In April 1979, 13-year-old Johnny Pius set out on his bicycle for a short ride to Dogwood Elementary School in Smithtown, New York. He never came home. The next day, his body was discovered in the woods—bruised, beaten, and horrifyingly suffocated with rocks shoved down his throat.
The motive? He had witnessed a group of teens with a stolen minibike, and they feared he'd report them. What followed was one of Long Island’s most disturbing juvenile murder cases, involving four teenage boys, multiple trials, overturned convictions, and decades of legal battles
