Warning: Graphic content, readers’ discretion advised. This article contains a recollection of crime and can be triggering to some readers discretion advised.

The Case of Christine Belford

There´s a  disturbing video on  YouTube posted on  March 20th ,20011.

The title   is ” don´t hurt me  mommy.”

The owner  of the  account   was arrested and sentenced to  life in prison.

Now ,pay attention to the women in  the video . her name is  christine Belford , the person filming  wants you to thinks she misstreating her children.

But  when you read the comments,  the amount of outrage  tells you ,there´s  more to the story.

And in 2007…

Christine´s  three children will disapearer

This is David Matuesiewics,christine´s  ex-husband.

christine lets david take the kids  after  he promised them a fun trip  to disney world.

Two weeks  later t,the children are missing,and  david  is nowhere to be found.

What follows is  an 18- month internationa manhunt.

will orchestrate the worst case of  cyberstalking the state has ever seen.

The first people in the entire country convicted of cyberstalking resulting  in death.

 

-first and foremost , thtis was  not a random  act of violance.

 

shots have been fired  inside  a Wilmington ,Delaware courthouse.

Witnesses say a  man shot and killed two women.

we´re  now getting word that the gunman may be dead.

sgt. paul  Snavack

-The FBI is on site , the Secret Service.A  shooting  occurrent at about  800  this morning.

February 11th  2013

an undientified man opens fire inside  a wilmington courthouse.

Fatally shooting  two women.

Before taking his own life.

-The investigation is  still preliminary at this time.we´re  proessing  the entire  scene.

-we have tactical teams searching every floor of that  courthouse.

The  gunman´s wehicle , a white SUV is found  parked  across the street.

Inside , police find a red notbook.

in which is written  a hit list of future targets. 

 one of the names ,Timothy Hitchings ,christine Belford´s   laywer.

Tim: obviouisly , i was   intended  to be  killed  that day. we  didn´t know who  might still be at large looking for me.

CCTV  footage   shows to men exiting the vheicle.

Before  one of them calmly corsses the street.

 enters the courthouse alone.

At 12:10  p.m , police released a statement to the press.

saying  the gunman was related to one of the victims.

One victim  was reportedly the shooter´s stranged wife.

David  Matusiewicz  shot and killed belford  inside the New Castle County  Courthouse .

The truth,  however , is far more disturbing.

Detective shriner , who was called   to the scene  on February   11th, describes in an interview  exactly what he found.

-i heard  on my  police radio about a shooting at the courthouse.obviously ,i immediately responded.i  saw  two individuals  on the ground. there was another individual on the ground outsde the rotating  door.

When hehe walks across the lobby . he  recognizes  one of the people deceased.

Detective shriner is the only person on site to be familiar with the case. of  christine belford and david matusiewicz.

Right away,he assumes he knows   who the shooter is.But the  detective is wrong.

September  9th  2007.

six years before  the shooting,at around   9:00.p.m.

detective Jeff  Shriner of  the missing Perssons Unit receives a call from a distressed mother. claiming that her three  daughters  have been kidnapped.

The women on the phone is Christine Belford  and  the man who she claims   abducted her children.. is her ex-husband david  matusiewicz,

..along  with his moither Lenora Matusiewcz.

Christine explains that david took the girls on a  two -week trip to Disney World in Orlando ,but never  returned.

At first , shriner doesn´t think it´s a kidnappning just another case of parents fighting  over custody.

But when shriner tries to contact david,he´s nowhere toi be found.

His suspicions increase when christine shows him the custody papers.

It states that David made various  alegations claiming christine is an unfit mother and that he should  have full custody.

As the investigaton begings, shriner first looks at credit card  records.it shows   david last transaction was made  on August 26.

The day  that they left for Florida.

Right away  ,detective shriner sends out a missing persons report,but know one knows just what david and his mother have in store.

More than 200 milwa aourg in  Hidago, Texas.

Christine´s  three daughters ,laura ,leigh , and karen.

are sitting in the back  of a  Winnerbago.David and Lenore are up front.

 After driving  on Interstate Highway 2 ,david takes the nearest exit and turns on International Boulevard

towards  the Mexican border. In less   than one mile , U.S  Jurisdiction will end.

As he  reaches a customs booth,the agents  grabs their passports and asks  how many people  are inside the RV.

As David  answers, he shows now  signs of being  worried. neither does lenore.

The  Agent  can hear the girls talking and playing in the back.  he looks at the passports one at a time ,then  hands them back to david  and opens the gate.

David and Lenore have now successsfully   International  Lines.

What  authorities  don know is , david started planning his crime as early as  last  year.

In December ,2006 , he made arrangements to get fake IDs for himself, his mom, and all three  girls.

David Cross  the Mexican Border on   August 28th.

and left  no trace  behind.

Now, with a two -week head  start , they couild be anywhere.

They find ties to a New Zeland  banc  account and to Canada.

Shriner has also  discovered that David  sold the Vision Xenter for  650, 000. dollar.

what´s worse?

David has taken a line of credit  for 249 ,000  under christines name for which he forged her signature.

November 2007

christine´s daughters  have been missing  for two months.

Thomas  and  his  daughter amy Gonzales deny knowing anything  about  where david and lenore went.

strangly enough both thomas and amy moved to edouch , Texas

Less  than 20 miles from the Mexican border.

at that point   detective Shriner   assumed that the whole family was involved.

The search  goes international.

every news outlet talks about the kidnappning of three girls by a Delaware  optometrist.

U.S . Marshals get a hit. they find  that david  is hiding in Cerro Azul

just  one hour outside of Panama  City.

  they  mobilize a team  but david vanishes before they can move in on his house.

Soon after The FBI  gets  a   hit on David´s passport, crossing over to  Costa Rica   ,and  then , nothing.

For the next 16  months the chase grows  cold.

christine is  losing hope.   hasn´t seen the girls  in 18 months

karen, the youngest ,will be turning four soon. she had just turned two when her mother last saw her .

detective shriner: it was  getting  to  a point  where, i didn´t know if we´d ever  find these children.

At that time, the FBI gets  a  break.

After tapping Amy´s  cell phone,  they trace  one call to south america to  the smal town of Catarina , Nicaragua .

March  13th 2009.

 A police  officer in Nicaragua pulls  over a car  for a rutin traffic  stop. the driver of the car  is  david.  and with him, his daughter laura.

David has  been goung around town  selling  his daughter ´s belonings for money ,after he spent the entire  1 . million  dollar he planned for his kidnappning.

As david hands  the officer his driver´s licences, the officer ignores it, and instead ,  asks  david  to step out of the vehicle.

david is immediately put under arrest  and  laura is taken to the  police station .

Less than an hour later,lenore and  the two  youngest girls are located.

In  the RV a   few miles  away.

That same night ,christine jumps in the first  plane to Nicaragua .

allthough she´s  thrilled when she´s reunited with them, christine is  shocked  to hear  what david  has been tellling them about her.

Laura , the eldest who is now six,says  she was told her mom had ended her life.

One of the most spiteful things you  can say to a  child.

is ,” your mother  didn´t love you enough to stay in this world.”

and  it also  indicates to a child  who´s been kidnapped , she´s not coming.helps is not on the way.

David plead  guilty to one count of international parental kidnappning and one count of bank fraud.

he is sentenced  to four years  in prison,followed by  five years  probation.

Lenore pleads  guilty to endangement of a child and  is sentenced to 18  month in jail.

allthough david and  his mother lenore are  behind  bars and the children are now safe

the nightmare that lasted 19 months was only  the opening act to the terror the Matusiewiczs have in store for christine.

On December 22nd ,12 ,days into sentence.

a letter is  sent by  David from prison to amy´s house. it reads,

No one understood what kind of monster they were dealing  with.

four years before the courthouse shooting.

The return of christine´s three daughters makes the front  page of   the ” new journal”showing  a picture of christine with laura and karen.

for a while , life is almost back to normal.

with david behind bars,christine can  finally breath  a sigh of relief.

At that time, a women reaches  out to christine.

after she heard about the kidnappning.

cindy bender  added  christine  on facebook and sent her a message saying   like, ” hie o´d been following  the story  and i just wanted to reach  out .and make sure your guys are okay”

She says she dated david matusiewiczs in the  past and understand  what christine going  through.

she becomes an unlikely friend offering  a safe  space for christine to open up.

christine  shared information with cindy  about  the girls´s schools and  their  grades and what sports they were  playing. she would update her with  pictures of the  girls .

December 2009

Less than one month into david sentence,

a mysterious webpage begins to circulate.

It´s title ”  a grandmothers’s ompossible choice”

The content is fabrication  of the Matusiewiczes it details in 29  paragraphs allegations against christine. claiming that she sexually abuses her daughter laura.

But how can this website get posted when lenore matusiewcz is sitting in a jail cell with no access to the internet?

Amy Gonzales. in a letter sent from prsion to Amy´s house , david gives clear directives to his sister for a variety of plots to spread the story.

Amy begins mailing printsouts of the website,sending it anonymously to christine´s friends and neighbors, to the schools of her children,even to her church.

christine belford was a sunday school teacher. she resigned her position teaching first graders about jesus because she felt that she felt  she could put them in danger just by being there.

Their goal out of all this was to make christine look as bad as  they possibly could, and they wanted  to show her that they were still in control of everything.

The campaign against christine really started to take  a toll on her . 

christine struggles to shield her daughters from the Matusiewicze´s reign of terror.

September 16 th  2010

Lenore  Matusiewicz is  released from prison,christine has a restraining order against  the entire matusiewicz family and yet….

christine freqently felt ,like she was being watched. 

she said” i dont know if i’m just paranoid”

March 20th,2011 , a friend of christine sends her a video circulating online. 

the video shows christine being stalked as someone is filming her with her children.

The person  is watching from inside of a car. just down the street from her house.

This video is then sort of repackaged,posted on YouTube and Weaponized

-the title of the video id ” don’t hurt me, mommy.” 

 The editing selects moments where christine holds her daughter by the arm as any parent would do keep her children off the streets.

Only now with this title,christine is meant to look abusive.

December 2011

David’s release : 16 months

Lenore and Thomas drive over 2000 miles and come knocking at christine’s door unannounced.

The children are home, but christine isn´t there.

Thankfully,  Jerald is there. he confronts  thomas and lenore and is able to sent them of but the damage is done .when  she hears was happened christine no longer feels safe in  her own home.

 christine places  cameras outside of her house. they got three  German shepherds.,bats´in her room and knives  next to her bed.

christine is completely tormented by this ,and  she tries to sell her house.

she knows ,they knows , where she lives . and what happens?

Cindy:“hi chris, hope all is well  your way.anything new going on? email when you can give the girls a hug for me. talk soon, cindy”

christine:sorry about the delay ,the kids are doing well, happy in school.nothing recent with david´s family since they were around beginning of December,house is for sale.and i’ve had several people in to see it.

What christine doesent know  is cindy is also  chatting online with amy, david’s sister .

Cindy someone christine trusts  and appreciates is going behind her back to the very  people  she’s terrified of.

It turns out that Cindy has never stopped loving  david  and the two have maintained a sexual relationship virtually via email.

Now that david is in prison,cindy relays information about the girls  to him through  amy.

Because of cindy´s email  exchange, the Matusiewiczes are now aware that chrstine is planning to move .

They arrange to get picture taken around the property of each entry,each window ,each camera installed.

David will be released in four months and they’re planning a home invasion.

christine has no idea.but she can feel something is wrong.

christine did tell people  that she thought that they were going to kill her.

In a letter to  her attorney ,christine writes:

” david has nothing to lose  at this point ,he has lost everything. he allow me to survive to suffer i may survive long enough to watch the girls be harmed .i may even go missing .

christine is expecting the worst.she trained her daughter katie for an emergency escape through the master  bedroom window.

if any of the matusiewicz come knocking. christine would hold them off downstairs. while katie is to gather the three girls run up the stairs and lead them out the window.where a rope ladder awaits.

David is released from federal prison, 

as he’s placed on a five-year probation,he goes to live with his family on Edcouch

He writes to Amy the following email:

February 11th 2013

as christine getting her kids  ready for school, she keeps a happy face.making sure the girls  don’t get worried.

But katie knows exactly  what’s troubling her mom.

katie: ”  i was kind of nervous that morning.because  i knew  that she had court .

Jerald:” A simple child support hearing. ,that’s all  it weas intended to be.

katie: i knew that david was going to be at court.my mom was very  stressed out.she tried to not show it to us. but you could tell.

Jarold :” i asked her,” do you want me to go  to court with you? i´ll ggo , i´ll  take the day off work,”

But christine declines.she’s is already planning to go with her frend Beth.

7:55  A.M

christine  pulls into the parking lot

 of the newcastele county courthouse

and walks up  to meet her friend  at the entrance.

Inside , the front’´s lobby is filled  with security guards , employees and civilians .

After passing first  through the rotating door,christine walks to the metal detectors followed  closely by her friend  Beth.

Before  she can recognize his face, a man takes out a gun points it at her chest and pulls the trigger…….

christine was shot and killed. he friend beth mulford was also killed.

Two  security guards were  also wounded in an exchange of gunfire.

The shooter was struck as  he attempted to exit the building. he then turned the gun on himself.

Detective  shriner ,who is called to the scene,discovers  christine on the floor of the  lobby.

He’s convinced  the shooter is david, but shriner is wrong.

detective shriner:once i observed the body, the next reaction i had was ,” oh my god , its’´not david.”

The shooter is acctually  the father , Thomas Matusiewicz

BUT  WHER´S DAVID ???

Securing him became the top priority ,because shooting christine in the courthouse was not the end of their plan .

 right away  police try to locate the three  daughters, laura , leigh and karen .

As shriner knows david or any other member of the matusiewicz clan will go after them next.

state troopers race to their schools ,hoping to find them in time.

All three girls are to be put in protective custody.

Moments  after the attack .david is spotted inside the building . and put  under arrest .

He denies knowing anything of what his father did.

Yet, when he´s told of his death,david dosen’t show  any emotion

The girls are found and brought to  a safe house awaiting transfer to an undisclosed location

Lenore and amy  is brought in for questioning,both obviously  deny having any  knowledge of thoma’s plan.

Apart from the  white  SUV  in the courthouse parking garage.

The FBI  searches thehouse  in Edcouch

and collects thousands of pieces of evidence

The matusiewicz may have succeeded in eliminating their target. but their plan is far from over.

Even with thomas dead ,david arrested,and with chirstine gone, amy and  lenore are  left behind, to carry out the last phase of their plan.

February 13th 

 just 48 hours after the shooting, amy Gonzalez sends out a  petition for custody of the kids.

 She sending  a petition to a courthouse that hasn´t  even been reopened yet,after the killing .

February 21th 

10 days after the shooting,lenore matusiewicz appears  on a podcast episode series,where she defends her husband thomas.

Her attempt to salvage the situation as well to clear her name comes off most disturbing.

lenore:” he would never hurt his family.the meningioma ,the tumor changed him. tom wasn’t behaving nromally for the longest time.he told me he wouldn´t bring his guns.

Tom didn’t plan any of this. he was plannin a reuben sandwich party.we already have the fresh corn ,beef and the sauerkraut 

and my husband loves to eat . he was an adoring husband,father, uncle,son – in -law ,brother – in -law ,

But the worst  part comes when she reiterates the allegations  of aubse against  christine,shameless and vile ,she attacks the women who can no longer defend herself.

and she does so by speaking on laura’s behalf.

lenore:” and then she said,” i have to do things to mommy.it’s a big secret.if i ever tell mommy ´s gonna be in  trouble. i dont want my mommy to go to jail. she said that mommy taught them all about the G- spot when they were in the bathtub.

August 18th 20013

prosecutors bring their indictments in front of a grand jury .

right away a Lenore and Amy are  arrested.

June 11th 2015 , 2 years later.

the trial  begins.the first ever case of cyberstalking resulting in murder

 the evidence against the Matusiewiczes is overwhelming.

 over 600  items collected by the FBI,multiple handguns, thousands of rounds of ammunition,pictures of christines house with security cameras circled,emails uncovered proving the Matusiewiczs were using  third parties to get information.

 like cindy bender and courtney Emerson,another one of david´s misstresses.

All of which led to the inescapable conclusion that they were prepared to commit an act of violant against christine belford.

The most disturbing of all might be a printed version of the serenity prayer.

“lord grant me the serenity to accept the things i canot changes, the courage to change the  things i can and the wisdom to hide the bodies of those people  i had to kill because they pissed me off.”

But with all the evidence brought up against them,.david , lenore and amy are stoic.

Their defense,christine was an abusive  mother and they did what they had to to protect david’s three daughters.

when katie takes the  stand, she defends her mother  with all her heart.describing how she was terrified and pleaaded to the judge, the matusiewiczes will never stop until they have my sisters.”

Katie is now 20 years old.she hasn´t seen laura or any of her sisters in two years.

she’s worried that Matusiewiczs will convince the jury that her mother  was abusive and that they will succeed.

katie is horrified at the thought that they couild get the girls back.

The Matusiewiczs are relentless  they were methodical highly organized ,and ruthless.

 there is only one thing that could bring them down. the one person  that could  testify against  them.

The Matusiewiczes create a story that only laura can rebut.

On june 22nd.

laura, whos is now 13 years old  takes  the stand. her testimony is fiven behind  closed doors for  her own safety.

but one sentence from laura’s mouth is shared with  the press

non of it is true. she was never  abused.

everythins matusiewicz  have said is a lie. she was the one at the the very end who restored her mother´s reputation in a way that nobody else could. 

The Matusiewiczes stood silent and the lies fell apart right in front of the jury.

 This trial  represented an extension of christine  Belford’s fight.

it represented the bravery and courage of her children who came into this courtroom and testified on her behalf.

 david matusiewicz,his mother  lenore and his sister ,amy are all found guilty  and sentence to life without  parole.

 they would never get out of prison again.

 It´s a victory for the three young girls and christine.