In April of last year, Richard Cottingham —also known as the Long Island “Torso Killer” —confessed guilty to five homicides. Recently, the ongoing case has come into society’s eye again when John Moy, the son of one of Cottingham’s victims, Laverne Moy, has confronted Cottingham in court. 

Richard Cottingham was earlier found guilty in 1977 for the murder of Mary-Ann Carr, a 27-year old women from Little Ferry, New Jersey. However, the killing of Diane Cusick, in 1968 at the Green Acres Mall in Nassau County, was Cottingham’s first strangulation. Investigators state that he could be responsible for 13 other killings but the five homicides he is connected to as of now are the only ones that are 100 percent linked to Richard. Some experts believe that he could also be responsible for up to 100 killings.

These four other homicides (not including Diane Cusick) include, 

• Mary Beth Heinz, a 21 year old woman, whose body was found by a creek in Rockville Centre in 1972. She was last seen May 5th, 1972.  
• Laverne Moy, a 23 year old woman that was found on July, 20, 1972.
• Martita Rosado Nieves, an 18 year old woman who was killed on December 27, 1973 and her body was found on Jones Beach. 
• Sheila Hyman was found dead by her husband on July 20, 1973 in North Woodmere. All these women have been killed by Richard Cottingham, with strangulation. Sheila Hyman was not strangled, but beaten to death. 

All the families of these women, except Maria Rosado Nieves (no family has been found) , have been haunted by these deaths for decades. It is heartbreaking for these families to hear Cottingham to confess years all these years later. John Moy, son of Laverne, said in his court statement, “Everything that I was taught about evil was evident in his presence, in his demeanor, in the gaze of his eyes… It was pure evil. I could feel it” as he confronted the man that took his mother away.

Sheila Hyman’s husband has been suspected of Sheila’s killing ever since she was found. However, it has been confirmed that he is no longer guilty since Cottingham’s confession. Sheila’s daughter, Randi Childs, told reporters, “He was a kind and generous man who loved our mother deeply and who spent too many years living in the shadow of his wife’s murder”. Randi’s father passed away in 2004 and now can rest in peace as he is not suspected anymore. Richard is serving multiple life sentences, 937 years, in a prison in New Jersey.