For three decades, she was a ghost, a murder victim known to investigators only as the "girl with the scorpion tattoo." On the morning of September 20, 1991, a passerby noticed smoke rising from a vacant field off Seaview Avenue on Staten Island, New York, across from a local hospital. Police responded to a horrifying discovery: the body of a young woman who had been brutally killed. She was handcuffed, strangled, struck in the head approximately 17 times with a hammer, and then set on fire. For years, her name and her story remained a mystery, locked away in a cold case file.
In April 2021, a breakthrough finally came. A joint effort by the FBI, the New York Police Department, the New York Medical Examiner's Office, and the forensic genealogy lab Othram successfully identified the victim through advanced DNA testing. In March 2023, the Richmond County District Attorney's Office publicly announced that the woman was Christine Belusko, a 30-year-old female from Clifton, New Jersey. The identification, while a monumental step, opened a new and heartbreaking chapter in the case: investigators learned that at the time of her death, Christine had a two-year-old daughter, Christa Nicole Belusko, who was with her shortly before the murder and has been missing ever since.
Christine was born in New Jersey and had been adopted as an infant. Friends remembered her working at Joyce Leslie, a popular clothing store in the 1990s. Shortly before her death, in the summer of 1991, she had learned she was adopted. She left her home in Clifton and told friends she was moving to Florida and not to look for her. Her family and friends made attempts to find her but eventually came to believe she had simply started a new life elsewhere. They had no idea she had been murdered. The last time anyone saw Christine and little Christa was in September 1991, when they were staying at the Mount Airy Lodge, a resort in the Poconos region of Pennsylvania.
The investigation into Christine's murder revealed a crime of extreme violence. Richmond County District Attorney Michael E. McMahon described the killing as "brutal and depraved." Investigators believe the killer was someone Christine knew. Left at the scene were two key pieces of evidence: the hammer used in the attack, which was engraved with the name "Loyd L," and a unique pair of handcuffs with three chain links instead of the standard two, a type sometimes used by security guards. An individual named "Loyd L" was identified early in the investigation, but with no other evidence, the lead went nowhere; that person is now deceased.
The identification of Christine transformed the cold case homicide into an urgent search for a missing child. Investigators believe Christa Nicole may still be alive. The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) joined the case, releasing an age-progression image showing what Christa might look like today in her mid-thirties. The search for her father has also yielded no information. The discovery that Christine had a child who vanished at the same time added a profound layer of tragedy to the case, leaving her surviving family with decades of unanswered questions.
As of November 2024, the investigation is active and ongoing. The Richmond County District Attorney’s Office and NCMEC continue to appeal to the public for help in solving Christine Belusko's murder and, most critically, in determining the whereabouts of her daughter, Christa Nicole. "We have already notified (Belusko's) family of her death and we continue to make all efforts to also locate Christa Nicole so we can let her know about who her mother was," District Attorney McMahon stated. Investigators hope that someone, somewhere, holds the key to unlocking the secrets of what happened in September 1991 and bringing a lost daughter home.
Anyone with information about the murder of Christine Belusko or the whereabouts of Christa Nicole Belusko is urged to call the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children at 1-800-843-5678 or the Richmond County District Attorney's Office at 718-556-7085.
