His murders were not the outcome of stalking or planning but of fleeting encounters. 0000005253 00000 n Richard Francis Cottingham was born on November 25, 1946, in the Mott Haven neighborhood of the Bronx in New York City, the first of four children. When arrested, he had handcuffs, a leather gag, two slave collars, a switchblade knife, replica pistols, and a stockpile of prescription pills. 21 0 obj <> endobj Mr. Anzilotti would arrange to have the inmate transported to his office more than hours drive from the prison. In April 2021, Cottingham confessed to the unsolved 1974 double-abduction, rape, and forcible drowning murders of Lorraine Marie Kelly, 16, and Mary Ann Pryor, 17, in Montvale, one of New Jersey's most notorious cold cases. He had pornographic artwork, adhesive tape, books about S&M, said Geberth. Authorities executed a warrant on his Lodi home, which had a private room containing evidence linking him to the Torso Killer. Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters, List of serial killers in the United States, List of serial killers by number of victims, "New Jersey's 'Torso Killer' admits murdering 3 teenage girls over 50 years ago", "Justice Story: 'Times Square Ripper' revealed to be mild-mannered husband from suburban Jersey", "Long-Buried Secrets: The Serial Killer and the Detective", "First of Three Trials of Jerseyan in Prostitute Slayings Nears End", "Killer of 2 Is Guilty of 3 More Slayings", "Legislator Gaynor Honors Detectives Who Solved 50 Year Old Cold Case", "Mineola Woman's Murder 48 Years Ago Still Unsolved", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Richard_Cottingham&oldid=1142468060. On December 2, 1979, firemen in New York responded to an alarm at the Travel Inn motel[11] near Times Square. Did the old man kill those girls? The New York Times, p. 26. Then came Tuesdays pleas. The family lived in Lodi, and Mr. Cottingham commuted to a job as a computer operator at Blue Cross Blue Shield in Manhattan. It was Aug. 14, 1974, in Montvale, N.J., a suburb just over the New York state line. The girls vanished Aug. 9, 1974, while hitchhiking to a mall in . Then he shared his intentions to retire. Now I just have to go on with my life.. The clever killer slipped up, leaving a fingerprint on the cuffs. By all accounts, he seemed to be leading an everyday life in Lodi, New Jersey, with his wife and three kids. HUMs@Wf~}m1`16N7NLf%=Io8. Fifty years after his mother was strangled and thrown from a Long Island bridge, John Moye finally got a glimpse of the wickedness that altered his life forever. On February 15, 1968, Cottingham killed his second known victim. [15], In 2022, Cottingham was arraigned from his prison hospital bed for the 1968 murder of Diane Cusick in Long Island, New York. Cottinghamss name came up several times, but it didnt fit for me, she said. They sat at the kitchen table, very professional, very polite, very considerate, Ms. Mulder recalled. [5] On May 15, 1980, Jean Reyner was strangled and her throat cut in New York's historic Seville Hotel. [7] On October 28, 1967, he strangled Nancy Schiava Vogel, a 29-year-old married mother of two, in Little Ferry, New Jersey. More Local News to Love Start today for 50% off Expires 3/6/23, Rodrigo Torrejon | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com, discovery of a Ridgefield Park woman dead, nude and bound. [3], Cottingham was arrested on several lesser charges throughout his killing spree. Cottingham was convicted of five murders and numerous counts of kidnapping and sexual assault and sentenced to 173 to 197 years, which he is serving in Trentons New Jersey State Prison. Six months later, Vronsky would learn that the man he encountered on the elevator was Cottingham as the killers face appeared in newspapers across the region. Richard Cottingham, 76, pleaded guilty to the February 1968 murder of Diane Cusick, 23, and admitted to strangling four additional women in the 1970s in Nassau County. It contains 0 bedroom and 0 bathroom. Cottingham had stuffed Streets body under the bed for housekeeping to find, Vronsky said. He said he would talk about other murders only on the condition that the revelations would be kept out of the papers. When they arrived, one firefighter attempted mouth-to-mouth resuscitation of a woman they found on the bed. In 2004, Vronsky published his first book on homicidal maniacs, Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters, an exhaustive look at executioners slayings dating back to ancient Rome. Cottingham committed his first known murder when he was 20-years-old, although he claims to have started as an adolescent. They were never able to fully recover from the monumental loss, she said. Ive never seen rain like that, he said. Cottingham, who grew up in River Vale, has been in prison since the 1980s, when he was convicted of the first five murders to which he was linked. xb```"WVf~g`0pt 9"~S?``Z V|bG!+N}TzYl@2 `QD2 @DACEDJaOs6x?+[Ihlrt ? Cottingham, a former computer programmer whose wrath of terror spanned from 1967 to 1980, also copped on Monday to strangling Mary Beth Heinz, 21, in May 1972, three months before he killed Moye and dumped her body in the same creek. Maintenance workers found her body covered in plastic bags and wrapped in a gray blanket near a Jones Beach bus stop. The Rent Zestimate for this home is $3,099/mo, which has increased by $3,099/mo in the last 30 days. In his possession, the 33-year-old had a stash of handcuffs, tape and sedatives. Richard Francis Cottingham (born November 25, 1946) is an American serial killer and rapist who murdered at least eighteen young women and girls in New York and New Jersey between 1967 and 1980. Over the months that followed, Mr. Anzilotti cultivated an unusual relationship with Mr. Cottingham, sometimes testy, sometimes closer to a sort of warmth. Once again, the victim did not appear in further proceedings and the case was dismissed.[6]. Pages in category "People from Lodi, New Jersey" The following 21 pages are in this category, out of 21 total. 0000009992 00000 n F! And at the time, it was beyond our capacity to look beyond New York City, he told The Post. Over the course of 13 years, beginning in 1967, Cottingham killed six women in New Jersey and New York. She was stunned. He tried a different approach. 0000008735 00000 n Its his fault this is out.. For more information, please read our Privacy & Cookie Policy. His upcoming sentencing will add more time to a prison term that already extends beyond his remaining years. 0000001982 00000 n xref A real sick bastard did this, retired NYPD detective Jim Riegel, who was working as a beat cop that day, recalls his sergeant telling him in the new Netflix series Crime Scene: The Times Square Killer, out Wednesday. Which is entirely possible, especially in those days.. Moye, 55, stared down serial murderer and rapist Richard Cottingham in a Nassau County courtroom Monday as the 76-year-old notorious Torso Killer admitted to five more sadistic slayings decades earlier, bringing his known tally to 17 although experts believe that figure could be as high as 100 victims. %PDF-1.4 % But as he considered retirement, he kept returning to the two girls found dead in the woods. The inmate, with no real incentive to say anything about that crime, had given the chief what amounted to a parting gift. Richard Cottingham was convicted of five murders and numerous counts of kidnapping and sexual assault using evidence found in his 'trophy room' combined with a matching fingerprint left on. He was locked away to serve several life sentences, aging into a portly man with a thick white beard. It took some effort to convince him to go to court and let me make it public, Anzilotti said Tuesday. On Thursday, authorities told NJ Advance Media that Cottingham confessed to the murders of three Bergen County teenagers in the late 1960s - each a cold case for over 50 years. My whole life has been this, she said. Just shy of his 21st birthday, Richard Cottingham began a vicious killing spree that tore through north New Jersey and New York City. Neither complainant appeared in further proceedings, however, and the case was dismissed. Like two little dolls at Christmastime.. He had no relationship to his victims. His proclivity toward violence and the lack of solid profiling tactics for serial killers made Vronsky believe that Cottinghams claim of 100 victims was possible. And for Cottingham, every night was a full moon.. The following is a list of his victims in chronological order. Blase was found strangled to death in 4 feet of water in Saddle River the next day. Starting in 2014, Cottingham confidentially admitted to Detective Robert Anzilotti of the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office (BCPO) to being the perpetrator of the murders of three teenage females between 1968 and 1969. In December 2019, forensic historian and author Peter Vronsky, on the eve of publishing the revelation in his second edition of Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters, publicized the confessions with the BCPO's cooperation, in a community meeting in Midland Park. Its not something you can ever get over, Altman, 58, told The Post. Location of first contact Maryann Carr = her apartment; Prostitutes = street or bar . Its taken more than 46 years, but a Bergen County police veteran who is only days from retirement got one of the countrys most notorious serial killers to confess. For decades, a string of killings of teenage girls haunted suburban New Jersey. Look her up, she looks like her. Others he remembered from a haircut.. Richard Cottingham, convicted of murdering prostitute and kidnapping three. Other locations that are relatively close to this place. 0000003125 00000 n He had been dubbed the Times Square Torso Ripper setting off Vronskys lifelong fascination of serial killers. Prosecutors will seek dual life sentences to run alongside his current lifetime term when Cottingham is sentenced on July 9 for what Musella said were the willful, deliberate, and premediated murders of Mary Ann Prior and Lorraine Kelly. 21 0 obj <> endobj A few days later, Mr. Anzilotti visited Mr. Cottingham in his new surroundings and told him, I put you here.. As the New Jersey press reported on Cottinghams arrest, the NYPD started to take notice. Richard Cottingham seemed like a character from a pulp novel: the crazed killer and the family man. Vronsky, who aided investigators in obtaining Junes indictment, is trying to coax as many confessions out of the aging, 300-pound serial killer as possible, but the clock is ticking since he suffers from diabetes and kidney disease, he said. 0000010308 00000 n In April of 1979, he started living in the basement of the property after his wife initiated divorce proceedings against him for "abandonment" and "mental cruelty.". The inmate made it clear that pressure would not work. Furthermore, one of the women that he murdered in 1979 is still unidentified. It doesnt bring my mother back, but at least I have answers now. Cottingham was not charged with this murder until June 2022, when he was implicated by DNA.[10]. In this image taken from a New Jersey Courts virtual hearing, Richard Cottingham, center, known as the "Torso Killer," pleads guilty Tuesday, April 27, 2021, to two 1974 murders. He had not yet put in for retirement, or even told his boss he planned to do that the following week. 0000003686 00000 n To this day, I dont even think they would have ever said anything. The year 2020 arrived, and running his office through the coronavirus outbreak kept Mr. Anzilotti too busy for cold cases. endstream endobj 22 0 obj<> endobj 23 0 obj<> endobj 24 0 obj<>/ColorSpace<>/Font<>/ProcSet[/PDF/Text/ImageC]/ExtGState<>>> endobj 25 0 obj<> endobj 26 0 obj<> endobj 27 0 obj<> endobj 28 0 obj[/ICCBased 41 0 R] endobj 29 0 obj<> endobj 30 0 obj<> endobj 31 0 obj<> endobj 32 0 obj<> endobj 33 0 obj<>stream 0000006081 00000 n But he carried those cold cases with him literally, his thick files in cardboard boxes that he moved from office to office chipping away at the false leads, seeking similarities in the victims and in the crime scenes. The public in Bergen County deserved to know the outcome of those girls, he said. Straddling her back, he drew a knife and put it to her throat as he snapped a pair of handcuffs on her wrists. 21 23 In 1948, Cottingham's family moved to Dumont, New Jersey, and in 1956 to River Vale, New Jersey, where he began his fascination with bondage pornography. Her glasses, a ring, a necklace, Ms. Mulder said. 0000000756 00000 n 0000009543 00000 n After nearly 15 years of interviews by Anzilotti and Detective Capt. But first, he wanted to return to those two murders from 47 years ago. [7] In a 2009 interview, Cottingham admitted to the murders and claimed that he severed the heads and hands of the victims to prevent their identification, as he was acquainted with Goodarzi and had been seen with her in a bar the night before.[2]. Inmates were wagering everything from cash to cigarettes. Richard Cottingham, 74, pleaded guilty Tuesday to murdering Mary Ann Pryor, 17, and Lorraine Marie Kelly, 16, both of North Bergen. I could feel it.. The sergeant was undeterred. 0000003202 00000 n Her body was found the next morning by the side of a road next to a cemetery in Saddle Brook. WjgF\A9Ro9r/;l5Gh3h}NG2L -S$B{s"=z{ 0EaSe,&@yJQ>`n; ;dj7n (~>*}fEx*\W]xvpt]/k"0JTj4%`G?t$8I@FmYkr(_5_+ jfbXP{]~&I6"%}\STHD Ld2=ENhk$)HESdX,g o+IkRC~eC1 dm"GZBDM7~K&'/9"[{$AXH'my Cottingham, a divorced father of three who previously lived in Lodi, NJ, also pleaded guilty to the February 1968 rape and murder of Diane Cusick, 23, a dance instructor from New Hyde Park, NY. Anyone can read what you share. In 1981, he was found guilty of her murder and sentenced to nearly 200 years in prison. James McMorrow, Cottingham confessed last year to three other cold-case slayings of teenage school girls in Bergen County: Jacalyn (Jackie) Harp, 13, of Midland Park, who was walking home from school band practice on July 17, 1968 when she was strangled with the leather strap of her flag sling; Irene Blase, 18, of Bogota, who went missing from Hackensack on April 7, 1969 and was found strangled in Saddle River; Denise Falasca, 15, of Closter, who went missing from Westwood on July 14, 1969. You can set your cookie preferences below. Cottingham's confirmed killings resulted in nine convictions and a further eight confessions under non-prosecution agreements, leading to him serving multiple life sentences in New Jersey prisons. Cottingham admitted during the plea hearing that he brought Mary Ann and Lorraine to a hotel, where he raped both and bound the girls to keep them from getting away. When a worker came to check on her, ODell cracked open the door and gave a hand signal asking for help. Richard Cottingham who is already serving time in state prison for several . Defense attorney John Bruno recited the details, which the white-bearded, 74-year-old killer acknowledged. Those old enough to remember can recall the fear that many felt after the bodies of two girls from North Bergen whod gone missing after a shopping trip to Paramus were found raped, beaten and drowned in Bergen County. The victim, Valerie Street, had just been busted in Miami for prostitution, and was last seen getting picked up by a man in New York City. On May 4, 1980, the body of Street, a sex worker, was found at the same Quality Inn where Cottingham had dumped Carrs body. This is a private property. The brief encounter later inspired Vronsky to write his serial killer histories and paved the way for his prison meetings with Cottingham four decades later. After dismembering Goodarzi, Cottingham lit her torso on fire, along with a second unidentified woman, who was found next to Goodarzi on the same bed. As he moved through Midtown undetected, Cottingham, a successful computer operator at Blue Cross Blue Shield in Manhattan, was also committing sadistic sexual assault and sometimes murder at the Quality Inn, a motel in Hasbrouck Heights, NJ. A local investigator began to wonder: Could there be a link to a series of infamous Times Square murders? To bring Mr. Cottingham back to court, where the case would certainly draw attention, would stop him from talking about other open cases, the chief explained. On Tuesday, Richard Cottingham, 74, sat in a wheelchair in beige prison scrubs as he pleaded guilty to kidnapping the teenage girls and raping them for days before he drowned them in a motel room bathtub. Neither man has claimed to have been aware of the other, nor is there any evidence they were familiar with each other prior to their respective arrests. Cottingham offered to give O'Dell a massage and she rolled onto her stomach. Justice was served and thats the end of it case closed. The 22-year-old's death appeared brutal: she had been beheaded and set on fire and her skull has yet to be found. I had long suspected that whoever killed Irene Blase also killed Denise Falasca, Mr. Anzilotti said. Mr. Cottingham had a vulnerability, the chief realized: After divulging nothing during hours of questioning, hed sometimes loosen up on the drive back to prison, sitting in the back seat and believing the day was done. Denise Falasca, 15, of Closter, New Jersey. His yearbook photo shows a cross-country runner with blond hair slicked back. K3nVxb;X)oxeHME~> This murder was later linked to the 1977 murder of Maryann Carr, who was left in the same motel's parking lot. Cottingham was serving time for five murders, following convictions in New Jersey and New York, when Bergen prosecutors detectives in 2010 tied him to the killing of 29-year-old Ridgefield Park mom Nancy Schiava Vogel, bringing the total then to six. The highly-respected law enforcement veteran knew the notorious killer was responsible for the deaths of the North Bergen teens, but Cottingham made him work for it. I was able to get almostany woman to do whatever I wanted them to do . The five victims addressed . He then drowned them in a bathtub, he said, and dumped their bodies in the woods in a wooded area behind Rolling Ridge Road in Montvale. Below, you will find the address and the GPS coordinates for this location. Little more than a week after Street was found, Reyner was found butchered in the Seville Motel in New York City. The other girls did, you have to take it, too. YouTubes privacy policy is available here and YouTubes terms of service is available here. Get the latest updates right in your inbox. And at. Boyfriends, ex-boyfriends, family members all were questioned and cleared of suspicion. [2], In 2010, he pleaded guilty to the 1967 murder of Nancy Vogel. Ms. In 2009, decades after his first five murder convictions, Cottingham told a journalist that he had committed at least 80 to 100 "perfect murders" of women in various regions of the United States. [13] In 2021, he pleaded guilty to the 1974 kidnapping, raping and drowning of Lorraine Marie Kelly and Mary Ann Pryor. 0000000756 00000 n For a year, he refused to speak to Mr. Anzilotti. His yearbook photo shows a cross-country runner with blond hair slicked back. Cottingham severed the victim's breasts and posed them on the headboard of the bed, and set fire to the mattress under her body before fleeing, similar to the Travel Inn torso killings. He would let his guard down, Mr. Anzilotti said. 0 The Blase family agreed. The body of Laverne Moye, of St. Albans, Queens, was discovered in a Rockville Centre creek on July 20, 1972. The people listed below were born in, residents of, or otherwise closely associated with Lodi, New Jersey. The police photograph on the left was taken in June of 1980. On December 15, 1977, the body of X-ray technician Maryann Carr, 26, was found brutally beaten and strangled in the parking lot of the Quality Inn motel in Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey, but police did not link the murder to Cottingham until his 1980 arrest at the same motel. Much like John Moye, Altman, who now lives in Ocala, Fla., said she struggled to process Cottinghams savagery. And considering the closure of yesterdays cases, I absolutely believe him.. Bergen County investigators realized there were numerous open sexual assault cases with similar hallmarks: Cottingham kidnapped them from Times Square, drugged and assaulted them. I just kind of looked at it and touched it and put it in a box where I had some dried flowers for my mother when she passed.. %%EOF Author Peter Vronsky, who has a forthcoming book on Cottingham, and was first to publicly announce that the imprisoned Cottingham was responsible for the three 50-year-old crimes, says authorities want to add more to the list. I can go all the way back to the first detective on the case. Cottingham was convicted of five murders and numerous counts of kidnapping and sexual assault and sentenced to 173 to 197 years, which he is serving in Trenton's New Jersey State Prison. Stumped, the police used mannequins from nearby department stores and dressed them in the victims clothing, hoping to spark an identification from friends or family who recognized the outfits. He tortured women before he killed them and did terrible things to them, and yet we still dont know who he is because he preyed on sex workers, Berlinger said, adding that he hopes this series helps destigmatize sex work and potentially solve more cold cases. About a week later, Big Apple authorities would find Reyners body, but still, no one in New Jersey connected them to the Times Square killer, says former NYPD detective Malcolm Reiman in the series. The third result is Richard Eric Cunningham age 50s in Skillman, NJ. But in 2009, he surfaced to again make waves, when he gave a chilling interview to journalist Nadia Fezzani about his motivation and his body count. FPh_3Gj Nt%Q[r L`%/9QTh/| Q4_g8KI}u'?xbif`H>;wNQ|sd2(? Prosecutors had long believed that Cottingham abducted Mary Ann and Lorraine both North Bergen High School students whod been known to hitch-hike during a shopping trip to the Garden State Plaza on August 9, 1974. endstream endobj 34 0 obj<>stream Its Godlike almost. He would occasionally remove and dispose of his victims heads and hands, presumably to make identification more difficult. For more details, please read our Privacy & Cookie Policy. This number may increase in the future, as he has stated in the past that his victim count is much higher. Anything that might close more cases, bring answers to more families. Correctional officers found contraband and evidence of bookmaking and transferred Mr. Cottingham to solitary confinement. . In the new docuseries, the second in Netflixs Crime Scene anthology, director Joe Berlinger dissects the Torso Killers murder spree against the backdrop of the sexually charged, crime-ridden culture of 1970s Times Square and how it provided the predator with a fertile hunting ground. The bodies of the women had no heads and no hands. In 2022, Cottingham also confessed to the 1968 murder of Diane Cusick after DNA evidence linked him to the crime. Math-wise its possible," said Vronsky. Serial Killer House in Lodi, New Jersey, United States. However, please be aware that not allowing certain cookies may impact your experience of the site. He was eventually convicted of five murders in New Jersey and New York and sent to a New Jersey state prison in the early 1980s. On Monday, July 13, 1969, at approximately 8:00 p.m., On March 1, 1970, a group of hikers came across a young woman's naked body in the woods to the west of Tweed Boulevard in, At approximately 7:00 a.m. on the morning of December 16, 1977, the body of X-ray technician, At 9:30 a.m. on May 22, 1980, police entered Room 117 at the same Quality Inn where Carr and Street were murdered and found 18-year-old, This page was last edited on 2 March 2023, at 15:20. Retrieved April 2nd, 2007, from Factiva database. And I said, Hop in., He drove to the mall. Although Vogel was the earliest of Cottinghams murder victims, the killer has said she was not his first, according to Vronsky. There was also a lockbox filled with trophies from his murders, including Maryann Carrs apartment key and a necklace belonging to Jean Reyner. Serial killer Richard Cottingham made his admission in the cold case murders of the high school girls, acknowledging that he kidnapped, raped and finally drowned the pair inside a motel room. 0000004577 00000 n Her breasts had been severed and torso had been set on fire, Vronsky said. He began to speak about a particular case, he said. Although first responders encountered thick smoke in the room, one noticed the shape of bodies on the pair of twin beds and attempted to administer CPR.