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Dennis Halstead, John Kogut, and John Restivo were convicted of raping and murdering 16-year-old Theresa Fusco.  Kogut confessed to the crime and implicated the other two, but he later recanted his confession.  In the sixth and final version of Kogut's confession, Kogut confessed to strangling Fusco using rope, but the ligature mark on Fusco indicated she was strangled by cloth rather than rope.  Rope leaves a crisscross pattern caused by the weave, but the ligature mark on Fusco was smooth.  The detectives who extracted Kogut's confession, Joseph Volpe and Robert Dempsey, had also extracted a false confessions in two other murder cases.  Volpe got Robert Moore to confess in 1995 that he shot a man, but Moore was acquitted and later awarded $85,000.  Dempsey got Shonnard Lee to confess in 1999 to murder, but Lee was acquitted and later awarded $2 million.

In 2003, DNA tests were performed on a discovered semen sample, which excluded the men.  Defense investigators also procured an affidavit from a former detective, who performed prosecution analysis of hairs found in the defendants' van that at trial were said to belong to the victim.  The analysis showed that these hairs were planted.  The detective explained that the hairs had post-mortem root banding which meant that they were attached to a corpse that had been dead for at least eight hours.  Because the victim was only alleged to be in the van for a few minutes after death, they could not have come from her then.  They could have been taken from her at her autopsy.  Convictions for all three defendants were vacated in 2003.  Because of his confession, Kogut was retried in 2005, and found not guilty.  (Newsday) (CM) (NY Times) (IP1, IP2, IP3)  [9/06]

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