00:00:01
♪♪ -Kelly Morrissey was
a young girl who didn't like to stay home. She liked to hang out
with her friends.
00:00:19
June 12th, 1984,
Kelly walks to a payphone near a shell gas station
over on Merrick Road in Lynbrook
00:00:26
and meets up with another one
of her friends. And, um, they make
some phone calls.
00:00:31
After that payphone,
we don't know where Kelly went. -Knowing Kelly,
there is no way
00:00:37
I believe she ran away. No. -And then on November 10th,
1984, just five months later,
00:00:45
Theresa Fusco disappears.
-Yes. -And what is the initial
thought? -The initial thought is
there might be a connection.
00:00:58
Theresa worked at a roller rink
on Merrick Road in Lynbrook -- Hot Skates. And for her to go to Hot Skates,
00:01:06
she would have to walk in
this direction down the street. -Did you ever worry
about her walking?
00:01:11
-No. I never really worried
about her walking anywhere in the neighborhood. ♪♪ -That evening,
she apparently got fired.
00:01:23
She's upset. And then she leaves. -Wasn't she supposed
to go to Lisa Kaplan's house?
00:01:30
-Yeah. Her best friend. Yeah. -She was going to come
to my house after she got off of work
and sleep over.
00:01:35
-So it becomes, like, 9:00. She's not there. -Yeah. -9:30.
-Not there. 10:00, I just thought maybe
she went home.
00:01:45
Well, the next morning,
her mother called, and her mom asked my mom, "Can you please have
Lisa send Theresa home?"
00:01:52
And my mom said,
"Theresa's not here." Her mom called
the police department. We went to all the places
we would hang out,
00:02:02
and she wasn't anywhere
that we searched. -It's just very coincidental. Same neighborhood,
same time frame.
00:02:12
Two girls who knew each other.
I'm like, something's not right. Something's just not right.
00:02:19
-And then 25 days later, there's two boys coming back
to hang out here in the woods.
00:02:26
They see a body and they run
to the deli and ask to call 911. Police show up
and they find Theresa Fusco.
00:02:38
-Theresa had been strangled,
beaten, and raped. -It truly was shattering at 16 to never have lost anybody
00:02:49
that you loved
in such a horrific way. You just can't get over that. -But until there's
a connection in the two cases,
00:02:59
one's still a missing girl,
and now, one's a homicide. John Kogut was brought
in by the detectives
00:03:07
as a suspect in the murder
of Theresa Fusco. And during that time, he confessed to the murder
of Theresa.
00:03:17
-And then during
that confession, he implicated two
of his buddies. -And when I saw the three men
who were arrested in handcuffs,
00:03:26
I thought to myself,
"Who are these people?" They're older. Who are they? -The theory was always.
it was three guys.
00:03:34
-Yeah. -And the DNA didn't match any
of them? -No. It didn't. -If they didn't do it,
then who did it?
00:03:41
♪♪ -Today, we arraigned
63-year-old Richard Bilodeau for the murder of Theresa Fusco.
00:03:52
-And I said, "Okay,
here we go again." ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -First 15-year-old
Kelly Morrissey vanished
00:04:43
into the night
on June 12th, 1984. She left her home after dinner
and never came back.
00:04:50
Five months later,
it was her friend Theresa Fusco. On November 10th, 1984, the 16-year-old left
her job at Hot Skates,
00:05:00
a popular roller rink,
never to be heard from again. 41 years ago, trying to find
them was a different job.
00:05:13
Police had to look for real
footprints, not digital ones. And it was easy to vanish
without a trace.
00:05:23
Kelly Morrissey
and Theresa Fusco were We're growing up
in the suburbs of Long Island.
00:05:29
Vicki Pagano lived around the
corner from Kelly in Massapequa. -She actually was
the first person
00:05:37
I ever smoked a cigarette with.
It was Kelly. I was from a divorced family. She was from a divorced family.
00:05:45
We connected that way. She was like my sister
I never had. -When they were
in junior high,
00:05:51
Kelly's family moved about
ten miles away to Lynbrook. By then,
Kelly had made some new friends.
00:05:59
-One of the first people
that she met when she moved to Lynbrook
was Theresa Fusco.
00:06:05
-Kelly's mother, Iris, and
her then fiance, Paul Olmstead, watched the friendship develop.
00:06:12
-She was very good friends
with Theresa. And so she -- she made friends very easily.
00:06:19
-She met her friends at malls
and in person. Kids roamed around freely. No one could keep tabs
on each other 24/7.
00:06:28
It was a different time, and Kelly Morrissey
and Theresa Fusco were typical teens for 1984.
00:06:36
♪♪ -Well, let's take them on a
little stroll down memory lane. -That was the year
Ronald Reagan was president.
00:06:49
"Ghostbusters" and "Footloose"
were the breakout hits. Madonna was climbing the charts,
and fashion followed.
00:06:57
It was the year Steve Jobs introduced
something revolutionary. -Hello, I am Macintosh.
00:07:05
-We didn't have cell phones,
social media, so we were pen pals.
We would get our stationery,
00:07:13
and we would just write back
and forth. And that's how we communicated. -When Vicki was visiting
Kelly,
00:07:19
she would sometimes hang out
with Theresa, who also became her pen pal. -Postmarked 1982
from Lynbrook, New York,
00:07:30
from Theresa Fusco. And it says, "Dear Vicky.
Hi. What's up? Nothing much here. When are you going to visit
Kelly again?
00:07:40
When you do, call me, okay?
How's all the boys there? They cute?" -In Lynbrook,
by far the best place
00:07:50
to meet boys was at Hot Skates, as advertised here in 1984. -What are you doing tonight?
00:08:00
-Oh, we would go to
Hot Skates, roller rink. We would go there,
roller skate around.
00:08:05
-How important was
Hot Skates in your life? -Oh, Hot Skates was
a big deal to everybody
00:08:11
that lived in the area,
even outside of the area. We would just go there
and hang out with our friends
00:08:17
and listen to music. -Lisa Kaplan, now Johnson, was
Theresa Fusco's closest friend.
00:08:24
-We always would try
to dress very similar. We would buy the same clothing. We would wear our makeup
the same.
00:08:31
-Did you guys confide
in each other? -About everything. -Literally everything?
-Literally everything.
00:08:39
-No one gave safety
a second thought. -You could walk
absolutely anywhere and not be afraid of anything
in the dark, during the day,
00:08:49
alone, with friends. -And that explains
why it was business as usual at the Morrissey house
a couple miles away,
00:08:58
when 15-year-old Kelly walked
out the front door alone after dinner. She said she'd be back by 9:30.
00:09:06
It was June 12th, 1984. Iris didn't give it
a second thought. She and Paul were raising
eight children together.
00:09:16
-Somebody came in, and
I heard somebody in the kitchen yelled down, "I'm home!" And okay.
00:09:22
You could hear doors opening and
closing, kids coming in and out. And I took it, it was Kelly.
It wasn't until the next morning
00:09:28
when she didn't come
down to go to school, that I went down there
and realized that her bed wasn't made, and
the clothes was still there,
00:09:34
and she hadn't come in. -I mean, were you panicking
at that point, Iris? -Oh, yeah.
00:09:39
And then we called the police, but they told us that she wasn't
missing 24 hours at that point,
00:09:45
and they really wouldn't
take a report In those days, they waited. -Nassau County Detective
Freddy Goldman would review
00:09:54
both Theresa and Kelly's
cases, some 25 years later. He's retired now, but he agreed to walk us
through the timeline
00:10:03
and the evidence from back then. At the time of Kelly's
disappearance, he says police found no reason
to think there was a crime.
00:10:13
It seemed
like she was a runaway. -There's tons of missing
persons cases on a daily basis.
00:10:20
-Is that how Kelly Morrisey's case was initially handled? -Of course, yeah.
-At 15 years old,
00:10:26
she wouldn't know how to do life unless somebody was there
to help her. I don't foresee her
ever just running away
00:10:34
and not talking to anyone,
not reaching out to anyone. So I knew it was serious
from day one.
00:10:41
-Months went by
with no sign of Kelly. -That had to be so tough.
-Oh, it was. I mean, everywhere I went,
every child from the back
00:10:52
looked like Kelly. I had stopped
to look to see if it was Kelly. Um, it was horrible.
00:11:00
-If Kelly had been written off
as a runaway and not a priority, five months later,
her case got a second look.
00:11:09
It was November 10th. Theresa Fusco never showed
up at Lisa's house for their sleepover.
00:11:17
-I thought maybe she
went to somebody else's house. And so I called a few friends
and said, you know,
00:11:22
"Did Theresa come over?" At that point,
I still wasn't overly concerned. -Theresa's
parents were divorced.
00:11:30
The next morning,
her father, Thomas, had a scheduled visit
and arrived at his ex's house
00:11:36
to pick up his daughter. -How soon did you realize
that this was a problem? -I know my wife
and I looked at each other
00:11:44
and said,
"Something's not right here." We realized this is out of norm. What do we do now?
00:11:53
-When did you become
really concerned? -I became really concerned
when she wasn't ready for school
00:12:01
on Monday morning. We walked to school
every morning. Why wasn't she there? -Monday came and went.
00:12:10
It would be almost a month before anyone knew
what had happened to Theresa. ♪♪ -This is my daughter, Theresa.
00:12:30
She was my precious little girl. -For Theresa Fusco's father,
Thomas, and her brother, John...
00:12:37
-We were happy. -...it seemed as though
the entire town of Lynbrook was out looking for her.
00:12:44
How big was the search? -Everyone and then some. -Everybody.
-Everywhere. -Nearly a month later,
00:12:52
not far from Hot Skates and near
the Long Island railroad tracks, Theresa's
body was discovered beaten,
00:13:02
raped, and strangled,
buried under a pile of leaves and wooden shipping pallets.
00:13:09
Thomas and John are still
haunted by where she was found. -I walked over it twice.
00:13:16
I didn't know she was
under the pallet. We just walked over the pallet,
and I'm glad I didn't find her.
00:13:21
That would have killed me. -I never heard the word
"homicide." -So when two
homicide detectives arrived
00:13:28
at Lisa's house, she didn't
yet understand what that meant. -And they said,
"Well, we think we found her."
00:13:36
My heart started to race. I started to get excited,
thinking, "My God, thank God
they found her."
00:13:42
And then they told me
that they found a body. At 16,
it was life-shattering. -When her body was found,
it was a shock, not just
00:13:54
to the Lynbrook community, but, I think, to all
of Nassau County. -Anne Donnelly would grow up
00:14:00
to be the
Nassau County District Attorney. But before that, she had a childhood a lot
like Theresa Fusco's.
00:14:08
-I used to hang out
at Hot Skates when I was a kid. I was in college
when it happened.
00:14:15
It changed the way
we saw the world back in the '80s.
It changed all that. And not for the better.
00:14:22
-These are news articles I collected throughout the years
on this case. -41 years later, Vikki
Papagno keeps a sad scrapbook.
00:14:33
It tells a story of losing her
two friends, Theresa and Kelly. -This one,
which includes both of them --
00:14:42
"Lynbrook Girl Missing,
Second from the Village." -Kelly had been missing
for nearly six months
00:14:48
when Theresa was found. -It's just too coincidental
to me. I feel like whoever committed
Theresa could have something
00:14:57
to do with Kelly. -You have two girls
who went missing, and then one who was murdered.
00:15:03
-Yeah. I was afraid to be
home alone at nighttime. It was frightening
because we had no answers.
00:15:11
-Investigators on Theresa's
case have very little to go on. No footprints, no fingerprints,
no murder weapon.
00:15:21
Hair samples were taken
from Theresa, also a sexual assault swab. But DNA testing had
not advanced enough
00:15:30
to find out who it belonged to. While looking for links
between the two girls, they zeroed in on John Kogut,
00:15:38
a 21-year-old landscaper who told detectives he had dated
Kelly for about a week.
00:15:44
-I've heard the name
John Kogut before. It was early, right when she first started
liking him or dating him.
00:15:54
-Kogut was asked about
Kelly's disappearance. He also was asked about
Theresa's killing
00:16:00
and denied any knowledge of it. Kogut agreed to come in
and take a polygraph test.
00:16:06
Four days later, he did, and
police told him he failed it. Kogut was interrogated
through the night
00:16:14
and into the next morning. After nearly 12 hours of
questioning, his denials change.
00:16:22
Nassau County Detective
Joseph Volpe wrote down what he said
Kogut told him that on the night
Theresa went missing,
00:16:31
Kogut was with John Restivo and
Dennis Halstead in John's van when they saw Theresa
walking away from Hot Skates.
00:16:41
Dennis Halstead was known
to investigators back then, says Freddy Goldman. He had had some minor brushes
with police.
00:16:49
-Dennis Halstead had
an apartment adjacent to the Shell gas station
where Kelly was last seen
00:16:55
at that payphone. We were told that Kelly hung out
in that apartment frequently.
00:17:00
She had the key
to his apartment. -It sounds like Dennis Halstead
was viewed kind of
00:17:05
as a bad influence
on the younger kids in the area. -It would seem. Yeah. -John Restivo was more
of a clean slate.
00:17:14
-He was a working fellow. Although he was friends
with them, he didn't have a background
like them.
00:17:20
He didn't hang out in Dennis's
apartment or that we knew of. -Police took Kogut to
the district attorney's office,
00:17:28
where he was videotaped. -He was interviewed by Assistant District
Attorney George Peck.
00:17:39
He agreed to go on
video. -Camera rolling, Kogut detailed
what happened to Theresa
00:17:46
when she got into the van
that night. Kogut told investigators that Theresa was raped twice
by Dennis Halstead
00:17:55
and John Restivo. When she said
she was going to tell somebody, they couldn't let that happen.
00:18:16
-And then John Kogut describes
how he killed Theresa. -John Kogut would later recant
everything he told police.
00:18:39
But on that day, Goldman says investigators were
confident they had Theresa Fusco's killer
in custody
00:18:47
and had the evidence
they needed to prove it. But later on that very same day, another teenage girl went
missing.
00:18:57
♪♪ -March 26th, 1985, when 19-year-old
Jackie Martarella didn't show up to start her shift
at Burger King.
00:19:19
Her older brother, Martin,
knew something was off. -She's very prompt. She was very dependable,
and for her to not show up,
00:19:28
we knew there was
something wrong. -Most nights, Jackie walked
to work from the family home
00:19:33
in Oceanside, a town
a few miles away from Lynbrook. How would she get there? If she's walking,
what was the route
00:19:41
she would take
to go to Burger King? -Pretty much straight
down Long Beach Road.
00:19:45
-Did you ever worry
about her walking? -Not really. No, no. -Jackie had recently graduated
from high school.
00:19:52
She was working part-time
and taking accounting classes, saving money to buy a car.
00:19:59
How would you describe
your sister? -Describe her.
She was, um, very girly. -Complete with posters of teen
pop stars on her bedroom wall.
00:20:10
-I remember Leif Garrett,
whoever he was. -I remember Leif Garrett. -There was posters of that.
00:20:16
She was into dance.
She liked doing that. She liked her clothes,
very finicky with her clothes.
00:20:23
-And now she was missing. So what did you
and your father do? -Well,
I think we called the police,
00:20:31
and then they took notes,
and then they started looking. And then those other two
came up, and they were,
00:20:40
you know, saying, look,
what's happening here. So it became --
everybody became interested.
00:20:45
-Nearly a month went by
with no sign of Jackie. -You know, all the worst
thoughts go through your mind
00:20:52
when something like that
happens. And, of course,
what happens, happens. It's the worst of the worst.
00:21:02
They found her body
26 days later in a Woodmere golf course. -April 22nd, 1985. A man looking for golf balls
in the high grass
00:21:14
off the 17th hole found a naked body. It was Jackie. -She was murdered,
obviously, and discarded.
00:21:24
-According
to former Nassau County Detective Freddy Goldman,
Jackie was left the same way
00:21:30
Theresa Fusco had been raped
and strangled. Initially, did investigators
think, "Oh, my God,
00:21:37
these cases all
have to be connected?" -Yes and no. But with Kogut sitting there,
00:21:43
it kind of, you know, it threw
a monkey wrench in everything. -John Kogut, the man who had confessed
to killing Theresa Fusco,
00:21:51
was in police custody. -How could he be the killer
if we had him in custody the same day
that she went missing?
00:21:59
So obviously, it wasn't him. Could it be a Halstead, Restivo? But no. -Jackie's homicide was
not going to be easy to solve.
00:22:08
Her body was
so badly decomposed, no DNA swab could be taken. -I'm sure it heightened
the the alertness and awareness
00:22:17
of the community,
because now you know that there's somebody
out there that's, you know,
00:22:21
going after young girls. -Kelly Morrissey
was still missing. Police knew she had hung out
at Dennis Halstead's apartment,
00:22:29
but there was nothing more
to tie Halstead or Kogut to her disappearance. Was there any evidence
that indicated
00:22:39
that they were involved
in Kelly's disappearance? -No. No. -Theresa Fusco's
killing was the only case
00:22:50
police could pin down. By June 1985, John Kogut, John Restivo
and Dennis Halstead
00:22:58
had all been charged
with her rape and murder, and all three pleaded
not guilty.
00:23:04
Kogut went on trial first. Later, Halstead and Restivo
were tried together. -I remember sitting
in the witness box, testifying,
00:23:15
and and the district attorney
saying, "Please speak louder." -Lisa Johnson was just 18
and a star witness.
00:23:24
-And here I am, you know,
sitting there very meek and timid, and
in a room full of strangers
00:23:33
testifying about my friend
who was killed. It was difficult.
It still is difficult.
00:23:43
-John Kogut offered an alibi. And according to a New Yorker
magazine investigation,
00:23:49
the van police said
was used in Theresa's abduction was actually out of commission
00:23:56
and up on cinder blocks the day
Theresa went missing. But two hairs
belonging to Theresa
00:24:02
that police say they recovered
from the floor of Restivo's van were too powerful to ignore,
00:24:09
and Kogut's detailed
confession trumped everything. -By February of 1987, Kogut, Halstead, and Restivo
00:24:23
had been convicted of the rape
and murder of Theresa Fusco and sentenced
to more than 30 years to life.
00:24:30
♪♪ It had by then been two long
years for Theresa's dad. He and the rest of her family
tried to move on.
00:24:44
-We thought, believe me,
that there was time for closure. We had gone to parents
of murdered children.
00:24:51
We had support, and
they were looking for support, and we were looking
for support and closure.
00:24:56
-But there was no closure. What prosecutors had
insisted was an airtight case against the three men
00:25:04
was going to blow up
spectacularly in 2003. Nearly 19 years
after Theresa was killed,
00:25:13
more sophisticated DNA
testing became available. It told a different story.
John Kogut,
00:25:22
John Restivo, and Dennis
Halstead's convictions were all overturned. -Just six hours ago.
00:25:30
After 17 years in prison, the murder rape convictions
of three Long Island men were overturned following
stunning new DNA evidence.
00:25:40
-And new testing not only
ruled out Kogut, Halstead, and Restivo, it pointed to someone else
entirely, another unknown male.
00:25:52
Everything Theresa Fusco's
family and friends thought they knew about
her killing,
00:25:58
and her killer, was changing. -Wait a second.
There was investigations. We trusted the detectives.
00:26:07
We trusted the police
to do the right thing. How could they do this to us? -After almost 18 years,
John Kogut,
00:26:26
John Restivo, and Dennis
Halstead were out of prison and in the arms
of their families.
00:26:35
-I waited for this
for 18 years, and I'm just -- I'm sorry. I'm just really -- I just can't believe
it's happening.
00:26:44
-But their legal problems
were not over. Nassau County District Attorney
Dennis Dillon had decided
00:26:51
to retry all three
for the murder of Theresa Fusco, starting with John Kogut,
who again pleaded not guilty.
00:27:01
There was still
his videotaped confession, and that became the centerpiece
of the case against Kogut
00:27:08
at his second trial
in September 2005. -The confession
the prosecution argued was more important
than all other evidence,
00:27:20
even the new DNA. -When I saw the video, I go, "Whoa,
it looks like it's legit."
00:27:28
-But Kogut's defense attorney,
Paul Castelerio, says the video is misleading. As damaging
as Kogut's statements sound,
00:27:38
he says it's what you don't see
on camera that matters. -Part of it is,
you know, it's staged.
00:27:45
-There is a detective... -Sitting off camera,
watching it and monitoring it, and making sure it goes right.
00:27:54
It's like a play. -Here, Kogut struggles
with names. -Even his alleged
accomplices' names.
00:28:07
-And then asks for help. -That kind of shows
it was coerced. -Kogut was an easy target,
Castelerio says.
00:28:22
He had a 10th-grade education
and a substance abuse problem that Castelerio says
police took advantage of.
00:28:31
-Tells them about his drinking,
his drugs, all the stuff
that they can use against him.
00:28:37
-And then Castelerio says
they lied to him. The police told John Kogut
that he failed a polygraph.
00:28:46
-No. John Kogut passed this polygraph
test with flying colors. -And even though Kogut
had already told police
00:28:53
over and over that he had
nothing to do with Theresa Fusco's killing, Castelerio says
they convinced him he did.
00:29:02
-They told him he blacked out. He didn't remember. You know, "This is what you did.
This is where you took her."
00:29:16
-By the time
this video was recorded, Kogut had been in custody
for 18 hours, interrogated for nearly
12 of them,
00:29:26
and awake for almost 30. -At some point in time,
you know, you want out, you give in.
00:29:34
-But the confession wasn't
the only thing prosecutors would have
to defend. They had to contend
with the new DNA evidence
00:29:41
pointing to an unknown male. So prosecutors suggested that Theresa must have been
with someone else
00:29:49
right before she was abducted
by Kogut, Halstead, and Restivo. -Then all of a sudden, she had a
consensual sexual encounter.
00:29:58
That's what they said. -But investigators were never
able to identify anyone who had been sexually involved
with Theresa.
00:30:06
And Theresa's best friend,
Lisa, had to take the stand again
at this trial to talk about it.
00:30:14
And I mean,
this is a tough question to ask, and I want to ask it properly. But as far as you know, was
Theresa even sexually active?
00:30:22
-Absolutely not.
And we spoke about that. And that's not something that
she was going to do
00:30:29
before she was married. -Lisa, once their star witness,
was this time around undercutting their case.
00:30:37
-They went against their own
witnesses and, in fact, argued that she went
from being a virgin
00:30:43
to being someone who had
a quickie in a skating rink where she worked. It was preposterous.
It was demeaning.
00:30:50
-Did that make you mad? -It did, because it's not something
she would have done, ever.
00:30:57
And I will go to my grave saying that Theresa was not
having sex with anybody. -Prosecutors did still have
the physical evidence
00:31:07
from the first trial -- the two hairs belonging
to Theresa that police said they found on
the floor of John Restivo's van.
00:31:16
But that, too,
Castelerio argued, was tainted. There was a science
to analyzing whether the hairs came
from someone dead or alive.
00:31:27
-They displayed
a certain decomposition that is only present
when the hairs are attached
00:31:35
to the head of a person
who is deceased. -That meant the hairs could
not have been left in the van
00:31:43
while Theresa was still alive,
according to Castelerio. -We believe that they went in
00:31:50
and took him from
the medical examiner's office and said they found him
in the van.
00:31:53
In other words,
they were planted. -But in closing, prosecutors
denied the hairs were planted.
00:32:01
After Castelerio was
able to raise serious questions about the prosecution's case,
00:32:07
Kogut's fate was
in the hands of one person -- a single judge, not a jury. Kogut had decided to take
his chance with a bench trial,
00:32:18
and after nearly three months
of testimony, the judge reached a verdict. -This is Judge Ort's decision.
00:32:26
"The court will not accept
the confession and, accordingly, finds the
defendant not guilty of murder
00:32:32
in the second degree
under count one." -And what does that mean when the judge won't accept
the confession?
00:32:38
-He means
that the confession is false. It is not credible.
And that's what the judge found.
00:32:43
He did not believe
the confession. -Eight days later, the prosecution
formally dismissed the charges
00:32:51
against Restivo and Halstead. -John Kogut was acquitted. I was devastated only because
I've seen that confession
00:33:01
of his over and over again. And I believe then
that he was telling the truth. -It makes you feel
like you got hit in the face
00:33:08
with a friggin' shovel, and you don't know
how to bounce back from that. -It was December of 2005.
00:33:16
Theresa Fusco had been dead
for more than 20 years, and now nothing about her case
could be laid to rest.
00:33:25
-It's for me, as the father, Heartache, heartache
to go through it over again. -I felt as if the life
had been sucked out of me.
00:33:34
Everything that we fought for, everything
that we testified for, everything that was investigated
and all of the proof
00:33:44
and all of the evidence
meant nothing. If they didn't do it,
then who did it? -Good morning.
00:33:52
I'd like to thank my
investigators and my prosecutors handling this case
for standing here with me today.
00:33:59
-On October 15th, 2025,
Ann Donnelly, now the Nassau County
District attorney had
00:34:07
a startling announcement. -And after two decades
of this case running cold, we have indicted
Theresa's killer.
00:34:16
-The FBI, using the new
science of genetic genealogy, had found a match
to the unknown DNA.
00:34:25
-Today, we arraigned
63-year-old Richard Bilodeau of Center Moriches
for the murder of Theresa Fusco.
00:34:34
♪♪ -Nearly 41 years later,
and thanks to genetic genealogy, Nassau County D.A. Ann Donnelly was
sure they had finally,
00:34:56
finally found Theresa Fusco's
killer. -Theresa's life was
violently stolen from her
00:35:02
more than 40 years ago,
but the past is never forgotten. -Once the unidentified
DNA sample was matched
00:35:12
to 63-year-old Richard Bilodeau,
surveillance began. A few months later,
prosecutors say a straw
00:35:20
in a discarded smoothie cup confirmed he was their man. Bilodeau has denied
the charges.
00:35:28
At the time of his arrest,
he was working at Walmart, stocking shelves At the time
of Theresa's killing,
00:35:35
he was 23 and living close by. -He was living with
his grandparents. It's about one mile away
from Hot Skates.
00:35:45
It's about one mile away
from the residence. -He was a man who had seemingly always lived
below the radar.
00:35:56
Prosecutor Jared Rosenblatt. Had he ever been married? -No.
-Does he have family or close friends?
00:36:03
-He has a brother. -That he's close to? -I can't speak about
how close they are.
00:36:07
-And does he have hobbies? Does this guy do anything other
than go to work? -I think he gambles
on sports a lot.
00:36:16
-In interviews
we conducted with Theresa's friends and family, no one recognized
this defendant as someone
00:36:23
who was ever associated
with Theresa in 1984. -Authorities
wouldn't speculate about
00:36:29
how Richard Bilodeau
may have come in contact with Theresa Fusco, but D.A. Ann Donnelly says
she knows he did.
00:36:38
-When you have a DNA match,
100% match. We got the guy. -William Kephart
and Daniel Russo,
00:36:47
Bilodeau's defense attorneys,
see it differently. What evidence are you
aware of that connects
00:36:54
Richard Bilodeau
to the murder of Theresa Fusco? -The DNA. That's it.
-That's it.
00:37:00
-And they don't find
it convincing. -It's being overstated
and overvalued. -And what's more...
00:37:06
-This district attorney's
office, this police department
in 1985 stood before a court
00:37:13
and said,
these three men did this, and they had an ample amount
of evidence to prove it.
00:37:19
-Was that a concern
that they're going to point to the fact
that three men went on trial
00:37:25
were convicted for this crime? -Yes, I would assume that's
what they're going to say.
00:37:31
But the difference now
is we have science behind us, which they didn't have
40 years ago.
00:37:39
And to me, you don't beat
the scientific evidence. -But at John Kogut's retrial
in 2005,
00:37:48
the Nassau County DA's
office had argued the opposite, that the unidentified DNA taken
from Theresa was meaningless.
00:37:59
-The same DA's office stood up
and said, "We still believe,
based on all of this evidence,
00:38:06
that these men are responsible
for Miss Fusco's death." So I don't know how now,
in 2025,
00:38:13
because you were
able to put a name to that DNA. Suddenly none of that matters
anymore.
00:38:18
-All of their lies
against John Kogut, John Restivo, and Dennis
Halstead are going to come back
00:38:23
and haunt them
during this retrial. -Paul Castelerio, John Kogut's
former defense attorney, fears
00:38:32
that Bilodeau's lawyers will put
the blame on the three men who were cleared of the murder
two decades ago.
00:38:40
-They're going to have a trial
in which I'm sure the defense is going to
be arguing they're guilty.
00:38:45
-And Castelerio says
that's just more salt in the wound for John Kogut, Dennis Halstead,
and John Restivo.
00:38:54
-It's never ending. What Nassau County did to them
just has no ending to it. -All three men sued
Nassau County.
00:39:03
Two of them
were awarded damages. -$18 million each to Restivo and co-defendant
Dennis Halstead,
00:39:11
both exonerated a decade ago
for the 1984 murder and rape of Lynbrook teenager
Theresa Fusco.
00:39:18
-But in Kogut's case, a jury found no wrongdoing
by Nassau County police and gave him nothing.
00:39:26
-Let me ask you, though,
if, in fact, Richard Bilodeau is convicted, will either one of you
apologize to the three guys
00:39:34
who were convicted? -No, because I don't owe
them an apology. I wasn't even in the office
at the time.
00:39:39
I wasn't a lawyer. -Yeah, but for the
Nassau County DA's office. -Mr. Dillon did
what he thought was right
00:39:47
when he dismissed
against two of them. And I think, you know, they got
their apology at that point.
00:39:54
-The idea that the district
attorney of Nassau County can't apologize
to these three guys
00:40:00
for what they did to them
is outrageous. -While the
Nassau County authorities say
00:40:06
once again they have
the killer of Theresa Fusco. Richard Bilodeau is
not facing charges in
00:40:13
either Kelly Morrissey's
or Jackie Martarella's cases. Both remain unsolved,
leaving two families in limbo.
00:40:23
-I mean,
you're anticipating something and then it never shows up. She didn't have a bad bone
in her body.
00:40:31
She missed out on just living
a simple life, you know? -You know,
I look at women in their 50s now
00:40:40
and think that could be Kelly. I mean, that's
how old she would be. -When Richard Bilodeau
goes on trial
00:40:50
for the murder of Theresa Fusco,
her father, Thomas, and her once best friend Lisa
will be back in the courtroom
00:40:59
for what they hope
will be the last time. -Closure to me is
that if this is the individual,
00:41:06
then justice will be done. It's just completely over.
41 years is over, beginning and end.
00:41:13
-Do you hope, do you think, that it might finally
be resolved this time around, or do you still have questions?
00:41:23
-I trust in the DNA this time. I am so hopeful
that there will be a conviction and we can finally put this
to rest.
00:41:33
-41 years afterwards. -It's a long time.
It's a lifetime.