'Torso Killer' Richard Cottingham to admit to five more NYC-area slays

Publish date: 2024-07-09

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The infamous serial slayer known as the “Torso Killer’’ because of the way he carved up some of his victims is set to plead guilty Monday in the brutal murders of five Long Island women.

Richard Cottingham, 76, is already serving a life sentence in New Jersey, where he was convicted of killing six other women between 1967 and 1980.

The former computer programmer and once-married dad of three is now expected to admit to the 1968 rape and murder of dance teacher Diane Cusick, as well as the slayings of four other women in Nassau County in 1972 and 1973, Newsday reported.

Cusick, 23, was found murdered after failing to return home from a trip to the Green Acres Mall in Valley Stream to buy shoes. Cottingham was eventually linked to her death through DNA testing.

The mass killer was indicted in Cusick’s death in June.

Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly said at the time that she believed it was the oldest DNA hit to lead to a prosecution in the United States.

Cottingham’s scheduled pleas Monday are due to take place in a Mineola courtroom, with him appearing virtually from the New Jersey prison where he’s serving his life sentence.

Cottingham claims to have killed as many as 100 women during his bloody spree. Bergen County Prosecutor's Offi
The victims of Cottingham included two women whose mutilated bodies were found at a Times Square motel.

He has claimed credit for as many as 100 killings but has not been linked to most of those.

The murders that Cottingham has been tied to include the killings of two women whose mutilated bodies — missing their heads and hands — were found at a motel near Times Square in December 1979.

One of the beheaded victims was identified as 22-year-old sex worker Deedeh Goodarzi, but the other young woman has never been identified.

Cottingham was an active killer from 1967 to 1980, when he was arrested. New York Post

Cottingham was married with three children and working as a computer programmer for a health insurance company in New York at the time of his arrest in 1980.

He was busted after a maid at a New Jersey motel heard a woman screaming inside his room, and cops found the 18-year-old victim alive, but she had been handcuffed and had suffered knife wounds and bite marks to her breasts.

His horrifying exploits were detailed in the Netflix series, “Crime Scene: The Times Square Killer,” which was released in December 2021.

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