Mom of slain teen sees hope in cops' Facebook probe

For Connie Napoli, Nov. 10 has been a day of sadness and haunting questions.

On that date in 1984, someone snatched her 16-year-old daughter, Theresa Fusco, just blocks from her Lynbrook home and killed her.

"It's always a bad time of year for me," Napoli said.

But this year, as Napoli reflected on the unsolved case on its 26th anniversary, she received an e-mail from a friend who said Nassau detectives were using Facebook to take a new look at a similar case, the June 1984 disappearance of Kelly Morrissey, 15, a friend of Theresa's.

Napoli, who still lives in Lynbrook, always considered the feelings she got around this time of year signs from her daughter, but especially so this year.

"I felt very strange," she said. "I had been kind of having my memories all day, but then as a coincidence this should happen on the day she disappeared. It's almost as if my daughter's trying to tell us something. It's almost like a sign."

The friend informed Napoli that Nassau police had been analyzing exchanges among people who had visited the Facebook page of Hot Skates Rink, where Theresa Fusco had worked as a hostess.

The day she disappeared, Fusco had been fired from the rink and was walking down Merrick Road.

Her body was found a month later.

Three men were convicted of the crime, but, in 2003, the convictions were overturned when DNA evidence on Fusco's body could not be linked to them.