NJ Serial Killer Confesses To Nursing Student’s Murder

NORTH JERSEY, NJ — North Jersey-based serial killer Richard Cottingham, known as the "Torso Killer," has confessed to his role in the death of another young woman in the 1960s, police say.

Cottingham — currently serving a life sentence in South Woods State Prison in the deaths of more than a dozen women — told Fair Lawn police last month that he had killed Alys Eberhardt, an 18-year-old nursing student from that town, in 1965.

Eberhardt had left her dorm at Hackensack Hospital School of Nursing at 2:30 p.m. on Sept. 24, 1965, to go home, according to past news reports. Her father found her dead in the home, with stab sounds, around 5:30 p.m.

Fair Lawn police detectives, as well as an independent crime expert, Dr. Peter Vronsky, had been interviewing Cottingham since 2021, the police said in a release on Tuesday.

"During the final interview, Cottingham made a full verbal and later provided a written confession where he admitted to killing Eberhardt," Fair Lawn police said Tuesday. "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."

"Richard Cottingham is the personification of evil," said Eberhardt's nephew, Michael Smith. "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.”

Bergen County Killer

The "Torso Killer" or "Times Square Killer," as Cottingham has been called, was known to behead and dismember his victims.

While some of Cottingham's victims were sex workers in New York, others were young women he happened to meet in North Jersey, or saw walking on the street.

Growing up, Cottingham lived on Cleveland Avenue in River Vale in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and attended Pascack Regional High School.

He was arrested in May of 1980 after assaulting a woman in a Hasbrouck Heights hotel room. Investigators began linking him to the killings of other young women.

He was convicted in 1981 of killing a prostitute in a Hasbrouck Heights hotel room, for which he was sentenced to 173 years in jail. He then stood trial for and was convicted in three deaths of New York women in 1984.

While in jail, he confessed to more crimes, including as recently as 2021 and 2022.

Cottingham admitted in 2021 that back in 1974, he kidnapped two North Bergen teenagers who were on the way to the mall. He drove the 16- and 17-year-old girls, Lorraine Kelly and Mary Ann Pryor, to a hotel and drowned them in a bathtub, according to the Record. Then he dumped their bodies in the woods in Montvale, in northern Bergen County.

Cottingham's confession ended a three-decade-old mystery in the Hudson County town, which borders Bergen County.

Cottingham also pleaded guilty in 2022 to the murder of a 23-year-old woman in New York State in 1968, and then said he had killed four other women in Nassau County, N.Y. in the 1960s.

Alys Eberhardt

On Tuesday, Fair Lawn Police Chief Joseph Dawicki said, “Alys was a vibrant young nursing student who was taken from our community and we never got to see the great things she could accomplish.”

He added, “I am extremely proud of the work Sgt. Eleshewich and Det. Rypkema put into this case. Closing Fair Lawn’s sole outstanding unsolved homicide is a tremendous accomplishment and shows the community our officers’ level of dedication.

"While we cannot bring Alys back, I am hopeful that her family can find some peace knowing her killer confessed to the crime and is behind bars not able to harm anyone else. Law enforcement does not give up in the search for justice for victims.”

Eberhardt's nephew, Michael Smith, spoke on behalf of the family.

"Our family has waited since 1965 for the truth," he said. "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. As Alys’s nephew, I am deeply moved that our family can finally honor her memory with the truth."

He thanked the police saying, "Your efforts have brought a long-overdue sense of peace to our family and prove that victims like Alys are never forgotten, no matter how much time passes."

Looking For More

While Cottingham's latest confession closes the case of Alys Eberhardt, a crime writer and expert on serial killers — Dr. Peter Vronsky — told Patch that he's investigating connections between Cottingham and several other young women who died in New Jersey in the 1960s, and hoping police will continue to do so.

Cottingham, 79, has had several health scares recently, he said, and time is running out to close the cases.

Vronsky said he believes Cottingham's first killing may have been in 1963, and he is trying to track down details of that death as well.

"There is no such thing as 'closure' for families; but there at best 'resolution,' " he said. "Families want to know, more than they want justice now; they just want to know what happened."