Notorious “Times Square” Serial Killer Admits Murder of Nursing Student

Cottingham was arrested in May 1980, when employees heard a victim screaming in a NJ hotel room.

Richard Cottingham, the Times Square serial killer who’s been featured on Netflix and jailed since 1980, has confessed to his earliest known murder: the bludgeoning of New Jersey nursing student Alys Eberhardt, who was just 18, in 1965. Cottingham would have been 19 at the time.

Richard Cottingham once estimated that he’s killed about 100 teens and women.

The Eberhardt murder in Fairlawn, New Jersey is one of 20 he’s now confessed to.

Alys Eberhardt, 18, had just started nursing school in Hackensack, New Jersey.

(Photo Credit @dr.petervronsky)

The Fair Lawn Police Department announced the case was closed Tuesday morning, more than four years after Cottingham, now 79 and in failing health, started talking to detectives. During the final interview last month, close to the Christmas holiday, Cottingham made a full verbal and written confession about the Eberhardt murder.

Richard Cottingham, now 79, has been imprisoned since1980.

“In these admissions,” the department revealed, “he provided corroborating details about the circumstances leading up to the crime, the house, and details about the murder which were not publicly known.”

Like many of the murders Cottingham has confessed to, there was an element of torture in the Eberhardt crime.

The Fair Lawn Police Department gave credit to investigative historian, Dr. Peter Vronsky, and the late Jennifer Weiss - daughter of another Cottingham victim - for convincing the imprisoned killer to confess to numerous unsolved murders from the 1960’s and 70’s.

Investigative historian, Dr. Peter Vronsky, and Jennifer Weiss, a victim’s daughter, received credit for extracting confessions.

(Photo Credit @dr.petervronsky)

Alys Eberhardt had just started nursing school at Hackensack Hospital in the summer of 1965. She left classes early on September 24, because her family planned on traveling to Oswego, New York for her aunt’s funeral. Instead, Eberhardt’s father returned home about 5:30 p.m. to find furniture knocked over and his daughter dead on the living room floor.

“There was a kitchen knife stuck in her throat,” Dr. Peter Vronsky told me. But the actual cause of death was blunt force trauma to Eberhardt’s skull.

Vronsky noted there were 60 knife marks all over Eberhardt’s face and body, but they weren’t actually stab wounds. Yet they were a calling card for the kind of torture Cottingham would inflict on victims.

“They’re tiny, little cuts,” Vronsky said. “He used to call them zingers.”

Eberhardt’s nephew, Michael Smith, issued a statement saying, “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’ sister, that we finally have answers, was a moment I never thought would come.”

Richard Cottingham was born in the Bronx and settled in New Jersey, where he was a married father of three. He worked as a computer operator at Blue Cross/Blue Shield in midtown Manhattan. Some of his victims were sex workers, but many others were school girls and teens he encountered on the road or women set upon in their homes.

Richard Cottingham was a married father of 3 working as a computer operator at Blue Cross/Blue Shield in midtown Manhattan.

On December 2, 1979, NYPD officers had found the burning remains of two women inside Room 417 of the Travel Inn Motor Hotel on West 42 Street in Manhattan. The women had been decapitated and their hands were cut off. But detectives were able to identify one victim as Deedeh Goodarzi, 22, a beautiful Iranian immigrant who was doing sex work. This case was the subject of a 2021 Netflix documentary series.

Deedeh Goodarzi was decapitated by Torso Killer, Richard Cottingham, in 1979.

Years later, Jennifer Weiss of New Jersey learned from an adoption agency that Deedeh Goodarzi was her biological mother. She was determined to contact Richard Cottingham, who was convicted in the Times Square murders and three New Jersey killings. He was doing life in a New Jersey state prison.

Cottingham started a dialogue with Jennifer Weiss and agreed to meet her. In 2017, Weiss started working with Dr. Vronsky, hoping to get the serial killer to admit to more of his crimes, which he did. Vronsky said he and Weiss were involved in extracting 11 confessions from Cottingham, encouraging him to confess to investigators from different jurisdictions in New Jersey and New York.

The Fair Lawn Police Department said in its statement, “Both Dr. Vronsky and Weiss, until her passing in 2023, have been a constant source of assistance with the FLPD in facilitating communication with Cottingham.” Sadly, Jennifer Weiss, a mother of two, died from a brain tumor not long after her 45th birthday. She once told me her rationale for cozying up to Cottingham: “I make him feel comfortable so he can confess to me.”

In April 2021, Cottingham had confessed to the brutal double murders of Mary Ann Pryor, 17, and Lorraine Kelly, 16, of North Bergen, New Jersey in August 1974. Their bodies were found about five days after they went missing on their way to the Paramus Mall. Cottingham said he picked them up and forced them to a hotel, where he tortured them for several days and then drowned them in a bathtub. The former chief of investigations for the Bergen County Prosecutors’ Office, Robert Anzilotti, was involved in getting this confession as he was set to retire. He extracted multiple confessions from Cottingham over the years he investigated cold cases.

In 2021,Cottingham pleaded guilty to the torture and drownings of NJ teens Mary Ann Pryor and Lorraine Kelly.

Another notable development happened in December 2022, when Cottingham pleaded guilty, on remote camera, to five, old murders in Nassau County. His DNA had been tied to the 1968 crime scene of Diane Cusick. The 23 year old mom, a dance teacher, was found in the back seat of her car at the Green Acres Mall on Sunrise Highway in Valley Stream. She had been sexually assaulted and strangled. It’s believed this was the oldest case solved with DNA in Nassau County.

Diane Cusick, a 23 year old mom, was found in the back seat of her car at the Green Acres Mall in Nassau County.

On Tuesday, Chief Joseph Dawicki of the Fair Lawn Police Department thanked his two investigators who closed out the Alys Eberhardt case: “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.” Sgt. Eric Eleshewich and Det. Brian Rypkema had been working on the case about five years, after it was reopened by former Chief Glen Cauwels.