Prosecutors: There's 'no innocent' explanation Richard Bilodeau's DNA was found in Theresa Fusco's body

The rape and murder indictment against Richard Bilodeau, the Center Moriches man accused of the 1984 killing of 16-year-old Theresa Fusco, should not be dismissed, Nassau County prosecutors said in recent court filings, because "there is no reasonable, innocent explanation" for his DNA to be found inside the victim’s body.

Bilodeau, 63, has pleaded not guilty to the crimes, but otherwise offered no alternate theory for why his sperm was found in the Lynbrook teen’s vaginal cavity during the autopsy.

His defense lawyers, Daniel W. Russo and William Kephart, have asked Nassau County Supreme Court Justice Helene Gugerty to dismiss the charges against their client, arguing the existence of their client’s DNA on the victim does not alone support the charges.

"We believe significant legal and evidentiary issues exist from their grand jury presentation," the lawyers told Newsday. "We just await the decision from the court to see if it rises to the level of sufficiency."

Nassau prosecutors responded by arguing Bilodeau, who would have been 22 at the time of Fusco’s death, did not know her.

"This is ample evidence for the Grand Jury to have used to conclude that the only reason his DNA was inside the deceased was for a nefarious reason," Assistant District Attorney Tracy Keeton wrote in her brief. "And the evidence further proved that the reason was murder."

Fusco went missing on Nov. 10, 1984, after she was fired from her job at Hot Skates, a local skating rink. She punched her time card at 9:47 p.m., Newsday previously reported.

Her parents reported her missing the following day, but her naked body was not found until Dec. 5, nearly a month later. She had been beaten and strangled.

Bilodeau lived in Lynbrook with his grandparents at the time, a mile from the skating rink, prosecutors have said.

Nassau prosecutors initially tried and convicted three men, John Kogut, John Restivo and Dennis Halstead, but the verdicts were set aside in 2003 after the DNA from a vaginal swab taken from Fusco’s body did not match any of the men.

Based on a new lead in 2024, police and the FBI began watching Bilodeau and were able to retrieve his DNA from a discarded drinking straw from a smoothie he had finished.

They said it matched the DNA taken during Fusco’s autopsy and they presented the evidence to a grand jury, which indicted him on second-degree murder and rape charges.

Keeton pointed out in her brief that Bilodeau was a stranger to Fusco.

"Her father never heard the name Richard Bilodeau. Her best friend never heard the name Richard Bilodeau. Therefore, there is no reasonable, innocent explanation for Richard Bilodeau’s DNA to have been inside of the deceased’s vaginal cavity."

The defense attorneys have attacked the rationale underlying the indictment, arguing that it was based on testimony that was "inaccurate, misleading, speculative, conflicting and unsupportive of the People's theory in this case."

Keeton, in her response filed last month, said Fusco was strangled with a rope, a fact that is supported by "ample evidence."

"The deceased also had blunt force trauma to her face and was left in the woods to die," she wrote in her response. "It is clear from this evidence that the perpetrator’s only intent could have been to kill."

Keeton goes on to say that because she was left "nude and strangled and in an unnatural resting position in the woods is circumstantial evidence that a rape occurred immediately before or contemporaneous to her murder."

The defense team has also questioned how the sperm found in Fusco had not degraded at all over the nearly four weeks her body was left in the elements.

One expert testified during the grand jury that the DNA had been left after the killing had occurred.

Robert Bauman, a forensic lab technician who swabbed the teen’s body during the autopsy, testified that the condition of the sperm "would indicate to me that the semen or sperm were deposited not long before the person was found," according to a defense brief.

Keeton has not directly addressed that theory, but wrote in her response that the cold weather during the period Fusco’s body was left in the elements "would have allowed for the proper refrigeration and preservation."

The judge may decide on the matter next week, on April 16, when the case is back in court.