Richard Cottingham, serial killer referred to as the

A serial killer referred to as the “Torso Killer” admitted Monday to killing a 23-year-old lady outdoors a Long Island shopping center in 1968 and 4 different girls many years in the past.

Richard Cottingham was arraigned earlier this 12 months on a second-degree homicide cost in reference to Diane Cusick’s loss of life throughout a visit she made to purchase footwear on the suburban Green Acres Mall. Cottingham is believed to be certainly one of America’s most prolific serial killers and has already been convicted in 11 different killings.

Appearing just about from a New Jersey jail for the Nassau County Court listening to, Cottingham was sentenced to 25 years to life behind bars for Cusick’s slaying. He acquired immunity from prosecution for the 4 different killings he admitted to as a part of his plea deal in Cusick’s loss of life.

Cottingham has claimed he was chargeable for as much as 100 homicides, although authorities in New York and New Jersey have formally linked him to solely a dozen to date. He has been imprisoned since 1980, when he was arrested after a motel maid heard a girl screaming inside his room. Authorities discovered the lady alive however handcuffed and affected by chew marks and knife wounds.

Authorities imagine Cusick left her job at a kids’s dance faculty after which stopped on the Nassau County mall to purchase a pair of footwear when Cottingham adopted her out to her automobile. They imagine he pretended to be a safety guard or police officer, accused her of stealing after which overpowered the 98-pound lady.

The medical expert concluded that Cusick had been overwhelmed within the face and head and was suffocated. She had defensive wounds on her arms and police had been in a position to acquire DNA proof on the scene. At the time, nonetheless, DNA testing didn’t exist.

The DNA was entered right into a nationwide database in 2016 when Cottingham pleaded responsible to a different killing in New Jersey. In 2021, police in Nassau County acquired a tip {that a} suspect who is likely to be chargeable for killings within the suburban county was locked up in New Jersey. They started operating DNA checks once more on chilly instances and got here up with a match to Cottingham.

“It was only through advances in DNA technology that the NCDA and our partners at the Nassau County Police Department, could solve this 54-year-old cold case and identify a suspect in Ms. Cusick’s tragic death,” Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly said in a statement after fees had been introduced in June. “We make a promise to her surviving daughter today: we will bring her mother’s killer to justice.”  

Cusick’s daughter, Darlene Altman, stated she was overwhelmed when she noticed Cottingham on the video display screen within the courtroom. Altman was simply 4 when her mom was killed.

“He just had this like dead stare. I felt like he was looking right at me,” Altman stated. “It was creepy.”

Cottingham was working as a pc programmer for a medical health insurance firm in New York on the time of Cusick’s loss of life.

CBS New York reported Cottingham beforehand confessed to kidnapping and killing 17-year-old Mary Ann Pryor and 16-year-old Lorraine Marie Kelly in 1974 close to a mall in Paramus, New Jersey.