Nassau Police Charge Man With Raping and Killing Teenager in 1984

New York|Nassau Police Charge Man With Raping and Killing Teenager in 1984

For decades, authorities struggled to find out who killed Theresa Fusco, a Long Island teenager who in 1984 was raped, strangled and left in the woods near the roller rink where she had worked at the snack bar.

Three men convicted in the case were exonerated in 2003, and two won hefty payouts for their wrongful convictions. Now, four decades later, Nassau County authorities say they finally have the real killer, thanks to new DNA evidence.

On Wednesday morning at the Nassau County Court House in Mineola, N.Y., two detectives walked in a man with graying hair wearing a dark T-shirt, sweatpants and sneakers, his head bowed amid a scrum of cameras.

The man, Richard Bilodeau, 63, was arraigned on a charge of second-degree murder.

If convicted, he faces up to 25 years to life in prison, said Anne T. Donnelly, the Nassau County district attorney.

Theresa, a 16-year-old student at East Rockaway High School who lived in Lynbrook, a Long Island suburb not far from the New York City border, was last seen on a November evening leaving the Hot Skates roller rink in tears because she had just been fired.

A month later, a block from the rink, two 14-year-old boys playing in the woods spied her body under a wooden pallet covered by leaves. Police said at the time that there were ligature marks around her neck and that she had been strangled, beaten and sexually assaulted. Officials recovered DNA evidence.

Theresa’s killing drew wide attention partly because she disappeared around the same time and area as two other teenage girls, one of whom — Kelly Morrissey, 15 — was Theresa’s friend and had gone missing several months earlier.

The three men convicted in the case insisted they had been framed by coerced confessions and unreliable testimony by jailhouse informants.

Their appeals drew the attention and assistance of Barry C. Scheck, a founder of the Innocence Project, which uses DNA technology to help exonerate the wrongly convicted.

Advanced DNA testing helped clear the three men: Dennis Halstead, John Kogut and John Restivo. They were released in June 2003 after more than 17 years in prison and sued Nassau County over wrongful conviction. Two of them, Mr. Restivo and Mr. Halstead, were awarded $18 million apiece.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

Nate Schweber contributed reporting from Mineola, N.Y.