40 years after 16yo was murdered, her dad’s hope finally wins as Walmart worker falls for investigators trap

A grisly murder that turned into a 40-year-old cold case has finally met its conclusion after police were able to source DNA from the suspect’s trash. Now, 63-year-old Richard Bilodeau is being arraigned in court for a crime investigators believe he committed in 1984.

There’s a saying common among those who practice law: delayed justice is denied justice. So, you’d be mistaken to think that the late Theresa Fusco’s family would be cynical about it taking half a lifetime to bring Bilodeau to book. But according to New York Post her father, Thomas Fusco, was actually quite welcoming of the long-awaited resolution, saying, “I never gave up hope. I always had faith in the system.”

Bilodeau was always a main suspect in the case. At the time, Theresa was just 16 years old. On November 10, she had just been fired from her job at the Hot Skates rink. The fine details of that night have been analyzed over and over again. What’s known for sure is that after leaving her job for the final time, the next time authorities found her — on December 5 — she had been beaten, strangled, sexually assaulted, and killed.

The news shook the core of their community. When Bilodeau was asked whether he knew Theresa, he claimed he didn’t recognize her. As a result, the police department shifted focus and arrested three men — John Restivo, Dennis Halstead, and John Kogut. They were wrongfully convicted in 1986 and remained behind bars until 2003, when DNA evidence finally exonerated them. The trio later sued the state and received $43 million in damages for their wrongful conviction — which seems reasonable, considering we recently saw someone threatening to sue for $40 trillion and a handover of the presidency as soon as possible.

Investigators were determined to use that very tool to find the real killer — who they strongly believed to be Bilodeau. At the time of Theresa’s murder, Bilodeau was 24. He drove a coffee truck and lived a simple life just one mile from the rink.

For the police, the hardest part was obtaining Bilodeau’s DNA so many years later. After the multimillion-dollar lawsuit, caution was paramount. These days, Bilodeau lived alone, working night shifts at Walmart, where strange things happen too. But in February 2025, he had no idea police were tracking him as he went about his errands.

As it happened, Bilodeau bought a drink at Tropical Smoothie on his way home. He threw the cup in the trash, and the cops retrieved it. When they took the cup to the lab and compared it to Theresa’s DNA from all those years ago, they found a 100% match.

That’s all but concrete proof — but we still have to wait for the case to play out in court. It’s worth noting that Bilodeau has pleaded not guilty despite the new evidence. Diddy’s case was a reminder, more than any other, that you can’t always count your chickens before they hatch with the judicial system.

He is now being held without bail until his hearing on November 21.