The Killing of Theresa Fusco | Full Episode | Forensic Files

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

Nearly 41 years after a New York teenager is killed, an unexpected breakthrough in the case. "48 Hours" correspondent Erin Moriarty reports. This episode aired on April 25, 2026. Watch more full episodes of "48 Hours" on Pluto TV.

True crime. Real justice. "48 Hours" investigates the most intriguing crime and justice cases that touch on all areas of the human experience including greed and passion. "48 Hours," which premiered in 1988, has developed a rich history of original reporting and impact journalism that has helped exonerate wrongly convicted people, caused cold cases to be reopened and solved, and along the way changed lives.

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Brief Summary

The episode details the 1984 disappearances of Kelly Morrissey and Theresa Fusco, culminating in Richard Bilodeau's arrest for Theresa's murder.

Key points

The Disappearance of Kelly Morrissey. Kelly Morrissey vanished on June 12, 1984, leaving her family and friends in shock.
The Tragic Fate of Theresa Fusco. Five months after Kelly's disappearance, Theresa Fusco was found murdered, raising alarms in the community.
The Overturned Convictions. In 2003, new DNA evidence overturned the convictions of three men for Theresa's murder.
Confession Rejected. The judge finds Kogut's confession not credible, leading to his acquittal.
A Father's Heartache. Theresa's father reflects on the pain of the case being reopened after years.
New DNA Evidence. After decades, new DNA evidence leads to the indictment of Richard Bilodeau.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Something's just not right.

A friend reflects on the disappearances of Kelly and Theresa.

2:15WatchMay 1, 2026

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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Solve the Crime

Read a real case one clue at a time, then see how your call held up against the investigators.