Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - WHO IS GIRL with Scorpion Tattoo - Handcuffed, Strangled, Beaten & Burned?

Episode Date: June 19, 2023

A body is dumped in a desolate field on the east shore of Staten Island. The woman had been handcuffed, strangled, beaten to death and then the body set on fire. She went unnamed for over thirty years. New technology leads to an identification and another mystery.  Christine Belusko, raised in Montville, New Jersey, had been adopted by a loving family.  Christine, however, didn't know she was adopted. When she found out, the news caused a rift with her parents. Belusko tells her parents she is moving to Florida. This single mom however never made it South. While Belusko's body remained unidentified, it became known as the girl with the scorpion tattoo. The death was caused by over 17 blows from a hammer. One mystery was solved when the remains are finally identified, but where is Christine's daughter?   Joining Nancy Grace today: Darryl Cohen - Former Assistant District Attorney (Fulton County, Georgia) Former Assistant State Attorney (Florida), and Defense Attorney: Cohen, Cooper, Estep, & Allen, LLC; Facebook: "Darryl B Cohen;" Twitter: @DarrylBCohen  Caryn Stark - Psychologist, Trauma and Crime Expert; Twitter: @carnpsych Jason Jensen - Private Investigator and Owner of Jensen Private Investigations; Co-founder: "Cold Case Coalition” (Salt Lake City, UT); Twitter: @JasonJPI; Facebook/Instagram: "Jensen Investigations"  Dr. Todd Barr - Board-Certified Anatomic/Clinical/Forensic Pathologist (Ohio); Featured in, "Thin Places: Essays From In Between," by Jordan Kisner Dr. Kristen Mittelman -Chief Development Officer, Othram Inc.; DNAsolves.com; Twitter: @OthramTech Nicole Partin - CrimeOnline.com Investigative Reporter; Twitter: @nicolepartin   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace What does a gorgeous young mom of a taut girl have to do with a woman's body washing up on the beach, only identified by a scorpion tattoo. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thanks for being with us here at Fox Nation and Sirius XM 111. Let's start with the young mom. Take a listen to our friends at Crime Online. Christine Belusco was raised in Montville, New Jersey. Her dad, Frank, was a New Jersey glass molder, while her mom, Dorothy, worked as an auto dealership secretary. Frank and Dorothy

didn't tell Christine that they adopted her as a baby, not an uncommon practice at the time. Christine grew up not knowing that Frank and Dorothy Belusco were not her biological parents. It was only after Christine had a daughter of her own that the truth came out. Christine's biological mother had given birth to eight other children and decided to give up Christine for adoption when she was still an infant. Christine was shocked. Wow. Okay. Before I even get into the facts any further, I've got to address that glaring, gaping issue. Karen Stark is with me, a renowned psychologist, joining us out of New York in Manhattan today. You can find her at KarenStark.com. That's Karen with a C.

Karen, how do you handle, well, I know it's different with every family, it must be, but in your mind, how do you believe adoptees should be informed and when that they're adopted? Nancy, I have no doubt that someone who's adopted should be told strongly, in my opinion, and known that they are adopted for as soon as you can possibly tell them that story. When they're children, you present it as a story and you use their name. You know, Sally, we saw this beautiful little baby and decided that we wanted a baby, we couldn't have one, things like that. They need to know that this is not their biological parent, but it doesn't matter because they're being loved and cared for. Not a surprise. That's the worst thing you could possibly do. I'm just trying to think of the right way to say something like that.

A story for children. Yeah. And I don't know that I would say, well, we couldn't have a baby, so we got you. Like, you're the consolation prize I think I would say something like um we wanted you so much and then we found out about you and we took you because we wanted you to be in our home when your mommy couldn't take care of you just I don't know how to say it you're bringing it you're bringing up a good point because i worked with someone who was told that exact story that you're you're saying right now and he decided that he didn't turn out the way they would have wanted him to so what a mistake

they made choosing him so you have to be really careful about the story that you decide to tell but you need to tell as soon as you can. Well, I mean, and look, in this case, Christine Belisco finds out and is shocked, and she doesn't find out until she has a child. And I guess, Nicole Parton joining me, CrimeOnline.com, investigative reporter. Nicole, thanks for being with us. How did it come out that once she had the baby, she found out she was adopted? How did that happen? She began to inquire about family history,

as so often mothers do when they're having children of their own, and they told her the truth. They came out honestly and began to tell her the story of her adoption at that point. Of course, now she's an adult woman. She's 30 years old, and she didn't handle that quite well. And that's when she became very upset with her family and said that she was leaving. I mean, Karen Stark, you're the renowned psychologist. Isn't that a little extreme to be so upset with your mom and dad that you just leave?

Well, if you think about it, I mean, leaving, that's very extreme. But if you think about the fact that your whole life, you believe a certain story that this is where you come from, this is what happened. And then the shock of realizing that the people you trust the most lied to you. That's really hard to digest, Nancy. Think about that. Well, let me tell you what happened the other day. Lucy and John David were in the back seat.

This is where everything always happens. When they were three, they'd say, I heard so-and-so. What did they say the first time? Oh, the first time they ever said that, they said, I heard, it was John David, I heard Miss Cartwright gives out candy in Reading Circle. That was the big hot news on the playground.

I'm like, where did you hear that? And he goes, on the playground. That's like on the street, you know, the playground. Well, the other day, they were driving home, and Lucy said, I don't even remember which girl it is. I'll just pretend it's you, Jackie. Jackie came from an egg. And I said, okay, I'll just pretend it's you, Jackie. Jackie came from an egg. And I said, okay, first of all, who's Jackie? And what do you mean?

A chicken egg? I was just kidding around. I didn't know what she was talking about. She goes, no, her mom got the egg from somebody else because she couldn't have babies. This was last year, maybe the year before that. They already knew about, you know, donor eggs and all that. And she said, Mom, am I from your egg? I'm like, yes, Lucy, you and John David both.

And I don't think she really believed me until she insists on having 23 and me. And we did it. And she saw that we had the same exact ancestry but long story short this little girl had known whoever the little girl was had known for years and years and years that her mom used an egg donor and it was just kind of like

matter of fact see what I'm saying Karen Stargill it's not like a big issue that she's suddenly going to run away from home over that's why it's really important to tell the story as soon as you can right from the beginning because then it really isn't the same kind of big deal that it is if you're already grown up and you're hit with this news and the way that you think about yourself and your whole life then has changed overnight. Wow okay so you know Karen Stark you've led me down the garden path. I want to get back to the girl whose body washes up on the shore. But more about this young mom of a taut girl herself who discovers kind of like eye of the blue, no idea this was going to happen, that she was adopted. Take a listen to this. Christine was raised in Montville, but her last known address

was in Clifton, New Jersey. Once she learned about being adopted as a baby, the single mother announced to the family she was leaving for Florida. She left in July and stayed at the Mount Airy Lodge near Mount Pocono. Well, certainly not Florida, but she had left New Jersey. Family members didn't hear from Christine and just assumed that she had moved to Florida and just wasn't communicating with them for the time being a friend saw her at the Mount Airy Lodge in September but shortly after that she was gone her family still thought she was in Florida with her toddler Kristen Nicole starting a new life together Christine Belusco a 30 year old single mother to a two-year-old girl works for for the retail chain Rainbow Shops, setting up new stores when they opened after telling her family she was moving to Florida. Okay, so she heads to Florida to start a

new life with her little girl, and the family thinks that at some point she's going to cool down and she's going to come back. Is that right, Nicole Parton? Right, so her family thinks, believing her story, she's going to go to Florida. Probably things will settle down. She'll enjoy the sunshine in the sea for a while and she'll come back to us. So they're not really concerned. They're upset, of course, to lose their daughter and their granddaughter, but they also feel like things will simmer down and she'll return shortly. Jason Jensen joining me, high profile private investigator, owner of Jensen Private Investigations and the co-founder of Cold Case Coalition. You can find them at JensenPrivateInvestigations.com. Jason, thanks for being with us. Now, isn't that true? Isn't it true

that very often a family will believe a family member has gone missing and ultimately the family member wanders back into their life. Yes, yes. Oftentimes people do leave and come back and frequently that family member will report this person as missing and law enforcement will resist saying, well, everybody as an adult has a right to disappear and nothing gets pursued no paperwork gets filed for like a missing persons report that's usually the biggest problem here because what i see that's glaringly obvious in this case is there's no missing persons report filed but nicole parton it's not weird because she says how dare you not tell me adopted I'm leaving I'm going to Florida to open the next rainbow store and off she goes right so why would they file a missing person right yeah

they had no reason to believe that she was missing she clearly told them what her plans were she was leaving she was going down there to open the clothing store. She was upset. So they had no reason to believe anything other than she was really upset with us. So she's left. No reason for concern. At the same time, on a parallel path, the discovery of a dead body makes headlines. Take a listen to Michael McMahon. Today, we want to speak about the case of the girl with the scorpion tattoo. This is a story about a brutal and depraved murder. Depraved acts of violence that killed this young girl in her prime and the dumping of her body

in a lonely and desolate field on the east shore of Staten Island. Monday morning, just after dawn, a body was found across the road from South Beach Psychiatric. Two employees walking by initially thought it was a discarded mannequin. The woman was handcuffed, strangled, and struck with a hammer 17 times. The body was then set on fire. The murder weapon was found beneath the body.

A young woman was found brutally beaten, strangled, and burned on Staten Island's east shore. She had been handcuffed, partially clothed, and had numerous blunt trauma forces to her head. She was found with a distinctive scorpion tattoo. And this case was followed with great sorrow and public intrigue across the borough and beyond, and she became known as the girl with the scorpion tattoo. Hi guys, Nancy Grace here. Please join us now on Fox Nation for a brand new investigation, Parallels of Evil, the Bundy and Idaho Killings.

In this gripping special investigation, we bring together an incredible panel of guests who analyze disturbing similarities of evil between these horrible crimes. We speak with two female Ted Bundy survivors karen prior and cheryl thomas who described their life before and after they were victims of ted bundy we also speak with the renowned private investigator bill warner who worked in the cases and ted bundy's defense attorney, John Henry Brown. We travel to Moscow, Idaho, to speak with Washington State University students and interview neighbors of Brian Koberger. One neighbor shares exclusive insights about the suspect in the Idaho killings, Brian Koberger.

Don't miss Parallels of Evil, The Bundy and Idaho Killings, streaming now exclusively on Fox Nation. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Straight out to renowned forensic pathologist, medical examiner, and former detective, author of Homicide Investigation Field Guide, Dr. Michelle Dupree. Dr. Dupree, thank you for being with us. You know, when these two employees at a health facility across the street from where the body had washed up on the shore, they first said they thought they were looking at a mannequin. Now, I heard that before, many times before. No, several times before, not many. And one of them was when Baby Connor washed ashore.

That is the unborn child, the unborn son of Lacey and Scott Peterson. Remember? I do remember. I believe one body washed up and then 24 hours later on the next tide, the next body washed up. And baby Connor was described as looking like a baby mannequin or a baby doll. It was totally pristine. And we now know the reason was that while Lacey's body had decomposed underwater, one of the strongest portions of the human body,

and that being the uterus and the muscle surrounding it, protected baby Connor from much of that decomposure. As her body decomposed, her stomach literally opened up, and Connor floated out is the way that I understand the medical testimony in the Scott Peterson double murder trial. So when the baby washed up on the shore, much as we have with the girl with the scorpion tattoo, he looked like a mannequin. How can a dead body look like a mannequin? Nancy, that's a very good idea. The reason is, is because when a body is preserved in water, especially cooler water, it's going to actually help to preserve that body. But once it comes out of the water and it touches

air, then decomposition sets in fairly rapidly. So in this case, just like in Connor's case, the uterus, as well as being in the cooler water, help protect him, as it did with the girl with the scorpion tattoo. Wow. Just like that, you explained the whole thing away. Dr. Dupree, could we go through some of these injuries. Beaten, strangled, burned, handcuffed, stripped, blunt force trauma to the head. That's killing her like three times over, Dr. Dupree. How do you determine a cause of death with all that trauma to the body? It is, Nancy. This is overkill. I mean, somebody wanted this person dead very badly. Handcuffing obviously was to keep her restrained.

We can tell most of the time whether she was beaten to death or strangled first. Most likely, obviously, she was burned last. But when someone is beaten, there's something called a vital reaction. And even though the body's been in the water, we can look at the tissues and see if there is a, quote, vital reaction or blood in those tissues. If so, then that body was most likely at least still partially alive when they were beaten. Strangled, of course, we look for things like petechial hemorrhages in the eyes and that sort of thing. Okay, you're going to have to say all that again, please, so we can understand it. When you were saying a vital what? A vital reaction. So you mean bleeding and bruising?

Yes. Those are both vital reactions as it relates to a human body. Now, if the person, if the girl with the scorpion tattoo was already dead, you would not expect any bleeding or bruising to the body. Why? That's correct. You would not expect it in the same areas. Of course, blood could seep out from after you're dead, but it isn't going to be pumping through your organs. And so blood found in tissues can be this vital reaction, which means the person was still alive at the time that injury occurred. And regular people talk, once you're dead, your heart's no longer beating.

It's no longer pumping blood. So if you are beaten or stabbed post-mortem after death, there's not going to be a lot of blood and there's not going to be any bruising because there's no blood to cause either of those, quote, vital reactions. Is that right? That's correct. And I'm just thinking about Karen Stark, the psychological aspect of this young girl with the scorpion tattoo being handcuffed. What, if anything, does that tell you?

It tells me that something awful has happened, Nancy. Hey, you know what? Anybody, the guy walking down the street could tell me that. I already know something horrible happened. She's bludgeoned. She's burned. She's handcuffed. She's strangled.

I was looking for a little bit more. You're the trained psychologist. She was not able to defend herself. She had no ability to get this person, whoever it may be, off of her. That's what I think about when I think about handcuffs. I mean, that's it. You're dead if someone is beating you. Just trying to think this through. Daryl Cohen joining me, high profile lawyer out of the Atlanta

jurisdiction, former prosecutor. And you can find him on Facebook at Daryl B. Cohen, C-O-H-E-N. Daryl, you've prosecuted and defended a lot of murder cases, but that is just an added fact. You don't normally find when you find your victim has been handcuffed. Nancy, it's unbelievable. When a victim has been handcuffed, what does that tell you? It tells you that the person or persons who's after that victim, who destroyed that victim, is going to make sure they suffer, is going to make sure that they die in a way that the perpetrator wants them to die. Very unusual. It's not a crime of passion. It's a crime of I'm going to do it and this is how I'm going to do it. This didn't just happen. It happened in advance.

Well, another thing, Darrell, it has to do with what has happened to the victim in that, yes, I know she's been murdered three times over. She's been beaten. She's been burned. She's been strangled. Okay. But the handcuff aspect means she was disabled the perp went to the extent of disabling her in other words he didn't sneak up on her in an alley and bop her in the head and rape her and run he went and i say yes because statistically and and jump in Dr. Dupree if I'm wrong, statistically, this killer is a man.

He went to great lengths, to a great extent, to disable her so she couldn't fight back, so she couldn't get away. And yet he still killed her three times over. That tells me a lot about the mind of the killer. Nancy, he was furious. He was so mad at something she did or he perceived that she did that he had to make sure that she was dead, dead, dead and hurting and terrorized. You know, with me, Jason Jensen, high profile private investigator, owner of Jensen Private Investigations. What would you do as soon as you see this body? What would be the first thing investigators should do? Well, in this particular case, in light of the fact that she was cuffed, this is clearly

somebody that had restrained her. This was premeditated. So who would want to abduct her? Likely, where would they take this person, you know, the victim? And how do they commit this crime? You're going to want to try and retrace the last steps that she had that were known for the victim and see who she interacted with. We know that her type of injuries were blunt force trauma and they found the murder weapon underneath her body. What kind of weapon was used? What kind of profession uses that kind of weapon? And what idiot would leave the murder weapon under the body? But here I agree with everything you just said, Jason Jensen. Here's the problem. We can't trace her footsteps because we don't know who she is. So how can we say, oh, where was Jackie

last night? You know what? I'll call her son and find out. I'll get her cell phone and see who she called last. I'll look at the nav system on her car. We don't know who this woman is to look at anything. We don't have any indication of who she is, but what do we know? Take a listen to our cut six. This is David Nielsen, a criminal investigator. Listen. Discovery was wearing a dress, sneakers. She had two gold chains on and a ring watch. She also had a scorpion tattoo on her right buttocks. Based on witnesses' accounts, the body had been at the scene from at least 6 p.m. the night before. Fingerprints were entered into state and local databases for identification purposes. Sketches of the victim, her tattoo

and jewelry were disseminated to the public via Captain Namus, who utilized during the course of this investigation in attempts to identify our victim. Okay, to Daryl Cohen, high-profile defense attorney joining us out of the Atlanta jurisdiction, but former felony prosecutor, why would you disseminate her clothing and her jewelry? Well, she didn't have a whole lot of clothing left. She was partially nude, but her watch, anything that she was wearing, what's the significance of that? Well, there could be any number of reasons, but we watch, anything that she was wearing, what's the significance of that? Well, there could be any number of reasons, but we have to get into the mind of the perp. We have to get into, and I say his, and I agree with you, and I don't think it was multiple people. I think

it was one. We have to get in their mind. Why are they doing what they're doing? Why did they do this? I don't know, Nancy, because there's so many reasons that it could have been. It could be that they're jealous of her. They want the jewelry. I can't believe she's doing so well. I hate it. She did something to me. She did something to my family. There are so many reasons, and we have to know more before I can even continue to speculate.

It's just too much at this point. Nancy. Is that Karen Stark? Jump in, Karen. No, it's Dr. Pree. So, other thing is, when we examine that body, when we remove that body from the crime scene, I have actually seen cases where the perpetrator left a perfectly preserved footprint under the body because they'll dump the body and they'll roll it over and they will just cover up their own footprint. So, we need to search that scene and everything around it as well. Oh, that's a really, really good point.

That's a really good point because he's already left the murder weapon. What was it? Was it a hammer, Nicole Parton? That's right. He left the hammer, which is a 13-inch body shop hammer. They found that underneath the body. The hammer was inscribed with a name and initials. And so clearly someone wasn't thinking that through. They left not only the weapon, but the weapon has a name inscribed on it. What's the name and initial place? Lloyd and then the letter L. Lloyd L. L-L-O-Y-D, capital L. Got it. Lloyd L. You know, about the jewelry, what I was thinking about that, Jason Jensen, private investigator. For instance, my grandmother, Lucy, who helped raise me, gave me her engagement ring before she passed away. and it's a very it's a diamond and it's been reset and like a Victorian what do

you call that diamond shape marquee shape thing anyway it's unique if somebody's so small but it's unique if my body couldn't be identified I hope that never happens if someone saw that engagement ring, they could identify it. So that is why very often clothing or jewelry found on an unidentified victim will be released and disseminated. Correct. The whole point is, hopefully the information will get out to the right individual in the public that's familiar with the tattoo, the jewelry worn by the victim, the clothing, and be able to come forward and say, hey, I think you're describing this person, a friend of mine or a family member. Dr. Michelle Dupree, joining me, forensic pathologist, medical examiner, former detective at dmichellemd.com.

Dr. Dupree, have you ever worked with a face reconstructionist on a victim that nobody could identify? Yes, I have, Nancy, and it's fascinating. I have, too, and it was really critical in proving a Jane Doe murder for me. Because guess what, Dr. Dupree? The jury nearly fell out, as they should have, when I put her, the victim's reconstructive sketch done by one of these artists, up beside the defendant's girlfriend that he tried to strangle they look like twins no relation and it was I mean even to just a lawyer like myself I could see the connection between those two women they look so much alike how does that happen how do

you when you've got a body that's starting to decompose, how do you make a facial reconstruction sketch? Well, you can do the sketch or you could do actually a likeness where you take the skull and then recreate the skull or the face of that person out of clay. And that is also very effective. The purpose is not to make it identical to the victim, but to trigger someone's mind and, oh gosh, that looks like so-and-so, and to generate leads from that. Has anybody today told you that you're amazing, Dr. Dupree, because they should? You're just, every time you say anything, I have to kind of digest it.

I'm looking at the girl with the scorpion tattoos face sketch, and she's got on the gold necklaces it's a really good sketch by the way so you can't find out who did it until you find out who she is guys take a listen to this she was unidentified until recently investigators in the staten island da's office used familial DNA and public DNA databases to identify her. We sat down exclusively with the Staten Island DA's office today to discuss the case and their mission to still find her killer. The name engraved on the hammer, Lloyd L., has not given them any leads up to this point, but they say they're not giving up.

The men and women who work in my office, the prosecutors and investigators, don't give up, and they fight every day to bring justice to the victims of crime. You were just hearing our friends at WABC, but now take a listen to the investigator, the criminal investigator, David Nielsen. In 2019, D.A. McMahon made a decision to start the path of genealogy research. The Richmond County District Attorney's Office collectively worked with the FBI, the NYPD, the Medical Examiner's Office, and Hawthorne Forensics Lab. Joining me right now is an extremely talented geneticist.

It's Shara LaPointe. She's known as the Gene Hunter. And you can find her at thegenehunter.com. And I say gene, I mean G-E-N-E. The Gene Hunter, who has done amazing work. Cheryl LaPointe, thank you so much for being with us. Explain what they're saying in terms we can understand. So what they're saying is, you know, despite all the work that was done on this case before, forensic genetic genealogy is what was actually able to identify her and um the dna that they retrieved from her body was used to actually um pull a profile even though it was almost 30 years prior that they had retrieved that dna and they were able to make a profile that was suitable to be used in genetic genealogy. And that profile is put into these websites that allow law enforcement to use family tree DNA or GEDmatch. And you will find DNA matches, relatives of the person you're looking for

and we find a recent common ancestor amongst all these DNA matches and we build reverse family trees. So we may be going back to a second or third grade grandparent couple and building down to the time of that person's age and place to figure out who the person might be. Okay, let me understand. With me is a so-called gene hunter, Shara LaPointe. Shara, you get the unidentified victim's DNA. Then can you isolate the mom and dad? What do you mean you build out a family tree? Okay, so when we get the DNA, we won't necessarily know who the mother and dad is. What we will know is people who are DNA matches to this person.

So if you were a DNA match to this person and I was a DNA match to this person, it's my job to figure out how you and I may connect. And we may be second cousins and share a set of great grandparents. So that's the point where I would start the tree from that couple. And then I would look at their children and who they married and try to incorporate as many of these DNA matches that come up to build this family tree. Okay, now I'm getting it. Guys, I want you to take a listen not only to the criminal investigator David Nielsen,

but also to our friends at NBC. As a result of genealogy research combined with dedicated investigative work, Christine Belusco was identified in April of 2021 as our homicide victim. A woman found dead on Staten Island has now been identified. Investigators say Christine Belusco was hit with a hammer more than a dozen times and then set on fire. Her body was found in a vacant lot in the Ocean Breeze area. She had this distinctive scorpion tattoo, but authorities were not able to positively ID her until they could use her DNA to trace her genealogy.

Police have since located and interviewed Belusco's brother, and they also learned she had a young daughter named Krista Nicole. That daughter would be around 34 years old now, and police are working to find her. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Back to CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter Nicole Parton. So Christine Belusco did not move to Florida. That's correct. She did not, even though that's what she had told her family. She did not make it to Florida.

Something clearly horrible happened between her leaving, which was in July, and then her body is found in September. So something really bad happened just between those couple of months. So all this time, the family is thinking, wow, we hurt her so badly by not telling her she was adopted, that she's now gone years without speaking to us. She's started a whole new life without us. So they spend, Karen Stark, a psychologist, they spend all these years devastated that they ran her out of their lives when in fact she's the girl they read about with the scorpion tattoo.

Exactly, Nancy. If you consider, just think about it, that one of the twins gets terrible news, goes away, plans to come back again, and then never returns. As a parent, it's devastating because you keep thinking, I'm going to hear from this person.

You will have to assume that your child is still alive and that they don't want to be in touch with you. That's a killer. It's so painful. To think that they lived thinking they had run her away when all the time she was the girl that they had read about in the newspapers. Now take a listen to the elected district attorney, Michael McMahon, and our friends at ABC. This is now the time that we ask the public for its help. We have pretty much run down all the leads we can in trying to locate individuals who would know Kristen Nicole

and any other leads that may help us in solving the underlying crime. The daughter would be in her 30s now. If you have any information, you are asked to call the police. Wow. Nicole Parton, what about the tattoo itself? When did that happen? And what, if anything, can that tell us? We don't know when the tattoo happened.

What we do know is that her family didn't know about the tattoo. So when they're hearing this in the news for all of these years, the girl with the scorpion tattoo, they had no idea that she had the scorpion tattoo on her right buttock area. So they were never imagining that it was their daughter, their sister. No one knew about it. So now we know that she was murdered, but we're forgetting someone. Take a listen to our cut 15. Christine's last known address was in Clifton, New Jersey. She lived there until late July. She was a longtime resident of New Jersey.

And investigators know that she was staying in a mountain area lodge near Mount Pocono in the weeks before her death. In June of 2021, Christine's brother was interviewed and was informed of his sister's death. During the interview, we were made aware that Christine had a daughter who was born on August 1st of 1989. The birth name of that child was Krista Nicole Belusco. So, Nicole Parton joining us from CrimeOnline.com. We're not looking only for the mother's killer, for Christine Belusco's killer. We're looking for her little girl. What happened to her?

What do we know about that? Absolutely, and that's the thing. She was two years old at the time of her mother's death and disappearance. She was last seen about a week prior to this by a friend of her mother's at this Mount Airy Lodge in the Poconos. So we know that someone saw the little girl about a week before this crime took place, but she has not been seen or heard from since. There was no sign of her at the crime scene. It's as if she vanished into thin air. Cheryl LaPointe joining us, author of The Jean Hunter, and you can find her at thejeanhunter.com. Cheryl, what, if anything, can DNA do to find Christine's daughter, Krista?

So, Nancy, that's a very difficult situation because unless the daughter's DNA is in one of these systems or one of her children, if she has a child it would be very very hard for dna to to identify her i mean she would either have to have been put in codis for some reason or um submitted her dna to one of the direct to consumer dna sites just for genealogy purposes um you know often people who are adopted do that if she if she knows she was adopted, then possibly she would do that. But if that's not the case, it would be very, very difficult to identify her. Just trying to take this all in. The scenario has changed drastically, Daryl Cohen. We're not just looking for a killer, a brutal killer, but we're looking for the baby. It's unbelievable, Nancy. It is possible,

as I think through this, that whoever murdered the mother may have taken the baby, may have made sure that that now 32 years older baby is in their custody not custodial but custody may have done that and looking for that baby may be impossible wow may absolutely be impossible okay jason jensen joining me private investigator what do you do to find the baby you know there's some clues here that you could follow to possibly find this baby, because now that, you know, we're talking an adult female. At one point, we know that law enforcement released a composite, you know, with age progression. That's a possibility. The others are, we know from our experiences in hunting cases and, you know, killers and cold cases that these kinds of scenarios where the victim is beaten the way

that she was, that it may be domestic violence, you know, in a familial setting where maybe there was a custody dispute brewing over the child. Yeah, we haven't heard anything about who the father is. You're absolutely right. Nicole Parton, do we have any idea who the bio dad was of this child? We don't. And when Christine's brother was questioned, and he's the one who told authorities that she had a daughter, he said he, too, did not have a clue who the father was.

Okay, guys, take a listen to Maurice Dubois, our friend at CBS. Investigators breathing new life into a cold case on Staten Island. Today, detectives investigating the brutal murder of a woman released her identity. They say she was Christine Belusco of Morris County, New Jersey. She was brutally beaten, strangled, and burned in the woods on Seaview Avenue. Investigators have been unable to uncover her identity all these years until now using forensic genealogy. Now they say they want to track her down, track down her daughter who was two years old at the time of Belasco's death. Where is the baby?

Now, a grown woman, if she survived, if you know or think you know anything about Krista Nicole Belasco, age two at the time her mother was brutally murdered, please dial the tip line 718-556-7085. Repeat, 718-556-7085. We wait as justice unfolds. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.