The second fishing buddy, a 17-year-old, was not so calm in his police interview. He gushed information about other crimes in the neighborhood, telling them about car thefts and drug dealing, but said nothing about Matthew's murder, the police reports say. The reports also show that when police asked him to hold the murder weapon — a technique they used on nearly everyone they questioned — he refused. Police noted that he seemed stricken when shown pictures of the crime scene. He agreed to provide hair and saliva samples and police obtained a warrant to search his home and fingerprint him.

Later, according to police reports, his mother told detectives he had nightmares after the interrogation. But when police confronted him about his emotional reaction, he said he felt guilty because he and the other fishing buddy had ditched Matthew the day of his murder. His friend denied that account and said he had no idea why he would have made up a story about ditching Matthew.

There were still other suspects, according to police reports. Investigators questioned the man who led them to the body as well as a mentally ill man obsessed with religion and angry about his divorce, and a youngster who came home that Friday night with dirt under his fingernails, a stunned expression and no explanation for his worried mother.

As the months dragged on, police continued to interview and reinterview suspects and witnesses. There were few new developments. The bully, who was known throughout town as a suspect, had "gained an excessive amount of weight," let his hair grow long and stopped shaving, a detective reported. He had been fired from the fast food job for his poor attitude and was failing at school.

The department had outsiders review the case and the FBI work up profiles of the killer. The even contacted NASA to see if space agency satellites had aerial photographs of Glenville that day. They had not.

On the anniversaries of Matthew's death, police reports show, officers staked out the cemetery and the homes of certain suspects, but reported no unusual behavior.

Holding Out Hope

In 2000, just months after investigators had arrested Michael Skakel for the 1975 murder of Martha Moxley, Greenwich asked the state to help it solve the Margolies murder. Morano, a state inspector and two Greenwich detectives began reviewing the case. The prosecutor said he was immediately struck at how much forensic evidence the department had collected in 1984.

The officers could not have known of the coming DNA revolution in crime solving, but they perfectly preserved biological materials from the crime scene. Morano won't say exactly what was found at the crime scene, but police detectives asked every potential suspect for hair and saliva samples, apparently hoping laboratory microscopes might be able to make some sort of match.

All told there were close to 10 samples collected in 1984 and Morano said his team has added biological samples from a few more people. As soon as this winter, the state may begin testing the crime scene samples against the suspects’ samples.

"It's a voyage to clear the innocent as well as get the guilty. People have been living with this all these years," said Morano. The state of Connecticut raised the reward from $20,000 to $50,000 in March, 2001.

This summer, Maryann Margolies watched on television as another Greenwich mother, Dorthy Moxley, rejoiced in the long-awaited conviction of her child's killer.

"It gives me greater hope that Matthew's day will come too," said Margolies, who retired this year and still lives in the house above the river.

When she remarried, she did not change her name. She kept "Margolies" as a kind of weapon. "For the express purpose that it is heard in town so people don't forget," she explains.

She says she wants "Margolies" to echo in the library, the gas station and the grocery store, a voice calling out 'Who did it?'