Richard Cottingham, a US serial killer widely known as the “Torso Killer”, has confessed to the 1965 killing of an 18-year-old woman in New Jersey.
On Tuesday, New Jersey police announced the closure of the murder case of Alys Eberhardt after Cottingham, 79, admitted to killing her nearly six decades ago. Eberhardt, then a nursing student, was found brutally beaten and dead in her family home in Fair Lawn.
Recalling his interview with Cottingham, Fair Lawn detective Brian Rypkema told PIX11 that Cottingham had met Eberhardt outside Hackensack hospital in New Jersey two weeks before her murder.
Rypkema told the outlet that Cottingham said: “There was just something about her that drew his attention to her, that all the girls were talking to her, she carried herself well, and that’s why he picked her out of the group of girls.”
Fair Lawn police said in a public statement that after Eberhardt’s case was reopened in 2021, detectives conducted numerous interviews that eventually led to Cottingham’s confession, including “details that were never publicly known”.
Following Cottingham’s confession and the closure of the case, Fair Lawn police chief Joseph Dawicki said: “Alys 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.”
Eberhardt’s nephew Michael Smith told PIX11: “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.”
Cottingham is serving three life sentences at the South Woods state prison in Bridgeton, New Jersey, following his conviction for other murders around New York and New Jersey.
In 2022, Cottingham, who had already been convicted of 11 homicides at the time, was sentenced to 25 years to life after admitting to murdering five more women in the late 60s and early 70s.
