KELLY MORRISSEY - 15 yo (1984) - Lynbrook/ Long Island NY

Postings on a Facebook page have breathed new life into the case of a missing Lynbrook teen, said Nassau county police.
Kelly Morrissey, 15, vanished on June 12 1984. She was last seen at a gas station on Merrick Road.
"To have someone just disappear into thin air is really kind of strange," said Bill Rhodes, a neighbor who lived across the street when Morrissey went missing.
Morrissey was a "neighborhood fixture," according to Rhodes; a normal teen whose disappearance devastated her family.
"They always kept her picture taped to their car's window," said another neighbor. But, according to police, Morrissey was never heard from or seen again.
This week, however, Morrissey's mom returned from her new home in Vermont to meet with Nassau county police investigators who are now back on this case.
The "cold case" heated up after police found postings on a Facebook page for a local skating rink, Hot Skates.
There was no specific information or leads about what happened to Morrissey, police said.
In fact, the postings appeared to be nothing more than reminiscences; but some did mention Morrissey specifically and the chatter among people who knew her or lived in the area in 1984 raised hope that someone might come forward, according to investigators.
"There are a multitude of reasons why no one has come forward so far," said homicide commander, Det. Lt. John Azzata.
"We hope they look into their souls and come forward to help Kelly's family."
A ten thousand dollar reward is being offered for information on Morrissey's whereabouts. Police also released a sketch of what she might look like today, 26 years later.
However, when asked, Det. Lt. Azzata said he did not believe Morrissey was still alive.
Two other Lynbrook teens, Theresa Fusco, 15 and Jackie Martarella, 19 also vanished in 1984. They were both found strangled to death -- apparent murder victims. It's unclear if there is any connection between those murders and the Morrissey case, police said.
Fusco and Martarella's killers have never been brought to justice.
Three men convicted of killing Fusco were exonerated by DNA evidence in 2003 after eighteen years in prison.

Kelly Morrissey: The Search for Kelly Morrissey Continues 26 Years Later

By Long Island Press  
November 18th, 2010

By Shelly Feuer Domash

In most ways, Kelly Morrissey’s life was not that different from many other 15 year olds’. Her parents were divorced, she went through a litany of boyfriends and she spent most of her time searching for acceptance and love. She could be a tough teenager one day or a vulnerable child the next.

By her own diary accounts, she was also a rebellious, confused young girl who drank, smoked marijuana and often skipped school—continually searching for something she would never obtain. Her diary was filled with entries that described a rollercoaster of emotions. She wrote about running away and taking three aspirins to kill herself; she also described the good days, hanging out with her friends.

Kelly’s life would probably have gone unnoticed, except for the events that occurred on June 12, 1984.

The petite blond blue-eyed girl started her evening the same way she had done hundreds of times before. She ate dinner, ironed some clothing and got dressed to go out to meet some friends. At approximately 8 p.m., she took her pocketbook, said good-bye to her mother and walked more than a mile from her Lynbrook home to meet her girlfriend, Gail Cole. What happened after that depends on who you talk to, but the one fact that does not change is that Kelly was never seen, nor heard from, again

What really happened to Kelly that June night? Most people involved in the investigation strongly believe she was murdered, even though no body was ever found.



When Kelly was first reported missing, I was a freelance writer for numerous publications, including POLICE magazine and The New York Times. All my instincts told me it was going to be a good story, but convincing editors was not that easy. Later, when two more teenaged girls were found murdered—Theresa Fusco also of Lynbrook and Jacqueline Martarella of neighboring Oceanside, both bodies were found nude, both were strangled and both were located not far from each other—the interest grew, and so did the interest from my editors. Still, since this was a local story, it didn’t get as much play as I hoped it would. But I promised myself that I would never give up.

Twenty-six years later, Kelly has once again become a picture on a police missing person’s poster being distributed to the media. Last week, Nassau County police announced her case reopened. Officially, Nassau County police are saying the renewed interest is based on Internet chatter surrounding her disappearance that was recently posted on the Facebook page of Hot Skates in Lynbrook, the roller rink where Theresa worked and Kelly and her friends hung out. Det. Lt. John Azzata, head of the Nassau Homicide Squad, announced that after they identified the chatter, he decided that it was a good opportunity for the department to go public again with the case.

“Hopefully, with the passage of time, someone will come forward,” he says, adding that a witness might have been afraid of someone or didn’t think information they had was pertinent when the stories first made headlines nearly a quarter-century ago.

The renewed public campaign also comes on the eve of a civil trial brought by three men who knew Kelly and were convicted of the rape and murder of Theresa, yet were later released after the convictions were overturned based on new DNA evidence.

The Press has learned that one of these men, John Kogut of Island Park, was recently incarcerated again, this time in New Jersey for burglary. Kogut, who goes by the alias “Lurch,” dated Kelly, and according to her diary entries, was angered when she tried unsuccessfully to break off their relationship.

But Kelly was always much more than a one-dimensional picture next to an age-enhanced depiction. Anyone who knew Kelly, and those, like me, who only learned about her after her disappearance, still feel her impact on our lives.

Vanished Without A Trace

I knew from the first time I learned about Kelly’s disappearance that her story would be a complicated one, filled with mysteries that might never be answered. But I also felt a compelling need to not stop researching. Her story was different, maybe because she was so young, maybe because of all the unanswered questions that would come to haunt me, maybe because I had two young children and I needed to know what happened to her and why.

One problem was that different people would relate conflicting accounts of the same incidents. No one seemed to see Kelly before she went missing, despite the fact she was on a busy street. Most of her acquaintances would only relate superficial stories about her. It seemed that either they didn’t know, or they could not get past her outer defenses to understand who Kelly really was. Getting to know the real Kelly Morrissey was not an easy task.

Learning about Kelly meant talking with her best friend, her parents, and other people who were involved in her life. It meant spending endless hours and days with the one man who would never give up on finding her—Det. Terry Quinn of the Nassau County Police Department. Kelly was as real for him as she was for the people who knew her before she disappeared.

I don’t remember when I first met Quinn. Sometimes the days just seem to blur into years. I know I liked him from the start. He was gracious, sincere, a little shy and best of all truly interested in Kelly’s case. We hit it off immediately. Whether it was our common obsession with Kelly’s story and the need for closure, or just him being a really nice guy I’m not sure. Maybe it was just a little of both.

“I got the impression she wasn’t getting much supervision,” he told me. “She seemed free to do what she wanted to do. Any kid with a lifestyle like that just doesn’t know what they want. They have no one for guidance,” he said, adding what upset him most was that this was becoming the typical teenager, more the norm than the exception.

What differed with Kelly’s story was that she left home without picking up a paycheck at her job, and without any fresh clothes. Her clothes were laid out on her bed for the next day, indicating she had no intentions of running away.

As the investigation continued and months turned into years, Quinn told me he knew as much about Kelly’s habits as he did about those of his own children. Kelly was rarely out of his thoughts. He personally called more than 100 names he found in her telephone book. He interviewed more than 1,000 people and walked five miles on the Long Beach boardwalk both on the days he worked and the days he was off, hoping to follow leads claiming she was sighted there. Leads from all over the country continued to flow into his office, and he followed up on every one. His personal life became affected, as friends and relatives started telling him he was being overprotective of his own five children, ranging in age from 4 to 10 years old. Quinn’s children grew to know about Kelly, as she became a constant part of his home and professional life. Quinn’s oldest child was also named Kelly.

When we talked about it, he would ask me if I were to consider Kelly’s case, how could he not be so protective. I never told him that I had already been an overprotective mother, but after reporting on this case, I became even worse.

Over the years, Quinn and I built a strong bond. My greatest regret was that at times I felt I let him down. He was so open with me, spent so much time explaining the case, and all I wanted to do was to keep writing stories—every week if I could. But that is not the nature of the news business. My editors at the Times would keep telling me I needed a new angle to update the case, and more often than not, there were none. My other outlets would take the story, and then it became old news.

When Kelly, as a missing person, was too old for the Juvenile Aid Bureau to investigate, Quinn fought hard to keep the case. Eventually the Homicide Squad took it over, and the case was continually assigned to new detectives.

But that didn’t stop Quinn, even if he had to do it on his own time. He would never give up the investigation. I felt the same pull of the case and kept in touch with him.

Quinn never gave up on me, either. He always returned my calls, took the time to go over some of my crazy theories, and showed remarkable patience when I made him go over things again and again. When I could get the time, I would meet him. We would go to the Shell gas station where Kelly was last seen and walk the few blocks to where she was supposed to have gone. But no matter how many times we did it, we didn’t find any more answers.

We knew that Kelly had left her home to meet her friend Gail Cole and hook up with two boys at the Shell Gas station on Merrick Road in Lynbrook.

In a statement to the police, Cole said that when the two boys did not show up, Kelly told her she would go on alone and began walking east on Merrick Road toward Captain Video, a local video arcade store located just a few blocks away. Cole said that was the last time she saw Kelly.

Soon after giving her statements, Cole moved away.

Yet a few years after Kelly’s disappearance, I was able to locate Kim Beyer, one of Kelly’s closest friends, who told me a different story. She said Cole, who was supposedly the last person to see Kelly, had told her that she [Cole] got into a car with some people Kelly and Beyer didn’t like. When Kelly would not get in the car, Cole left her alone. Cole insisted to Beyer that she did not remember the names of the people in the car.

Quinn said Cole was not very cooperative during the initial investigation and had never mentioned anything about getting into a car. Kelly’s mother, Iris Olmstead, also had doubts about Cole.

“It was very strange that she never called me. I always wondered if she knew more than she was telling me,” she said.

Based on the new information concerning that evening, Quinn tried to get in touch with Cole. He said he was in contact with some of Cole’s relatives but none wanted to give out any information concerning her whereabouts. We both wondered why Cole would disappear and tell different accounts of that night.

Then, the plot thickened.

Murder, Incorporated

Only five months after Kelly’s disappearance, the Lynbrook area was dealt another shock. Sixteen-year-old Theresa Fusco left her home in Lynbrook to walk four blocks home from Hot Skates Roller Rink, where she worked. On Dec. 5, 1984, her nude body was discovered not far from her home, buried in a wooded area beneath dirt and leaves.

The similarities between the two disappearances were unmistakable: Both teenagers were reported missing within a few months of each other, both were from Lynbrook, both were last seen within a half mile of each other and were friendly with the same people.

Months later, tragedy struck yet again.

On March 26, 1985, 19-year-old Jacqueline Martarella was reported missing. She had been walking from her Oceanside home to a Burger King on Long Beach Road, where she worked. One month later, on April 22, 1985, her nude, badly decomposed body was found in a remote part of a nearby private golf course in Woodmere.

Was Kelly’s disappearance the beginning of a string of murders? If so, were the slayings related? Were the murderers acquaintances of the three teens, or was there a random serial killer on the loose in the sleepy Village of Lynbrook? Investigators say they may never know.

In 1985, however, they thought they might.

Police arrested John Kogut, Dennis Halstead and John Restivo of Lynbrook, charging them with the rape and murder of Theresa. The following year, all three were convicted. Kogut was given concurrent sentences of 25 years to life for two counts of murder and a concurrent sentence of 12 1/2 to 25 years for the rape conviction, in all, receiving 31 ½ years to life. Halstead and Restivo were sentenced to 33 1/3 years to life for rape and murder.

Investigators told me it was too big of a coincidence that Kelly knew all three men. Kelly’s diary is filled with notes about Kogut and Halstead. She dated Kogut, stopped and then dated him again. She wrote in her diary that he was “pissing her off” and that she felt bad for him because she caused him hell, “but I couldn’t come along pretending I like him when I only like him as a friend.”

Only a few days later, another entry:

“John won’t get the hint I don’t like him anymore. He threw me out cause I got him ‘pissed.’”

Kelly also dated Halstead, as did Cole. Halstead was married at the time and known in the area to be involved with drugs. Kelly wrote in her diary about hanging out in Halstead’s Lynbrook apartment.

Seventeen years after Kelly’s disappearance, Olmstead, her mother, revealed to me that her daughter not only knew the three men, but that the last person Kelly called before she disappeared was Halstead—a fact that detectives were not aware of in the initial investigation.

“I’m not sure how we found out,” Olmstead said. “In fact, we went over there and knocked on his door. We knew he was there, but he wouldn’t answer the door.”

Olmstead recalled that as they were leaving, Cole, who still lived in the same building at the time, was entering. According to Olmsted, Cole told them Halstead would not answer his door but gave them his telephone number.

“We called him from across the street,” said Olmstead. “He sounded very annoyed that he didn’t know why we were bothering him. He sounded angry and annoyed. We were suspicious of him before Theresa’s death. I always felt he knew something that he wasn’t saying. He knew something or had done something.”

Olmstead added that he told her he had received a call from Kelly and Cole the night Kelly went missing. She said he also told her that they had left a message on his answering machine, but he would not tell her what the message was.

Halstead spent much of his time at a bar called the Purple Frog, she added, located just two doors down from where Kelly was last seen. It was also the only place they had gone to that would not hang Kelly’s missing person’s poster.

Quinn said he had no knowledge of the call or the messages, and he questioned why it took 17 years to find out. Olmstead insisted that she did tell the police, but there was no record in any of her statements of her doing so.

What was clear was that Restivo, Halstead and Kogut all knew each other, and they all knew Kelly. And according to Beyer, Kelly was interested in both Kogut and Restivo. Beyer had her own theory about what happened that fateful night:

“Maybe one of them was driving by and asked if she needed a ride. And I don’t know what happened after that. John was physical with her once. She told me he came to school and pushed her around, slammed her around and pushed her around.”

Based on Kelly’s own diary entries, the scenario seems probable.

Throughout its pages were accounts about boys she liked. It was Brad ’n’ Kelly, or Tommy, Adam, Mike, Randy, Pete, Kevin and Greg. She wrote of breakups and fights. Many entries were about drinking or smoking.

On one Thursday in 1984, she wrote: “today I went to work then I went home then to Kim’s & we stayed in and drank coffee brandy & milk. Then we snuck out at about 12:00. Then we went to Brian’s & hung out until 2:30 A.M. & then went out at 3:00. Back to Brian’s cause they weren’t home & we wanted to wait for them to come home. Then we saw nick & he gave us a ride home at about 4:00. Then we hung out and fell asleep. Not seeing John anymore.”

Kelly often wrote about Beyer and skipping work or school. She also spoke about going to Halstead’s apartment: “drank and smoked joints and I drove for a little. Then we went to 2 bars & hung out & drank more & came home at 1:30 A.M. Got yelled at. I like to runaway. I think I will very soon.”

Just a few days later, she wrote she went to Beyer’s and “smoked 2 joints with Gail then we got pizza. Then Rob called me then went to Mike. Got very fucked up and came come at 12:30.”

Were all these entries just an exaggeration of her actions? Or was this the lifestyle she had slipped into? There appeared no doubt she would take a ride from someone, as only a few days later she wrote, “today went to Green Acres and got a hole bunch of shit & smoked half a joint and asked some guy for a ride home & went to Kim’s. Then Home & ate then watch TV.”

Quinn confirmed Kelly’s friends told him she was afraid of Kogut and that he was very possessive.

“They described John as her boyfriend and said Kelly wanted to break up with him but she was afraid to tell him because he might hit or beat her up,” he said.

Beyer also could believe Kogut had something to do with Kelly’s disappearance.

“I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him,” she said. “If he had pulled up, Kelly would have gotten in, not thinking twice about it. I would have. Someone you know, you wouldn’t think twice.

“He was a high-strung, flighty, moody type of person,” she added. “Fidgety. I could see him being violent and being a jerk.”

Beyer told me she had a friend who was in the same jail as Kogut who had overheard him crying and saying he did it and he was sorry. No one I talked to could verify this.

The case was eventually given to the Homicide Squad, which historically releases little information on ongoing investigations. Officially, there were no comments concerning the link between Kelly’s disappearance and Theresa’s death, but the detective assigned to the Fusco case told me it was details from Kelly’s disappearance and investigation that had led him to Kogut as a suspect in her murder.

Kelly’s mother was also suspicious of Kogut.

“You can’t convince me that they didn’t have something to do with Kelly. It is all just too coincidental,” she told me.

But knowing and proving are two very different things.

“If he wanted to talk to us, what would it do for him, another 25 years in jail? Our laws protect the bad guys as well as the innocent,” commented another detective in the wake of Kogut’s arrest.

How very true that statement would come to be. Without a body, Kelly’s case can never officially be a homicide, and without new evidence, a body may never be found.

Never Say Die

As time passed and the case got colder, Quinn was not going to give up. He was determined to follow any lead. As a result, it was not hard to convince him that he should try a psychic. Psychics were not considered a customary part of investigative techniques, but this case was different:

I had met this psychic while I was out East for a weekend. Even though I am known among my friends as a major skeptic, I was impressed by what he told me. Of course, before I make up my mind, I first checked with my girlfriends to find out if they had given him any information before my session. After they swore on the lives of their children that they had never met him before, I had to believe that this man had a special talent, and I was thrilled when he agreed to help us with Kelly’s disappearance.

Sitting outside the Morrissey’s house, we showed the psychic a photo of Kelly. He told us he saw images of a bridge, water, sand, a rusted can, a cemetery in the background and a shopping center across the street. He asked to begin by talking with Kelly’s parents. After our interview, we returned to the car and for a few moments remained silent.

“I know this sounds crazy, but something is just not right there,” I finally said.

“I agree,” our psychic immediately replied. “I felt a lot of negative things when I walked in. It was difficult for me not to just turn around and walk out.”

Quinn tried to remain neutral as we tried to find reasons for our feelings. In life, you can accept gut feelings. In police work you also need to have facts. We didn’t, so we moved on.

The psychic asked us to go to the cemetery where Theresa was raped and murdered.

As we pulled in, I realized that just a few weeks earlier, my daughter had had a skating party at Hot Skates, which was across the street from the cemetery. At the time, I experienced apprehension about her going there. She had been to many parties before, but for some unexplained reason, I felt this one was different. I remember telling her at least five times to be sure she kept to the buddy system. I was uneasy until she came home. Now, as we entered the cemetery, I had that same feeling.

It was after 11 p.m. and an ominous darkness covered the gravesites as the psychic got out of the car and walked around. Soon all we could see was glow from the end of his cigarette. As the psychic passed the marked gravestones he seemed unaware of the eerie silence, the oppressive sense of lives long past, and the encompassing chill that went through our bodies as if to warn us we were trespassing on sacred ground. Quinn rolled up his window.

The psychic came back to the car, visibly excited.

“I can feel it happening here,” he said. “Drive out now and go over there,” he said, pointing across the street at a nearby reservoir.

Through the trees we could not see a road in, but the psychic was determined. He was convinced there was a way.

“It’s that way,” he said, pointing in another direction. He was right. He once again got out of the car and walked down the road. We followed.

“This is the place,” he calmly told us. We looked around and a cold chill went through my body. Surrounding us was a bridge crossing the reservoir, water, sand, an oil can covered with rust, a shopping center nearby and, of course, the cemetery. All of the things he had told us he saw.

We had a potential place, but no positive indication of what might have occurred there. There were signs the area had been used for makeshift campfires and strange rituals, but no signs of Kelly.

Only later did we realize that Kelly had mentioned in her diary an “amazing” place in the woods where they would hang out and build a fire. Could it have been the same place? There was no way to know. We had no proof, and once again we were left with more questions than answers.

One theory that has persisted through the years is that Kelly was killed in Lynbrook, and her body was buried on a 25-acre site of private property in upstate New York. Without anything more specific, the police could do nothing to follow up.

Beyond A Reasonable Doubt

In another shocking twist, in June 2003, the convictions of all three defendants in Theresa’s death were overturned, based on newly discovered DNA evidence. Restivo and Hallstead were freed. Based on his videotape confession, Kogut was retried and acquitted in 2005. He had waived his right to a jury trial, and the decision to find him not guilty was made by Judge Victor Ort only.

In December 2005, all charges against Restivo and Halstead were dismissed, ensuring they will not be retried. Now, there was little to go on. Leads came in often, but the vast majority led nowhere.

Meanwhile, many more questions have surfaced, and hope for Kelly’s safe return has faded, but those close to her use the same words when they talk of their grief, saying they need closure before they can begin to heal.

Beyer told me she still thinks about the case, all the time.

“I still dream about her calling out to me. She is on the other side of the street. She was a once-in-a-lifetime friend. I used to be the life of the party, happy, fun, but ever since she disappeared my spirit has died.”

Kelly also had a major influence on Quinn’s family. He told me that in his more than 20 years as a cop he had never brought a case home. Kelly’s was the first. This was the case that was never going to stop haunting him. Her image remained, not only as a source of sorrow and anger, but as a source of frustration, leaving a feeling of an unsolved puzzle that needs to be completed before other emotions can emerge.

Kelly’s mother and stepfather also want closure. During a recent televised interview, they went over, again, what happened that night. This time there were no tears. There was a little laughter and some lost memories.

Even though I never met her, every time I hear Kelly’s name, I feel the same sense of loss and frustration I felt during my first interview.

Quinn also never gave up and never got to feel that closure. His supervisor had described the case as an “open wound.” After his years of investigation, Quinn told me that even if Kelly were not found alive, “I don’t think I would have any bad feelings about the investigation. I’ve done as much as I could have.”

Quinn also said that one of his greatest wishes was to close the case before he left the job. But he was unable to do so.

Det. Terry Quinn passed away several years ago.

And with his death, the investigation into Kelly’s disappearance also died.

Until now.

According to Lt. Azzata, his Homicide Squad detectives have recently seen discussions about Kelly on the Hot Skates page on Facebook. Hot Skates was the roller rink where Kelly and many of her friends hung out.

“We decided it might be a good opportunity for us to publicize the case and, hopefully, due to the passage of time, someone might come forward now,” he said. “We are looking for any way to solve the case.”

The page is no longer up and Lt. Azzata said he did not know why it had been taken down.

Meanwhile, the three men convicted in Theresa’s trial—Kogut, Restivo and Halstead—are suing the county and the police department. The case has been in the courts for at least two years while depositions have been taken. It appears the case will finally be scheduled for trial in the near future.

Whether co-incidence or a calculated move before the trial, every time Kelly’s name is publicized, it brings more of a chance of finding a lead that will help to discover what really happened to her 26 years ago.

From Beyond the Grave

I’ve covered hundreds of police stories since Kelly disappeared. Some affected me more than others, but none stayed with me the way Kelly’s did. I can close my eyes and see her walking down Merrick Road, the street on which she was last seen. I can feel the sadness she must have felt and the conflicts she dealt with. But, most of all, I can only imagine what her last moments must have been like.

If she was killed, what went through the mind of this 15-year-old girl? She was more alone than she had ever been. Did her boldness put her in a situation that cost her life? Was it someone she knew, or a stranger she asked for a ride? Kelly didn’t have an easy time. She was battling her own demons. But how do you justify the death of such a young girl who had her whole life ahead of her? She would be 41 years old now. Someone probably took that away from her. After living with her memory all these years, I can only hope that someone is brought to justice.

Unfortunately, Det. Quinn won’t be here to see it, but I think, somehow, he’ll know.

Police ask anyone with information to call Nassau County Crime Stoppers at 1-800-244-TIPS. All callers will be kept anonymous. There is a $10,000 reward for information leading to the case’s resolution.

http://archive.longislandpress.com/2010/11/18/kelly-morrissey-the-search-for-kelly-morrissey-continues-26-years-later/