. and Thomas Baird very much 15 years old going on 16 so somewhat of a different
00:16:02
victimology there but you can't get over the fact that all three of these boys are walking home at night by themselves
00:16:09
and it's very rare for a community of this size to experience the homicide of three children
00:16:19
three male boys within the course of less than a five year span well like you said you have two of the victims that
00:16:27
were concealed and then one that was not that raises the question is that a difference in these cases or did
00:16:37
the perpetrator just not get a chance to conceal the other body exactly and here's the thing too Captain what we
00:16:45
have here is what our findings were when we looked into this case and this was one of those cases where we had the
00:16:52
opportunity the rare opportunity to spend more than 10 days or two weeks on the case we did
00:16:59
this in a four-part series span over two weeks so that allowed us to one dive into this case
00:17:07
and be very thorough with it well in advance leading up to that two weeks but also gave us an additional
00:17:14
seven to ten days to review everything that we had so we were really able to focus in on this case the other thing
00:17:22
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
00:17:29
became Larger than Life they became folklore so when you normally have cases like that
00:17:37
let's take them missing person case like Mara Murray or you take the Amy mihalovic case a lot of
00:17:45
information starts coming out about the victims their families and possible suspects well when you have multiple
00:17:52
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
00:18:00
a are they connected or and B why 50 years why do we have a child homicide that that goes unsolved goes
00:18:10
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
00:18:19
and so that is something that really needs to be explored now what are some of our findings were
00:18:27
was there there's some weird portions to this story first Thomas Baird homicide they said
00:18:35
that from from day one now mind you he did live for several days in the hospital before passing away
00:18:43
Brad bellino very obvious homicide the poor boy was found with a belt wrapped around his neck discarded in a
00:18:54
dumpster and very obvious signs of homicide and the injuries and so on and so forth
00:19:01
clear now with the David Evans portion not so clear his diabetes and the required
00:19:09
insulin shots made this a rather tricky case and this was for the experts not just us here sitting in the garage
00:19:19
the coroner had decided that he died of natural causes basically he dies due to his diabetes and not getting the
00:19:28
necessary insulin shots right and the police department Boardman PD God bless him look
00:19:36
Nobody's Perfect people make mistakes we're fallible we're human beings I get it coroner see
00:19:43
something makes a scientific assessment and comes up with the conclusion that oh
00:19:50
he died due to the diabetes Boardman police department they go back to the corner and say not so fast
00:19:58
we see a lot of reasons why we think this is a homicide we we want you to change your ruling from
00:20:08
natural causes to homicide why because that gives them that provides them different resources to
00:20:18
investigate this as a homicide now ultimately they do not get that reversal on that decision
00:20:26
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
00:20:36
David Evans is last seen by his father we talked about this when we covered it when you find that winter cap
00:20:45
on the ground in the middle of the intersection snow around it trampled over and you have a boy that the parents and
00:20:53
the teachers and everybody are saying no no no this kid would not have just got into a vehicle with somebody
00:20:59
you find that cap in the streets because somebody snatched that kid off of the street
00:21:06
so you have signs of an abduction you have him missing for days before his body's found
00:21:13
and then on top of that he has some significant injuries to him there was some kind of
00:21:19
hole or puncture Mark in in the small of his back there was also he had a broken wrist
00:21:28
now what they were able to determine is that the broken bones occurred after he was dead
00:21:36
and so what the police are are saying is look this kid didn't die of these natural
00:21:42
causes and then break his own arm trying to hide his own body this body was concealed he didn't crawl
00:21:49
into the bushes to try to stay warm he was 20 houses from his house walking home he
00:21:57
would have just went home and this is not a kid that ran the streets so the police are saying we have reason
00:22:04
to believe that this is a homicide and God bless them they kept it marked as that labeled entitled as that
00:22:11
for their efforts going forward regardless of what the coroner said now we agreed with law enforcement here
00:22:19
and went against the coroner and said yeah we see every reason why this is a homicide now had the person that taken
00:22:26
this boy not intended to kill him one could make that argument we don't want to make that argument but we could
00:22:35
we could see how one could make that argument but at the end of the day when you abduct somebody hold them captive
00:22:43
and then deny them the necessary medicine that they require to live that's a homicide
00:22:52
and that's what Boardman PD was saying [Music] this show is sponsored by betterhelp
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00:26:12
the windows to the walls cheers to you Colonel cheers to you Captain you know what time of year it is it's NFL
00:26:19
preseason which means Fantasy Football Draft season 2 shout out and and cheers to everybody out
00:26:25
there that's organizing their drafts and you can you can smell it you can smell the beers and the hot dogs
00:26:33
just wafting in the wind stinks there were significant updates in this case as we said now typically for long
00:26:43
time listeners you know that we would put these updates on our other show off the Record now the reason that we did
00:26:51
not include these updates on off the Record quite simply was when the update in the Brad bellino case occurred
00:27:00
we were on Hiatus that was when we were on a bit of a break we were transitioning from the stitcher Premium
00:27:06
app to the Apple podcast subscription show that we have now so for those of you listening on an Apple device if you
00:27:16
haven't already go check out our other show off the Record I'm telling you you're gonna love it
00:27:22
you can check it out for free there is a free trial period that you can do if you
00:27:26
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
00:27:34
case that the David Evans case was connected that's right but we we highlighted it
00:27:42
circled it in red and underlined it about 10 times because we reviewed the information and we couldn't
00:27:48
everything leaned toward they should be connected that they were very likely connected now we get this huge update
00:27:57
we're talking about the Bolino case we covered and our four-part series came out roughly on the 50 year anniversary
00:28:07
the 50-year marker of Brad Bellino's case being cold and we called it cold because that's that's just the common
00:28:14
terminology to use but really truly and we had not confirmation of this but some
00:28:21
suspicions of this that this case bolino's case was being worked pretty good pretty regularly
00:28:29
behind the scenes in a kind of a quiet closed door manner the Boardman PD never really gave up on the Brad bellino case
00:28:39
so this update comes out January of this year late January when WKBN first news 27
00:28:50
reported the update in the Boardman murders cases and they State here Boardman Township
00:28:57
Police announced Tuesday they believe they know who is responsible for the 1972 murder of a 12 year old boy in a
00:29:06
press conference Chief Todd worth said they believe Joseph Norman Hill a former Township resident who died in 2019 in
00:29:17
the state of California is responsible for the April 1972 strangulation death of 12-year-old Brad Lee Bolino
00:29:27
worth credited former Chief Jeffrey Patterson who reopened the case in 2001 and sent clothing of Brads to the state
00:29:36
Bureau of Criminal Identification and investigation that had DNA on them that did not belong to the boy
00:29:44
after a series of tests that took years through several private firms and Ohio BCI investigators were able to link
00:29:53
Joseph Hill to the crime worth said BCI says there is 98.2 percent probability that Joseph
00:30:01
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
00:30:12
it's not a more significant match okay 98.2 percent very close to being 100 percent right
00:30:19
close enough for me keep in mind Joseph Hill had already passed away by the time
00:30:27
the DNA had led them to his family tree right and Joseph Hill lived in California in 2019 when he died and he
00:30:36
was cremated so they were not able to exhume Joseph Hill and collect his DNA what they were able to do
00:30:44
is trace this DNA through family trees which led them to Joseph Hill being a 98.2 percent
00:30:53
probability that the DNA found on our murder victim belonged to Joseph Hill so how significant is this to this case
00:31:02
well it's extremely significant because ultimately they're going to close the case based off of this now the as to the
00:31:10
significance of the probability 98.2 percent I don't have any quotes from the scientists to to tell us how many you
00:31:20
know out of how many millions or billions or trillions of people that means that we can Whittle it down to
00:31:25
Joseph Norman Hill but what we do have is the law enforcement experts so we have a quote from the police chief
00:31:33
that says we believe there is sufficient evidence that if he were still alive we
00:31:38
would present this case to a grand jury and then we also have the Mahoning County prosecutor
00:31:46
who said that her office reviewed the file and also believes that the case would be taken to a grand jury
00:31:53
and the prosecutor praised the work of the investigators saying that they never abandoned the case and stuck with it
00:31:59
over the years as DNA technology advanced and she's exactly right and and I believe the the chief is right too you
00:32:08
here you have the police chief and the prosecutor saying if this dude were still alive we'd take
00:32:14
this DNA evidence along with everything we have in the file and we would take it
00:32:18
to a grand jury let the grand jury decide if we are charging this guy with murder and taking his ass to court
00:32:27
she goes on to commend the police and their work that they did saying over 50 years
00:32:34
had gone and they did not let it go they didn't stop one of the reasons worth said that he
00:32:41
went public was because police want to know if any other people in the township ever had
00:32:48
any contact with Joseph Hill he said law enforcement in California were also looking into other cases to
00:32:55
see if there is any link to homicides that they have after Joseph Hill moved from Ohio to California yeah that's
00:33:05
interesting and then we have another officer his last name is kakasik he said at this presser that Joseph
00:33:13
Hill's name never came up in the investigation and in fact he was never he wasn't just never considered a
00:33:20
suspect his name did not appear in their case File and so they're announcing to the public
00:33:27
back in January not only are we finally able to close the Brad bellino case but on top of that we are asking anyone
00:33:37
who may have information about Joseph Hill please call our detectives the Boardman
00:33:43
detectives at 330-726-4144 and we've seen law enforcement do this quite a bit in other
00:33:52
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
00:33:59
Tuesday April 4th 1972 in a trash container behind iceley's on Boardman Canfield Road a tan
00:34:07
belt was wrapped around his neck and his clothing was in disarray investigators said he was sexually assaulted before he
00:34:14
was killed this is really this little part of the case has always intrigued me yeah me too when we
00:34:22
covered it Captain we spent a good deal of time 20 or 30 minutes or so of of that garage episode pouring through the
00:34:31
inconsistencies and the story about Brad bellino being missing and also the inconsistencies involving the evidence
00:34:38
surrounding this homicide one of those inconsistencies that we discussed was this belt so
00:34:45
they find him with this tan belt wrapped around his neck it was the belt that was
00:34:50
used to kill the boy and it was reported that this was a child-sized belt and we
00:34:57
where we had the the discrepancy was with the items that was found with the boy and there were two versions of that
00:35:06
story one version is that he was found without a belt so leading to the possibility that the the murder weapon
00:35:14
actually belonged to the boy that it was taken off of his person and then used to
00:35:19
kill him the other version of that story was Brad bellina was found with a belt on
00:35:25
and also this belt was found on him wrapped around his neck right meaning that it wasn't his belt correct and so
00:35:32
they did a lot of investigating on this belt which late which leads me to believe that probably the latter is true
00:35:40
that he was probably found wearing a belt or at the very least police take the belt to bolino's family and parents
00:35:49
and say was this the belt that your son was wearing and they say either he didn't
00:35:53
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
00:36:04
if Brad if this was not his belt then you have to wonder did this killer was he driving around looking for a
00:36:13
victim with his preferred murder weapon that he came prepared to do what he did to that kid
00:36:21
and we know that they spent a significant time investigating the belt because there were there was a there's a
00:36:28
mall in the area back then and they went to that mall looking and trying to find
00:36:36
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
00:36:42
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
00:36:48
kids without them being in the store with you did anybody did did somebody write a check for a belt something that
00:36:54
we can trace back to the purchaser and ask that person questions so they investigated the belt it's still
00:37:03
kind of an outstanding part of this case there they've not really clued Us in on exactly what is the truth here but
00:37:15
most of the indicators are that it was not Brad Bellino's belt they go on to say in the article the Mahoning County
00:37:22
coroner at the time Dr David balenke said in news reports the boy's death was quote the act of a degenerate end quote
00:37:32
Boardman police said they had some leads immediately after Brad Bellino's body was found but they also stated what they
00:37:40
termed quote phony information you know we talked about the inconsistencies and the stories and this
00:37:46
is what they're addressing here at the presser which they said was hampering their investigation there was some
00:37:53
thought remember we discussed this well captain there was some thought that Brad's death
00:37:59
could be connected to the 1970 beating death of 15 year old Thomas Baird of Afton Avenue who was found December
00:38:06
3rd 1970 on Lake Park Road badly beaten he died of his injuries 10 days later worth said police will re-examine The
00:38:16
Baird case as well as the case of David Evans 13 whose body was found in a parking lot
00:38:23
near us 224 and Market Street in January 1975 a few days after he was reported missing
00:38:32
worth said in autopsy showed that David Evans died of natural causes and Baird's
00:38:38
death was also different than Brad's but police will check the cases again to make sure there is no connection with
00:38:46
Joseph Norman Hill two days after Brad was found Township police chief David Hartsock
00:38:53
told reporters detectives had quote two good leads to pursue the belt used to strangle Brad was also sent to the state
00:39:02
Bureau of criminal investigation for analysis a neighbor told a newspaper reporter
00:39:08
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
00:39:17
and investigators estimated that he had been dead for about 48 to 72 hours before he was found police said Brad was
00:39:27
last seen April 1st hitchhiking but the mother of the boy Brad was visiting said
00:39:33
that that had to be a mistake she told a reporter Brad had been at her Applewood
00:39:39
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
00:39:49
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
00:39:56
had to examine as well because there were several people not just this one person that said hey
00:40:04
the following day after this kid was already missing I saw him trying to hitch a ride there were a couple reports
00:40:09
that had said that they had seen him playing basketball or out riding his bike and so there was a lot of
00:40:16
speculation and controversy a little bit going on at the time there in Boardman of people not agreeing on exactly when
00:40:24
Brad was was killed well one I think because you have a younger victim it's a shock to the
00:40:34
community and then the manner in which he is found is a double shock so law enforcement has to do like a double
00:40:45
due diligence because of the like you said this becomes like folklore instantly well and the article gives us
00:40:54
further insight into that of the Killer and continuing on the police chief said that Joseph Hill was a truck driver who
00:41:04
drove for a local water Bottling Company he was 32 years old when Brad was killed
00:41:11
and then moved to California in 1978. so keep in mind Brad was killed in 1972 Joseph Hill the killer moves from
00:41:21
Boardman Ohio to California in 1978. roughly six years later right Joseph Hill again he died in July of 2019 in a
00:41:31
nursing home in California and as we already said his body was cremated the police chief worth and Captain alcat
00:41:39
the police chief worth and Captain Al kakasik chief of detectives both said at the presser investigators were able to
00:41:47
get DNA samples from hills family members some voluntarily and some through quote other means
00:41:56
they go on to state that there was never a link between Hill or bellino that investigators could find
00:42:03
Brad was found about a mile away from where he was last seen said the autopsy of Brad found that he
00:42:10
had an undigested meal in his system which means he died quickly so those rumors and those statements of
00:42:20
people saying hey I saw this kid after you're saying he was last seen and prior to you finding him
00:42:27
deceased in the dumpster those were either just flat out false or as we suspected when we went through
00:42:36
the information that it was probably people that were really trying to help and if you see a kid I mean this is a
00:42:44
neighborhood this is a town a city that is filled with kids and boys Brad Bellino's age
00:42:52
these are people that probably just really wanted help and there's that other human side too
00:42:59
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
00:43:06
missing we need the Public's help there's that that natural human side of us that want to go well you know what
00:43:14
that kid he's probably out running the streets we don't want to think that evil snatched up this kid and did something
00:43:21
horrible well the chief is going to give us some insight because based on the autopsy they believe that he died within
00:43:28
two to four hours from leaving his home yeah two to four hours from leaving his friends home and then on top of that
00:43:34
they were able to use some of the items that were found in the dumpster to really narrow that down as well so we
00:43:42
had the mother saying that Brad Bolino left the friend's home at approximately 7 30
00:43:50
right and what we will have from police and this is stuff that we did not learn until 50 years later
00:43:57
but what they were telling us Captain is that based on the items that they found
00:44:02
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
00:44:12
there to try to conceal the body from what police could see it looked like the boy was killed
00:44:19
very likely in the in the Killer's car or at least elsewhere and then driven to this dumpster placed
00:44:26
inside and then just left and then the people this is a busy area this is almost the center of town but
00:44:35
this is not that far from where Hill worked right this is not terribly far from where Hill lived or where bellino
00:44:41
lived or or where uh the friend lived I mean we're talking about everything here
00:44:47
is within less with a one and a half mile radius really if you if you want to get down to
00:44:55
it and so there what they're saying is that we found trash items that were discarded by
00:45:02
the businesses that were closed by midnight that night and not just closed doors locked and everything cleaned up
00:45:12
thrown away and then employees gone bye bye for the day and they're saying that trash that they
00:45:19
found on top of the boy unfortunately was trash that would have been discarded that night before anybody would have
00:45:24
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
00:45:31
science and say this undigested meal in his system means that he died relatively
00:45:37
quickly after leaving his friends home because he ate that meal at the friend's house right so they are saying chief of
00:45:44
detectives kakasic telling us two to four hours those other sightings of Brad bellino just they were not correct
00:45:53
uh they go on to tell us in the in the article police interviewed several people over the years and used search
00:45:59
warrants to get DNA eliminating people one by one now some notes from that news conference
00:46:07
again the information that is new here the digested meal in his system wasn't such new news to us that was something
00:46:16
that we talked about when we covered it that was something that had been fairly well reported over the years the
00:46:24
news there was was the trash and how they went through all the items in that dumpster to try to come to a conclusion
00:46:31
of When Brad would have been placed in that big receptacle so two to four hours after leaving the
00:46:40
residence of his friend when he was last seen 7 30 p.m ish placed in the dumpster
00:46:46
absolutely before midnight that's new information because based off of what we were told before
00:46:55
he could have been killed and kept elsewhere before being placed in that dumpster but
00:47:01
it sounds like no that's not the case the other interesting thing too the takeaway from that press conference at
00:47:08
news conference is no connection to the Bolino family and after the news conference the chief
00:47:17
of detectives kakasik and chief worth they stayed and they answered any questions that the public or media might
00:47:27
have regarding this case and the the big break and finally closing this case and one of those was time and time again
00:47:37
I think three or four times they were asked to clarify that there's no connection between
00:47:44
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
00:47:55
it's like especially during that time during that age period that bellino was in he'd walk
00:48:05
around town you'd ride your bike around town there was a lot of things and and parents didn't keep a
00:48:15
super tight eye on on on everything that the kids were doing I'm a child from the late 80s
00:48:23
early 90s and there was less supervision then I can only imagine in the early 70s
00:48:29
and and personality Brad bellino was known to run with his friends to ride his bike everywhere he was known to
00:48:37
hitchhike rides now at the time in the bellino family really shut down right where you have other
00:48:46
cases where you see parents stay in the media and stay at the Forefront of the investigation and be the face of their
00:48:55
child victim for for the investigation that was not so much the case with the bellinos and I think a large part of
00:49:03
that was I think they took on a lot of criticism local and even Beyond the city limits of Boardman
00:49:12
of maybe they weren't great parents maybe they weren't supervising their son enough and this is what happens when you
00:49:19
don't look after your kids I can understand people we've talked about this dozens of times here right
00:49:28
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
00:49:34
children and ultimately it's a crime against the community and the community wants its pound of Flesh if they cannot
00:49:42
find the perpetrator they want somebody to point to and say this is wrong and this is what happens when people don't
00:49:50
do things the right way and I get it yeah it's they want to hold somebody accountable and so since we
00:49:56
don't have a solid suspect you know they start pointing the finger at the parents I
00:50:01
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
00:50:08
You Ain't Human you don't share the same heart that the rest of us have you don't
00:50:13
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
00:50:19
Joseph Norman Hill that piece of [ __ ] he's the killer he took a little boy off
00:50:24
the streets and he killed him and he discarded him in a dumpster like trash he's the only person to blame we
00:50:31
got nobody else to point to right Brad bellino had gone to his friend's house dozens of times and come home perfectly
00:50:39
happy and healthy dozens of times and regardless let's not victim blame me either who
00:50:46
knows did Brad bellino stick his thumb up in the air that night to get a ride who knows and who cares
00:50:54
because this guy went out that night looking for a victim in my opinion if he's driving around with that belt
00:51:02
the belt that we knew we now know killed Brad bellino and belonged to Joseph Hill
00:51:09
he went out looking for a victim that night and unfortunately whether Brad was snatched off the
00:51:17
streets or stuck his thumb in the air and hopped into Hill's car we now know not only the result but who
00:51:26
is responsible right now some other things in that Presser in that news conference that were
00:51:33
follow-up questions that didn't make it into this article right again they are saying
00:51:41
no connection to Brad bellino and this is something that I'm underlining for a reason here because I want people that
00:51:49
haven't followed this case to understand the level of Praise that Boardman PD deserve in the Brad bellino case
00:51:59
50 years they never gave up on this case 50 years they never gave up on this kid
00:52:05
and we know that in 2001 they started doing their DNA and physical evidence work
00:52:13
and in fact I can tell you behind the scenes the porch light project reached out to Boardman PD years ago and said we
00:52:22
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
00:52:31
you to the guy that committed the crime right and Boardman PD said thank you you
00:52:37
guys are awesome but no thanks why we we are already doing what it is that you are offering to do wrong it's
00:52:45
also rumored that they're not huge fans of James trainer so they go on to tell us that they thoroughly investigated if
00:52:53
there would be any kind of connection not just from Brad from victim to perpetrator right but Brad's family
00:53:02
and they said there's no connection to they you know Joseph Norman Hill had us had
00:53:09
a son and his son didn't go to the same school as Brad they didn't know each other
00:53:15
the families didn't attend the same church there is they didn't live on the same
00:53:20
street or same neighborhood there was Zero connection from this monster to the Bolino family and the reason why I'm
00:53:28
underlining that is be is to remind everybody that this case didn't take 50 years to solve due to a lack of effort
00:53:36
we've seen it time and time again when you have a stranger on Stranger crime there is virtually nothing to link the
00:53:45
perpetrator to the victim other than this scientific evidence that we had to wait on technology to catch up
00:53:52
to this physical evidence and so goodbye the uh Boardman PD for sticking with this case for so long
00:54:01
and they also tell us to Captain again remember they're asking the public for help for information about Joseph Norman
00:54:08
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
00:54:16
on this guy because what else could he have done so they tell us he owned a gold Monte Carlo
00:54:22
at the time and while there were many reports into the police in that file from 1972
00:54:31
none of the vehicle descriptions matched that of Joseph Norman Hill's vehicle at
00:54:36
the time now keep in mind they are not just asking people in Boardman Ohio for information about
00:54:45
Joseph Norman Hill they're asking people everywhere he moved to California in 1978 they're
00:54:51
asking people in San Bernardino California for information about this guy as well
00:54:57
because he lived there for 40 years before he passes away and they go on to tell us that he lived
00:55:04
in 14 different residents after moving to California they do state that we have very little information on Joseph Norman
00:55:13
Hill uh one partly because he moved out to California and according to Boardman PD
00:55:20
they were saying that they believe he moved out there for work reasons but the reason why that they have very
00:55:27
little information about Hill here in Ohio and in California was that he had very little family history we
00:55:35
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
00:55:42
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
00:55:48
blanks in this guy's life his wife passes away in 1993. and interestingly enough one thing we
00:55:59
discussed in our coverage last year was the the rumor mill it had all always been rumored that the police were pretty
00:56:08
certain they knew who killed the first victim or had or had a decent idea of who may have been involved right in the
00:56:16
Thomas bear homicide they kind of confirmed that at afterwards when they're doing some
00:56:23
follow-up questions this was really interesting to me because this is something we we're not clear on when we
00:56:29
did our coverage so somebody directly asked them at the conference any chance Joseph Hill killed Thomas
00:56:36
Baird and police say right there the chief and the chief of detectives tell the persons in the
00:56:44
audience the facts of that case do not match up with the facts of the Brad bellino case
00:56:50
and we believe this is their words and I'm I'm kind of uh summarizing what they said paraphrasing
00:56:59
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
00:57:05
many similar similarities in the case but then on top of that that we believe we kind of know what happened
00:57:13
to Thomas Baird based off of the police file and based off of the evidence and information that police were able to
00:57:19
collect at the time of the of bear homicide right but but the one part that is key here is they were saying that
00:57:25
while Baird was in bad shape from this attack a lot of health problems with this this
00:57:33
attack and unfortunately we know that he he would later die in the hospital that he was at one point in the hospital
00:57:41
able to communicate with police now this might not be verbal he may not have been
00:57:46
verbal and able to tell them who his attacker was or attackers were but they said that he was able to
00:57:55
communicate with them maybe he was able to write it blink sometimes they do that
00:57:59
you know answer the questions blink once for yes twice for no he was able to communicate to them that he knew his
00:58:06
attacker or attackers um and that I'm guessing captain that that probably carries a lot of weight
00:58:15
with the investigators based off of information that they've already collected leading them to believe that
00:58:21
these two homicides are probably not connected now they did say too you want to talk of
00:58:29
the effort not just the years spent trying to solve the Brad bellino murder case
00:58:35
but the resources too the time and the Manpower woman power people power on this case
00:58:43
and the money that I had read somewhere that they had spent 29 or over 29 000 to
00:58:52
solve this case this is just for money used for test testing physical evidence and Outsourcing that to the private
00:59:03
sector but what they had said in the after this presser was that the twenty nine thousand
00:59:12
dollars in cost or more than twenty nine thousand dollars in cost to solve the case
00:59:17
it sounds like that was the cost over the course of just a handful of years I'd always believed that that was the
00:59:24
money spent on this case for test starting back in 2001 when we know that they were Outsourcing testing this
00:59:31
physical evidence right but it sounds like this is the money that was spent just in a handful of years and that this
00:59:37
case really started heating up behind the scenes in the last few years and that some of this information it sounds
00:59:45
like they knew they knew that Joseph Norman Hill deceased was 98.2 percent the depositor of that physical evidence
01:00:00
that was found on our victim that they knew that for probably several months but we don't get this announcement until
01:00:08
they are able to thoroughly vet this guy or at least attempt to vet this guy and make sure that what the science is
01:00:17
telling them is correct well again you know not to harp on that idea but just because the families aren't connected
01:00:25
that you know we don't know exactly what hill was doing in that town and as long
01:00:32
as you're in that town you would have been connected you would have seen these children these were crimes of
01:00:38
opportunity that's exactly right but you know what fascinates me and and also what really
01:00:45
Echoes a belief that we have said here on this show a dozen times unfortunately if you fall victim or fall prey to
01:00:54
somebody one of these monsters your case or your loved one's case is only as good
01:01:00
as the the police department investigating it only as good as the detective who who catches your case
01:01:12
only as good as the detectives sitting at the desk where the case File Falls and here is a prime example of a good
01:01:22
Police Department great detectives great police chief a great force in general working together working very hard on an
01:01:32
investigation and what's so great here is that this is why you don't give up here's that's what
01:01:39
infuriates me with a lot of these cold cases because you have I could name for you a dozen police departments and if I
01:01:48
can name a dozen that means that there's probably hundreds of them out there that
01:01:52
they have cases that they can tell us yeah we're pretty sure we know who did this the
01:01:59
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
01:02:09
devote the resources and the time and the money and I get that you have other cases but when you saw the case like
01:02:15
this when Boardman PD stands in front of cameras in an audience 50 over 50 years
01:02:22
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
01:02:32
people in that community and everywhere watching and listening that you cannot come into our city
01:02:40
and kill someone and get away with it we will work this thing until it's solved [Music]
01:03:01
three tragic deaths in Boardman Ohio that is the update of the Brad bellino case
01:03:09
stick around for tomorrow's show as we go through David Evans update join us back here in the garage and until then
01:03:17
be good be kind and don't listen [Music] thank you [Music]