List of sadist’s victims grows one more time
Richard Cottingham, the sadistic serial murderer known as the “Times Square Killer,” added five more victims to his gruesome death toll Monday when he admitted to slaying five Long Island women in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
The 76-year-old appeared via video in Nassau County Supreme Court and pleaded guilty to the 1968 murder of 23-year-old Diane Cusick, who disappeared from a mall in Valley Stream and whose body was found by her father in her parked car.
He also admitted to killing Mary Beth Heinz, 21, who was found in a creek on May 10, 1972, after being thrown from a bridge in Rockville Centre. Laverne Moye, a 23-year-old mom from Queens, was strangled and found in the creek two months later after being thrown from the same bridge. Cottingham’s Long Island victims also include Sheila Heiman, 33, a mother of three who was stabbed and bludgeoned to death in her North Woodmere home in July 1973. He strangled Marita Emerita Rosado Nieves, 18, in December 1973 before wrapping her body in plastic bags and a blanket and leaving her on Ocean Parkway by Jones Beach.
Also known as “The Torso Killer” for dismembering some of his victims, Cottingham was already serving a life sentence in New Jersey State Prison for a series of grisly murders in Jersey and Manhattan from 1967 to 1980:
Nancy Schiava Vogel, a 29-year-old mother of two who disappeared after visiting a local mall in October 1967, was strangled. She lived in Little Ferry, N.J., once the same town where her killer resided.
Jaclyn Harp, 13, was abducted while walking home on July 17, 1968. The Midland Park, N.J., teen fled when Cottingham asked her to come inside his car, but he snatched the girl off the street and her strangled body was found the next day.
18-year-old Irene Blase was spotted by Cottingham while shopping in Hackensack in April 1969. He persuaded the teen to go for a drink with him, and her strangled corpse was discovered a day later.
Denise Falasca, 15, was walking along the side of a road in Emerson, N.J., when Cottingham pulled his car over to offer a ride on July 14, 1969. She was strangled and found within 24 hours.
Hitchhikers Lorraine Marie Kelly, 16, and Mary Ann Pryor, 17, were abducted and killed in August 1974, with Cottingham later admitting he kidnapped and raped the teens before drowning them in a motel room bathtub in Bergen County.
X-ray tech Maryann Carr was abducted from outside her Jersey home and killed, with her remains discovered in the parking lot of a Hasbrouck Heights motel on Dec. 15, 1977. She lived in an apartment complex where Cottingham once resided.
Deedeh Goodarzi, 22, described in one report as a “highpriced call girl” whose clients included Cottingham, was killed alongside a second woman who remains unidentified. Goodzari was tortured and killed inside a Times Square motel on Dec. 2, 1979, with the killer beheading his victim and lopping her hands off. The killer set her mutilated corpse afire, and Goodzari was found lying alongside the other victim on the same bed.
Sex worker Valerie Ann Street went with Cottingham to a New Jersey hotel. On May 4, 1980, Street’s body was found at the same Quality Inn where Carr’s body was discovered.
25-year-old Jean Reyner, another sex worker, was found a little more than a week after Street was slain in the Seville Hotel in Manhattan, with her breasts severed before her body was set ablaze.