Notorious ‘Torso Killer’ confesses to another killing

The Fair Lawn Police Department announced on Tuesday the closure of the 1965 murder case of 18-year-old Alys Eberhardt.

“Alys was just 18 years old when her life was tragically taken in her family home in 1965. For nearly six decades, her family lived without answers. While nothing can undo this loss, we hope that today finally brings some measure of peace to those who have carried this pain for so long,” the department wrote on Facebook.

Eberhardt was found dead in her family’s home at the age of 18 in Fair Lawn, N.J., a suburb just outside of Manhattan.

Richard Cottingham, known as the “Torso Killer,” confessed to the murder, giving police details “that were never publicly known,” the department said.

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“After the case was reopened in 2021, Fair Lawn detectives worked tirelessly to re-examine the investigation,” police said. “Over the course of several years, and through countless interviews and persistent effort, Richard Cottingham ultimately provided a full confession, including details that were never publicly known.”

Fair Lawn Police Chief Joseph Dawicki memorialized Eberhardt in a statement, saying she was a “vibrant young nursing student who was taken from our community far too soon.”

“While we can never bring her back, I am hopeful that her family can find some peace knowing the person responsible has confessed and can no longer harm anyone else,” Dawicki added.

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Michael Smith, who was identified by several news outlets as Eberhardt’s nephew, responded to the Fair Lawn Police Department’s post with a statement from the family. In the statement, Smith wrote about the important closure that the development has brought his family and thanked the Fair Lawn Police Department for its work on the case.

“Our family has waited since 1965 for the truth. To receive this news during the holidays — and to be able to tell my mother, Alys’s sister, that we finally have answers — was a moment I never thought would come,” Smith wrote. “As Alys’s nephew, I am deeply moved that our family can finally honor her memory with the truth.”

“Richard Cottingham is the personification of evil, yet I am grateful that even he has finally chosen to answer the questions that have haunted our family for decades. We will never know why, but at least we finally know who,” Smith added.

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Cottingham, 79, has been imprisoned since his 1980 arrest. He is serving three life sentences at the South Woods State Prison in Bridgeton, New Jersey. He has claimed responsibility for up to 100 homicides going back to the 1960s, though authorities in New York and New Jersey have officially linked him to about a dozen of the crimes, The Associated Press reported.

Cottingham, who is widely known as the “Torso Killer” because he brutally dismembered some of his victims, has confessed to various killings over the years.

In April 2021, Cottingham admitted to committing the slayings of 17-year-old Mary Ann Pryor and 16-year-old Lorraine Marie Kelly in 1974, the AP reported. He pleaded guilty to kidnapping the girls and raping them for days before drowning them in a motel room bathtub, according to the AP. The outlet noted that the two girls were last seen on Aug. 9, 1974, in North Bergen, N.J. The girls reportedly told family that they were heading to the mall via bus to get bathing suits for an upcoming trip to the Jersey Shore.

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In 2022, he admitted to killing five women in the New York City area in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the AP reported. Cottingham was sentenced to 25 years to life for the 1968 killing of 23-year-old Diane Cusick but received immunity from prosecution on the other four killings as part of a plea deal. He was previously convicted of killing three women in New York and two in northern New Jersey.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.