Introduction: Amanda ‘Mandy’ Lyn Steingasser was born on July 5, 1976 to Richard and Loraine (nee Huffman) in North Tonawanda, NY. Richard (who was affectionately called ‘Carp’) was born on October 11, 1944 in Buffalo, NY and was employed as a millwright for Fedders Manufacturing Company, which is known for its contributions to the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning industry. Loraine Huffman was born on November 29, 1950 and worked as a customer service representative at CCMA, LLC, a global supply chain for users of metals whose primary business is the marketing and distribution of alloying metals and ores to the iron, steel, ferro-alloys and aluminum industries.

Background: In the fall of 1993 Mandy was a senior at North Tonawanda High School, and upon completion had plans of attending Niagara County Community College (but for what exactly, she was unsure). She was 5’5″ tall, weighed 135 pounds, had blue eyes, and wore her blonde hair long and midway down her back; she hung out with an eclectic group of people, and had some friends that were classified as jocks and others that were considered ‘freaks.’ A passionate environmentalist and animal enthusiast, she especially loved turtles and adored her family’s sheepdog, Sam. Like most young women her age, Mandy loved music, especially classic rock bands like Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, Janice Joplin, and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.

Mandy was her parents’ only child and the apple of her dad’s eye, however the Steingassers were definitely aware that their daughter wasn’t perfect: she didn’t get straight A’s, and at times didn’t always follow the rules. When she was fifteen, she had started to party and had begun dabbling with drinking and marijuana… but, for the most part she was a typical teenager and didn’t push the boundaries too much. Her parents were aware of her extracurricular activities and accepted them, knowing she wasn’t experimenting with anything ‘too hard,’ always made her curfew, and her grades didn’t slip. A middle to working class city, at the time in 1993 North Tonawanda was made up of roughly 33,000 people and their citizens prided themselves on how safe it was, especially when compared to nearby Buffalo and Niagara Falls.

September 18, 1993: On the evening of Saturday, September 18, 1993 Mandy told her parents that she was going out with some friends, and in response to this, they told her to be home at midnight. When she left the family home she met up with some friends: her best friend, seventeen-year-old Stacie Blazynski, Brian Frank, and Wayne Mielcarek, who was over twenty-one and had his own apartment. The friends first stop was at the liquor store, where they purchased some cheap whiskey and rum, and from there they went to Mielcarek’s place and had a few drinks. At roughly 9:00 PM they got into Eric’s car and drove to a club in nearby Buffalo with hopes to see a band, but because the girls were underage they weren’t allowed in. From there they went to an unnamed friend’s apartment in Buffalo and hung out for a bit, then went back to Wayne’s apartment, where they continued to imbibe.

That evening Stacie had plans of sleeping over at the Steingasser home, but midnight came and went and the girls realized they had missed their curfew… perhaps if had they been sober and in the right frame of mind they would have thought to call Mandy’s parents to let them know they’d be late… but the Steingassers never heard from their daughter. At some point earlier in the night the friends had learned about a house party just a few doors down from Mielcarek’s apartment, and they decided to check it out. At around 1 AM they began their short walk down Ironton Street, and that’s when a car with several men pulled up beside them and accused Mielcarek and Frank of harassing a local woman in the neighborhood. The boys told them that they must have mistaken them for someone else but they were relentless, and two of them got out of the car and jumped Frank, and kicked him after pulling him onto the ground. The other man grabbed a nearby broken glass bottle and cut Wayne’s arm, and as this was happening Mandy and Blazynski were forced to helplessly stand by and watch.

At around 1:30 AM they heard sirens wailing in the distance and everyone scattered: Steingasser’s three friends headed towards Mielcarek’s apartment, but according to them she went the other way and headed toward First Avenue, where the house party was. According to Brian Frank, ‘we screamed her name five or six times, ‘Mandy, Mandy.’ We were all in shock.’ As they were parting ways Blazynski said that Steingasser told her that she didn’t want to be taken home by the police, and Frank later testified that he noticed an unknown male that happened to be walking in the same direction as she was.

After they parted ways that night Mandy most likely began to make her way home and was roughly a mile away when a woman at a nearby payphone said that she saw her walking and that a man driving a black 1984 Pontiac 6000 that was moving in the opposite direction quickly made a U-turn at Sixth Avenue and pulled up beside her. She said that she observed Steingasser speak with him for a few minutes through the passenger’s side window then eventually got in and it drove off. It was the last time Mandy Steingasser was seen alive, and Rich and Loraine reported her missing the following day; they offered a $5,000 reward for any information that led to the return of their daughter.

In the month after her disappearance more than 5,000 flyers with Mandy’s face on it had been passed out across the Western New York area, and according to Loraine: ‘we have one done up in English, and Spanish, or the Puerto Rican section of Buffalo. Because there was a fight that night, a ruckus , and it involved Puerto Ricans. And nobody really saw Mandy after that, except for this one kid that gave her a ride.’ … ‘ We put (in the flyer) out to the Puerto Rican section, not to say that they took her, but somebody might have seen something.’ About the street fight Mandy witnessed the last night she was seen alive, the NT retired Chief of Police Lloyd Graves said that ‘the girls weren’t’ involved at all. There were some kids in a car, and evidently, they had a little altercation with some other boys there. But I don’t know if that had anything to do with her disappearance. I kind of doubt it, because that was quite a while before she disappeared.’

The Days After: On September 19, 1993, Loraine Steingasser filed a missing persons report with the North Tonawanda police, who initially regarded Mandy as a runaway. Because of that, a few days afterwards she reached out to the Federal Bureau of Investigation: ‘I know she didn’t run away because she would have called. I wanted somebody who would take it a little more seriously.’ In the early days of Mandy’s disappearance there was some back and forth in regards to the FBI possibly getting involved, however when Mandy’s remains were later uncovered they completely backed out, which makes sense as no crime took place across state lines. Those that knew Mandy said it was completely out of character for her to disappear, and immediately knew that she hadn’t run away or left on her own free will. In their search efforts investigators used bloodhounds, helicopters, and hours upon hours of searching on foot, with absolutely no luck.

In the days following Steingassers disappearance the young man that picked her up came into the Tonawanda Police station: in a conversation with detectives on September 22, 1993, 18-year old Joseph H. Belstadt said that he knew Mandy because they went to the same high school and that he picked her up and started to drive her home. A few minutes into their drive he claimed that she changed her mind and told him to drop her off at a nearby house party instead, so he turned around and dropped her off at Holy Protection Orthodox Church at roughly 1:30 AM (which was only a few blocks away from where the street fight took place). He said that when Mandy got out she walked up to ‘a young man of Puerto Rican descent’ that was sitting on its front steps; it was the last time he saw her, and he told investigators that afterwards he went to Canada with some friends. When NT detectives later investigated his story, they immediately found that it had several holes in it: no one saw him drop Mandy off at the church close to a local mini-mart, and no one knew the identity of the young man that she met up with that night. Despite this, at the time they said they had no reason to doubt Belstadt’s story.

Some portions of Belstadt’s story were confirmed by eyewitnesses who saw Mandy get into his car: sisters Tanya and Rebecca Coughlin lived in an apartment at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Oliver Street, and in the early morning hours of September 19, 1993 Tanya was outside of the residence and Rebecca was looking out their front window. Both young women confirmed that they saw a car drive past her then quickly make a U-turn so it could pull up beside her at the intersection; Steingasser and the driver spoke for a few minutes before she eventually got in and it drove away, turning around to drive in the direction that she had originally been walking in. The sisters both recognized Joseph Belstadt as the driver because they knew him from their old neighborhood where he had also lived, and Rebecca identified Steingasser as the young woman who got into his car because she recognized her from school.

There was, however a key part of the sister’s story that differed from Belstadt’s: after they drove away Rebecca remained in front of the window that was looking out onto the street for another five to six more minutes, which means he hadn’t ‘quickly turned his car around’ like he claimed he did to drive Mandy back to the intersection of Oliver and First, because if he did she would have seen his car drive by her apartment.

Detectives in North Tonawanda soon discovered that Belstadt had asked his friends Jerry Miller and Sherry Carrazzolo to lie about his whereabouts on the morning that Mandy was last seen alive. Miller, who was actually his best friend, told investigators that he, Joe, and three other friends were cruising around earlier that evening, and Belstadt was pulled over and given two tickets for traffic violations; afterwards, they went to the City of Tonawanda Police Department, where he unsuccessfully tried to fight the citations. Afterwards, the five friends sat in his car and thought about what they wanted to do for the rest of the night. Miller suggested a trip to Canada, but Belstadt said he didn’t want to and ‘just wanted to drive around,’ so his four friends went across the border without him.

Miller said that the friends returned home to NT later that morning, and when he drove by Belstadt’s Mother’s house a few hours later he noticed that his car wasn’t in the driveway. He also said they saw his friend two days later and that was when he asked him to lie for him, and if questioned to tell the police he should say that he went with them to Canada on September 18/19, 1993. Detectives in North Tonawanda also said that a man that knew Belstadt reported that he saw him that same morning at roughly around 2 AM and noticed that his car was wet, and when asked about it he said that he had ‘just had it washed.’ Additionally, two eyewitnesses came forward and said they saw him at a coin operated car wash at roughly 2:15 AM, which was about an hour and fifteen minutes after Steingasser was last seen alive.

Belstadt did agree to a polygraph examination, however got upset because he didn’t like the ‘tone’ of the questions he was being asked and stormed out. He eventually came in for a second exam where he was asked only two things: ‘are you involved in the disappearance of Mandy,’ and ‘are you withholding any information.’ He said ‘no’ to both questions and the administrators of the polygraph determined that Belstadt was not telling the truth, however because due to a lack of evidence nothing could be done. At the time of the examination detectives still had no idea what had happened to Mandy, and her family was still holding onto hope that she would be found. Her boyfriend Christopher Palesh had moved to Florida on September 17, 1993, which was two days before she went missing, and her parents were hoping that she had just taken off to be with him.

During her daughter’s murder trial in October 2021, Mrs. Steingasser testified that she told her to be home by midnight, mostly because she had spent the night with Chris about a week before; she also said that ‘anytime she went anywhere, she had to call me and when she came home, she had to wake me up.’ But it never came, and the only two telephone calls Loraine received on September 18 and 19, 1993 were a hang-up and one from an unknown male who ‘asked if Mandy was home;’ she later testified that she recognized her daughter’s friend Stacie’s voice in the background saying, ‘ask if Mandy’s home.’

In early October 1993 about two weeks after their daughter disappeared Mr. and Mrs. Steingasser were out grocery shopping when they happened to overhear one of the store’s employees talking about Mandy, and that she had been found in NT. Loraine said: ‘I kind of like, lost it, because it sounded like they knew what they were talking about. I thought, ‘oh my God,’ are the police lying to me?’ I came home and called the police station.’ The former mayor of North Tonawanda James A. McGinnis said of the incident ‘somebody seems to be getting joy out of the NY high school senior, and somebody seems to be getting joy out of spreading false rumors. And it puts a really terrible stress on the family. The story started on a Friday about them finding a body on the Roblin Steel site. It’s absolutely not true.’ According to Police Chief Lloyd C. Graves, ‘we went over the whole area originally, and we’ve been back over it a couple of times, and other places. Anytime we get a tip, we follow it up.’ It’s speculated that the rumor may have started because of the return of NY police to the Roblin Steel Plant, and it greatly upset Steingassers friend group, who according to her mother were ‘crying, and they’re taking it so bad. We’re just trying to nip it in the bud. Because people are taking down the flyers, And we don’t want that. Everybody tends to believe the worst.’

About Mandy, retired North Tonawanda detective chief Gabriel DiBernardo said that her disappearance was ‘totally out of character. We’re appealing to anyone and everyone to call us with any information.’ About her daughter’s disappearance, Mrs. Steingasser, ‘I still feel that there are people out there who saw something and haven’t come forward. Please give us the information. You don’t know what we’re going through.’ 

Discovery: On the afternoon of October 25, 1993 thirty-six days after Steingasser was last seen alive, two men were out scavenging for mushrooms near Bond Lake Park in Lewiston, and as they were walking along a trail they smelled something pungent and decaying: when they peered down into a ravine they discovered a body on a steep embankment leading to Meyers Lake. The spot is described as a ‘lovers lane,’ of sorts, and police would frequently find kids parked there, partying and ‘being intimate.’ Charles Keith Shepherd, one of the men that spotted Steingasser’s remains at the park that day, said he was walking along the crevasse with his brother-in-law when they saw denim on the edge, and when his BIL got closer he realized what they found, and immediately left to call the sheriff’s department.

When police arrived on the scene they discovered the remains of a young woman, whose pants had been pulled halfway down and her bra was wrapped around her neck; there was a pint sized liquor bottle in the pocket of her jean jacket. Because of the body’s advanced level of decomposition investigators were unable to immediately make a positive identification on the scene, however the victim had on the same clothes that Steingasser was last seen wearing. What detectives surmised had happened based on the crime scene was: her killer had taken her to a secluded, out of the way place and tried to put ‘the moves’ on her. When he started to pull her pants down she stopped him, and he got angry and he hit her on the head; he then ripped her bra off and strangled her with it. When the victim was deceased, he pushed her remains down the embankment in the park with the hope that it would roll into the lake, however some bushes stopped it.

An autopsy was performed the following day by Dr. Sung-Ook Baik, and dental records were used in making a positive identification. She had been strangled, and her blue bra was still tied around her neck; she also had a hairline skull fracture in front of her left ear. According to a MD during her trial, the skull fracture occurred while Mandy was still alive, because there was bleeding under her scalp at the left temple. Additionally, she had a brain bleed, a chip in the fingernail of her left pinky finger finger, tearing on her jeans and bra, was not wearing any shoes, and all of the hooks on her bra were broken; she had not been sexually assaulted.

Not only did investigators have a theory regarding what happened to Steingasser, they also had a prime suspect in mind: Joseph Belstadt. Their biggest hindrance was a lack of evidence proving guilt. Police obtained a search warrant and seized his car, and when it was examined they found a pubic hair in the backseat, but further testing proved it belonged to neither Steingasser or Belstadt. After her remains were found detectives questioned him again, and that was when he admitted that he had lied about going to Canada with his friends because he thought he needed an alibi or he would have looked guilty. In reality, he told them that he had just gone to a donut shop after he dropped Steingasser off at the church and knew nothing about her murder. He also said he had never been to the area where her remains were uncovered, but once again detectives learned that he had lied to them: during his trial, a woman named Stephanie Bartlett-Landes testified that Belstadt took her to the ‘park-like setting’ in Lewiston twice in the summer of 1993 when she was only 15-years-old, and they had parked a few dozen feet away from where Mandy’s body was eventually found.

A Case Gone Cold: In the first few months of the investigation detectives conducted interviews with dozens upon dozens of Steingassers friends/family/acquaintances/schoolmates, but every lead dried up and it wasn’t long before the investigation went cold. There was some renewed buzz in the case in August 2000 when The Buffalo News published an article about the murder, and in it the writer didn’t name Belstadt as the suspect due to the fact that he had not been officially identified. In the nearly seven years since the murder, five detectives that worked on the case said they all thought that he was the killer, with one even saying that the ‘whole city of Tonawanda knew who killed Mandy,’ but there was nothing they could do about it due to lack of evidence.

The public accused the police of covering up Mandy’s death and of not doing their jobs properly, and said it wasn’t right that they let Belstadt skate. The Niagara County DA on the other hand did feel that there was enough evidence to charge him, and that after DNA testing it turned out that a hair that had been found on Mandy’s body could have belonged to him, but it was not conclusive. Belstadt was interviewed for the article, and he claimed that he didn’t kill Mandy and they parted ways when he dropped her off outside of North Tonawanda church.

In the years since Mandy’s murder Joseph Belstadt served some time in jail for auto theft, and claimed that her friends and family had continuously harassed him, and as a consequence he ended up dropping out of high school about a month after her remains were discovered; additionally, he was forced to move out of state because he was ‘afraid for his life.’ He also claimed that shortly after the homicide someone fired a gun outside of his home in what he thought was an attempt to intimidate him. In 1999 while drinking at a bar one of her friends came up to him, called him a murderer then proceeded to get into a fistfight with him. He also felt that the investigation was ‘biased against him’ and he wanted the North Tonawanda police department to leave him alone, and he was certain that one day detectives were going to come out with false evidence to arrest him.

As it turned out, Belstadt’s family had at one point taunted the police in relation to Steingasser’s murder: in 1997 the lead investigator in the case was working PT as bouncer at a music venue, and one night a country band was playing and when he looked out into the crowd he made eye contact with his brother, Jamie. A few minutes after he began shouting out a song request, and immediately the detective knew he was taunting him: it wasn’t a country song, it was ‘Mandy’ by Barry Manilow.

In a test performed in 2002 by retired Erie County Central Police Services lab technician Paul Hojnacki, Belstadt’s sperm was found on a piece of material taken from his car seat, however the female DNA profile that was also found did not belong to Steingasser. He also said that none of his DNA was on any of Mandy’s clothes or on her body, and that he looked for sperm or semen but ‘didn’t find any.’ Mark Henderson, a retired forensic chemist and serologist for the Niagara County Sheriff’s Department, didn’t attend Steingassers autopsy in October 1993, but he did take over custody of the clothing and tissue samples that were taken that day. For over twenty-five years the materials were tested and retested as technology improved: ‘I swabbed anything that looked like possibly a stain,’ including the jewelry that was found on Steingasser’s remains, a pint bottle of Southern Comfort found in the pocket of her jacket, underneath her fingernails, and her underwear; Henderson clarified that he took five small pieces of cloth from the underwear she was wearing. In 2017 he said he used a small vacuum on the clothing from Steingasser’s remains after spraying them with a special solution in hopes of turning up more DNA.

In the years after their daughter’s murder the Steingassers had a tough time coping: they left her room just the way it was on the night they had last seen her. All of her clothes still hung in the closet, and the Led Zeppelin posters were still affixed on the wall. About the tragedy Mr. Steingasser said that ‘I tried not to think about it. I know we’re never gonna get her back, you gotta get on with your life. I try to keep it out of my mind, but there are twenty things that happen every day to remind me of her. The memories keep coming back.’

2018: The years kept ticking by. Sadly Mandy’s father passed away on March 14, 2015 without her murder being solved. Police did more testing on the pubic hair that was found in Belstadt’s back seat, and once again it came back ‘no match found.’ In 2017 the case was officially reopened, and in the twenty-four years since the murder forensic technology had greatly improved, and there was finally some progress that was made in relation to the investigation. Amongst the debris that was vacuumed up from the back seat of Belstadt’s car, forensic technicians were able to find a second pubic hair, and in early 2018 they did testing on both hairs: a forensic expert noted that on the root of one of them there was some tissue that was left behind, which suggests it came out with force. On March 10, 2018 detectives finally got the answers they had waited so long to hear: the pubic hairs found in Joseph Belstadt’s car belonged to Mandy Steingasser. They also determined that fibers that were found stuck to her body belonged to carpet from the vehicle as well.

Arrest: On April 24, 2018 Joseph Belstadt was arrested for the murder of Mandy Steingasser, and he was released on $250,000 bail. After he was arrested the NT police continued to investigate and collect evidence against him, and one thing they uncovered was that male DNA that was found in Mandy’s underwear wasn’t his, and instead belonged to her boyfriend, Chris Palesh.

In the decades since Steingassers murder Palace had been arrested on three separate occasions for domestic violence as well as animal cruelty charges, and when the North Tonawanda PD asked him for a DNA sample he initially refused. In 2019 they went through his parents’ trash and collected two used plastic forks, and upon learning this he came forward and ‘willingly volunteered’ a sample of his DNA, which lab techs compared to the sample taken from the crime scene; it was a match. Palesh told detectives that he did have consensual sex with Steingasser roughly a week before she was last seen alive, however it is important to keep something in mind: according to Senior Forensic Criminologist Keith Paul Meyers with the Niagara County Sheriff’s Department, ‘studies have shown that DNA can survive up to three laundry cycles.’ 

Trial: Belstadt’s trial began on October 25, 2021 at the Angelo DelSignore Civic Building in Niagara Falls, which happened to be the 28th anniversary of the day that Mandy’s body was found. The prosecution didn’t have a ‘magic bullet’ piece of evidence, and instead argued that nearly every piece of circumstantial evidence pointed to Belstadt being the killer. When shown a picture of her daughter in court, Mrs. Steingasser pointed out that in it she was: ‘wearing the same vest she was found wearing. She’s wearing the same ring she was found wearing. She called it her lucky ring. It was mine.’

The defense argued that none of the evidence that had been presented proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that Belstadt killed Mandy: the pubic hairs were the most damning thing against him, and his lawyers argued that they could have been on the outside of her clothes and had fallen off while she was in his vehicle. They said that ultimately, they only proved that Steingasser was in his car at some point before she disappeared, which is what he had maintained since the beginning.

Belstadt’s attorneys argued that after the initial stages of the investigation (remember that on night he was first questioned he lied about where he was when Mandy disappeared) their client was cooperative with investigators, and told jurors that no evidence existed that proved he made any sort of advance towards her, and that quite a few of the samples that were tested actually excluded him. The defense also said that the prosecution was relying on eyewitness testimony that was twenty-six years old, and they would not be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt when, how, or where Steingasser was killed; according to Belstadt’s attorney Michele Bergevin: ‘most importantly, the government, after you hear all of the evidence, will not be able to prove to you beyond a reasonable doubt who, if anyone, intentionally took the life of Mandy Steingasser.’

In an article published on November 8, 2021 by The News Niagara Reporter, during the trial Mandy’s first cousin Carolyn Steingasser-Tucker testified in court that she, along with Jennifer Zuhr, confronted Belstadt in a hallway at North Tonawanda High School in October 1993, and they ‘asked him, ‘what did you do with Mandy?’ She went on to say that Zuhr did most of the talking, and at one point she grabbed him by the shirt and shoved him against a wall outside the school cafeteria in front of many witnesses: ‘the hallway was full. He said, ‘I didn’t do anything with her,’ and that he only planned on taking her to her house but when they got to the Memorial Pool on Payne Avenue she decided she didn’t want to go home; so he turned around in a Burger King parking lot and took her back to the church where he originally picked her up.’

Michele Bergevin asked Tucker if she remembered taking ‘a lynching party’ to his house, and in response she said she knew nothing about that. When Bergevin pressed her about the incident in the hallway she said she was never interviewed by police about it, and that Belstadt didn’t fight back, and he ‘cowered’ instead, like ‘the little, scrawny, pimply-faced kid he was’ (those were his attorney’s words).

In court, Mandy’s friend Stacie admitted that she made the hang-up call to the Steingasser residence that night, and that Mielcarek made the second one, however Frank said that Wayne made both calls. Mielcarek said he doesn’t remember calling anyone that night, but said that he did remember Joseph Belstadt knocking on the door to his home on the morning of September 19 to ask if he knew where Mandy was. Wayne, who barely knew Belstadt, said that ‘he said she was missing,’ he later testified, which he said was news to him: ‘I said, ‘How do you know she’s missing?’ He said he gave her a ride.’ Mielcarek said he told Belstadt to take his information to the police, and about the encounter said ‘he came over out of the blue. I didn’t know how he knew where I lived. I hadn’t seen him since high school. He said he gave her a ride that night, that morning. I said he should go to the police station.’ He also said that Belstadt seemed ‘just kind of worried, jumpy. He seemed worried about her. Maybe they were friends.’

There has been a long-standing dispute regarding the exact date that Belstadt went to Mielcarek’s residence: in 1993 Wayne signed a formal statement with detectives saying it took place on September 21, and not on the morning of September 19. Michele Bergevin pointed out that if that was true then Mielcarek already knew Steingasser was missing when Belstadt had visited him.

According to a Buffalo News article published in November 2021, Christopher A. Grassi of Endicott, who served time with Belstadt at the Cayuga Correctional Facility in 2000 and 2001, testified during the trial that he confided in him that ‘he strangled a girl during a three-person sexual encounter in his car.’ He also said that the defendant went by the nickname ‘Squirrelly’ while serving time for arson after he got caught torching a stolen car; Christopher was there for hiring a man to burn down his nightclub for the insurance money. Grassi said he told him that he was driving his car while a friend of his was having sex with the female in the back seat. In response to this, Michele Bergevin called him ‘nothing but a fraudster’ and said that he didn’t even know her client in prison.

Bergevin also accused Grassi of paying another inmate on the prison buildings and grounds crew to feed him information about Belstadt so he could relay it to the North Tonawanda police, who had visited him at the prison looking for information related to Mandy’s murder: “Isn’t it true you actually paid Christopher Bennett for information about Joe Belstadt, just like you paid somebody to burn down your nightclub?’ Grassi denied it but did admit that his memory of the event wasn’t very good: ‘I don’t even remember 90% of it. Whatever is in my statement is what I remember.’

Neither side placed the statement in evidence, so the jury never will get to read it and decide for themselves what Grassi told the North Tonawanda detectives in June 2001. Bergevin said that Chris Bennett died in January 2021, which she said was, ‘lucky for you, huh?’ directed towards Grassi. The DA went on to say that Bennett ‘researched this about Joe Belstadt and this young girl that went missing, and he made up a story,’ and to this Grassi said: ‘I am not aware of that.’ 

Retired North Tonawanda detective William Carosella was one of the officers that was tasked with collecting items from Belstadt’s car a few days after Steingasser was last seen alive, and when questioned by the defense if he recalled collecting any cigarette and/or marijuana butts, he replied that he couldn’t recall from memory if either of items were recovered. He admitted to the court that where he couldn’t remember every single item collected, he did remember that they collected into evidence a tire iron, a piece of wood with a nail sticking out of it, carpet from the trunk of the vehicle, and other miscellaneous debris. Additionally, from Belstadt’s vehicle, forensic experts collected three carpet fibers from the trunk, debris from the side panels, various items that had miscellaneous hairs on them, dirt from the tire treads, and several other miscellaneous items, which were all listed individually in the search warrant inventory.

The defense suggested a different suspect completely: Christopher Palesh, and argued that his semen was found on her underwear and he had a history of violence. In response to this, the prosecution said that may have exonerated Belstadt if it had had been a rape case, but Steingasser hadn’t been sexually assaulted. Also testifying in the trial was Christopher’s mother Carol Pelesh, who said she remembered her son for Florida leaving ‘on a Friday,’ which would have been September 17, 1993. Also, Mandy’s friend Jennifer Chiaravalle testified that she remembered taking her to Palesh’s house on September 17, 1993, and it was the last time they saw each other, as he left later that day: ‘he was leaving for Florida that day and she wanted to say goodbye.’

Guilty: The trial lasted three weeks, during which sixty-five witnesses testified to the jury, which was made up of six men and six women. After both sides said their peace and the jury went back to deliberate, it only took them ten hours over two days to come to a determination: on November 17, 2021 Joseph Belstadt was found guilty of second-degree murder; he was immediately remanded into custody. According to Niagara County DA Brian Seaman, the death of Steingasser was: ‘a horrendous and violent crime. He fractured this girl’s skull and strangled her with her own bra. That kind of calls for the maximum sentence.’ … ‘For 28 years, the murder of Mandy Steingasser 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 the North Tonawanda police. Today, finally, twenty-eight-years later, her killer has been brought to justice. He will now suffer the consequences of his heinous actions.’

Belstadt was sentenced to twenty-five years, and has maintained his innocence this entire time; during his sentencing, he said: ‘I would like to say to Mandy’s family and friends how sorry I am for the pain they’ve gone through, but I am not the person who killed Mandy. I’ve been saying that since day one, and that’s not going to change. I did not kill Mandy Steingasser.’ To this, DA Seaman disagreed and said: ‘my response to that is we put out the evidence before a jury, that jury found this defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and the jury’s verdict stands and they found the proper verdict in this case.’ About the verdict, Loraine Steingasser said that ‘during the time Joe Belstadt has been living his life, my daughter did not.’

It Runs in the Family: According to an article published in The Buffalo News on April 28, 2018, when it comes to Joe’s brother Jamie Paul Belstadt, his attorney Barry N. Covert said that he ‘has always indicated that he is willing to cooperate with authorities about the murder case. He’s always maintained that he has no information to give them about the Steinhasser case. He simply doesn’t know anything.’ Jamie also said that he was questioned about the disappearance in mid-April 2018 and although he provided investigators with a sample of his DNA he also told them that he wouldn’t be able to provide them with any additional help because ‘I don’t know anything about it. I have cooperated with them every time I have been asked. But I’m not involved in the case, not charged and have never been a suspect.’

On April 11, 2023 the younger Belstadt brother was arrested and booked in Niagara County Jail on felony drug charges following an investigation by the Niagara County Drug Task Force. According to Sheriff Michael Filicetti, he had been charged with felony criminal possession of a stimulant with intent to sell plus misdemeanor charges of weapons possession, obstructing firefighting efforts, possession of a forged instrument, and unlawful possession of marijuana (this is according to federal court documents). When police searched his home they found a loaded Glock handgun and $93,700 in cash (with an additional $18,294 in a backpack on his boat); as of July 2025, he is in Niagara County Jail. According to his LinkedIn profile, he has owned a debt collection agency for the past seventeen years called ‘Vision Credit.’

Conclusion: At the time of his death at the age of seventy on March 14, 2015 Richard and Loraine Steingasser had been married for thirty-nine years; he now rests next to his daughter at Acacia Park Cemetery. According to his obituary, Mr, Steingasser was a member of the Renaissance Club and in his spare time he enjoyed playing euchre, going fishing, and doing carpentry work. Loraine is alive and residing in North Tonawanda with her dog, Bruno.

As of July 2025 Joseph H. Belstadt is serving out his prison sentence at Attica Correctional Facility; he will be eligible for parole in November 2046, when he is seventy-one-years old.

Works Cited:
Aradillas, Elaine. ‘NY Man Strangled High School Girl with Her Bra and Dumped Her in Ravine in 1993.’ (January 17, 2022). Taken June 17, 2025 from https://people.com/crime/ny-man-strangled-high-school-girl-with-her-bra-dumped-in-ravine-sentenced-25-years-to-life/
Elliott, Madison & Goshgarian, Mark. ‘Opening Statements Held in Niagara County Cold Case Murder Trial.’ (March 12, 2020). Taken June 20, 2025 from https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nys/buffalo/public-safety/2020/03/12/opening-statements-held-in-niagara-county-cold-case-murder-trial
Green, Kayla. ‘Jury shown photos of Mandy Steingasser’s Remains.’ November 3, 2021). Taken June 16, 2025 from https://www.wivb.com/news/local-news/jury-shown-photos-of-mandy-steingassers-remains-from-day-they-were-recovered-from-bond-lake-park/
Prohaska, Thomas J. ‘After North Tonawanda street fight, Steingasser’s Friends say she Parted Ways.’ October 26, 2021.
Prohaska, Thomas J. ‘Jailhouse informant says Belstadt told him girl died during sexual encounter.’ (November 9, 2021). The Buffalo News.
Prohaska, Thomas J. ‘’Steingasser friend, cousin confronted Belstadt: ‘What did you do with Mandy?’’ News Niagara Reporter. (November 8, 2021). Taken June 29, 2025 from https://buffalonews.com/news/local/crime-courts/article_cf3b3634-40ca-11ec-8fa4-1390d3d02d1c.html

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