New York (CNN) — For more than 40 years, the person responsible for the brutal rape and murder of a 16-year-old girl on Long Island has eluded capture. DNA from a smoothie straw, prosecutors say, could now be the key piece of evidence they need to convict her killer.

Theresa Fusco went missing November 10, 1984. She was last seen late that night crying as she left the Hot Skates roller rink in Lynbrook, New York, where she had just been fired from her snack bar job. Her naked body was recovered about a month later, buried under leaves in a wooded area a few blocks from the rink; the medical examiner determined she’d been strangled with a ligature and raped.

Three men were found guilty two years later of rape and murder, but testing of the male DNA left behind by her presumed killer led

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