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John Moye finally saw a glimpse of the evil that irrevocably altered his life fifty years after his mother was strangled and thrown over a Long Island bridge.
Moye, 55, confronted serial killer and rapist Richard Cottingham in a Nassau County courtroom on Monday as the 76-year-old legendary “Torso Killer” acknowledged to five additional cruel slayings decades earlier, bringing his known total to 17; however, experts say that number might be as high as 100.
Moye told The Post, “Everything that I had been taught about evil was clear in his appearance, behavior, and glance.” “It was a heinous act. I could sense it’
On July 20, 1972, the body of Laverne Moye, from St. Albans, Queens, was recovered in a creek in Rockville Centre. Cottingham, a vicious murderer already serving more than 200 years in jail, admitted to throwing the 22-year-old mother of two over a bridge, putting an end to her family’s half-century-long search for answers.
Cottingham, who murdered Laverne Moye in 1972, was eventually brought to prison 50 years later.
Moye stated of this week’s hearing, “It signified closure.” It was a chance to let the world know that Laverne Moye was a person. She was a mother, a wife, a daughter, and a grandma who passed away much too soon. However, her light shines brightly against the darkness.”
Monday was the first time Moye had ever seen Cottingham, who mutilated some of his victims, including two women whose dismembered bodies were discovered in a motel in Times Square in December 1979.
Moye stated that he was astonished to learn that his mother’s confessed murderer was a serial killer. “I had no idea what to anticipate. It was a complete state of shock.”
Moye, who traveled from Georgia to watch Cottingham confess to killing his mother and four other women as part of a plea bargain, said he relied heavily on his Catholic faith as the unrepentant killer viewed the confession via video feed from South Woods State Prison in New Jersey, where he is serving multiple life sentences. According to Laverne’s son, it was especially painful to hear prosecutors describe gruesome crime scenes like the one where his mother was discovered.
An specialist on serial killers who interviewed Cottingham, pictured here in a 1980 booking photo, reckons he may have killed as many as 100 people.
Moye remarked of Cottingham, “I was amazed that a single human being was capable of all much destruction.” “And he sat there without any sorrow whatsoever. He lacked the humility and integrity to seek for forgiveness or even address the relatives of the victims. He acted cowardly.”
Cottingham, a divorced father of three from Lodi, New Jersey, pled guilty to the rape and murder of Diane Cusick, 23, a dance instructor from New Hyde Park, New York, in February 1968.
This week, Cottingham also pled guilty to raping and murdering Diane Cusick in 1968.
Darlene Altman, daughter of Dennis A. Clark Cusick, told The Post this week, about the confession, “It doesn’t bring my mother back, but at least I have answers now.”
AP
Cottingham was indicted in June for Cusick’s murder after DNA evidence tied him to the cold-case murder — considered to be the oldest match ever to lead to trial, according to Nassau County prosecutors. After hearing emotional impact statements from Cusick’s brother and only child, the judge sentenced him to 25 years to life in prison.
Darlene Altman, Cusick’s daughter, told Nassau County Judge Caryn Fink that her deceased grandparents nurtured her after her mother’s tragic murder. She stated that they were never able to fully recover from the catastrophic loss.
According to reports, prosecutors are attempting to extract additional admissions from Cottingham, who is in poor health.
The 58-year-old Altman told The Post, “It’s something you can never get over.” “I cannot even conceive of losing a child. That is not the natural order in which things should occur.”
Altman, who was only 3 years old at the time, stated that her parents had split previous to the murder of Cusick. According to her, she grew up without a father because her grandparents disapproved of him.
In 1980, the first crimes connected to Cottingham appeared on the top page of The Post.
“That day, I lost so much more than simply my mother,” said Altman. It does not bring back my mum, but at least I now have answers. The case has been resolved; justice has been served. Now I must continue living my life.”
Cusick, a dance instructor in the Oceanside hamlet of Long Island, purchased a pair of shoes at Green Acres Mall in Valley Stream. Hours later, her parents drove to the mall and discovered Diane’s body in the backseat of her Plymouth Valiant in the parking lot. She had been bound and strangled, according to authorities.
In 1979, Cottingham raped, tortured, and beheaded two sex workers near Times Square at the Travel Inn Motel.
AP
Cottingham was nicknamed as the Times Square Killer because of the Travel Inn Murders, during a time when the area was infamous for its seediness.
Dennis Hallinan
Similar to John Moye, Altman, who currently resides in Ocala, Florida, stated that she hard to comprehend Cottingham’s brutality.
She stated, “The man has no heart, no soul, and no emotions whatsoever.” “It is difficult to comprehend how someone could be that way. It is mind-boggling and terrifying to know that there are more of them out there.”
1972’s killing of Mary Beth Heinz was among the five fatalities that Cottingham recently admitted to.
Cottingham, a former computer programmer whose reign of terror lasted from 1967 to 1980, admitted on Monday to strangling 21-year-old Mary Beth Heinz in May 1972, three months before he murdered Moye and deposited her body in the same creek.
Sheila Heiman, a 33-year-old mother of three, was fatally bludgeoned in her North Woodmere, New York, home in July 1973, where her husband discovered her upon his return from shopping, according to authorities.
Five months later, the serial killer struck again by strangling Maria Emerita Rosado Nieves, a Puerto Rican-born 18-year-old from Manhattan. Near a Jones Beach bus stop, maintenance personnel discovered her body covered in plastic bags and wrapped in a gray blanket.
Cottingham, whose counsel did not respond to requests for comment, has claimed to have murdered up to 100 women. Peter Vronsky is currently writing his second book on the horrible killing spree that culminated in May 1980 at a New Jersey motel, when police caught Cottingham after he handcuffed, stabbed, and bit a woman of 18 years of age. A maid heard the adolescent’s piercing screams and contacted the police.
1973 saw the murder of Randi Childs’ mother, Sheila Heiman, by Cottingham, who was 33 years old at the time.
Gabriella Bass
Vronsky told The Post, “I believe he has killed between 85 and 100 individuals, as he claims.” “Absolutely, it is entirely believable. And knowing the conclusion of yesterday’s instances, I have no reason to doubt him.”
Vronsky, who frequently visits Cottingham in jail, stated that on December 2, 1979, as he attempted to check into the Travel Inn Motel in a filthy and sex-crazed Times Square, he had a bizarre, random elevator encounter with the serial killer.
Cottingham had just raped, tortured, and beheaded two sex workers before lighting the motel room on fire. On his way out, he struck the author with a bag that appeared to contain bowling balls, according to Vronsky.
Cottingham has already been sentenced to multiple life terms.
New Jersey Division of Corrections
Six months later, Vronsky would learn that the man he met in the elevator was Cottingham, when the murderer’s face began to appear in regional media. He was labeled the “Times Square Torso Ripper,” which sparked Vronsky’s lifelong fascination with serial killers.
In 2004, Vronsky published his first book on homicidal psychopaths, “Serial Killers: The Method and Insanity of Monsters,” a comprehensive examination of executioners’ killings stretching back to ancient Rome. Later, in “Times Square Torso Ripper: Sex and Murder on The Deuce,” he described his brief meeting with Cottingham in 1979. His forthcoming book about the ferocious predator will be published in the fall of 2018.
Vronsky, who assisted investigators in obtaining an indictment in June, is attempting to extract as many admissions as possible from the aged, 300-pound serial murderer, who suffers from diabetes and kidney illness, he added.
While preying on women, Cottingham resided in this Lodi, New Jersey, residence.
Cottinghamm relayed his killing spree in letters and interviews over a course of five years, according to Vronsky. “He would describe to me specific driving routes,” Vronsky claimed. So that he might recall anything along the route, such as a racetrack or a shopping center. In the instance of Diane Cusick, it was a no-longer-existent drive-in… He remembers the traits of the victims, but not their names.”
Vronsky, whose works also include an authoritative tome documenting 17,000 years of pathological homicide, asserted that Cottingham scouted his victims before to evolving into a savage monster.
“As a werewolf,” Vronsky explained to The Post. And every night for Cottingham was a full moon.
»Children of victims meet serial “Torso” murderer Richard Cottingham: “Pure evil.”«