Car in Riverside with body in trunk is linked to Christmas Eve mall shooting

SAN DIEGO (CNS) – The investigation of a double-fatal shooting and
missing person in San Diego moved to Riverside with the discovery of the body
of a 24-year-old in the trunk of a car, police said today.

A caller notified police at 11:45 a.m. Friday that a car parked in a
lot at a shopping mall at 19530 Van Buren Blvd. was emitting a foul odor from
its trunk area, said Riverside police Sgt. Daniel Russell.

Officers responded, opened the trunk and found a man's body, he said,
adding the license plate revealed the vehicle was related to the missing person
case in San Diego.

San Diego police were notified and responded to the scene along with
Riverside police homicide detectives, Russell said.

The man has not been positively identified, he said.

The coroner's office, which reported the man's age as 24, listed the
cause of death as homicide.

The vehicle is related to a double-fatal shooting that took place at a
San Diego shopping mall at 1:15 a.m. on Dec. 24, said San Diego police Lt. Mike
Hastings.

Police responding to the 1600 block of Camino Del Rio North on that date
found two people — Salvatore Belvedere and Ilona Flint, both 22, shot inside
a car, he said. Flint died at the scene, and Belvedere several days later.

“Since that incident, Salvatore's brother, 24-year-old Gianni
Belvedere, became a missing person and police began searching for a 2004 dark
green Toyota with a Utah license plate of B154VZ,” Hastings said.

That is the vehicle where the body was found Friday, he said.

Photographs from the scene showed the vehicle had been backed into a
parking space with landscaping on one side of it.

The Riverside Press-Enterprise reported that an employee of a business
at the shopping mall told police she noticed the car parked for several days in
the location where it was found.