Sister Of Nassau Torso Killer Victim Looks For Another Victim's Family

NASSAU COUNTY, NY — The bodies of four young women were found brutally murdered in Nassau County over two years beginning in 1972, but just three families of the slain women have received closure, even as it came decades later.

When convicted serial killer Richard Cottingham, known as the "Torso Killer" and the "Times Square Killer" confessed to five unsolved Nassau County murders last week during a live Nassau County District Attorney news conference, Jeanne Heinz, the sister of Mary Beth Heinz, 21, found thrown off a Rockville Centre bridge in 1972, was in attendance.

No one was there to hear the news from Maria Emerita Rosado Nieves' family. Nieves, 18, was found strangled in December 1973, her body thrown into an overgrown area of Jones Beach.

Jeanne Heinz is hoping the renewed attention on the half century-old murders will help police locate Nieves' family and give them some of the peace she's finally found, she told Patch.

"I received so much peace knowing what happened to my sister Mary Beth, that I feel compelled to assist the Nassau County Police Department in their search for her family," she wrote.

Nieves was 18 and was living in Manhattan when she was killed. Heinz said she sent money to her mother in Puerto Rico.

"Someone was missing her on New Years Eve 1974. She probably was killed on Dec. 25, 1973, and remained unidentified until mid-January 1974. Relatives were located, and she was buried in Lawrence, Massachusetts," Heinz explained.

Jared Rosenblatt is Chief of Nassau County District Attorney's Homicide Bureau and Director of Forensic Science/Cold Case Prosecutions. He told Patch that detectives initially had trouble identifying Nieves in 1973 and 1974, and now that 50 years has passed, finding her relatives is still proving a challenge.

"The [NCPD] was doing doing everything in their power to find her family and to notify them," he said, and now the DA's office and NCPD are "chasing as many leads as they can," so Nieves' family can finally learn who her killer was.

Cottingham, 76, who is serving several consecutive life sentences in a New Jersey City, pleaded guilty to the unsolved murder of Dianne Cusick on Dec. 9 after Nassau prosecutors connected him to the cold case with DNA. He also admitted to killing Sheila Heiman, 33, and Laverne Moye, 23, of Queens, whose body was found with Heinz in Rockville Centre, along with Heinz and Nieves.

Jeanne Heinz was 12 and living with her family in Mineola when her sister disappeared after attending a dance. Now living in St. James, Jeanne Heinz returned to the Rockville Centre creek on Maine Avenue to create a memorial for the Nassau women killed by Cottingham.

An article from Jan. 21, 1974 in the New York Daily News said that Nieves' body was taken to her "hometown of Lawrence, Mass. for burial," and that she had been "identified by a cousin." Her last known address was given as the Manhattan Towers hotel at Broadway and 76th.

Rosenblatt said police found several Manhattan addresses associated with Nieves, and they believe she moved from Puerto Rico several years before her death. She was living with friends and had a boyfriend, and detectives found a letter she sent home that referenced cousins and an uncle. Investigators believe she had family working somewhere called either Rexco Industries or Rexville Development in 1973 in Puerto Rico. Police do not have any photos of Nieves, except for those at the crime scene.

Nassau has expanded the team on the case, Rosenblatt said, and they've been working with authorities in Massachusetts and Puerto Rico to find someone. The DA's office is trying to do as many media interviews as they can, in English and in Spanish, hoping someone somewhere will come forward.

"At this point, we'd be happy to find anyone who knew Ms. Nieves. We're not going to stop."

The relative that identified her body in 1974, Hiram Nieves, cannot be located in Massachusetts, and the family moved away from a connected address in Bayamón, Puerto Rico 22 years ago. Rosenblatt said they believe her mother is dead and it's unknown if Nieves had any siblings.

Heinz's own parents didn't live to see their daughter's murder solved, she shared, but the closure needed by loved ones must transcend death, she says, because Heinz believes "they are proud and smiling now."