BY JOHN A. DARNELL JR.
      associate editor/bnews@zoominternet.net
     
      More than 46 years ago, 12-year-old Bradley Bellino, of 61 McClurg Rd., left home at noon, apparently walking to the home of a friend, Donald Templenon, 733 Teakwood Dr., in Applewood Acres.
      A criminal complaint obtained by The Boardman News says about 7:30 p.m. on Mar. 31, the boy failed to return home.
      The following day, Debbie Bellino notified police about 3:20 p.m. that Bradley was missing.
      Three days later, at 8:02 a.m. on Apr. 4, employees of Varie Bros. Trash Co. called police saying they found a body in a dumpster behind the Boardman Plaza.
      Ptl. Glenn Bowers answered the call and the body was identified as the Bellino boy.
      A belt (from JCPenney) was found strapped around his neck. The strap bore teeth marks, and body fluid, not Bellino’s, was later discovered on the boy’s pants.
      On Apr. 12, 1972, then Mahoning County Coroner Dr. David Belinky ruled Bradley Bellino’s death was the result of strangulation. Dr. Belinky said the interval between the onset of death and actual death was “sudden.”
      A death certificate certified by Dr. Belinsky said Bellino died on Apr. 1, 1972 about 9:00 p.m., little more than 24 hours after he was reported missing.
      46 years later, the Boardman Police Department is using new forms of DNA testing in the hopes of developing new leads in the case.
      “The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification (BCI) has already completed some tests, and we have sent samples to a laboratory in Virgina for additional testing,” Police Chief Todd Werth said this week.
      Testing done by BCI measured results against upwards of 700,000 DNA samples in a data base in Ohio, as well as against millions of DNA samples in a federal data base.
      “We are now looking at familial DNA to see if we can develop a new lead in the case,” Werth said.
      For years the Bellino case stood dormant, until 2001, when the Boardman Police Department revisited the case and could not develop any new leads.
      Sources suggest a list of at least 20 possible suspects was developed.
      “Only four or five of those people seem to stand out,” Capt. Albert Kakascik told The Boardman News this week.
      One man who has reportedly been eliminated from the suspect list in the Bellino case is now said to be living in South Carolina. According to court records, that man was indicted by a Mahoning County Grand Jury in July, 1971, for the rape of a Boardman boy named Frank Whitehouse.
      Former BPD Det. Robert Rupp said this week he was stunned when the indictment was dismissed in Feb., 1973 by then Mahoning County Common Pleas Judge Clyde Osborne.
      “Our police chief, Dave Hartsock, made a deal with the man’s attorney, that if his client passed a polygraph test, the indictment would be dismissed,” Rupp said.
      The polygraph test was conducted by Charlie Brunswick of the Youngstown Police Department, according to Rupp and former officer Bowers. But its results were disputed by another YPD officer, Duke Wellington.
      Another source said the polygraph had been arranged by the suspect’s defense attorney, who is now deceased.
      “Totally unethical,” The Boardman News was told.