COP PUTS A FACE TO THE CASE

When susp said he killed back in 1978, detective had to dig to find out what the heck he was talking about. Eventually, he did. And now, alleged killer is jailed

This case came to cops backwards — they had a confession, but they didn’t have a murder.

“I shot this guy called Chino,” Leandro Teissonniere, 64, reportedly told an MTA cop in Connecticut in May.

NYPD Detective Billy Dunn — who was in seventh grade when the murder took place Dec. 11, 1978 — set about finding a crime to match the suspect.

The killing happened in East Harlem, when Teissonniere says he walked into a cuchifritos restaurant on Lexington Ave. near E. 109th St. and put a bullet into the head of Chino, 20, who he says tried to rob him in a marijuana deal.

One obstacle: Teissonniere didn’t know Chino’s real name. And nobody seemed to know anything about what happened to Chino’s family and friends.

Another obstacle: Teissonniere’s name was nowhere in the case file. After all, he was never a suspect in the case.

To Dunn, the main thing the case had going for it initially was word from the officers in the New Haven, Conn. and MTA police departments to whom

Teissonniere had confessed.

“They believed him,” Dunn said. “And that made an impression on me.”

The search started May 13, when Teissonniere walked into police headquarters in New Haven with his stunning admission.

Dunn, assigned to the 23rd Precinct, got a call about the confession.

He couldn’t remember hearing about such a murder — and he’s been working cases in Spanish Harlem since 1998.

New Haven cops recorded Teissonniere’s information and let him go.

But Teissonniere couldn’t hold back his words.

Two days later, on May 15, he confessed a second time, to a conductor on a Manhattan-bound Metro-North train.

The stunned conductor notified MTA police, who took Teissonniere into custody and then reached out to the NYPD.

Teissonniere has a history of mental illness, which to cops raised the possibility of a false confession. But his two re-tellings of what happened matched up.

Still, Dunn was a long way from making an arrest — and his time on the case was slowed at times.

The coronavirus pandemic forced the closure of two police warehouses that stored files and evidence — one used by the Crime Scene Unit, and another by the Medical Examiner’s office.

The George Floyd protests stretched police resources, and .soaring gun violence created a rush of new crimes for Dunn and fellow detectives to investigate. But Dunn, 54, plugged away. He searched two logs at the 23rd Precinct station house, reviewing hundreds of murders dating back to 1980.

Nothing there.

The file could have been in the stationhouse basement, but he still needed more information.

So Dunn spent eight hours over two days in the Chief of Detectives’ office at 1 Police Plaza and found two possible matches in another homicide log.

One case was from 1978, the other from 1974.

“But the one in ’78 stuck out,” Dunn said. “It said ‘Location: Restaurant,’ and it gave a location that was in the vicinity of 109th St. and Lexington Ave.

“And it said, ‘Possible revenge for narco rip-off.’”

Documents on microfilm in another headquarters office brought him more details.

Eventually, after reviewing witness statements and other relevant evidence, Dunn honed in on the 1978 case.

One day, he searched the basement of the 23rd Precinct, and found the case file.

The case had not been updated since 1979, he said, and the original two detectives who handled it died years ago.

But Dunn’s file work gave him the victim’s name: Esteban “Chino” Vega.

On Aug. 4, Dunn interviewed

Teissonniere for several hours at New Haven’s police headquarters.

Teissonniere was 22 when Vega died. According to an account by police sources, Teissonniere and Vega, 20, shared a drug-selling operation. When a marijuana deal fell apart, Vega shot at Teissonniere.

Teissonniere killed him hours later, the sources said.

Teissonniere was indicted by a Manhattan grand jury. He was arrested Oct. 7, and is now awaiting trial at Rikers Island.

Dunn has another out-ofthe-blue confession under his belt. In December 2010, Trevell Coleman, a rapper known as G. Dep and signed by P. Diddy, came forward to admit he shot a man in 1993 during a botched robbery at Park Ave. and E. 114th St.

Coleman, apparently unaware the man died, was convicted of murder and is behind bars.

Dunn said working on Coleman’s case taught him how to piece an old case together and reinforced a detective’s axiom.

“Generally, if someone wants to speak, then it’s best to let them speak,” he said. “Particularly if they’re coming to you.”

Dunn has unfinished business. He’ll soon visit his wife and 2-year-old son, both of whom he hasn’t seen — except on FaceTime — since moving them out of state early in the pandemic.

He’ll work closely with the Manhattan District Attorney’s office as Teissonniere case moves toward trial.

And he’ll try again to find Vega’s family, as two addresses he had for relatives were not fruitful.

“It’s important because they should be notified,” Dunn said. “I’d like to do that. It would be nice.”