San Diego Murder Mystery Deepens, Body Found May Be Gianni Belvedere
A San Diego murder mystery that began with the Christmas Eve double shooting of a young woman and her prospective brother-in-law in a parked car only deepened Friday with the discovery of a body believed to be that of a man missing since the night of the shooting, the dead woman’s longtime boyfriend.
As reported in The Inquisitr last month, someone shot and killed 22-year-old Ilona Flint and her male companion Salvatore Belvedere, also 22, in the early morning hours of December 24 as they sat in a car parked outside the San Diego Macy’s store in the Westfield Mission Valley Mall. The stores were open late for last-minute Christmas shopping.
Flint was the girlfriend of Salvatore Belvedere’s brother, Gianni. The three had moved from Provo, Utah, to San Diego recently. Since the night of the San Diego murders, Gianni Belvedere had not been seen. Though there has been some speculation of a love triangle, denied by the family, Gianni Belvedere was never declared a suspect by police, only a missing person.
Friday in Riverside, California, a 2004 Toyota Camry was discovered parked next to a Jack in the Box fast food restaurant at Van Buren Boulevard and Trautwein Road, according to The Riverside Press-Enterprise.
The Utah license plate, as well as the make and the model of the vehicle, matched a car belonging to Gianni Belvedere. The car had not been seen since the night of the murders, either.
The Camry has been sitting in the same parking space for at least two days when a caller to police reported a bad smell coming from the vehicle. When officers arrived and popped the car’s trunk, they found a badly decomposed body.
Police made no identification of the body. The Riverside County coroner, however, said the body belonged to a man 24 years old, Gianni Belvedere’s age, and that the man was the “victim of homicide.”
On the other hand, San Diego police called to Riverside to take part in the investigation said that no cause of death has been determined.
But on Saturday, a source in the Belvedere family told NBC 7 San Diego that the body was indeed the missing Gianni Belvedere.
While one witness said that the car had been parked there for only two days, another told San Diego’s CBS 8 News that the car containing the body that may be Gianni Belvedere had been sitting there for between a week and a week-and-half.
Also on Saturday, newly released tapes from of a San Diego 911 dispatcher gave the most detailed description yet of a possible suspect.
“Witnesses here saw a male walking into the back of the victim’s vehicle then get into a car and drive away,” the San Diego 911 dispatcher says on the tapes. “Possible black male, in mid-twenties, about 5’9, thin build, uh, wearing a dark sweater with white striped bands, on both sleeves and he was walking away from the passenger side, getting into a vehicle, possibly a Honda.”
CBS 8 News asked San Diego police if they are still actively seeking the person described on the 911 tapes, but had received no response by Saturday evening.
