A 75-year-old serial killer serving a life sentence in New Jersey state prison for murdering women for decades is now accused of strangling a mother in a Long Island shopping mall parking lot more than 50 years ago, the Wednesday Nassau County District Attorney Anne T. Donnelly.
Richard Cottingham was indicted for second-degree murder by a grand jury from South Woods State Prison in Bridgeton, New Jersey, before Judge Caryn Fink virtually. This for the murder of Diane Cusick in February 1968, the prosecutor said.
Cusick was a 23-year-old dance teacher and mother of a daughter when she was found beaten, raped and duct-taped in her car in the parking lot of Valley Stream’s Green Acres mall in February of that year. It was two days after Valentine’s Day.
The defendant pleaded not guilty and was remanded in custody.
Cottingham allegedly pretended to be a security guard or police officer to get Cusick and others to go with him, Capt. Steven Fitzpatrick said at a news conference. Fitzpatrick noted that authorities had reviewed all female homicides in the area at the time Cusick was killed and may have found other cases linked to Cottingham.
They have at least five open cases that they have submitted for DNA testing, he added.
According to the District Attorney’s Office, Diane Cusick, a 23-year-old New Hyde Park resident, was an instructor at a dance school in Oceanside, New York. On the afternoon of Thursday, February 15, 1968, Cusick told her family that she was going to the mall Green Acres to buy a pair of dancing shoes, says the report.
At about 10:30 pm that day, her parents became concerned that their daughter had not returned home, the investigation added. The parents drove to the mall and found the car. Plymouth Valiant of her daughter in a shopping center parking lot.
Unfortunately, the parents found their daughter Cusick’s body in the back seat of the car, the file says. The victim had an adhesive bandage over her mouth and her hands were tied, the report states. The woman was pronounced dead at 1:40 a.m. on February 16, 1968. The medical examiner determined that Cusick suffocated from strangulation.
After more than 50 years, in 2021, the Nassau County Medical Examiner’s Office, Division of Forensic Sciences – Biology, re-analyzed certain evidence related to the case. In early 2022, a DNA profile was generated from that evidence and allegedly matched Cottingham’s profile.
If convicted of the main charge, the defendant faces a potential maximum of 25 years to life in prison. His case is due back in court on August 18, 2022.
Cusick’s daughter, Darlene Altman, was with police Wednesday when they announced the indictment.
“I never thought I’d see this day, but all these people got justice for my mom,” her daughter Darlene Altman said. “It was overwhelming to see him on video in court with a dead look on his face.”
Cottingham, one of New Jersey’s most notorious serial killers, was nicknamed “The Torso Killer” because he was known for dismembering his victims, according to NorthJersey.com. He has admitted to killing at least a dozen women since the 1960s.
Most recently, Cottingham pleaded guilty last year in New Jersey to the 1974 murders of two teenage friends who went to the mall for bathing suits one day and never returned.
The teenagers, Mary Ann Pryor, 17, and Lorraine Marie Kelly, 16, were among at least a dozen victims linked to Cottingham over the years. She admitted to murdering nine women in the 1960s and 1970s, but the death toll is believed to be higher.
In the early 1980s, Cottingham was convicted of killing five women, three in New York and two in Bergen County, and in 2010 he confessed to killing a woman in northern New Jersey in 1967. He has been incarcerated since 1981.
Cottingham has claimed responsibility for up to 100 murders. Pryor and Kelly were found five days after they disappeared: their naked, battered bodies were found face down in the woods of northern New Jersey. Kelly was reportedly found wearing a beaded bracelet and necklace that read “Lorraine and Ricky,” a reference to her boyfriend. Pryor was found wearing a gold cross, a gift from her godfather.
The Cusick murder case is being prosecuted by Chief Jared Rosenblatt of the Homicide Bureau. The defendant is represented by Jeffrey Groder, Esq.
“Diane Cusick, a 23-year-old mother, called her parents on the night of February 15, 1968 to tell them she was going to the mall to buy shoes. She never came home. Cusick was allegedly bound and murdered by Richard Cottingham,” Prosecutor Donnelly said. “It was only through advances in DNA technology that the NCDA and our partners at the Nassau County Police Department were able to solve this 54-year cold case and identify a suspect in the tragic death of Ms. Cusick. We make a promise to her surviving daughter today: We will bring her mother’s killer to justice.”
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