Infamous 'Torso Killer' admitted to butchering dozens more women than six he's ... trends now
Retired detective Robert Anzilotti exclusively revealed in an upcoming A&E documentary that he has solved his seventh cold-case linked to serial killer Richard Cottingham - also known as the 'Torso Killer' and 'The Times Square Killer.'
Mary Ann Della Sala, 17, disappeared in January of 1967 after finishing her shift at the Ship-Rite on Essex Street in Hackensack, New Jersey.
Her body was discovered three months later in Jersey's Passaic River, though the case remained unsolved until March 2022, when Anzilotti coaxed a confession out of Cottingham, with whom he had developed a relationship over the years.
The documentary also features never-before-heard audio tapes of conversations between Anzilotti and Cottingham, some of which the killer did not know were being recorded.
Ultimately, Cottingham, 76, would go on to tell Anzilotti that he may have murdered as many as 100 women in the tri-state area in the 1970s.
Serial killer Richard Cottingham is currently serving six life sentences in prison. He was recently sentenced to 25 more years for admitting to five more kills
Mary Ann Della Sala, who Cottingham finally told Anzilotti he'd killed n 1967
Cottingham is currently serving six life sentences after being convicted in the early 80s of five murders across two separate trials in Jersey, and one in New York.
In late 2022, he confessed to the brutal slayings of five additional women, for which he was sentenced to an additional 25 years to life for each victim.
'There are no words to describe how purely evil you are,' Nassau County Court Judge Caryn Fink told the killer, who appeared in court virtually.
Cottingham is likely responsible for dozens more cold case murders to which the police have not successfully connected him. Anzilotti, however, told the New York Post he was 'determined' to 'use my retirement as a tool to get [Cottingham] to talk about more of those [cold] cases.'
'He had teased me over the years that he was responsible for other murders' but never wanted to admit it,' he added.
The killer earned his name because he cut off the limbs of his victims and even beheaded some.
The confirmation that Cottingham killed Della Sala will be explored in the documentary, 'The Torso Killer Confessions,' which airs in two parts beginning on March 9 and ending on March 10. But Anzilotti
