'Torso killer' Richard Cottingham, who killed 5 women in Nassau, admits to killing N.J. woman 60 years ago, police say

Convicted serial killer Richard Cottingham, who has admitted killing five women decades ago in Nassau County, recently confessed to killing another woman 60 years ago in New Jersey, police announced on Tuesday.

Police in Fair Lawn, New Jersey, said Cottingham, who is serving three life sentences for other murders, admitted the 1965 killing of Alys Eberhardt, who was 18 years old when she was killed in her family home.

"Through countless interviews and persistent effort, Richard Cottingham ultimately provided a full confession, including details that were never publicly known," the police statement said, adding the investigation into Eberhardt's killing was reopened in 2021.

"In the interest of getting closure for the family, additional charges are not being sought in this case."

An attorney for Cottingham, 79, could not be reached.

Fair Lawn Police Chief Joseph Dawicki said in a statement: "Alys was a vibrant young nursing student who was taken from our community far too soon. While we can never bring her back, I am hopeful that her family can find some peace knowing the person responsible has confessed and can no longer harm anyone else."

Cottingham, a former computer programmer from Lodi, New Jersey, who is known as "the torso killer," has admitted killing five women in Nassau between 1968 and 1973, Newsday previously reported.

He pleaded guilty in December 2022 to second-degree murder in the killing of Diane Cusick, a 23-year-old from New Hyde Park.

Cottingham raped and strangled Cusick in her family’s vehicle, a Plymouth Valiant, outside Green Acres Mall in Valley Stream after he approached her, likely by pretending to be mall security or a police officer, prosecutors have said.

Authorities said DNA evidence linked Cottingham to Cusick’s murder — 54 years after the killing. Authorities said at the time it was believed to be the oldest DNA link to lead to a prosecution in the United States, Newsday has reported.

Cottingham, who was sentenced to 25 years to life for Cusick's murder, also admitted killing four other women in Nassau: Mary Beth Heinz, 21, of Mineola; Laverne Moye, 23, of St. Albans, Queens; Sheila Heiman, 33, of North Woodmere; and Maria Emerita Rosado Nieves, 18, of Manhattan.

Cottingham received immunity from prosecution for the killings of the four women as part of a plea bargain. His Nassau sentence will run consecutive to the life sentences he's serving for other murders.

Cottingham, who has been incarcerated in New Jersey since 1981, has been convicted in other killings in the Garden State, as well as New York. He was found guilty of killing two women, whom he decapitated in a Times Square hotel room in December 1979. He also cut off their hands and set the room on fire.

He also was convicted of the 1980 killing of a woman at a hotel on East 29th Street in Manhattan.

Last July, Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney told Newsday his office's Cold Case Unit was reexamining the 1966 murder of Selden widow Marilyn Simons. The development came after Simons' daughter asked Tierney to give Cottingham immunity in the case after Cottingham suggested that he participated in Simons' killing.

By Nicole Fuller

nicole.fuller@newsday.com@NicoleFuller

Nicole Fuller is Newsday's senior criminal justice reporter. She began working at Newsday in 2012 and previously covered local government.