NJ NJ - Richard Cottingham, Torso/Times Square Serial Killer, 1968-1980

[Vern]

It has been a long time since I posted here.

As of January 2026, with his recent confession to the murder of Alys Eberhardt in Fair Lawn, NJ in 1965, serial killer Richard Cottingham - the Torso Serial Killer - is now confirmed in twenty murders between 1965 and 1980, with eighty still remaining to be resolved from the approximate 100 he plausibly claims.

I had the privilege and honor to conclusively identify since 2021 nine confirmed Cottingham victims in New Jersey and New York (Lorraine Kelly & Mary Ann Pryor had been identified as suspected Cottingham victims prior to my arrival on the scene) and I assisted law enforcement in New Jersey and New York in a total of eleven Cottingham cold case closures between 2021 - 2026, including the 1974 Kelly & Pryor cold case closure in 2021, and including the oldest cold case closure in American history using perpetrator DNA (as opposed to familial), the 1968 murder of Diane Cusick in Valley Stream, Nassau County, New York, whom I identified as a Cottingham victim in 2021. It was the first indictment of Cottingham since the 1980s.

Cottingham pleaded guilty on December 5, 2022, and confessed to an additional four murders in Nassau County from 1972-1973. I have been interviewing Cottingham now for eight years since first sitting down with him in Trenton State Prison in February 2018 with my late investigative partner Jennifer Weiss, who tragically passed away in May 2023.

Much has been learned about Cottingham over the span of those confessions and the data on his MO and signature and closed case information has been aggregated to Torso Serial Killer Project while his suspected cold cases in New Jersey, New York, and New York City are aggregated and mapped on NYNJ PD Cold Case Portal

Cottingham is now 79-years old and in frail health, with at least a dozen re-opened cases under investigation by police from New Jersey and New York, who are not exactly racing the devil to confront and interview him with the exception of a few dedicated detectives from select jurisdictions.

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'71, '76 & '78

The years above don't fall into any of your categories (Cases, Trials or Confessions) for Cottingham.

Do you believe there are further unidentified possibilities for him being active in these 'missing' years or is he otherwise 'accounted for' during these periods via, for example, incarceration, travel, etc?

On the face of it, he doesn't seem to be the type to take a couple of voluntary year-long breaks between large groups of serial killings.

Thank you for your persistence, efforts and fight for justice for his victims.