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00:10Kelly Morrissey was a young girl who didn't like to stay home she liked to
00:16hang out with her friends June 12 1984 Kelly walks to a pay phone near a Shell
00:24gas station over on Merrick Road in Lindbrook and meets up with another one
00:28of her friends and they make some phone calls after that pay phone we don't know
00:34where Kelly went knowing Kelly there is no way I believe she ran away no and then
00:41on November 10th 1984 just five months later yes Teresa Fusco disappears yes
00:53and what is the initial thought the initial thought is there might be a
00:57connection Theresa worked at the roller rink on Merrick Road in Lindbrook hot
01:02skates and for her to go to hot skates she would have to walk in this direction
01:07down the street did you ever worry about her walking no I never really worried
01:13about her walking anywhere in the neighborhood
01:19that evening she apparently got fired she's upset and then she leaves wasn't
01:26she's supposed to go to Lisa Kaplan's house yeah her best friend yeah she was
01:31going to come to my house after she got off of work and sleepover so it becomes
01:36like nine o'clock she's not there yeah 9 30 not there 10 o'clock I just thought
01:44maybe she went home well the next morning her mother called and her mom asked my mom
01:49can you please have Lisa send Teresa home and my mom said Teresa's not here her mom called the police
01:57department we went to all the places we would hang out and she wasn't anywhere that we searched
02:07it's just very coincidental same neighborhood same time frame two girls who knew each other and I'm
02:14like something's not right something's just not right and then 25 days later there's two boys coming
02:23back to hang out here in the woods they see a body and they run to the deli and ask
02:31to call 9-1-1
02:32police show up and they find Teresa Fusco Teresa had been strangled beaten and raped
02:43it truly was shattering at 16 to never have lost anybody that you loved
02:52in such a horrific way you just can't get over that
02:57but until there's a connection in the two cases one's still a missing girl and now one's a homicide
03:04John Koga was brought in by the detectives as a suspect in the murder of Teresa Fusco
03:10and during that time he confessed to the murder of Teresa
03:16and then during that confession he implicated two of his buddies
03:21and when I saw the three men who were arrested in handcuffs I thought to myself who are these
03:28people they're older who are they the theory was always it was three guys yeah and the dna didn't
03:36match any of them no it didn't if they didn't do it then who did it
03:45today we arraigned 63 year old Richard Belodo for the murder of Teresa Fusco and I said okay
03:54here we go again
04:16so
04:17so
04:39First, 15-year-old Kelly Morrissey vanished into the night.
04:44On June 12, 1984, she left her home after dinner and never came back.
04:50Five months later, it was her friend Teresa Fusco.
04:54On November 10, 1984, the 16-year-old left her job at Hot Skates, a popular roller rink, never to
05:03be heard from again.
05:0641 years ago, trying to find them was a different job.
05:13Police had to look for real footprints, not digital ones, and it was easy to vanish without a trace.
05:23Kelly Morrissey and Teresa Fusco were growing up in the suburbs of Long Island.
05:29Vicki Papagno lived around the corner from Kelly in Massapequa.
05:35She actually was the first person I ever smoked a cigarette with, was Kelly.
05:40I was from a divorced family.
05:43She was from a divorced family.
05:45We connected that way.
05:47She was like my sister I never had.
05:49When they were in junior high, Kelly's family moved about 10 miles away to Lindbrook.
05:55By then, Kelly had made some new friends.
05:59One of the first people that she met when she moved to Lindbrook was Teresa Fusco.
06:05Kelly's mother, Iris, and her then-fiancé, Paul Umstead, watched the friendship develop.
06:11She was very good friends with Teresa.
06:14And so she made friends very easily.
06:18She met her friends at malls and in person.
06:22Kids roamed around freely.
06:24No one could keep tabs on each other 24-7.
06:28It was a different time.
06:30And Kelly Morrissey and Teresa Fusco were typical teens for 1984.
06:41Well, let's take them on a little stroll down memory lane.
06:45That was the year Ronald Reagan was president.
06:49Ghostbusters and Footloose were the breakout hits.
06:52Madonna was climbing the charts, and fashion followed.
06:57It was the year Steve Jobs introduced something revolutionary.
07:03Hello, I am Maggie and Josh.
07:05We didn't have cell phones, social media, so we were pen pals.
07:11We would get our stationery, and we would just write back and forth.
07:15And that's how we communicated.
07:17When Vicki was visiting Kelly, she would sometimes hang out with Teresa, who also became her pen pal.
07:25Postmark 1982.
07:27From Limbrook, New York.
07:30From Teresa Fusco.
07:32And it says,
07:33Dear Vicki,
07:34Hi, what's up?
07:36Nothing much here.
07:37When are you going to visit Kelly again?
07:39When you do, call me, okay?
07:42How's all the boys there?
07:44They cute?
07:47In Limbrook, by far the best place to meet boys was at Hot Skates, as advertised here in 1984.
07:57What are you doing tonight?
08:00Oh, we would go to Hot Skates Roller Rink.
08:02We would go there, roller skate around.
08:05How important was Hot Skates in your life?
08:08Oh, Hot Skates was a big deal to everybody that lived in the area, even outside of the area.
08:14We would just go there and hang out with our friends and listen to music.
08:19Lisa Kaplan, now Johnson, was Teresa Fusco's closest friend.
08:24We always would try to dress very similar.
08:27We would buy the same clothing.
08:28We would wear our makeup the same.
08:31Did you guys confide in each other?
08:34About everything.
08:36Literally everything?
08:37Literally everything.
08:38No one gave safety a second thought.
08:42You could walk absolutely anywhere and not be afraid of anything.
08:46In the dark, during the day, alone, with friends.
08:50And that explains why it was business as usual at the Morrissey House, a couple of miles away,
08:57when 15-year-old Kelly walked out the front door alone after dinner.
09:02She said she'd be back by 9.30.
09:06It was June 12, 1984.
09:09Iris didn't give it a second thought.
09:12She and Paul were raising eight children together.
09:16Somebody came in, and I heard somebody in the kitchen, and yelled,
09:19down, I'm home, and okay.
09:21You could hear doors opening, closing, kids coming in and out.
09:24And I took it.
09:25It was Kelly.
09:26It wasn't until the next morning, when she didn't come down and go to school,
09:30that I went down there and realized that her bed wasn't made and the clothes were still there,
09:33and she hadn't come in.
09:35I mean, were you panicking at that point, Iris?
09:38Oh, yeah.
09:39And then we called the police, but they told us that she wasn't missing 24 hours at that point,
09:45and they really wouldn't take a report.
09:47In those days, they waited.
09:50Nassau County Detective Freddie Goldman would review both Teresa and Kelly's cases some 25 years later.
09:59He's retired now, but he agreed to walk us through the timeline and the evidence from back then.
10:05At the time of Kelly's disappearance, he says police found no reason to think there was a crime.
10:13It seemed like she was a runaway.
10:16There's tons of missing persons cases on a daily basis.
10:20Is that how Kelly Morrissey's case was initially handled?
10:24Of course, yeah.
10:25At 15 years old, she wouldn't know how to do life unless somebody was there to help her.
10:31I don't foresee her ever just running away and not talking to anyone, not reaching out to anyone.
10:38So I knew it was serious from day one.
10:41Months went by with no sign of Kelly.
10:45That had to be so tough.
10:48Oh, it was.
10:49I mean, everywhere I went, every child from the back looked like Kelly had stopped to look to see if
10:55it was Kelly.
10:58It was horrible.
11:00If Kelly had been written off as a runaway and not a priority, five months later, her case got a
11:07second look.
11:08It was November 10th.
11:11Teresa Fosco never showed up at Lisa's house for their sleepover.
11:16I thought maybe she went to somebody else's house.
11:19And so I called a few friends and said, you know, did Teresa come over?
11:24At that point, I still wasn't overly concerned.
11:28Teresa's parents were divorced.
11:30The next morning, her father, Thomas, had a scheduled visit and arrived at his ex's house to pick up his
11:37daughter.
11:37How soon did you realize that this was a problem?
11:41I know my wife and I looked at each other and said, something's not right here.
11:46We realized this is out of norm.
11:49What do we do now?
11:53When did you become really concerned?
11:56I became really concerned when she wasn't ready for school on Monday morning.
12:03We walked to school every morning.
12:05Why wasn't she there?
12:07Monday came and went.
12:10It would be almost a month before anyone knew what had happened to Teresa.
12:34Teresa Fosco's father, Thomas, and her brother, John.
12:37We were happy.
12:38It seemed as though the entire town of Lindbrook was out looking for her.
12:44How big was the search?
12:46Everyone and then some.
12:48Everybody.
12:50The search for her.
12:51Nearly a month later, not far from Hotskates and near the Long Island railroad tracks, Teresa's body was discovered.
13:01Beaten, raped, and strangled.
13:03buried under a pile of leaves and wooden shipping pallets.
13:09Thomas and John are still haunted by where she was found.
13:14I walked over her twice.
13:16Yeah.
13:16I didn't know she was under the pallet.
13:18We just walked over the pallet, and I'm glad I didn't find her.
13:21That would have killed me.
13:23I never heard the word homicide.
13:26So when two homicide detectives arrived at Lisa's house,
13:30she didn't yet understand what that meant.
13:33And they said, well, we think we found her.
13:36My heart started to race.
13:38I started to get excited, thinking, my God, thank God they found her.
13:42And then they told me that they found a body.
13:46At 16, it was life-shattering.
13:50When her body was found, it was a shock not just to the Limburg community,
13:55but I think to all of Nassau County.
13:58Ann Donnelly would grow up to be the Nassau County District Attorney.
14:03But before that, she had a childhood a lot like Teresa Fusco's.
14:08Why are you stepping out on skates?
14:10When I was a kid, I was in college when it happened.
14:15It changed the way we saw the world back in the 80s.
14:19It changed all that, not for the better.
14:22These are news articles I collected throughout the years on this case.
14:2841 years later, Vicki Pipagno keeps a sad scrapbook.
14:33It tells a story of losing her two friends, Teresa and Kelly.
14:38This one, which includes both of them, Limbrook girl missing, second from the village.
14:46Kelly had been missing for nearly six months when Teresa was found.
14:50It's just too coincidental to me.
14:52I feel like whoever committed Teresa could have something to do with Kelly.
14:58You have two girls who went missing and then one who was murdered.
15:03I was afraid to be home alone at night time.
15:07It was frightening because we had no answers.
15:12Investigators on Teresa's case had very little to go on.
15:16No footprints, no fingerprints, no murder weapon.
15:21Hair samples were taken from Teresa, also a sexual assault swab.
15:26But DNA testing had not advanced enough to find out who it belonged to.
15:32While looking for links between the two girls, they zeroed in on John Kogut,
15:38a 21-year-old landscaper who told detectives he had dated Kelly for about a week.
15:44I've heard the name John Kogut before.
15:48It was early, right when she first started liking him or dating him.
15:54Kogut was asked about Kelly's disappearance.
15:57He also was asked about Teresa's killing and denied any knowledge of it.
16:03Kogut agreed to come in and take a polygraph test.
16:06Four days later, he did, and police told him he failed it.
16:12Kogut was interrogated through the night and into the next morning.
16:16After nearly 12 hours of questioning, his denials changed.
16:22Nassau County Detective Joseph Fulpe wrote down what he said Kogut told him.
16:28That on the night Teresa went missing, Kogut was with John Restivo and Dennis Halstead in John's van
16:36when they saw Teresa walking away from hot skates.
16:40Dennis Halstead was known to investigators back then, says Freddie Goldman.
16:46He had had some minor brushes with police.
16:49Dennis Halstead had an apartment adjacent to the Shell gas station where Kelly was last seen at that payphone.
16:57We were told that Kelly hung out in that apartment frequently.
17:00She had the key to his apartment.
17:02It sounds like Dennis Halstead was viewed kind of as a bad influence on the younger kids in the area.
17:08It would seem, yeah.
17:10John Restivo was more of a clean slate.
17:14He was a working fellow.
17:16Although he was friends with them, he didn't have a background like them.
17:20He didn't hang out in Dennis' apartment or that we knew of.
17:24Police took Kogut to the district attorney's office where he was videotaped.
17:29I want to talk to you about the death of Teresa Fusco.
17:35He was interviewed by Assistant District Attorney George Peck.
17:39He agreed to go on video.
17:42Camera rolling.
17:44Kogut detailed what happened to Teresa once she got into the van that night.
17:48Kogut told investigators that Teresa was raped twice by Dennis Halstead and John Restivo.
17:57When she said she was going to tell somebody, they couldn't let that happen.
18:03He decided that I had to kill her.
18:05And Dennis told her that she had to die.
18:09And what did John agree to this to?
18:13John didn't say nothing.
18:15And then John Kogut describes how he killed Teresa.
18:21And then what happened after you got the rope?
18:25I wrapped it around the neck twice.
18:29And then I tightened it like this.
18:33And then my body went limp.
18:35John Kogut would later recant everything he told police.
18:39But on that day, Goldman says, investigators were confident they had Teresa Fusco's killer in custody
18:46and had the evidence they needed to prove it.
18:50But later, on that very same day, another teenage girl went missing.
19:10March 26, 1985, when 19-year-old Jackie Martarella didn't show up to start her shift at Burger King,
19:19her older brother Martin knew something was off.
19:23She's very prompt.
19:24She was very dependable.
19:26And for her to not show up, we knew there was something wrong.
19:30Most nights, Jackie walked to work from the family home in Oceanside,
19:34a town a few miles away from Lindbrook.
19:38How would she get there?
19:39If she's walking, what was the route she would take to go to Burger King?
19:43Pretty much straight down Long Beach Road.
19:45Did you ever worry about her walking to work?
19:48Not really, no.
19:49No.
19:49Jackie had recently graduated from high school.
19:52She was working part-time and taking accounting classes, saving money to buy a car.
19:59How would you describe your sister?
20:01Describe her?
20:02She was very girly.
20:05Complete with posters of teen pop stars on her bedroom wall.
20:10I remember Leif Garrett, whoever he was.
20:12I remember Leif Garrett.
20:14There was posters of that.
20:15She was into dance.
20:17She liked doing that.
20:19She liked her clothes.
20:20Very finicky with her clothes.
20:22And now she was missing.
20:25So what did you and your father do?
20:29I think we called the police.
20:31And then they took notes.
20:35And then they started looking.
20:37And then those other two came up.
20:39And they were, you know, saying, look what's happening here.
20:42So it became, everybody became interested.
20:45Nearly a month went by with no sign of Jackie.
20:49You know, all the worst thoughts go through your mind when something like that happens.
20:54And, of course, what happened happened.
20:59It's the worst of the worst.
21:01They found her body 26 days later.
21:06It wouldn't be a golf course.
21:08April 22, 1985.
21:11A man looking for golf balls in the high grass off the 17th hole found a naked body.
21:18It was Jackie.
21:20She was murdered, obviously, and discarded.
21:24According to former Nassau County detective Freddie Goldman, Jackie was left the same way
21:30Teresa Fusco had been, raped and strangled.
21:35Initially, did investigators think, oh, my God, these cases all have to be connected?
21:40Yes and no.
21:41But with Cogut sitting there, it kind of, you know, it threw a monkey wrench and everything.
21:46John Cogut, the man who had confessed to killing Teresa Fusco, was in police custody.
21:53How could he be the killer if we had him in custody the same day that she went missing?
21:59So obviously it wasn't him.
22:01Yeah, could it be a Holstead or Steve-O?
22:03But no.
22:04Jackie's homicide was not going to be easy to solve.
22:08Her body was so badly decomposed, no DNA swab could be taken.
22:14I'm sure it heightened the alertness and awareness of the community because now you know that
22:19there's somebody out there that's, you know, going after young girls.
22:23Kelly Morrissey was still missing.
22:25Police knew she had hung out at Dennis Halstead's apartment.
22:29But there was nothing more to tie Halstead or Cogut to her disappearance.
22:35Was there any evidence that indicated that they were involved in, in Kelly's disappearance?
22:44No, no.
22:46Teresa Fusco's killing was the only case police could pin down.
22:51By June 1985, John Cogut, John Restivo and Dennis Halstead had all been charged with her rape and murder.
23:01And all three pleaded not guilty.
23:04Cogut went on trial first.
23:07Later, Halstead and Restivo were tried together.
23:11I remember sitting in the witness box testifying and the district attorney saying,
23:17please speak louder.
23:19Lisa Johnson was just 18 and a star witness.
23:23And here I am, you know, sitting there very meek and, and timid and in a room full of strangers
23:34testifying about my friend who was killed.
23:38It was difficult.
23:39It still is difficult.
23:42John Cogut offered an alibi.
23:45And according to a New Yorker magazine investigation,
23:49the van police said was used in Teresa's abduction was actually out of commission
23:55and up on cinder blocks the day Teresa went missing.
24:00But two hairs belonging to Teresa that police say they recovered from the floor of Restivo's van
24:06were too powerful to ignore.
24:09And Cogut's detailed confession trumped everything.
24:13I wrapped it around the neck.
24:17By February of 1987, Cogut, Halstead and Restivo had been convicted of the rape and murder of Teresa Fusco
24:26and sentenced to more than 30 years to life.
24:34It had by then been two long years for Teresa's dad.
24:39He and the rest of her family tried to move on.
24:44We thought, believing me, that there was time for closure.
24:48We had gone to parents that murdered children.
24:51We had support and they were looking for support and we were looking for support and closure.
24:56But there was no closure.
24:59What prosecutors had insisted was an airtight case against the three men was going to blow up spectacularly.
25:07In 2003, nearly 19 years after Teresa was killed, more sophisticated DNA testing became available.
25:17It told a different story.
25:19John Cogut, John Restivo and Dennis Halstead's convictions were all overturned.
25:28Just six hours ago, after 17 years in prison, the murder-rape convictions of three Long Island men were overturned
25:36following stunning new DNA evidence.
25:40And new testing not only ruled out Kogut, Halstead and Restivo, it pointed to someone else entirely, another unknown male.
25:52Everything Teresa Fusco's family and friends thought they knew about her killing and her killer was changing.
26:02Wait a second.
26:03There was investigations.
26:05We trusted the detectives.
26:07We trusted the police to do the right thing.
26:09How could they do this to us?
26:22After almost 18 years, John Cogut, John Restivo and Dennis Halstead were out of prison and in the arms of
26:32their families.
26:35I waited for this for 18 years and I'm just, I'm sorry, I'm just really, I just can't believe it's
26:43happening.
26:44But their legal problems were not over.
26:48Nassau County District Attorney Dennis Dillon had decided to retry all three for the murder of Teresa Fusco, starting with
26:57John Cogut, who again pleaded not guilty.
27:00There was still his videotaped confession, and that became the centerpiece of the case against Cogut at his second trial
27:09in September 2005.
27:12He decided that I had to kill him.
27:15The confession, the prosecution argued, was more important than all other evidence, even the new DNA.
27:22When I saw the video, I go, whoa, it looks like it's legit.
27:27But Cogut's defense attorney, Paul Castellaro, says the video is misleading.
27:34As damaging as Cogut's statements sound, he says it's what you don't see on camera that matters.
27:43Part of it is, you know, it's staged.
27:45There is a detective.
27:47Sitting off camera, watching it and monitoring it and making sure it goes right.
27:54It's like a play.
27:55Here, Cogut struggles with names.
27:59Teresa Fusco.
28:00Teresa Fusco.
28:01Even his alleged accomplice's name.
28:04John Esteveo.
28:05Dennis Shapiro.
28:07And then asks for help.
28:08What's his last name?
28:09Well, are you talking to Detective Volpe, who's also in the room?
28:15That kind of shows it was coerced.
28:18Cogut was an easy target, Castellaro says.
28:22He had a 10th grade education and a substance abuse problem that Castellaro says police took
28:29advantage of.
28:31Tells him about his drinking, his drugs, all the stuff that they can use against him.
28:37And then Castellaro says they lied to him.
28:41The police told John Cogut that he failed a polygraph.
28:46No, John Cogut passed this polygraph test with flying colors.
28:50And even though Cogut had already told police over and over that he had nothing to do with
28:56Teresa Fusco's killing, Castellaro says they convinced him he did.
29:02They told him he blacked out.
29:03He didn't remember.
29:04You know, this is what you did.
29:06This is where you took her.
29:16By the time this video was recorded, Cogut had been in custody for 18 hours, interrogated
29:24for nearly 12 of them and awake for almost 30.
29:29At some point in time, you know, you want out, you give in.
29:33But the confession wasn't the only thing prosecutors would have to defend.
29:38They had to contend with the new DNA evidence pointing to an unknown male.
29:44So prosecutors suggested that Teresa must have been with someone else right before she
29:50was abducted by Cogut, Paulstead and Restivo.
29:54Then all of a sudden she had a consensual sexual encounter.
29:58That's what they said.
29:59But investigators were never able to identify anyone who had been sexually involved with
30:05Teresa.
30:07And Teresa's best friend, Lisa, had to take the stand again at this trial to talk about
30:13it.
30:14And I mean, this is a tough question to ask, and I want to ask it properly.
30:18But as far as you know, was Teresa even sexually active?
30:22Absolutely not.
30:24And we spoke about that.
30:25And that's not something that she was going to do before she was married.
30:31Lisa, once their star witness, was this time around undercutting their case.
30:37They went against their own witnesses and, in fact, argued that she went from being a virgin
30:43to being someone who had a quickie in a skating rink where she worked.
30:48It was preposterous.
30:49It was demeaning.
30:51Did that make you mad?
30:52It did, because it's not something she would have done, ever.
30:56And I will go to my grave saying that Teresa was not having sex with anybody.
31:04Prosecutors did still have the physical evidence from the first trial, the two hairs belonging
31:10to Teresa that police said they found on the floor of John Restivo's van.
31:15But that, too, Castellero argued, was tainted.
31:20There was a science to analyzing whether the hairs came from someone dead or alive.
31:27They displayed a certain decomposition that is only present when the hairs are attached to the head of a person
31:39who is deceased.
31:40That meant the hairs could not have been left in the van while Teresa was still alive, according to Castellero.
31:48We believe that they went in and took them from the medical examiner's office and said they found them in
31:53the van.
31:53In other words, they were planted.
31:55But in closing, prosecutors denied the hairs were planted.
32:00After Castellero was able to raise serious questions about the prosecution's case,
32:07Kogut's fate was in the hands of one person, a single judge, not a jury.
32:14Kogut had decided to take his chance with a bench trial.
32:18And after nearly three months of testimony, the judge reached a verdict.
32:24This is Judge Orts' decision.
32:26The court will not accept the confession and accordingly finds the defendant not guilty of murder in the second degree
32:33under count one.
32:34And what does that mean when the judge won't accept the confession?
32:38It means that the confession is false.
32:40It is not credible.
32:41And that's what the judge found.
32:43He did not believe the confession.
32:46Eight days later, the prosecution formally dismissed the charges against Restivo and Halstead.
32:54When John Kogut was acquitted, I was devastated.
32:58Only because I've seen that confession of his over and over again.
33:02And I believed then that he was telling the truth.
33:07It makes you feel like you got hit in the face with a friggin' shovel.
33:10And you don't know how to bounce back from that.
33:12It was December of 2005.
33:16Teresa Fusco had been dead for more than 20 years.
33:20And now, nothing about her case could be laid to rest.
33:25It's, for me, as the father, haunting.
33:28Haunting to go through it over again.
33:30I felt as if the life had been sucked out of me.
33:34Everything that we fought for, everything that we testified for, everything that was investigated,
33:43and all of the proof and all of the evidence meant nothing.
33:47If they didn't do it, then who did it?
33:50Good morning.
33:52I'd like to thank my investigators and my prosecutors handling this case for standing here with me today.
33:59On October 15, 2025, Ann Donnelly, now the Nassau County District Attorney, had a startling announcement.
34:09And after two decades of this case running cold, we have indicted Teresa's killer.
34:16The FBI, using the new science of genetic genealogy, had found a match to the unknown DNA.
34:25Today, we arraigned 63-year-old Richard Belodo of Center Mariches for the murder of Teresa Fusco.
34:46Nearly 41 years later, and thanks to genetic genealogy,
34:51Nassau County D.A. Ann Donnelly was sure they had finally, finally, found Teresa Fusco's killer.
34:59Teresa's life was violently stolen from her more than 40 years ago.
35:04But the past is never forgotten.
35:08Once the unidentified DNA sample was matched to 63-year-old Richard Belodo, surveillance began.
35:16A few months later, prosecutors say a straw in a discarded smoothie cup confirmed he was their man.
35:25Belodo has denied the charges.
35:28At the time of his arrest, he was working at Walmart stocking shelves.
35:32At the time of Teresa's killing, he was 23 and living close by.
35:39He was living with his grandparents.
35:41It's about one mile away from Hot Skates.
35:44It's about one mile away from the Fusco residence.
35:49He was a man who had seemingly always lived below the radar.
35:56Prosecutor Jared Rosenblatt.
35:58Had he ever been married?
36:00No.
36:01Does he have family or close friends?
36:03He has a brother.
36:04That he's close to?
36:05I can't speak about how close they are.
36:07And does he have hobbies?
36:09Does this guy do anything other than go to work?
36:13I think he gambles on sports a lot.
36:15In interviews we conducted with Teresa's friends and family, no one recognized this defendant as someone who was ever associated
36:24with Teresa in 1984.
36:27Authorities wouldn't speculate about how Richard Belodo may have come in contact with Teresa Fusco.
36:33But D.A. Ann Donnelly says she knows he did.
36:38When you have a DNA match, 100% match, we got the guy.
36:44William Kephart and Daniel Russo, Belodeau's defense attorneys, see it differently.
36:51What evidence are you aware of that connects Richard Belodeau to the murder of Teresa Fusco?
36:57The DNA.
36:59That's it?
36:59That's it.
37:00And they don't find it convincing.
37:02It's being overstated and overvalued.
37:04And what's more?
37:06This district attorney's office, this police department, in 1985, stood before a court and said these three men did this.
37:15And they had an ample amount of evidence to prove it.
37:19Is that a concern that they're going to point to the fact that three men went on trial, were convicted
37:26for this crime?
37:27Yes, I would assume that's what they're going to say.
37:30But the difference now is we have science behind us, which they didn't have 40 years ago.
37:39And to me, you don't beat the scientific evidence.
37:43But at John Kogut's retrial in 2005, the Nassau County DA's office had argued the opposite, that the unidentified DNA
37:55taken from Teresa was meaningless.
37:59The same DA's office stood up and said, we still believe, based on all of this evidence, that these men
38:07are responsible for Ms. Fusco's death.
38:09So I don't know how now, in 2025, because you were able to put a name to that DNA, suddenly
38:16none of that matters anymore.
38:18All of their lies against John Kogut, John Restivo, and Dennis Halstead are going to come back and haunt them
38:24during this retrial.
38:27Paul Casaliero, John Kogut's former defense attorney, fears that Bilodeau's lawyers will put the blame on the three men who
38:36were cleared of the murder two decades ago.
38:39They're going to have a trial in which I'm sure the defense is going to be arguing they're guilty.
38:44And Casaliero says that's just more salt in the wound for John Kogut, Dennis Halstead, and John Restivo.
38:53Well, it's never-ending. What Nassau County did to them just has no ending to it.
39:00All three men sued Nassau County. Two of them were awarded damages.
39:06$18 million each to Restivo and co-defendant Dennis Halstead, both exonerated a decade ago for the 1984 murder and
39:15rape of Lindbrook teenager Teresa Fusco.
39:18But in Kogut's case, a jury found no wrongdoing by Nassau County police and gave him nothing.
39:26Let me ask you, though, if in fact Richard Bilodeau is convicted, will either one of you apologize to the
39:33three guys who were convicted?
39:36No, because I don't owe them an apology. I wasn't even in the office at the time.
39:39Yeah, well, you represent the office, yeah, but for the Nassau County DA's office.
39:45Mr. Dillon did what he thought was right when he dismissed against two of them, and I think, you know,
39:51they got their apology at that point.
39:54The idea that the district attorney of Nassau County can apologize to these three guys for what they did to
40:01them is outrageous.
40:04While the Nassau County authorities say once again they have the killer of Teresa Fusco, Richard Bilodeau is not facing
40:12charges in either Kelly Morrissey's or Jackie Martarella's cases.
40:18Both remain unsolved, leaving two families in limbo.
40:23I mean, you're anticipating something and then it never shows up.
40:28She didn't have a bad bone in her body.
40:31She missed out on just living a simple life, you know.
40:36You know, I look at women in their 50s now and think, that could be Kelly.
40:44I mean, that's how old she would be.
40:48When Richard Bilodeau goes on trial for the murder of Teresa Fusco, her father Thomas and her once best friend
40:56Lisa will be back in the courtroom for what they hope will be the last time.
41:02Closures to me is that if this is the individual, then justice will be done.
41:07It's just completely over.
41:0941 years is over.
41:11Beginning and end.
41:12Do you hope, do you think, that it might finally be resolved this time around?
41:19Or do you still have questions?
41:23I trust in the DNA this time.
41:25I am so hopeful that there will be a conviction and we can finally put this to rest.
41:3341 years afterwards.
41:36It's a long time.
41:37It's a lifetime.
41:4942 years ago so far so today.
41:49And I think that a
41:50time for today is the the intersection.
41:50You know,
42:02the meters are like,
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