Police officers frequently resolve cases in a few days or hours on television. There are crimes that are undoubtedly quite simple to solve. Sadly, that isn’t always the case, which is why there are so many cold case squads in police departments all throughout the country.
The killing of a little boy has plagued Boardman Township, Ohio, for more than 50 years. Police are always more affected by crimes against minors, thus it is much more noteworthy when one of these cold cases is finally solved. Law enforcement believes they have finally achieved this after naming a suspect in the murder that occurred five decades ago.
Bradley Bellino, then 12 years old, left his buddy Donald Templeman’s house on March 31, 1972, and returned home. The kids had enjoyed the Easter Break freedom by spending the day together. They apparently spent all of their free time with one another and played baseball on the same team while they were both in the sixth grade at the neighborhood middle school.
Bradley would typically be driven home by Donald’s mother after a long day together. She couldn’t, though, because she had to go to the grocery shop that fateful day. Bradley took the decision to walk home instead, but he never arrived.
On April 1, Bradley’s family reported him missing. On April 2, Easter Sunday, they were scared that something worse might happen to him. Regrettably, they were correct. The 12-year-old’s remains were discovered inside a dumpster behind a nearby store on Tuesday morning. He had suffered the worst kind of attack before being fatally strangled with a belt.
Boardman Township was troubled by the 12-year-old boy’s innocent murder. Despite their best efforts, the police force was unable to crack the case.
After 50 years, police identified Joseph Norman Hill as a suspect in the kidnapping and murder of the child. According to the authorities, the alleged perpetrator was 32 years old when Bradley was killed.
The victim’s clothing was referred to the state Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation by former police chief Jeffrey Patterson. After years of testing, there was finally a hit on the evidence. The DNA match to Hill was 98.2%, according to the investigators.
Hill passed away in 2019 from natural causes, but the chief claimed that if he had been alive at the time, prosecutors would have presented the matter to a grand jury. Police are currently investigating whether the alleged killer also killed two other youngsters, David Evans, 13, and Thomas Baird, 15, who vanished and were later discovered dead while he was in the town.
Don, Bradley’s closest buddy, told reporters that he was relieved that the matter was now resolved.
