A cold case murder suspect’s alleged confession to his pastor won’t be allowed at trial, according to a state Appeals Court ruling handed down on Monday.

The tough blow for the Plymouth DA’s Office is in their case against Michael Hand, who’s accused of killing 15-year-old Tracy Gilpin in 1986. Hand was arrested more than 30 years later for the slaying of the girl, whose body was found in Myles Standish Park.

He allegedly dropped a massive 73-pound rock on the teen’s head, according to prosecutors who said the cause of death was multiple skull fractures. Tracy’s sister is Kerry Gilpin, the former leader of Massachusetts State Police.

A Superior Court judge had previously tossed out part of Hand’s confession to police, ruling that it was “coerced by the length and manner of the two-day interrogation in light of the defendant’s cognitive limitations.”

Then a second Superior Court judge issued an order suppressing similar statements made by Hand to his pastor about one hour after the police dropped him off at his home, while they tried to get an arrest warrant.

“The Commonwealth now appeals the second suppression order,” the Massachusetts Appeals Court wrote in its ruling on Monday.

“As the record shows that the police had placed the defendant in a state of extreme fatigue and resignation to such an extent that this fatigue and resignation would be expected to last for several hours, we find no error in the second motion judge’s conclusion that the defendant remained under the influence of the police coercion when he spoke to his pastor,” the Appeals Court ruled. “Accordingly, we affirm.”

After the intense police interrogation, Hand called his pastor — saying that State Police were going to arrest him.

The pastor’s suppressed testimony reads, “He stated that ‘he had went into the woods looking for a young lady that had gone off with another male individual, and that when he found her, he saw her . . . up under some brush.’ He then ‘knocked some rocks off on her head’ or ‘threw the rock.’ ”

But this testimony won’t be allowed at trial.

“We have viewed the video recording and have seen for ourselves the extent of the defendant’s fatigue,” the Appeals Court wrote. “In light of the video recording, the second motion judge was well warranted in believing that such extreme fatigue and resignation were likely to linger for several hours (and probably until the defendant got some sleep).

“The judge, therefore, reasonably concluded that the fatigue and emotional resignation exploited by the police to coerce the defendant into confessing remained at the time he spoke to the pastor,” the ruling reads.

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The murder case has a status hearing scheduled for this Friday.

A spokesperson for the Plymouth County District Attorney’s Office said in a statement, “We have received the Appeals Court decision and are weighing our next steps.”