Richard Cottingham, 76, who earned the chilling nickname for the way he dismembered some of his victims, pleaded guilty from prison in New Jersey, where he was convicted of murdering six other women between 1967 and 1980. The elderly killer wore a green robe as he watched the killing via video link at South Woods State Prison in Bridgeton, NJ, sitting next to his attorney, Jeffrey Groder. “I hope there is some justice for all of you knowing that for the rest of this defendant’s life you will live and breathe in a prison cell in New Jersey,” said prosecutor Jared Rosenblatt, crying as he spoke. “[I] I hope today brings you the closure you’ve all been looking for for the last 50 years,” Rosenblatt told the victims’ families gathered in court. “Torso Killer” Richard Cottingham pleaded guilty Monday to five more murders on Long Island. Cottingham, a former computer programmer and one-time married father of three, admitted to the rape and murder of dance teacher Diane Cusick in 1968, as well as the murders of four other women in Nassau County in 1972 and 1973. Cusick, 23, was found murdered after failing to return home from a trip to Green Acres Mall in Valley Stream to buy shoes — with Cottingham linked to her through DNA testing. Cottingham admitted to killing dance teacher Diane Cusick, right, and sex worker Deedah Goodarzi, left, two of five Long Island murders to which he pleaded guilty Monday. “I’m sure she tried to fight that animal, but he was so big and she was so small,” Cusick’s brother, Jim Martin, said in a Mineola court Monday. “He punched her, taped her mouth and nose and then raped her,” Martin said, turning his attention to the killer on screen. “I wish my brother Bobby and I had found you on the streets and torn you apart.” Richard Cottingham appears via video link in his arraignment June 22, 2022 in Mineola, N.Y.AP The serial killer was charged in Cusick’s death in June. Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly said at the time that she believed it was the earliest DNA hit to lead to a prosecution in the US. Other murders Cottingham has been linked to include the murders of two women whose mutilated bodies — missing their heads and arms — were found in a motel near Times Square in December 1979. Richard Cottingham, the infamous ‘Trunk Killer’, has claimed up to 100 victims but has only been charged with a handful of murders. Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office One of the decapitated victims was identified as 22-year-old sex worker Deedeh Goodarzi, but the other young woman was never identified. He was arrested after a maid at a New Jersey motel heard a woman screaming inside his room and officers found the 18-year-old victim alive. She was handcuffed and had stab wounds and bite marks on her chest. His terrifying exploits were detailed in the Netflix series “Crime Scene: The Times Square Killer,” which was released in December 2021.
