I’ve been reading too much about these cases and I just have to get it out of my brain–so here’s me “Thinking Out Loud”….
This started out because I found Jacqueline Martarella’s case on Uncovered. This case, for me personally, feels like every time you think you’ve answered one question, you find one thousand more.
Let’s set the scene- It’s 1984 in Lynbrook, NY. Lynbrook is located on the South Shore of Long Island. Our story starts on Tuesday, June 12th, when 15 y/o Kelly Morrissey goes missing. From all accounts, Kelly was an average teenager. From her diary, we know she had boyfriends, dabbled in some drugs and alcohol, skipped school occasionally–but she was still a good kid. From an article I read, a family member had said something along the lines of, “she was no more rebellious than any other girls at the same age at the same time.“
For a really good breakdown of Kelly’s disappearance, I’ll link this older Reddit Article, but summarize quickly. Kelly left her home to go hang out with her friends. She met a friend (Gail) at a gas station near her house. She and her friend were waiting for two “older men” to show up, but they never came. Kelly and Gail waited for over an hour, and according to Gail, Kelly left to go to a video parlor around 9:30 PM.
The night of Kelly’s disappearance, there were thunderstorms. When Kelly didn’t return home, her mother assumed she was staying the night at a friend’s house to ride out the storm (as Kelly was originally supposed to be home by 10PM). She reported Kelly missing some time later.
I saw in a different article that another one of Kelly’s friends, Kim, said that the story was a little different than how Gail described it. According to Kim, Gail was picked up by some people that Kelly didn’t like. Police didn’t find this information out until several years later, but they also remember that Gail wasn’t very cooperative during initial questioning in 1984.
As far as solving Kelly’s disappearance goes, I definitely feel that her case was given ample time and effort. Detective Terry Quinn of the Nassau County Police Department called more than 100 names from Kelly’s telephone book. He interviewed more than 1,000 people and walked 5 miles of the Long Beach Boardwalk every day (when he worked and even when he didn’t) hoping to catch new leads.
When Kelly was too old for the Juvenile Aid Bureau to investigate, Det. Terry Quinn fought to keep her as one of his cases, but she was transferred to the Homicide Squad. Even then, Terry Quinn kept searching in his own time.
The authorities and Kelly’s parents DO NOT think this was a runaway situation. The night she disappeared; Kelly laid clothing out for the next day. She took none of her personal belongings. She was supposed to pick up her paycheck from a Venetian Blinds Packaging Factory where she worked on June 13th, but she never showed up. She also missed an important exam for her summer school class. Authorities believe that she was killed the night she disappeared, but her body was never found.
Kelly’s case was re-opened in 2010 because of some chatter on FB. The roller rink she and her friends frequented–Hot Skates–had a post that had attracted some attention to Kelly. Police were hoping that they would find some information. Since then, the post has been removed and the Roller Rink has since been demolished.
Five months later, on November 10th, 1984, Theresa Fusco goes missing (see this link for more info– The Unsolved Murder of Theresa Fusco : UnresolvedMysteries (reddit.com)). Theresa works at Hot Skates. She was friends with Kelly.
From what I read; Theresa was fired that night–she had gotten into a fight with the assistant manager. In 2012, the owner of Hot Skates let it be known that Theresa had called someone from the roller rink, then left. It’s still not known for sure who she called. Police, at the time, thought she may have run away because she had been fired from her job.
E. That last part is worded weird, Theresa got into a fight with the Assistant Manager, was fired, made a phone call from the Hot Skates phone, and then left.
Theresa had planned to visit her dad in Queens the next day. Theresa’s mom assumed that Theresa stayed at her friend’s house after her shift, because that was the plan. But when Theresa didn’t show up to go to her dad’s, Theresa’s mom called around and she was nowhere to be found.
Her body was discovered on December 5th, in a wooded area of Lynbrook. She was completely nude and killed by ligature strangulation. In the New York Daily News that came out on December 7th, Theresa’s body was found “left on the north side of the tracks” and had been found by a group of “youngsters walking beside the railway tracks in Lynbrook between Rocklyn Ave and Park Place.” (Which is practically right outside of Hot Skates, she didn’t make it far) She was covered with leaves. DNA testing on her body showed that she was sexually assaulted before she died. (There’s DNA evidence but we will get to that in a second.) Based off of decomposition, authorities believed she was killed the night she went missing.
Interestingly enough, on the night that Theresa went missing, a man named John French reported his tan Oldsmobile as stolen. It was parked relatively close to Hot Skates (practically where Theresa was last seen) and it was taken some time between 9:30 and 11:05 PM.
The car was found a week later, ~1.5 miles away from the railroad tracks in the neighboring town of Lakeview. At this point, Theresa was still considered missing or a runaway, as her body had not been found yet.
The windshield of the car was smashed, and license plates had been changed. Inside the car were a pair of women’s striped jeans. They were under the passenger seat with one leg turned inside out. John French had rope in the backseat before the car was taken, and it was gone when the car was found. John reported these facts when Theresa’s body was found, as he (rightly so) sensed the two cases may be related.
Police processed the car—hair was found that was, and I’m summarizing, “between 50 and 100% similar to the deceased (Theresa)”. Police had also shown John French some evidence from the crime scene—like a bit of rope and some other items, and he said they belonged to him.
The rope was never tested and eventually “went missing”. The jeans were “discarded inadvertently”. It seems, from what I’ve read, that the lead detective on this case, Det. Joseph Volpe, was the only person who knew about these items and this connection.
On March 26th, 1985, 19 y/o Jacqueline Martarella disappeared. She was found on April 22nd by a Lynbrook resident looking for gold golf balls in a marshy area of the Woodmere Country Club Golf Course around 10 AM. Her body was fully nude, and she was badly decomposed. She was in a swampy area next to a dead tree about halfway down the fairway of the 17th hole.
Jaqueline was on her way to a shift at Burger King. She left her friend’s house at 7:35 to make the 15-minute walk to get there. Her shift started at 8, but Jackie never showed up. It was odd, Jackie was known to always be 20-30 minutes early to work and never missed shifts—she was saving up to buy her first car. At 8:15, the assistant manager at BK called her home to ask where she was. Police believe she was kidnapped while walking to work and was most likely murdered that night. After Jackie’s body was found, police set up a mobile crime van near the BK in hopes that anyone with information would come forward.
Of course, authorities pieced together the similarities. Theresa and Jacqueline’s murders were very similar—as far as locale, MO—they were both sexually assaulted before their death and were found nude. They were both found in open areas, not well concealed.
Adding Kelly into the mix, all three were young, Caucasian females who were last seen walking alone in the evening. Kelly and Theresa were known to have some type of relationship to each other.
Back to the DNA evidence from before. Enter John Kogut, Dennis Halstead, and John Restivo. From the reddit article I cited, “Kelly knew all three and all three knew each other. All the police would say about Kelly’s connection to John Restivo is that his last name was in her phone book. According to Kim, Kelly was interested in him. Dennis Halstead was the oldest (~29 yo), married and had a bit of a sketchy reputation. Kelly, Gail and Kim would hang out at his Atlantic Avenue apartment (a 10-15 min. away from the gas station) as did other teenagers. They’d drink and smoke weed. Gail apparently lived in the same building at the time and both she and Kelly evidently dated him.”
Because they knew Kelly, and Kelly knew Theresa, police were interested. Add into this situation the general idea that these men were a “little” sketchy (A married 29 y/o man sleeping with and sharing drugs and alcohol with teenagers [?!], a “volatile” and by some accounts, verbally abusive boyfriend… I definitely see why police were interested)
John Kogut was subjected to three polygraphs. (Why John was singled out as the “ring leader” isn’t something I understand, personally. But I also don’t know the circumstances the three were questioned under, etc). He was told he failed them, but he still maintained his innocence. However, three failed polygraphs were enough for police to go for gold. (It’s possible the other two passed their polygraphs?) They interrogated John for 18 hours, and Kogut confessed. The confession was handwritten by the interrogation officer (and then signed by Kogut), even though, allegedly, there were five previous versions of the confession that happened before transcription even occurred.
They took John Kogut to the crime scene, and he had no idea if anything was missing, present, changed, or otherwise. The following day, they recorded his confession on video tape, but it had no details of anything that wasn’t already known by law enforcement. (I obviously haven’t seen the recorded confession, but this is giving me Making a Murder vibes, personally)
In John’s “confession”, he said that Restivo, Halstead, and himself were all in Restivo’s van. They came up on Theresa, who was on foot, and picked her up. At some point, she wanted out of the van, and instead, they stopped, stripped her, and she was allegedly raped by Restivo and Halstead. They then drove to a cemetery, where the victim was taken out of the van and John Kogut strangled her with a piece of rope. She was then rolled into a blanket and dumped in another location.
Based off THIS confession, Restivo’s van was searched, and police found several hairs that were tested in a forensic lab.
An analyst testified that two hairs found in the front passenger seat were microscopically similar to those of the victim. “In this particular instance that the questioned hair could have originated from the scalp of Theresa Fusco, with a high degree of probability,” –however, this testimony doesn’t hold ground because fiber evidence is not admissible in court to convict someone.
DNA testing went on for over 10 years, even though all three men were excluded numerous times. Prosecution said this was solely because that samples “weren’t of the best quality”, and it was possible there wasn’t a detectable amount of semen on them.
In 2003, the defense finally obtained property records from the PD and they found out there was an intact vaginal swab that had never been tested. This swab matched DNA from the original test, and that DNA and this new DNA EXCLUDED all three men.
Want to know what’s even crazier? The hairs found in the van all had “post-mortem root banding”, which happens only while hairs are still attached to a corpse that has been dead for at least 8 hours (if not days, weeks). The hair found in the van was suspiciously similar to hair that was taken from Theresa’s body during the autopsy.
Even if you go with the bunk “confession”- this hair doesn’t add up, if Theresa was only in the van for a short distance after she was killed, the hair wouldn’t make sense either way. This could be some police negligence or misconduct on some sort, because there’s no way those hairs should have been in the “van samples”.
Either way, the men were charged with the rape and murder of Theresa (and I do believe Kelly Morrisey was lumped into this? I’m not sure). (Obviously, discrepancies in evidence weren’t present at the time, and were figured out later) In 1986, all three were convicted. Kogut himself received 25 years to life on two counts of murder and 12.5-25 years for the rape conviction, meaning Kogut was going to serve 31 years to life in prison. Halsted and Restivo had similar sentences. (Another question here– if John Kogut said that Halstead and Restivo were the ones that committed the SA, and there was no evidence that pointed to Kogut (or the others for that matter), why was the SA charge added to Kogut’s sentence?)
So, in 2003, all the convictions were overturned (17 years after the fact, 19 for John Kogut). Restivo and Halstead were released then, with their cases dismissed so they couldn’t be retried. Because of the confession, John Kogut was retried. The prosecution tried to say that, because Theresa was known to be a virgin, that she had some consensual sex with an unknown male before her rape and murder, and this explained the DNA evidence mismatch. The defense was able to provide the evidence that the confession was false. John Kogut was eventually acquitted in 2005.
This whole story started and ended with Kelly Morrisson. And yes, Theresa was friends with Kelly, and Kelly knew the three men convicted (at least for a little while) of these crimes, but with that theory, how would Jacqueline fit into that? Unless it was purely coincidental that Kelly and Theresa were friends—it sounds like they frequented the same locations, so someone preying off that aspect, it would’ve made sense.
So, some important questions:
Why was this not solved? What are we missing? (In no particular order)
1.) Blood type testing was never performed on the semen. This would have been a game changer. Although it’s not obviously not perfect, a blood typing may have kept Kogut, Restivo, and Halstead form being convicted.
2.) Police were under a lot of pressure to solve these crimes because of Kelly’s disappearance and the discovery of two bodies.
Sidenote–I find it unfortunate that Theresa and Jacqueline didn’t have someone like Det. Quinn on their case. The care and attention he dedicated to finding Kelly is really unmatched.
3.) Too many variations in the story of the night Kelly Morrissey went missing. (Because of this I feel it’s hard to pin down who was the last person to see her, where she was at the time she went missing, etc) Did Gail have something to hide? Why would she be uncooperative?
3.5.) A middle thought between 3 and 4, Kogut and his friends were an easy target for something like this to be pinned on, though. Even if they didn’t commit these exact crimes, from what I’ve read, these men were not perfect. They possibly had other things they were looking to hide which made them appear dodgier–it’s possible Gail/Kim/Kelly’s friends had something to hide for the same reason (underage drinking, drug use, etc?)
3.75) Another random thought– Exactly how close were Theresa and Kelly? Every article I read says they were friends, but how close of friends? BFFs? Acquaintances? Would Theresa have known, possibly what happened to Kelly? Did she confide in anyone??
4.) Real evidence being concealed because they were so focused on connecting this crime to Kogut. What happened to the “missing” evidence from John French’s car? What would we have learned if this evidence had been evaluated?
5.) There was a post I saw about this possibly being LISK in his early days– but I don’t buy that. There are too many differences in MO (in my opinion), and the timeline just doesn’t add up. I suppose I could be convinced one way or the other, it just doesn’t feel like a fit for me.
6.) Were these young women targeted for a specific reason (i.e, their relationship to Kelly), or was it all completely random? Since it’s ruled out that John Kogut and friends committed this crime, who else could be responsible?
7.) There’s 4-6 months between each girl going missing. The bodies that are found are discovered 25-27 days after their disappearance. I doubt this means anything, but maybe it could. Just interesting to note, I suppose.
Kelly goes missing on June 12th (Tuesday) – Body never found.
Distance between Kelly/Theresa – 6 Months
Theresa goes missing November 10th (Saturday) – Body found December 5th (Wednesday) She was missing for 25 days.
Distance between Theresa/Jacquleine – 4 months
Jacqueline goes missing March 26th (Tuesday) – Body found April 22nd (Monday) She was missing for 27 days.
Like my last post, I feel like there’s something just out of reach on this one. There’s one puzzle piece out of place. It seems so close, yet so far.
Other Sources:
(I was trying to link throughout but my computer wasn’t having it, so a more detailed list is below).
Lynbrook Murders – Google Maps (A map I crudely put together)
Kelly Morrissey – New York Missing Person Directory (missingin.org)
Facebook posts lead to L.I. police renewing probe of 1984 missing teen case (nypost.com)
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
KELLY MORRISSEY – 15 yo (1984) – Lynbrook/ Long Island NY (forumotion.net)
Long Island serial killer – Wikipedia
Clipping from Daily News – Newspapers.com
Clipping from Newsday (Suffolk Edition) – Newspapers.com
John Kogut – National Registry of Exonerations (umich.edu)
John Kogut – Innocence Project
John Kogut – Convicting the Innocent
Theresa fusco abduction – The Case (weebly.com)
The Unsolved Murder of Theresa Fusco : UnresolvedMysteries (reddit.com)
The Disappearance of Kelly Morrissey : UnresolvedMysteries (reddit.com)
Facebook posts lead to L.I. police renewing probe of 1984 missing teen case (nypost.com)
To read the original Reddit post, click here. My YouTube video on the subject is embedded above.
If you know anything, contact the New York Area Crime Stoppers.