The notorious “Torso Killer,” who has served decades in prison for the murders of girls and young women, has confessed to the brutal slaying of an 18-year-old Bergen County nursing student in 1965, officials said Tuesday.
Richard Cottingham, 79, admitted last month he murdered Alys Jean Eberhardt in her Fair Lawn home on Sept. 25, 1965, according to Fair Lawn Police Chief Joseph Dawicki.
Eberhardt, who suffered a skull fracture and was stabbed 61 times, was found by her father in their Saddle River Road home, according to news reports at the time.
Dawicki said two of his detectives began interviewing and developing a rapport with Cottingham from prison in the spring of 2021 with the hopes of solving cold-case murders.
For more than four years, detectives conducted in-person interviews with Cottingham and forged a relationship with two of his confidants, including a forensic historian and true-crime author, according to Dawicki.
In November 2025, one of the confidants, Peter Vronsky, alerted investigators that the serial killer was in poor health and wanted to speak about his crimes.
Two additional interviews took place with Detective Eric Eleshewich and Detective Brian Rypkema, both of the Fair Lawn Police Department, with the final interview occurring in December 2025.
“During the final interview, Cottingham made a full verbal confession and later provided a written confession where he admitted to killing Eberhardt,” Dawicki said.
“In these admissions, he provided corroborating details about the circumstances leading up to the crime, the house and details about the murder which were not publicly known,” Dawicki said.
Cottingham, who was from River Vale in Bergen County, killed his victims during the late 1960s and 1970s in North Jersey and New York City. He became known as the “Torso Killer” after several victims were found dismembered with their heads, breasts and limbs removed.
Investigators said Cottingham lived a double life, working by day for Blue Cross Blue Shield and raising his family in Bergen County.
By night, authorities say, he targeted vulnerable women and girls, often in North Jersey or New York City, assaulting and killing them in hotels, motels, or secluded locations.
He was arrested in 1980 after a hotel maid heard screams, interrupted an attack on a woman in a Times Square-area motel and alerted police.
Cottingham was later convicted of multiple murders and sentenced to life in prison. He has been incarcerated since 1981 at South Woods State Prison in Bridgeton. Prison records show he is serving time for five murders.
Investigators, however, have linked Cottingham to at least nine murders, though he has claimed responsibility for dozens more, Vronsky has said.
Law enforcement officials have long treated those claims cautiously, noting that some confessions were inconsistent or could not be corroborated.
Still, advances in forensic science and renewed cold-case investigations have tied him to additional killings years after his initial convictions.
In New Jersey, Cottingham pleaded guilty to the 1974 murders of two teenage girls, Mary Ann Pryor and Lorraine Kelly, who disappeared after leaving their homes in North Bergen. Their bodies were later found in wooded areas in Bergen County, but the case went unsolved for more than four decades.
Authorities have said Cottingham continued to cooperate intermittently with investigators in hopes of clearing additional cold cases, though prosecutors have emphasized that each confession is independently reviewed.
Despite his cooperation, Cottingham remains serving multiple life sentences and is not eligible for parole.
According to Vronsky, Cottingham was convicted in the early 1980s of five murders committed between 1977 and 1980 in New Jersey and New York City.
Those convictions included the killings of Valarie Ann Street and Mary Ann Carr in Bergen County, as well as three Manhattan victims — Deedeh Goodarzi and an unidentified woman in a double homicide, and Mary Ann Reyner.
In 2009, while serving multiple life sentences, Cottingham told investigators he believed he had committed as many as 85 to 100 additional murders, describing them as “perfect murders,” according to Vronsky.
Between 2010 and 2017, Cottingham confessed to four additional murders from the late 1960s which were subsequently closed by the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office. Those cases included the killings of Nancy Vogel, Irene Blase, Denise Falasca and Jackie Harp, all in Bergen County, dating from 1967 to 1969.
From 2021 through 2024, authorities announced the closure of 10 more homicide cases dating from 1967 to the mid-1970s, based on Cottingham’s confessions and corroborating evidence.
Those cases spanned Bergen County, Rockland County and Nassau County, New York, and included the 1974 murders of teenage friends Kelly and Pryor, as well as several victims killed on Long Island during the early 1970s. One additional victim identified in 2024 has not been publicly named.
Prosecutors have said each confession was reviewed independently and supported by investigative records, witness statements, or forensic evidence where available. Cottingham has pleaded guilty in several of the reopened cases, while others were closed administratively because he was already serving life sentences.
Authorities say at least 10 additional investigations remain active, and roughly 80 unsolved cases in New York and New Jersey are still being examined for possible links to Cottingham.
Michael Smith, whose mother is Eberhardt’s sister, released a statement on Tuesday saying his family has been waiting since 1965 for the truth to come out.
“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 said.
“As Alys’s nephew, I am deeply moved that our family can finally honor her memory with the truth,” he said.
