More than four decades after a teenage Long Island girl vanished, prosecutors say they finally have the man who killed her – a stark reminder that justice can arrive late but still land with force. Authorities announced this fall that a DNA match led them to 63-year-old Richard Bilodeau, who has been charged in the 1984 murder of 16-year-old Theresa Fusco, bringing long-awaited answers to a grieving family.
Theresa disappeared after leaving her job at a roller rink in Lynbrook and was later found battered, sexually assaulted, and strangled – a brutal crime that rocked the community and never faded from her family’s memory. The horror of what happened in November 1984 never left the neighborhood or her loved ones, who spent decades living with uncertainty and unanswered questions.
Investigators say modern forensic science did what past investigations could not: a discarded smoothie cup and straw led to DNA that prosecutors say matched Bilodeau and linked him to the crime. The breakthrough came after the case was reopened and detectives surveilled a new suspect, ultimately retrieving the discarded cup and using DNA technology to make the connection that solvers in the 1980s could only have dreamed of.
This arrest also reopens a painful chapter: three men were wrongfully convicted in Theresa’s case years ago and later exonerated, a catastrophic failure that cost taxpayers and destroyed lives while leaving the real killer free. Conservatives who care about both justice and accountability should be furious that sloppy or rushed prosecutions can turn victims’ families into a marketplace for error; the system must be fixed so evidence, not hysteria, leads the way.
Credit where credit is due — the persistence of detectives and the leaps in DNA technology deserve praise, and prosecutors rightly reminded the public that scientific evidence “doesn’t lie.” Law-and-order Americans should support the tools and resources that finally gave Theresa’s family the chance for closure, while insisting on tougher standards and oversight to prevent miscarriages of justice in the future.
Let this be a wake-up call: we owe our communities better policing, better labs, and better prosecutors who pursue truth over headlines. Conservatives can and should stand with victims, demand accountability for past mistakes, and push to keep modern forensic methods funded so hardworking families don’t wait decades for answers again.
