On December 5, 1984, the naked body of a 16-year-old girl was found in a wooded area of Linnbrook,

Long Island.

The victim had been last seen leaving her job at a local roller rink about a month earlier.

The medical examiner determined that the cause of death was ligature strangulation and

semen found on her vaginal swab suggested that she had been raped.

By March 1985, authorities believed that this rape and murder were connected to similar

disappearances and investigators started focusing on Dennis Hallstedt, who was believed to

have been associated with another young woman who had disappeared.

John Restivo had been interviewed as part of this investigation and mentioned that he

was acquainted with John Cogert, an occasional employee of his and his brother's moving

business.

After Cogert was given three polygraphs, police asserted that he lied with denying involvement

with the disappearance of the 16-year-old victim.

He endured 12 hours of aggressive interrogation and eventually he cracked and signed a confession

that was handwritten by one of the detectives, the sixth version of events given by Cogert,

containing information all of which was previously known to investigators.

According to Cogert's false confession, the victim voluntarily got into Restivo's van

where Cogert and Hallstedt stripped her and Hallstedt raped her.

Further into this coer's statement, he said that when they arrived at a cemetery, Restivo

also raped her and Cogert strangled her when she regained consciousness and became frantic.

With the false confession, at a number of hairs found in Restivo's van said to have matched

the victims, the three men were tried over the course of 1986.

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