A man has been sentenced to 25 years in prison for the murder of a teenage girl killed in 1993.
Mandy Steingasser was found in a park in Niagara County, United States, on October 25, 1993. The 17-year-old girl, reported missing a month earlier, was in a ravine, the body in a state of decomposition. The autopsy revealed that Mandy had been strangled to death and also suffered from a large skull fracture. More than 28 years after the tragedy, a man from New York has just been convicted of murder. He was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison, while he still continues to claim his innocence, reports the “Niagara Gazette”.
“I want to tell Mandy’s family and friends how sorry I am that they went through all of this, but I am not the person who killed Mandy,” Joseph Belstadt said at the hearing Friday. “I’ve been saying it since day one and it’s not going to change. I did not kill Mandy Steinasser,” he added. “My response to that is that we presented the evidence to a jury, that jury found that defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and the verdict of the jury stands and they have found the appropriate verdict in this case,” said Niagara County District Attorney Brian Seaman.
DNA found
Among the evidence against the accused is the testimony of two people who claim to have seen Mandy get into his car on September 19, 1993. At the time DNA could have been recovered from the vehicle but science has not allowed to identify it only in 2017, confirming that it indeed belonged to Mandy. Brian Seaman described the murder as a “horrific and violent crime”. “He fractured this young girl’s skull and strangled her with her own bra. This kind of act requires the maximum penalty,” he commented. And to add: “For 28 years, the murder of Mandy Steinasser has been an open wound in the community of North Tonawanda and Niagara County. She has not been forgotten by her family, her friends, her loved ones. Not by North Tonawanda Police. Today, finally, 28 years later, his killer has been brought to justice. He will now suffer the consequences of his heinous acts.”
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