By: Richard L. Smith
The notorious “Torso Killer,” already imprisoned for multiple murders of girls and young women, has confessed to the 1965 killing of an 18-year-old Bergen County nursing student, authorities announced Tuesday.
Richard Cottingham, 79, admitted last month that he murdered Alys Jean Eberhardt inside her Fair Lawn home on September 25, 1965, according to Fair Lawn Police Chief Joseph Dawicki.
Eberhardt, who suffered a skull fracture and 61 stab wounds, was discovered by her father inside their Saddle River Road residence, according to contemporaneous news reports.
Chief Dawicki said two Fair Lawn detectives began meeting with Cottingham in prison in 2021 in hopes of solving unsolved homicides.
Over more than four years, detectives conducted in-person interviews and developed a rapport with Cottingham and two of his confidants, including forensic historian and true-crime author Peter Vronsky.
In November 2025, Vronsky notified investigators that Cottingham’s health was declining and that he wished to discuss additional crimes.
Detectives Eric Eleshewich and Brian Rypkema conducted two more interviews, with the final one taking place in December 2025, during which Cottingham confessed to Eberhardt’s murder.
Cottingham, formerly of River Vale, committed his crimes across North Jersey and New York City in the late 1960s and 1970s. He earned the nickname “Torso Killer” after several victims were discovered dismembered, with their heads and limbs removed.
Investigators said he led a double life—working for Blue Cross Blue Shield and raising a family in Bergen County—while targeting vulnerable women and girls at night.
He was arrested in 1980 when a hotel maid heard screams and interrupted an attack in a Times Square motel, alerting police. 
Cottingham was later convicted of multiple murders and has been incarcerated since 1981 at South Woods State Prison in Bridgeton, where he is serving life sentences.
While prison records list five murder convictions, investigators have linked Cottingham to at least nine killings. He has claimed responsibility for many more.