Theresa Fusco killing: Nassau judge rules murder case against Richard Bilodeau can go ahead

The case against Richard Bilodeau, the Center Moriches man charged with the 1984 rape and murder of 16-year-old Theresa Fusco, will go forward, a Nassau County judge ruled Thursday.

Defense attorneys asked Supreme Court Justice Helene Gugerty in February to toss the case, arguing the evidence presented to the grand jury was not enough to secure the indictment.

The judge did not agree.

“The Court finds that the evidence presented was legally sufficient to support each of the crimes charged,” the judge said in her decision. She added that there was no defect with the grand jury proceeding. “Accordingly, defendant's request for dismissal of the Indictment is DENIED.”

William Kephart and Daniel W. Russo attacked the Nassau County District Attorney’s case in their brief, arguing prosecutors “presented no eyewitnesses, no confession, no surveillance footage, no fingerprint impressions, no murder weapon, no phone evidence, no digital or other data evidence connecting Richard Bilodeau to this crime. There is no direct evidence placing Mr. Bilodeau at, or near, the crime scene, which is not even known.”

Nassau County prosecutors did, however, show the grand jury panel DNA from a vaginal swab taken from the teen during an autopsy matched Bilodeau’s.

He was 22 at the time of Fusco’s killing.

Her death, along with the deaths of two other young women at the time, sent chills through Nassau County.

Fusco was last seen on Nov. 10, 1984, after she was fired from her job at Hot Skates, a popular Lynbrook skating rink. A group of teenagers discovered her naked, beaten and strangled body under leaves and shipping pallets next to the Long Island Rail Road tracks.

The 42-year-old crime has frustrated Nassau County prosecutors, who convicted three men for the crime only to see the guilty verdicts tossed amid questions of police misconduct and when none of the suspects' DNA matched that on the swab.

A crucial break in the case came in 2024 when investigators tied Bilodeau to the crime by matching a discarded sample of his DNA with the semen and sperm found on the victim.

“This is ample evidence for the Grand Jury ... to conclude that the only reason his DNA was inside the deceased was for a nefarious reason,” Nassau County prosecutor Tracy Keeton wrote in her brief. “And the evidence further proved that the reason was murder.”

In their brief, Kephart and Russo cast doubt on the conclusion Keeton drew from the connection, noting it showed little, if any, signs of  decay, as would be usual for a sample left in the elements for more than two weeks.

One investigator suggested the sample had been left shortly before Fusco’s body was found.

Now that the motion has been decided, defense attorneys now turn back to a previous request from prosecutors for another DNA sample taken from Bilodeau’s cheek, called a buccal swab.

The judge gave the lawyers until May 7 to respond to the request. Prosecutors must have their response to the judge on May 14.

Bilodeau is due back in court on June 2.