I read The Innocence Project's page on the case:
Profile: John Kogut
I also searched out several news articles from the time frame relating to the cases; read the Charley Project, Doe Network, and NamUs pages on Morrissey; and I read the source you provided from Newton's Encyclopedia of Unsolved Crimes. Newton, who you quoted and used as a source, goes into some detail about the Satanic cult angle. He also seems to suggest that he believes Morrissey was killed by the same individual or individuals that murdered Fusco and Martarella. Since the book was written, Kogut's alleged accomplices have been exonerated, Kogut was retried, and Kogut was found innocent of the Fusco murder.
There's a more recent editorial on Morrissey's disappearance here:
The Search for Kelly Morrissey Continues 26 Years Later
An interesting quote is found on page four: "What differed with Kellys 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 for your evidence:
In late March 1985, Kogut was brought to police headquarters for a polygraph examination. After three polygraphs, a detective analyzed Koguts polygraph charts and determined that Kogut was lying when he denied involvement in the victims murder.
I highly encourage you to research the effectiveness of the polygraph test. Namely, in the United States and many other countries throughout the world, polygraph results are not generally admissible evidence in court. There are good reasons why this is the case.
In 2003, the National Academy of Sciences released a report titled The Polygraph and Lie Detection. It can be read here:
The Polygraph and Lie Detection Their conclusions were decidedly unfavorable to the polygraph as a method of lie detection. I quote (emphasis added):
"
Almost a century of research in scientific psychology and physiology provides little basis for the expectation that a polygraph test could have extremely high accuracy. Although psychological states often associated with deception (e.g., fear of being judged deceptive) do tend to affect the physiological responses that the polygraph measures, these same states can arise in the absence of deception. Moreover, many other psychological and physiological factors (e.g., anxiety about being tested) also affect those responses.
Such phenomena make polygraph testing intrinsically susceptible to producing erroneous results."
Could the root banding hair come from someone visiting the body within the month before it was found then bring it back into the van with them??
Sure, it could; however, you'll have to explain why they'd collect their murdered victim's body, put it in their van, and then dump it again. You'd also have to explain why this is more feasible than the more succinct idea that law enforcement screwed up in handling forensic evidence.
Is there any evidence that the autopsy hair ever came in contact with the hair samples from the van? just because they were all in the same lab means nothing DNA from all kinds of cases were in the lab... did they all have the hair in them???
The autopsy hair was identical or nearly identical to the hair that was allegedly discovered in the van. If they didn't come in contact with the hair samples from the van, it would require something along the lines of your idea that Kogut and company had picked up the body after Fusco had been dead for many hours, and they then placed the body in their van for some undetermined reason.
From The Innocence Project (emphasis added):
"Det. Petraco concluded, based on 20 years of research and expertise, that the hairs displayed post-mortem root banding, a hallmark of decomposition that only occurs while hairs are attached to a corpse that has been dead for at least 8 hours, if not days or weeks.
The banding on these hairs was suspiciously similar to those found on dozens of hairs taken from the autopsy that had been in unsealed envelopes in a Police Department laboratory for months. Because the victim was only alleged to have been in the van for a few minutes after death, he concluded, the hairs could not have been shed during that time, and were instead autopsy hairs that were commingled with others from the van."
I do not know if Fusco's hairs might have contaminated any other pieces of biological evidence that were being investigated at the time. To my knowledge, the answer to this question has never been reported.
The state presented the testimony of multiple witnesses who alleged that they had heard Restivo and Halstead make incriminating statements.
Eyewitness, or ear-witness in this case, testimony often has its own problems with reliability. What were the incriminating statements? Who heard them? How many people heard them and can testify that the statements were actually made? Could the statements have reasonably been misinterpreted? These are all questions that need answers before the reliability of any witness' testimony can be judged.
DNA (18 yr old DNA from a body that was exposed to the elements for a month) it doesn't prove that they didn't wear a condom it just proved that someone else involved didn't.
The age of the DNA isn't really relevant in this case. Several rounds of DNA testing were undertaken on vaginal slides, and later DNA testing was undertaken on an intact vaginal swab. In all tests, the DNA matched the same single unknown male. If there had been problems with the DNA samples, they wouldn't have matched. Not all of the DNA would have been damaged identically.
I'm also not sure exactly what you're suggesting in your reference to condoms. Are you saying that the three men who were arrested wore condoms; however, an unknown fourth rapist and murderer didn't wear one? Do you mean to say that Fusco had sexual intercourse with someone else shortly before she was murdered? If the latter, this was actually argued in court during Kogut's second trial. Fusco was originally argued to be a virgin prior to her rape and murder, and the argument did not go over well.
Is John Kogut a saintly man? No, and he's actually been in jail on burglary charges since his release from prison. Prior to his arrest, he had also dated and apparently drank alcohol with underage girls. There were rumors that he had pushed Kelly Morrissey around, and he was alleged to have a fairly short temper. It's safe to say that he is not and was not a good man, but that only means that he's a jerk. It does not mean or even remotely indicate that he and his friends went around raping and/or murdering teenage girls.
Could a scenario be invented in which the men are guilty of the crimes? Yes. Would any follower of Occam's razor find this persuading? I doubt it. You're currently holding an enormous burden of proof.
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