Jacqueline Martarella

Case background and investigation

Jacqueline "Jackie" Martarella was a 19-year-old from Oceanside, on the South Shore of Long Island, New York. In early 1985 she was working part time at a Burger King on Long Beach Road and taking accounting classes, saving money to buy a car. On March 26, 1985 (some accounts give March 25), she left a friend's Oceanside home to walk to the restaurant for her shift. She never arrived. Her family reported her missing immediately; her brother Martin later told CBS News that she was prompt and dependable, and relatives rejected early police speculation that she might have run away.

On April 22, 1985, a man searching for golf balls in high grass near the 17th hole of a golf course in neighboring Woodmere found a woman's nude body. It was identified as Jacqueline Martarella. The cause of death was ligature strangulation, and investigators reported evidence of sexual assault. Her clothing was never recovered, and by the time she was found her body was badly decomposed — a condition that, according to later case coverage, prevented the recovery of usable DNA from her remains.

Martarella's murder was one of a cluster of strikingly similar cases involving teenage girls in southwestern Nassau County in 1984 and 1985. Kelly Morrissey, 15, vanished from nearby Lynbrook on June 12, 1984, and has never been found. Theresa Fusco, 16, disappeared on November 10, 1984, after leaving the Hot Skates roller rink in Lynbrook; she was found weeks later, raped and strangled, her nude body dumped in a wooded area. Former Nassau County detective Freddy Goldman told CBS News that Martarella "was left the same way Theresa Fusco had been: raped and strangled." Police examined whether the three cases were connected — all three victims were teenagers last seen walking alone in the evening within a few miles of one another — but no link was ever officially established.

The Fusco investigation, which shadowed the Martarella case for decades, took a notorious turn. In 1985 police arrested John Kogut, John Restivo, and Dennis Halstead for Fusco's murder; authorities said Kogut confessed after a lengthy interrogation, though all three men maintained their innocence. They were convicted, but DNA testing later excluded them and their convictions were vacated. Kogut was found not guilty at a 2005 retrial, and charges against Restivo and Halstead were dismissed that December. In October 2025, Nassau County prosecutors indicted Richard Bilodeau of Center Moriches for Fusco's murder after, they said, DNA from a discarded smoothie straw matched the profile recovered from Fusco's body; those charges are allegations, and the case had not been resolved as of mid-2026.

Bilodeau has not been charged in connection with Jacqueline Martarella's death, and CBS News reported in 2026 that both her murder and Kelly Morrissey's disappearance remain unsolved. Martarella's case remains an open Nassau County homicide more than four decades after her death. Anyone with information can contact the Nassau County Police Department.