Convicted serial killer Richard Cottingham confesses to 1965 cold case murder, police say

A convicted serial killer recently confessed to a 60-year-old New Jersey cold case murder, police said. (Bergen County, NJ Sheriff's Office via CNN Newsource)

FAIR LAWN, NEW JERSEY (WCBS) - A convicted serial killer recently confessed to a 60-year-old New Jersey cold case murder, police said.

Alys Eberhardt, an 18-year-old nursing student, was brutally murdered in her Fair Lawn home on Sept. 24, 1965. Now, her family finally has some answers about her death.

Early attempts to find Eberhardt’s killer failed and her case went cold for 55 years.

Then, in 2021, Fair Lawn Police Det. Brian Rypkema got a phone call from a classmate of Eberhardt’s, who asked him to start looking into it again.

The case was reopened that spring with Rypkema and Sgt. Eric Eleshewich.

“The first thing that we’re doing is we got a case here from 1965, so we’re looking at everything,” Eleshewich said.

Then, a man named Richard Cottingham, also known as the “Torso Killer,” started making local headlines.

“He was on no one’s radar back then,” Eleshewich said.

While imprisoned, serving three life sentences for other murders, Cottingham confessed to the 1974 murders of Bergen County teens Loraine Marie Kelly and Mary Ann Pryor.

Eleshewich said they realized Cottingham lived in the area at the time of Eberhardt’s murder and decided to go visit him at Trenton State Prison.

“We said we were detectives from the Fair Lawn Police Department, and right away, he was intrigued by that. He said, ‘Ah, Fair Lawn,’” Rypkema said.

Rypkema and Eleshewich spent five hours building rapport with Cottingham.

In conversations with Fair Lawn Police, Cottingham claimed he had murdered at least 80 people. In 2022, he confessed to murdering six Long Island women.

During their second visit, Rypkema and Eleshewich brought up Eberhardt.

“Just little ways he reacted to questions, things of that nature, we were like, this is definitely our guy,” Eleshewich said.

One specific question that came up left them with zero doubt Cottingham murdered Eberhardt.

“I asked him about how he entered the house, and he corrected me and told me the perpetrator did it a different way,” Eleshewich said.

Rypkema and Eleshewich said they visited Cottingham in prison more than five times, finally securing a confession on Dec. 22, 2025.

“It was a huge sense of relief,” Eleshewich said.

An agreement between the Bergen County prosecutor and Fair Lawn Police means no criminal charges will be filed against Cottingham for Eberhardt’s murder.

“He’s going to spending the rest of life in prison [for other murders],” Eleshewich said.

Eleshewich added, “To be able to finally make that call [to Eberhardt’s family] on the 23rd, that’s what it’s all about.”

In a statement, Eberhardt’s nephew Michael Smith wrote, “Our family has waited since 1965 for the truth … to be able to tell my mother, Alys’s sister, that we finally have answers -- was a moment I never thought would come.” Cottingham’s entire confession was recorded on video. CBS News New York asked the Fair Lawn Police Department when it will be made public and learned no timeline is set.

Cottingham has been incarcerated with the New Jersey Department of Corrections since 1981 and remains imprisoned at South Woods State Prison.

By Vanessa Murdock.