Ailing serial killer Richard Cottingham — a.k.a. the Torso Killer — pleaded guilty to the 1968 murder of Long Island mother Diane Cusick.
). He was charged with 25 years to life for the crime and received immunity for the four other killings in exchange for the Cusick confession.According to CBS
, authorities believe Cottingham posed as a security guard or police officer and accused Cusick of stealing in the parking lot of a local mall, using that feigned authority to overpower her. Cottingham’s conviction was the result of the oldest DNA hit to lead to a prosecution in the U.S. The four other victims were 21-year-old housekeeper Mary Beth Heinz; 23-year-old mother of two Laverne Moye; 33-year-old mother of three Sheila Heima; and Maria Emerita Rosado Nieves of Manhattan.
Cottingham claims to have begun murdering people — mostly women — when he was still a teen growing up in New Jersey. He says he has killed more than 100 people. “For a long time now I have been trying to understand the darkness that enveloped my soul during my youth,” Cottingham previously told. “Remorse back then wasn’t part of my thought process. When the sun went down, and the moon came up, the animal form that is in all of us came out and controlled my actions.
A divorced computer operator who frequented sex clubs, Cottingham was arrested on May 22, 1980, after attempting to murder 18-year-old Leslie Ann O’Dell at the Hasbrouck Heights Quality Inn in New Jersey. He previously left the remains of another victim, 19-year-old Valerie Ann Street, at the same hotel. Initially, Cottingham was convicted of five murders and sentenced to life in prison.
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