A notorious US serial killer who cut the head and limbs off some of his 11 victims has admitted that he killed a further five women in the 60s and 70s.
Richard Cottingham was sentenced to 25 years to life on Monday for the murder of Diane Cusick, 23, who was killed in February 1968.
As part of a plea deal, he received immunity from prosecution for four other killings in Long Island in the late 60s and early 70s.
The 76-year-old prisoner attended the hearing via a video feed from a New Jersey prison.
“Today is one of the most emotional days we’ve ever had in the Nassau County district attorney’s office,” District Attorney Anne Donnelly said at a news conference where she was joined by several family members of Cottingham’s victims.
“In the case of Diane Cusick, her family has waited nearly 55 years for someone to be held accountable for her death.”
Ms Donnelly said Cottingham, believed to be one of the United States’ most prolific serial killers, “has caused irreparable harm to so many people and so many families, there’s almost nothing I can say to give comfort to anyone.”
Cottingham has claimed he was responsible for up to 100 homicides. He has been imprisoned since 1980.
He is known as the ‘Torso Killer’ because he allegedly cut off the heads and limbs of some of his victims, authorities have said.
Authorities believe Cusick left her job at a children’s dance school and then stopped at the mall to buy a pair of shoes when Cottingham followed her out to her car.
They believe he pretended to be a security guard or police officer, accused her of stealing and then overpowered the 44kg woman. Cusick’s body was found on February 16 in 1968.
The medical examiner concluded that Cusick had been beaten in the face and head and was suffocated. She had defensive wounds on her hands and police were able to collect DNA evidence at the scene. At the time, however, DNA testing did not exist.
Cottingham’s DNA was entered into a national database in 2016 when he pleaded guilty to a killing in New Jersey. In 2021, police in Nassau County began running DNA tests again on the cases involving the slain women and came up with a match to Cottingham.
Cottingham was working as a computer programmer for a health insurance company in New York at the time of Cusick’s death.
The other four women Cottingham confessed to killing on Monday were slain in 1972 and 1973.
Donnelly said that when detectives questioned Cottingham in prison, he provided information about those four cases that only the killer would know.