‘Torso Killer' Richard Cottingham Pleads Guilty to Murdering Dance Teacher, Admits to 4 Other Killings

Richard Cottingham, a convicted serial killer known as the “Torso Killer” who is currently serving time in a New Jersey prison, admitted Monday to killing five additional women between 1968 and 1973, according to reports.

Cottingham, 76, admitted Monday to raping and fatally strangling Diane Cusick, a 23-year-old dance teacher outside a Long Island, New York, mall in 1968, and killing four other women whose Nassau County homicide cases have gone unsolved for about five decades, Newsday reported.

Cottingham, who appeared via video link from prison to the Nassau County Court for his arraignment, pleaded guilty in Cusick’s murder, Newsday reported.

He was granted immunity from prosecution for the four other killings as part of his plea deal in Cusick’s murder, with his sentence to run consecutive to punishments that include life in prison for additional murders he has previously been convicted of, Newsday reported.

He was sentenced to 25 to life in Cusick’s murder Monday.

Police say Cottingham posed as mall security and approached Cusick at the Green Acres Mall in Valley Stream, New York, and raped and beat the mother to death before he left her body in the back seat of her family’s Plymouth Valiant in the mall parking lot. Her father found her body, according to reports.

The four other victims that prosecutors linked to Cottingham were Mary Beth Heinz, 21; Laverne Moye, 23; Sheila Heiman, 33; Marita Emerita Rosado Nieves, 18, according to News 12 Long Island.

All five murders were filed as cold cases until recently when DNA evidence was able to connect him to the slayings.

Cottingham has been known over the years as both the “Times Square Killer” and also the “Torso Killer,” because he dismembered his victims’ heads and limbs.
 
During his murder spree, Cottingham preyed on young prostitutes in New York City, luring them to motel rooms where he mutilated and killed them.

Cottingham evaded the authorities until 1980, when screams from his last known victim from inside a New Jersey motel led to his capture. He was sentenced to life in prison.

Cottingham has claimed he was responsible for up to 100 homicides, though authorities in New York and New Jersey have officially linked him to only a dozen, ABC 7 has reported.

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