On Monday, the “Torso Killer” was convicted in a Mineola, N.Y. courtroom of Diane Cusick’s murder after DNA evidence linked him to the crime.

More than 50-years-ago a New York dance teacher disappeared while shopping at the Green Acres mall, in Nassau County. Her body was eventually found on February 16, 1968.

Convicted serial killer Richard Cottingham, 76 was sentenced to 25 years to life for the murder of Diane Cusick, 23, in 1968.

Cottingham aka the Torso killer has been serving several life sentences in a New Jersey prison since 1980. He was convicted of 11 homicides in all.

He was first arrested in 1980 when one of his victims was able to survive. A motel maid called the police when she heard a woman screaming inside Cottingham’s room. She was found alive but handcuffed and suffering knife wounds and bite marks.

Since that time several murders have been linked to the man.

This includes a 2021 conviction of the slayings of Mary Ann Pryor, 17, and Lorraine Marie Kelly, 16, in 1974.

 The girls left home to go to the Paramus mall.

He pleaded guilty to kidnapping and raping them for days before drowning them in a motel’s bathtub.

The teenagers were last seen on Aug. 9, 1974. They were found five days later. Their nude, beaten bodies were discovered face down in a wooded area of North Jersey’s Bergen County.

Torso killer convicted of 1968 murder

On Monday, the serial killer appeared remotely at the hearing on video from his prison. As part of the plea arrangement, he admitted to killing Cusick. And he also confessed that in the late ‘60s and early ’70s he murdered five women on Long Island. 

He was granted immunity for 4 of the murders and received 25 years for Cusick’s death.

This brings the number of his confirmed kills to 16. Cottingham claims to have murdered up to 100 women.

Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly and prosecutor Jared Rosenblatt held a news conference outside the courtroom. They were joined by some of the Torso killer’s family members.

Darlene Altman, daughter of Diane Cusick, was only a toddler when her mother died. And she felt that after a lifetime she at least knew what happened to her mother.

“Today is one of the most emotional days we’ve ever had in the Nassau County district attorney’s office,” DA Donnelly said. “In the case of Diane Cusick, her family has waited nearly 55 years for someone to be held accountable for her death.”

Donnelly said Cottingham is one of the most prolific serial killers in U.S. history. And “has caused irreparable harm to so many people and so many families, there’s almost nothing I can say to give comfort to anyone.”

He earned the grim name of the “Torso Killer” because he allegedly cut off the heads and hands of some of his victims.

DNA links killer to victim

In 1968, when Cusick was murdered DNA testing had not been developed. But the evidence was still collected and preserved from the scene. 

The medical examiner detailed that the woman had been savagely beaten in her face and on her head. And was then suffocated to death.

In 2016 with advances in DNA testing samples were taken from Cottingham and entered into a national database. And in 2021, the Nassau County police lab began running DNA tests again on the cold case. And they found a match to Cottingham.

Donnelly said that when detectives questioned Cottingham in prison, he provided information about the other four cases that only the killer would know.