The infamous convicted “torso killer” admitted to killing five other women in the 1970s, including the cold death of a Long Island dance teacher.
Richard Cottingham, 75, on Monday confessed to the brutal murders of five women but was sentenced to life in prison, aged just 25, for murdering a dance teacher after he struck a deal.
The serial killer has been in prison since 1981 and is already serving a life sentence behind bars in New Jersey after confessing to the murders of six others who died between 1967 and 1980.
Cottingham has not been charged with four of the murders he admitted on Monday in exchange for his confession in a 1968 murder of a dance teacher Diane Cusick, 23. He had previously pleaded not guilty to her murder earlier this year, but prosecutors found his DNA at the scene.
“There are no words to describe how purely evil you are,” Nassau County Court Judge Caryn Fink told Cottingham, who appeared in court virtually.
Cottingham also pleaded guilty to the killings of Mary Beth Heinz, 21, Sheila Heima, 33, Laverne Moye, 23, and Maria Emerita Rosado Nieves, according to The Rolling Stone. How he killed her is unclear.
“I hope there is some justice for all of you knowing that you will live in a New Jersey jail cell for the rest of this defendant’s life and you will take your every breath,” prosecutor Jared Rosenblatt told the victim’s families present in the courtroom .
‘[I] I hope today will bring you the closure you have all been seeking for the last 50 years.’
The killer earned his name for cutting off the limbs of his victims and even decapitating some. He once admitted to murdering 100 women and girls, but police have only linked him to 11 counts.
Richard Cottingham, 75, confessed to the brutal murders of five women on Monday but previously made a plea to only be punished for one. Cottingham, also known as the “Torso Killer,” says he’s killed over 100 women. He is currently serving a life sentence in NJ. Pictured: Cottingham appears virtually at Monday’s hearing
Diane Cusick, 23, was found in her car in February 1968 in front of Green Acres Mall in Valley Stream with tape around her mouth and neck. She had been raped, beaten and suffocated
Cottingham also pleaded guilty to five murders Monday, including the killings of Sheila Heiman and Mary Beth Heinz (above).
Prosecutor Jared Rosenblatt told the victims’ families he hoped they could breathe easy. He hugs Diane Cusick’s daughter Darlene Altman
Cottingham was a computer programmer who had a family if he committed the murders on the side.
The notorious killer previously pleaded not guilty to killing dance teacher Cusick, but police said semen evidence links him to the case.
Officials say Cottingham disguised himself as a security guard to hit Cusick the day she went to the mall to buy shoes and never came home in 1968.
Cusick was found in her car in front of Green Acres Mall in Valley Stream with duct tape around her mouth and neck. Police said she was raped, beaten and suffocated.
“I’m sure she was trying to fight off that animal, but he was so big and she was so small,” Jim Martin, Cusick’s brother, said Monday.
In another more recent case, Cottingham pled guilty to the murders of 17-year-old Mary Ann Pryor and 16-year-old Lorraine Marie Kelly in April 2021.
The two friends left their homes in North Bergen on August 9, 1974 for a shopping spree 13 miles north to a Paramus mall. They had planned to catch a bus there to buy swimsuits for a trip to the Jersey Shore.
Witnesses told police at the time that the girls had hitchhiked into a man’s car. They were found and identified by their jewelry five days after their disappearance, when their naked, battered bodies were discovered face down in the woods of Bergen County, North Jersey.
Cottingham admitted to kidnapping Pryor and Kelly, taking them to a motel room, tying them up and raping them. He said he drowned them in the motel room bathtub before disposing of their bodies.
In 2010, Cottingham pleaded guilty to the 1967 murder of Nancy Schiava Vogel, a 29-year-old married mother of two, who was strangled to death in her car.
She was last seen three days earlier leaving home to play bingo with friends at a local church.
Jim Martin (right), Cusick’s brother, said he believes his sister fought back
In 2021, Cottingham admitted to killing 17-year-old Mary Ann Pryor (left) and 16-year-old Lorraine Marie Kelly (right) in a New Jersey motel room in August 1974
Cottingham’s first known victim was Nancy Schiava Vogel (left), a 29-year-old married mother of two, who was strangled to death in her car in 1967. In 1979, Cottingham killed and beheaded Deedeh Goodarzi, 22 (right), at a Times Square motel in New York
The serial killer has been in prison since 1981 and has confessed to three of the murders, including the murders of 13-year-old Jackie Harp, 18-year-old Irene Blase and 15-year-old Denise Falasca, whose murders took place between 1968 and 1969.
He was first arrested in 1980 for the attempted murder and rape of an 18-year-old prostitute, Leslie Ann O’Dell, at a Quality Inn motel in Hasbrouck Heights.
A maid heard a woman scream in his room. Authorities found her alive but handcuffed and suffering from bite marks and stab marks.
O’Dell later testified in court that during the attack, Cottingham told her, “You have to take it. The other girls did it, you gotta take it too. You are a whore and must be punished.’
Two weeks before his arrest, police found the body of 19-year-old Valerie Ann Street at the same Quality Inn motel.
Valerie Street’s body was covered in bite marks and brutally beaten in a shockingly similar manner to the murder of 26-year-old Maryann Carr that had taken place three years earlier in December 1977 at the same motel.
Police did not link Carr’s murder to Cottingham until after his arrest.
Subsequent investigation linked Cottingham to the brutal murders of Deedeh Goodarzi, 22, and an unidentified woman, whose bodies – without a head or hands – were found in a burning hotel room near Times Square in December 1979.
Solved: Jackie Harp (left) was just 13 years old in July 1968 when she was strangled to death in Midland Park, New Jersey. A year later, a boy riding his bicycle found the partially nude body of Denise Falasca (right), 15, who had been strangled near a cemetery
Irene Blase was 18 years old when she was found strangled in Saddle River in 1969
Maryann Carr, 26, had been brutally beaten in a shockingly similar manner to the Valerie Street murder that took place at the same motel three years earlier
Cottingham earned his nickname “The Torso Killer” after raping and murdering two women at a Times Square motel
After his arrest, NYPD drew comparisons to the numerous unsolved sexual assault cases with similar characteristics to the New Jersey crimes. They executed a search warrant at Cottingham’s family home, where they found a secret, locked “trophy room” hiding mementos of his evil deeds.
Among the S&M books and pornographic artwork were Maryann Carr’s apartment keys and jewelry belonging to his other victims.
Police used the evidence found in his “trophy room” combined with a matching fingerprint left on handcuffs used in Valerie Street’s murder to convict him of his crimes.
Cottingham continued to confess to murders decades later.