It is inexcusable to travel -or even live- without taking notes. The deathly feeling of the monotonous passing of the days is made impossible.
Franz Kafka
Monday December 5, 2022
A typical day. LISK is on the loose. But the residents of Long Island rejoice. Rock star amongst serial killers Richard Cottingham – cheerfully known as the “Torso Killer” – pleads guilty to raping and fatally strangling a young dance teacher, 23-year-old Diane Cusick, outside Green Acres Mall.
The killing occurred in 1968. As part of his plea deal, Cottingham takes responsibility for the recent 1972 murders of Mary Beth Heinz, 21; Laverne Moye, 23; and the contemporary 1973 murders of Sheila Heiman, 33; and Maria Emerita Rosado Nieves, 18. That’s a total of five. Cottingham preyed on women along “the Sunrise Highway corridor” – a road on the South Shore of Long Island. Sentenced to “25 years to life.”
It’s a little late but police took a vicious serial killer off the streets …
Hooah!
Not so fast.
Cottingham – who proudly earned his “Torso Killer” moniker after dismembering many of his other victims – has been incarcerated in the New Jersey State Prison system since 1980. Cottingham’s official historian boasted at a Press Conference that 17 murders have thus far been confirmed as Cottingham’s work. Cottingham appeared virtually in Nassau County Court from a New Jersey prison. He has a book to finish.
In a videotaped interview with detectives Cottingham stated that he is not sure how many women he killed —
“After a while they become jumbled together.”
But he believes it is
“well over eighty.”
A detective asks —
“That many.”
Cottingham laconically responds as he grabs his crotch —
“Well over.”
Law enforcement arrested Cottingham in 1980 after a woman’s screams in a motel room alerted a maid. New Jersey charged him with trying to kill that 18-year-old and for murdering a Florida woman in the same motel earlier that month.
A New Jersey judge sentenced Cottingham to yet another term of life in prison for the August 1974 murders of two teenage girls. He drowned them in a motel bathtub.
To round out his resume Cottingham killed two women in a Times Square hotel room in 1979. He beheaded them. Cut off their hands. (A recurrent theme here) As a finale after the rape, killing and dismemberment Cottingham set the room on fire.
In 1984, a New York City jury found him guilty in the 1980 butchering of another woman whom he strangled, mutilated and also set on fire in an East 29th Street hotel.
His FBI Profile:
“He’s hell on women.”
Cottingham cut his sex predator teeth on Long Island during the 1960s as the “Massapequa Masked Rapist.” A masked assailant wearing a snow hat broke into houses – announced himself as a “sex maniac” – and then proceeded to rape women. It turned to bloody mayhem and murder.
In 2024 Cottingham reached out to District Attorney Ray “Red Wave” Tierney to discuss some of the women he raped and murdered in Suffolk. But there’s really nothing in it for Tierney as far as a press conference or grant money is concerned – so he rebuffed Cottingham. Cottingham warned “I am old and sick.”
We jump ahead in time to January 2026. Cottingham confesses to the 1965 killing of 18 year old Alys Eberhart. He gave details that were never released to the public. The daughter of Suffolk County victim Marilyn Simons asks DA Tierney to work with Cottingham. All Cottingham wants is immunity for her killing. He’s already serving multiple life terms. Tierney says nothing. https://raymondzuppa.com/maga-land/
To hunt them you have to know them. Here’s another example of a Long Island Serial Killer. Different then Cottingham.
The Angel
Go back to another typical day on Long Island where we meet Richard Angelo* a.k.a. the “Angel of Death.” A saint. No gore whatsoever.
Angelo committed 25 murders while working as a nurse at Good Samaritan Hospital in West Islip, Suffolk. From September to October 1987 there were 37 “code blue” emergencies during his shift. Only 12 of the 37 patients lived. The reason for all the death: Angelo had a scheme whereby he injected drugs into patients at the hospital – a combination of neuromuscular blocking agents pancuronium bromide and succinylcholine – that cause paralysis. Angelo rushed to the patient’s rescue to cast himself the hero. But he was a horrible nurse. Twenty-five bit the dust.
Angelo’s defense in Suffolk today would be “the Covid defense:”
“Look these people were old and unhealthy and were going to die soon anyway. I really didn’t kill them too bad.”
Jesus was a Carpenter
Just a few years later in 1990 Long Island carpenter Allen Gormeley confessed to killing two prostitutes. Then claimed cops coerced the confession with beer. At trial he maintained the prostitutes were killed during rough sex. He killed at least five more. The NCPD felt those crimes were best left unsolved – just blow away with the sands of time. Afterall Jesus was a carpenter.
Seinfeld Joel
Temporally overlapping Gormeley is East Meadow’s own Joel Rifkin. Active during the late 80s – early 90s. The State Police in a piece of shrewd detective work nailed him when they spotted him driving a pick-up truck at 3:00 a.m. with no license plates. He fled. After a long chase he crashed into a pole in front of the court house where he would be convicted. Police noticed a sickening smell. Then saw the decomposing hooker in the bed of the truck.
Rifkin admitted to 17 confirmed sex murders but he honestly has no idea how many he killed. High on drugs a lot.
Rifkin explained in his book Rifkin on Rifkin that prostitutes and addicts were perfect targets because they’re not missed on Long Island.
Crack & Hookers
Literally right up the block from Rifkin we have Robert Schulman. Baseball card stats: (Active 1989-1996 – same time as Rifkin) (Body Count – we know of five but there are more) (Method of Killing – Hammer to head, baseball bat to head, barbell to head) Shulman worked for the Post Office. He picked up his victims on the streets of the City like Rifkin. He took them back to his house where they smoked crack during sex. Shulman then repeatedly smashed the high, unsuspecting women on their heads. He chopped-off the dead women’s hands. He sometimes dismembered the head and legs too. He got off.
He was a Carpenter too
Don’t forget the other temporally overlapping killer: Manorville, Suffolk County’s own John Bittrolff some forty miles to the east. We have no idea how many he killed. He was a Carpenter too.
The Upstart
At the same time that Rifkin, Schulman, Gormeley and Bittrolff toiled a young newcomer plied his trade. If sex killings were an art this young upstart was about to paint a masterpiece. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfrEsv7cNOM&t=48s
Typical Long Island days.