Mineola, New York – MINEOLA, N.Y. (AP) — After four decades of prosecutors Send the wrong men To prison for the rape and murder of a 16-year-old Long Island girl, DNA obtained from discarded straws led to the indictment of a new suspect.
Richard Bilodeau, 63, of Moriches Center, was arraigned Wednesday on two counts of murder in the death of Teresa Fusco.
The high school student disappeared after quitting her part-time job at a Lynbrook ice rink in November 1984. Her naked body was found weeks after the assault, buried under leaves in a wooded area near the rink.
Three men were convicted of the murder and spent several years in prison before being exonerated by DNA evidence in 2003. They sued for false imprisonment, each receiving $18 million.
Fusco’s father, Thomas, was among those in Minneola court as Bilodeau pleaded not guilty and was booked into the county jail.
After the hearing, he said it was “heartbreaking” to relive her daughter’s death “over and over again”, but expressed hope that the arrest would be “an end” to the ordeal.
“I loved her and miss her. She lives in my heart, you see,” Fusco said, pulling a photo of Teresa from his jacket pocket during an event. Press conference with prosecutors. “I never gave up hope. I always believed in the system.”
Bilodeau’s attorney, Jason Russo, declined to comment, saying he had just met with Bilodeau shortly before the court hearing.
Prosecutors said Bilodeau was 23 and living with his grandparents when Fusco was killed. If convicted, he faces up to 25 years to life in prison.
County authorities began monitoring Bilodeau last year after developing what they said were “multiple investigative threads.”
In February 2024, investigators found a cup and straw that they said Bilodeau used and disposed of at a juice bar in neighboring Suffolk County. DNA extracted from the straw matched a sample taken from Fusco’s body in 1984.
“The past has not been forgotten,” Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly said in a news conference after the hearing. “We will never stop fighting for the victims. My office is determined to get justice for Teresa and her family.”
During the arraignment, Assistant District Attorney Jared Rosenblatt said investigators went to speak with Bilodeau at his workplace after matching his DNA to crime scene evidence.
“Yes, people got away with murder back then,” he said Bilodeau told investigators at the time.
“Well, Mr. Bilodeau, it’s 2025, and your day of reckoning is now,” Rosenblatt said in court.
Fusco’s murder drew widespread attention in 1984, in part because she disappeared around the same time and in the same area as two other teenage girls, one of whom was a friend of Fusco.
Kelly Morrissey, 15, disappeared earlier in 1984 and was never found.
The body of Jacqueline Martarella, 19, of Oceanside, turned up the next year on a nearby country club golf course.
The three men wrongfully convicted of Fusco’s murder worked together as movers and one of them was dating Morrissey. DNA testing, which was not available in the 1980s, proved that someone else had raped and murdered her.
Lawyers for two of the men said in a lawsuit seeking compensation that they were victims of police misconduct.
A federal jury agreed, finding that the lead investigator in the case, who had died by then, had fabricated the hair evidence and concealed other evidence from prosecutors.