Serial Killer Richard Cottingham Confesses to the 1965 Murder of Alys Eberhardt
Richard Cottinghamalso known as the “Torso Killer,” is serving a life sentence for murders committed in the 1960s and 1970s. Although he initially confessed to committing a number of murders in New York and New Jersey, Cottingham has now accounted for nearly 100 murders during his aging and ill health. While discussing Cottingham’s crimes, the historian Peter Vronsky shared information about the killer’s confession that he killed a woman named Alys Eberhardt while talking to an investigative reporter Kristin Thorne for Us Weekly‘s Not covered.
Vronsky, who has a unique relationship with Cottingham, said the killer “usually knows” the specifics of the murders he committed. He then pointed to Eberhardt’s death in 1965 as an example of one death Cottingham had recently experienced.
18-year-old Alys Eberhardt, a nursing student, was found stabbed and strangled in her home in Fair Lawn, New Jersey.
The Fair Lawn Police Department accepted Cottingham’s confession in Eberhardt’s murder.
Vronsky said Cottingham also admitted to killing the 8th grader Jackie Harp in 1968.
“He was driving without paying attention and he drove into Midland Park not knowing he was in Midland Park. He started to get thirsty and then stopped to drink beer,” Vronsky said of Cottingham. “While he was drinking beer, Jackie Harp walked by on his way home from band practice at his school.”
Cottingham spotted Harp and “followed him into the woods and killed him,” he said. Vronsky said Harp was “dead within 15 minutes, maybe less.”
While Vronsky claimed that Cottingham had confessed to killing Harp, he insisted that the killer “did not know his name” and “did not know the town” where the murder took place.
Many people doubt that Cottingham is actually unaware of all of his murders, although Vronsky tells Thorne that he believes that Cottingham is actually unaware of all of the murders he commits because he “can’t understand himself.”
“The closest to giving a motivation is, ‘It was fun. It was a challenge to escape,'” Vronsky said. “He did it in haste.
Vronsky also said that Cottingham “doesn’t know” much about many of his victims. “He did it automatically. In only one case did he know the victim’s name,” he said. Besides, he doesn’t even know where he committed these crimes.
He went on to say that Cottingham “just knows” some details of past murders.
And during the conversation, Vronsky reveals what his relationship with Cottingham is like. He said the pair were in regular contact, adding that Cottingham called him “every day” in custody.
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“I’ve probably recorded, right now, maybe 700 hours of conversations with Cottingham on the phone, because all my visits were interrupted when the pandemic hit in 2020,” he said.
Vronsky also shared why he continued his relationship with Cottingham, explaining that he believed it was important for Cottingham to confess his crimes to the authorities so they could close the cases.
In fact, Vronsky said Cottingham’s ill health was the main reason he wanted the authorities to take the killer’s latest confession seriously. “He is paralyzed, he can’t even move. He has kidney disease,” said the historian. “He has advanced necrosis in his legs. He’s in a very bad condition.”
