Do you know who murdered Brad Bellino in 1972?d On March 31, 1972, 12-year-old Brad Bellino disappeared after leaving a friend’s house in Boardman, Ohio, while walking to his family’s home. His family reported him missing the following day, and on April 4, 1972, his body was discovered in a dumpster behind Isaly’s Dairy Store at the Boardman Plaza. The boy was found strangled, with a belt wrapped around his neck, and there were indications of sexual assault.
The initial investigation into his death yielded many leads and suspects, but none led to a resolution, and the case went cold for decades.
In 2001, the case was reopened when Brad’s remains were exhumed, and DNA evidence was collected from his body and clothing. Despite matching this DNA with numerous individuals and using the national CODIS database, no match was found. The breakthrough finally came in 2018, when Boardman police partnered with Parabon Nanolabs to use familial DNA and genetic genealogy to identify a potential match. After years of analyzing family trees and testing individuals, investigators identified Joseph Norman Hill as the suspect. Hill, who was 32 years old at the time of the murder, lived in Boardman but moved to California in 1978 and died in 2019. Hill was confirmed as the perpetrator through a DNA match with a close relative, with a 98% certainty.
Despite the fact that Hill had no known personal connection to Bellino, he was determined to have acted alone. There was no indication of any other crimes or violent history beyond a minor conviction in 1986. The identification of Hill brought some closure to the Bellino family, even though Hill could no longer be prosecuted, as he had already passed away. The Mahoning County Prosecutor affirmed that the evidence would have been sufficient for a grand jury indictment if Hill had been alive. The resolution of the case, after over fifty years, brought some measure of peace to Brad's family and the officers involved in the original investigation.
