Speaker 1: Hey, there're folks. It is Saturday, October the eighteenth, and
Speaker 1: police this week made an arrest in the brutal rape
Speaker 1: and murder of a teenage girl. It only took them
Speaker 1: forty years and a smoothie straw to make the arrest.
Speaker 1: And by the way, this is a crime that three
Speaker 1: other men have already been convicted for and they were
Speaker 1: exonerated of. And welcome everybody to this episode of Amy
Speaker 1: and TJ Robes. Cold cases are one thing takes so
Speaker 1: long for families to get justice. The idea that there
Speaker 1: were three other men that went to prison for decades
Speaker 1: for this same crime that they did not commit.
Speaker 2: This is a story that is hard to believe.
Speaker 3: It's heartbreaking for so many people.
Speaker 2: The family of the victim, sixteen year old girl, of
Speaker 2: the three men who were convicted for her murder, that
Speaker 2: spent more than a decade behind bars, seventeen years in
Speaker 2: prison for a crime they did not commit, and this
Speaker 2: all came to light. It wasn't lost on us that
Speaker 2: this all came to light on a week where we
Speaker 2: have executed five people for murders and it was supposed
Speaker 2: to be six because one has been stayed. But this
Speaker 2: is all just to me a highlight a highlighted moment
Speaker 2: in time where we can say, hey, our justice system
Speaker 2: is flawed.
Speaker 1: Hey, look we know it is. No system is perfect.
Speaker 1: That's fine. But when you talk about people losing decades
Speaker 1: of their life and a mistake like this, may I mean, look,
Speaker 1: this was a brutal enough crime that it's not beyond
Speaker 1: the imagine that this is a crime in some places
Speaker 1: that someone could have gotten the death penalty.
Speaker 2: This happened in New York, so it would have been
Speaker 2: more unlikely that that would have happened.
Speaker 1: So that we understand and we get but if a
Speaker 1: mistake like this can be made that it takes us
Speaker 1: twenty years to realize our mistake, then man, it scares
Speaker 1: the hell out of you.
Speaker 2: This is a fascinating story. It's a cautionary story, and
Speaker 2: it's a story that I think everyone needs to hear.
Speaker 2: This is the story of a sixteen year old girl.
Speaker 2: Her name was Teresa Fusco. She was found raped and
Speaker 2: strangled to death in a wooded area on Long Island.
Speaker 2: This happened in nineteen eighty four. Her body was found
Speaker 2: on December fifth. She was just leaving work. In fact,
Speaker 2: she left work in tears. She was working at a
Speaker 2: roller skating rink and she had just been fired and
Speaker 2: she left in tears. She thought that was the worst
Speaker 2: thing that could have happened her. At sixteen and just
Speaker 2: moments later, yes before ten pm, she was abducted by
Speaker 2: someone and at one point police thought it was three men.
Speaker 2: But this week police have arrested sixty three year old
Speaker 2: Richard Billdeaux and charged him with two counts of second
Speaker 2: degree murder and one count of murder during the course
Speaker 2: of a rape. And this was forty one years in
Speaker 2: the making this arrest.
Speaker 1: Look, and we just mentioned this is right, they're arresting someone.
Speaker 1: I guess they didn't know to be looking for anybody
Speaker 1: else for the past couple of decades because there were
Speaker 1: three men convicted of this after this young lady was
Speaker 1: found murdered and they went to prison. And it wasn't
Speaker 1: until and because of yes, advances in DNA testing that
Speaker 1: we are here that proved that those three men. Now,
Speaker 1: at the time that DNA testing was done, they didn't
Speaker 1: necessarily have another suspect that this left them too, But
Speaker 1: they knew these three men were not involved based on
Speaker 1: DNA found on that young lady's body. So a couple
Speaker 1: of them got I can't remember the amount, but million
Speaker 1: dollar settlements.
Speaker 2: Eighteen million dollars apiece. So they were convicted. And look
Speaker 2: how often we put so much stock into coerce confessions,
Speaker 2: unreliable testimony by jail house informants. But that is how
Speaker 2: they were convicted. And yes, as you mentioned, advanced DNA
Speaker 2: testing cleared these men, Dennis Halstead, John Cogut, and John Restivo.
Speaker 3: They sued two of them.
Speaker 2: Restivo and Halsteed were awarded eighteen million dollars apiece for
Speaker 2: the seventeen years more than seventeen years they served in
Speaker 2: prison for a crime they did not commit. And thank
Speaker 2: God for DNA testing because that is the reason why
Speaker 2: these men were exonerated, and it is the reason why
Speaker 2: now Richard billdeou behind bars.
Speaker 1: How many more, I mean, I know there are people
Speaker 1: who are there organizations dedicated to this type of work
Speaker 1: to exonerate folks, but how many more?
Speaker 3: Really?
Speaker 1: It eighty four? I mean that was that was a
Speaker 1: while back, sure, forty years, but man, we've learned so
Speaker 1: much more and it was so I don't want to
Speaker 1: say easy what the journey was like to get them exonerated.
Speaker 1: But like a test, here is this, here's the test,
Speaker 1: test this, and we'll have our answer about guilt or innocence.
Speaker 1: It just like this should be accessible to everybody. This
Speaker 1: just should not happen. I hate it for those men.
Speaker 2: Yes, I mean, this is the kind of story where
Speaker 2: you want to go and give your time to the
Speaker 2: Innocence Project, which devotes that organization devotes its resources into
Speaker 2: DNA testing specifically because that is irrefutable. When you have
Speaker 2: someone that is clearly exonerated by or clearly responsible for
Speaker 2: based on DNA evidence, I mean that is that is
Speaker 2: the type of evidence that can absolutely change the outcome
Speaker 2: and should change the outcome.
Speaker 3: Of a trial.
Speaker 1: So we move forward. Here we are now, so how
Speaker 1: do they get this guy? Well, as far as police go,
Speaker 1: they say they got a tip, and they've actually been
Speaker 1: they've had their eye on this suspect at least since
Speaker 1: early last year, and so they have been following him around,
Speaker 1: keeping an eye on him. But again, the key to
Speaker 1: this case, Robes, which has exonerated three men, is DNA.
Speaker 1: So DNA was key in following this guy around and
Speaker 1: trying to figure out ropes. And we've seen some of
Speaker 1: this We watched a lot of true grime stories, and
Speaker 1: we've seen this one play out before.
Speaker 2: You know that this is going to be a movie
Speaker 2: or a made for TV movie or a docu series,
Speaker 2: because this has all of the hallmarks of it. So
Speaker 2: Richard Bilodeou, he's sixty three years old now, but starting
Speaker 2: last year or even beforehand, they started surveilling him. As
Speaker 2: TJ just said, they actually in February watched Billodeou get
Speaker 2: as smoothie from a cafe in Suffolk County. When he finished,
Speaker 2: he threw the cup and the straw in the trash.
Speaker 2: Investigators went into the trash can, pulled out the cup
Speaker 2: and the straw and used it to test it for
Speaker 2: DNA and guess what. That DNA sample tested positive as
Speaker 2: a match to the DNA found on Fusco's body.
Speaker 3: We mentioned she was raped, so they.
Speaker 2: Had DNA from the killer who raped her, and it
Speaker 2: matched Billadel sixty sixty three.
Speaker 3: He was twenty three at the time of the murder.
Speaker 2: And they went back and looked at the time of Wow,
Speaker 2: I just it's so sad.
Speaker 3: Sixteen years old, sixteen.
Speaker 2: Year old Teresa Fusco at the time of her murder,
Speaker 2: Billigo was living with his grandparents less than a mile
Speaker 2: away from where she lived and from the roller rink
Speaker 2: where she was last seen alive. So he was at
Speaker 2: the time at the place. And now they have the
Speaker 2: DNA linking him.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is a this is an incredible story.
Speaker 1: I don't know which way to go with, right, the
Speaker 1: family has peace after all of these years. You have
Speaker 1: all these characters, now the family involved. You have the family,
Speaker 1: the victim, those three men being exonerated, and then the
Speaker 1: family friends, people who have been around this guy for
Speaker 1: the past forty years.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so here's what we know about him.
Speaker 2: He has been living on Long Island for the last
Speaker 2: forty years, and for the past twelve years he's been
Speaker 2: stocking shelves at a local walmart. So here's this guy
Speaker 2: who's now being accused of this horrific, heinous crime, and
Speaker 2: he watched three other men pay for his crime. Clearly
Speaker 2: he saw that all go down. But here's something really interesting.
Speaker 2: When detectives finally confronted him about this DNA match from
Speaker 2: him to the victim, Reportedly, according to detectives, he replied,
Speaker 2: they said they asked him, why why does your DNA
Speaker 2: match a sample found with Teresa's body from the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 2: Here was his response, people got away with murder. Back then,
Speaker 2: DNA testing was not around, and it was almost as
Speaker 2: if he was kind of.
Speaker 3: Bragging about it at that point.
Speaker 2: Now he has now pleaded not guilty this week and
Speaker 2: he is proclaiming his innocence. But according to investigators, that
Speaker 2: is what he said when he was confronted with the evidence.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm what that means. Maybe we'll see that
Speaker 1: on one of the true crime documentaries from the interrogation
Speaker 1: room and see how that all went down. But that's
Speaker 1: he had to be to a point that he thought
Speaker 1: that call would never come and that knock would ever
Speaker 1: come on the door. Now, I wonder if he had
Speaker 1: been keeping up with his story of the past several
Speaker 1: years and knew that these men had been exonerated, and
Speaker 1: maybe he had been sweating for a little while. But
Speaker 1: forty one years. Again, we've seen a few true crime
Speaker 1: stories of this nature, but forty one years.
Speaker 3: He had to have thought he had gotten away with it.
Speaker 3: Think about it.
Speaker 2: Those three men, their convictions were overturned in two thousand
Speaker 2: and three. That's twenty two years ago. So for twenty
Speaker 2: two years, the men first served seventeen years, then twenty
Speaker 2: two years has gone by.
Speaker 1: So maybe he was sweating it for the first few
Speaker 1: years and now for the past decade. Really he might
Speaker 1: have forgotten about it. Again. I say forget it, what
Speaker 1: I mean, not to forget something like that. But rome's
Speaker 1: to think he's been living forty years and working around people.
Speaker 1: This was a horrific thing done to a sixteen year
Speaker 1: old girl. This was awful. This is monstrous stuff. And
Speaker 1: he went about life, he was interacting with people. I'm
Speaker 1: sure he worked with people. Somebody hired him, and what
Speaker 1: are those people thinking.
Speaker 2: His neighbors have been talking saying he was always scary.
Speaker 2: They told their kids to stay away from him. People
Speaker 2: talked about his weird, strange, bad energy. So it's always
Speaker 2: after the fact, of course, people are like, I always
Speaker 2: knew something was up with that guy. But people have
Speaker 2: definitely been speaking out and speaking up about how he
Speaker 2: was a creepy guy and they always felt a little
Speaker 2: uneasy and didn't want their kids around him. It's kind
Speaker 2: of interesting when people give off a certain energy. So,
Speaker 2: of course, easy to say after the fact, easy to
Speaker 2: say after his arrest, but they're certainly speaking up and
Speaker 2: he has maintained his innocence despite I mean, can you
Speaker 2: imagine the last thing he was thinking as he ordered
Speaker 2: that smoothie, finished it and threw it in the trash.
Speaker 2: Can can you imagine he would never in a million
Speaker 2: years have thought that was going to be his undoing.
Speaker 1: Look, it says you always have. It is the presumption
Speaker 1: of innocence until you are proven guilty. His lawyer, I
Speaker 1: thought was kind of if anything could be kind of
Speaker 1: funny and how he said it. He said, look, three
Speaker 1: people have been exonerated in this case. If this is
Speaker 1: ever a case of not rushing to judgment, this would
Speaker 1: be it makes a good point, like, okay, whatever it
Speaker 1: looks like, but we will defend our client. But this
Speaker 1: case is a very well it's obviously close to us
Speaker 1: here in New York because Long Island's right across the way.
Speaker 1: But this case and the timing of it coming smack
Speaker 1: dab in the middle of a stretch of time in
Speaker 1: this country where we had six executions in eight days.
Speaker 1: Oh wait, there actually were only five because would you believe, folks, yes,
Speaker 1: one of them was stopped. Why because there's a question
Speaker 1: about the guilt or innocence of the man who's on
Speaker 1: death row. Stay with us.
Speaker 2: We continue talking about this unbelievable and truly unbelievable and
Speaker 2: fascinating case about the death and the murder of sixteen
Speaker 2: year old Teresa Fusco. What happened forty one years ago
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty four on Long Island and New York.
Speaker 2: Three men had been initially convicted, spent seventeen years behind
Speaker 2: bars before being exonerated by DNA evidence.
Speaker 3: And now they say.
Speaker 2: Police believe they finally have the man in custody who
Speaker 2: they believe killed Teresa all those years ago, because DNA
Speaker 2: evidence connects him to the crime. And look, we talk
Speaker 2: about how it's fascinating, We talk about the larger conversation
Speaker 2: about getting things right and how flawed our justice system is,
Speaker 2: and certainly the higher level of executions we're seeing in
Speaker 2: this country. But I also just want to point out
Speaker 2: the human element of this. And my god, her father,
Speaker 2: Teresa Fusco's father, was at the bail hearing this week
Speaker 2: of this man who's now finally been arrested for his
Speaker 2: daughter's death. And I was wiping away tears reading about
Speaker 2: this father and seeing the picture. There's Thomas Fusco said
Speaker 2: that this arrest and of course the trial and ultimately
Speaker 2: he hopes the conviction will bring closure finally for him
Speaker 2: and his family. But he said this, I never gave
Speaker 2: up hope. I've always had faith in this system. But
Speaker 2: before I leave this earth, I'm very happy that since
Speaker 2: my ex wife's not here, she passed away back in
Speaker 2: twenty nineteen, and that I'm here with my family and
Speaker 2: the district attorney. And he pulled out a picture, a
Speaker 2: laminated photo of his daughter that he says he carries
Speaker 2: in his jacket pocket with him, and he said, with
Speaker 2: his lip shaking, she still lives in my heart, as
Speaker 2: you can see all these years later. The emotion that
Speaker 2: washed over him, it was just it was so moving
Speaker 2: to think about just the unbelievable toll this had to
Speaker 2: have taken on him and his entire family and everyone
Speaker 2: who loved her.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they haven't been at peace. It's been tumultuous. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I didn't wasn't familiar enough with the story
Speaker 1: that I don't know if there were all always questions
Speaker 1: about the guilt of these three men. I don't know
Speaker 1: if the family thought that was their closure and it
Speaker 1: was done or not. But then to think when those
Speaker 1: men are exonerated, that was twenty years ago and they've
Speaker 1: been now, it's almost like she's murdered all over again.
Speaker 1: There's a killer has been on the loose this whole time,
Speaker 1: and so I can't imagine the ups and downs that
Speaker 1: look waiting five years for closure is one thing. This
Speaker 1: is you got closure twenty years ago just to be
Speaker 1: told no, that wasn't it, and now you're getting it again.
Speaker 1: I mean, your heartbreaks for those folks.
Speaker 2: Heartbreak, and then also to think that three men paid
Speaker 2: a price that they didn't deserve to pay.
Speaker 3: You'd also feel terrible about that.
Speaker 1: Maybe how you felt about those men at one point.
Speaker 1: I wonder if there were every any apologies relationships or
Speaker 1: not that they need to apologize to those men, but
Speaker 1: it's just if they ever reached out in some way.
Speaker 1: That's this. They were in jail for nearly two decades
Speaker 1: for a crime they did not commit that should never
Speaker 1: ever happen, ever ever.
Speaker 2: Happened, But thank goodness, it was able to be righted.
Speaker 2: Not that you could ever get back those years, but
Speaker 2: at least they were just imprisoned. And I hate to
Speaker 2: say that I'm not minimizing at all their experience. But
Speaker 2: I say this with the perspective of capital punishment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because we are as we sit here on a
Speaker 1: Saturday now. Two days ago, a guy in Texas was
Speaker 1: supposed to be dead and he's still alive right now
Speaker 1: because of a stay of execution. We've covered this plenty.
Speaker 1: Robert Robertson was supposed to be the first person executed
Speaker 1: after a shaken baby syndrome conviction, if you will, And
Speaker 1: there are questions now because there are new science. This
Speaker 1: wasn't DNA, but science evolved to where what he was
Speaker 1: convicted on and the science they use is considered junk science.
Speaker 1: So that mistake, yes, could have cost a guy his
Speaker 1: life two days ago. In this country, we should always
Speaker 1: pump the brakes and be sure. I know everybody on
Speaker 1: Cell Block D says they didn't do it. I know
Speaker 1: that's the joke, but sometimes guys on blog B and
Speaker 1: C and A and elsewhere have a very good point.
Speaker 1: We have to take these seriously and on all capital punishment.
Speaker 1: If there's f oh, we just take a beat. If
Speaker 1: we need two more weeks to figure this out, we
Speaker 1: should always do that, you know.
Speaker 3: And it reminds me.
Speaker 2: Look, I'm not saying that Lance Shockley of Missouri, who
Speaker 2: was also executed this week, was innocent in any way,
Speaker 2: shape or form, but he till the moment he was
Speaker 2: pronounced dead at six thirteen pm this week and Missouri
Speaker 2: claimed that he was innocent.
Speaker 1: Again, plenty do I'm not saying just take their word
Speaker 1: for it, but there are questions about that illegal questions well,
Speaker 1: the Supreme about the case.
Speaker 3: Three justices felt like he should have gotten a new tribal.
Speaker 1: If Soda Mayor says there's a question that he didn't
Speaker 1: get all his his the rights do, then I'll listen
Speaker 1: to that. I'll listen to the Yes, that's fine. When
Speaker 1: somebody's life is on the line, I'll listen to that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure. But it's just funny that this case comes
Speaker 1: up this week on the same week that we have
Speaker 1: seen I guess a life spared because we decided to
Speaker 1: take a beat and look at new evidence, and now
Speaker 1: we're seeing that hearing this case that three men, their lives,
Speaker 1: you could argue, were spared that well, that DNA had
Speaker 1: never been tested. Who was out there yelling and screaming
Speaker 1: in their corner and rooting for them? I don't know
Speaker 1: if they had good enough lawyers, maybe there was an
Speaker 1: Innocence Project, but ma'am, more of this work needs to
Speaker 1: be done, and I be done. And I applaud any
Speaker 1: of you all out there from the Innocence Project on
Speaker 1: who do this work, because it is critically important.
Speaker 2: Work and we all, we all can't even imagine what
Speaker 2: it would be like to be the family members left
Speaker 2: behind when someone who we loved was brutally murdered. Of course,
Speaker 2: everyone wants justice, but we want to make sure we
Speaker 2: get it right, and so this story just was such
Speaker 2: a glaring example of that very very thing. So Richard Bilodeaux,
Speaker 2: we will follow the story. He is supposed to be
Speaker 2: back in court on November twenty first, and we will
Speaker 2: bring you the very latest on that if he is convicted,
Speaker 2: he will face twenty five years to life in prison,
Speaker 2: and certainly we hope that the family of Teresa Fusco
Speaker 2: finally finally gets the justice and peace that they have
Speaker 2: been waiting for for far too long, for these past
Speaker 2: four decades. Thank you so much for listening to us. Everyone.
Speaker 3: I'm Amy Robot alongside TJ. Holmes. We will talk to
Speaker 3: you soon