God rest their souls," Bergen County Prosecutor's Chief of Detective Robert Anzilotti said Tuesday after Richard Cottingham of Lodi admitted killing both in 1974. . After years in prison, Mr. Cottingham began to open up to the detective about past unsolved crimes. 0000004577 00000 n By all accounts, he seemed to be leading an everyday life in Lodi, New Jersey, with his wife and three kids. He admitted that those two killings weighed on him more than the others. He did not know the names of those he killed. Hed been a married father of three, but the Lodi resident - who would brutalize his victims bodies, cutting off limbs, heads and breasts - would later become known as the Torso Killer" for what he left behind. 0000003202 00000 n [18], During the early 1980s, Cottingham was convicted of five murders in two separate New Jersey trials in 1981[19] and 1982,[20] and in a single New York trial in 1984 for three murders. 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. Hearing prosecutors detail grisly crime scenes like where Laverne was found was especially difficult to endure, her son said. 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. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. But first, he wanted to return to those two murders from 47 years ago. For a year, he refused to speak to Mr. Anzilotti. In 1964, Cottingham graduated from Pascack Valley High School in Hillsdale, New Jersey. And at. When a worker came to check on her, ODell cracked open the door and gave a hand signal asking for help. You can change your choice at any time by using the Privacy Center link in our footer. Then he shared his intentions to retire. Vogel was found dead in her own car in Ridgefield Park, nude and bound. xref However, please be aware that not allowing certain cookies may impact your experience of the site. This girl did everything right, Vronsky said. Retrieved April 2nd, 2007, from Factiva database. Filming Location in Lodi, New Jersey, United States, Filming Location in Paterson, New Jersey, United States, Filming Location in Clifton, New Jersey, United States, Filming Location in Bloomfield, New Jersey, United States, Crime Location Wylie, Texas, United States, Crime Location Memphis, Tennessee, United States, Place of Interest Brooklyn, New York, United States, Crash Site Location Beaufort, South Carolina, United States. 0000001001 00000 n Monday marked the first time Moye ever laid eyes on Cottingham, who dismembered some of victims, including two women whose bodies were found without their heads and hands in a Times Square motel in December 1979. He was originally from the Bronx in New York City. [6] The confession was extracted by Detective Anzilotti weeks before his retirement and was facilitated by historian Vronsky and by Jennifer Weiss, the daughter of Deedeh Goodarzi, one of Cottingham's later victims. This time, at the Seville Hotel, where he strangled Jean Reyner, a 25-year-old mother working in the sex trade to finance a child custody battle. She had been abducted while walking home from practice with her schools fife-and-drum team in 1968. Now 74, Cottingham, who claims responsibility for dozens of murders, has confessed to a. Blase was 18 when she was found strangled in Saddle River in 1969. I never broke my promise to him, all these years later, the chief said. A local investigator began to wonder: Could there be a link to a series of infamous Times Square murders? 0000001412 00000 n During a search of the house, investigators discovered personal items belonging to some of his victims. Although Cottingham has formally admitted to eighteen killings and has claimed to have killed as many as 100, he is known to have only murdered seventeen girls between 1967 and 1980 and attempted to kill a further four. This is the house where the "Times Square Killer," Richard Cottingham, lived between 1975 and 1980. Photos of the house and other related images. Everyone deserves justice under the law.. Cottingham had stuffed Streets body under the bed for housekeeping to find, Vronsky said. Rodrigo Torrejon may be reached at rtorrejon@njadvancemedia.com. The details stopped him cold. The New York Times, p. 26. I just ruled him out. In April 1978, Cottingham's wife filed for divorce on the grounds of "abandonment" and "mental cruelty" (refusing to have sex with her after the birth of their third child, staying out until early morning, and leaving her with insufficient household funds). He soon realized the woman had no head, the Daily News reported. The following is a chronological summary of Cottingham's seventeen identified murder victims and four identified survivors: Cottingham's case has been discussed in several books and documentaries on serial killers. Cottingham has been given various nicknames over the years. He rented an apartment in Midtown and told his wife he worked nights. In 1981, he was found guilty of her murder and sentenced to nearly 200 years in prison. That made 11 murders Cottingham that admitted since his arrest more than 30 years ago. This story has been shared 150,597 times. This is a somber day as we revisit the horrific acts and terror this man brought upon Bergen County nearly 50 years ago, the prosecutor said Tuesday. 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 Select this result to view Richard P Cunningham's phone number, address, and more. K3nVxb;X)oxeHME~> 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. 0000001082 00000 n After those confessions, the two men barely spoke. Richard Cottingham of Lodi (NJ) is sentenced to 173-179 years in prison. He then left the scene with their severed heads and hands. In early December 1979, firefighters were called to the Travel Inn Motor Hotel on 42nd Street as a fire burned in room 417. Cottingham has claimed in the past he. He also claims that his true victim count is at least 85. (1981, June 25). Richard is related to Rosemarie Marie Cunningham and Larry J Cunningham as well as 3 additional people. When arrested, he had handcuffs, a leather gag, two slave collars, a switchblade knife, replica pistols, and a stockpile of prescription pills. The other girls did, you have to take it, too. It was Aug. 14, 1974, in Montvale, N.J., a suburb just over the New York state line. 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. But he eventually realized the years-long association, which involved countless state prison visits, was coming to an end. Note that there seems to have been a "lull" between 1970 and 1973. He described in detail how, instead, he took the girls to a motel, held them captive and eventually drowned them in the bathtub. Absolutely, its completely plausible. Both men were keenly aware that it was their years-old relationship that had brought about this moment. In other words, he may have been content and/or preoccupied. Despite the gruesome nature of his murders, the butcher, named Richard Cottingham, never warranted the breathless news coverage of David Son of Sam Berkowitz, who only three years prior paralyzed the Big Apple with fear. 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. Once, he outright explained his hesitation: He said, I know once I give you that case, Ill never see you again, Mr. Anzilotti recalled last month. [2] Four surviving abduction-rape victims testified against Cottingham; he was convicted in three of the cases and acquitted in one. He enjoys our relationship. The plea leaves the question: Will they be Cottinghams final admissions? Authorities tied him to the killings after police were called to a Hasbrouck Heights motel, where a maid had heard a woman screaming. 0000003451 00000 n The bodies of the women had no heads and no hands. My parents couldnt handle it., She had called Bergen County every few months to ask about the case for 47 years, she said. So he would remember something on the way: a racetrack or a shopping mall. It was an era when the sex worker was criminalized. Knowing better, Harp, just 13 years old, refused. (1981, June 16). 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. The police were called and Cottingham was apprehended while trying to flee. He'd been a married father of three, but the Lodi resident - who would brutalize his victim's bodies, cutting off limbs, heads and breasts - would later become known as the "Torso Killer" for. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Advance Local. Described as average and normal, New Jersey man Richard Cottingham was a father-of-three with a marriage that was slowly unravelling. 0000006846 00000 n He drove his car ahead of Harp, pulled over and walked back toward her, Vronsky said. [16], In the early hours of May 22, 1980, Cottingham picked up 18-year-old Leslie Ann O'Dell, who was soliciting on the corner of Manhattan's Lexington Avenue and 25th Street. He had his list of names, each one a dead girl and a crime long unsolved. This number may increase in the future, as he has stated in the past that his victim count is much higher. Zestimate Home Value: $598,600. When they arrived, one firefighter attempted mouth-to-mouth resuscitation of a woman they found on the bed. 0000005253 00000 n He would approach them in bars, drug them with the date rape drug Tuinal, take them to a remote locationtypically a motelwhere he would bind, gag, torture, and stab them before killing them by strangling them with a ligature. It was just shock all the way around.. Premiering on Dec. 29, the three-part season explores the case of Richard Cottingham, a New Jersey man who was dubbed "The Torso Killer" and found guilty of killing 11 women between 1967 and 1980. On May 5, 1980, a motel housekeeper found the body of 19-year-old Valerie Ann Street in the Hasbrouck Heights Quality Inn. F! For decades, a string of killings of teenage girls haunted suburban New Jersey. Mr. Anzilotti and another investigator drove to the town of Reading, Vt., to deliver the news to Jackies older sister, Suzan Mulder, then 69. In 2010, Bergen County authorities announced hed pleaded guilty to a sixth murder, a 1967 strangling in Bergen County. It was a game to me. 21 23 0000001250 00000 n Investigators noted the crime scene was devoid of evidence and they were unable to identify the victims. To this day, I dont even think they would have ever said anything. The potential payoff in return felt almost too important to describe. Mr. Anzilotti, by then a sergeant, arranged a surprise search of the inmates cell the day after the Super Bowl. But it was a way to get him comfortable to talk to me about murders.. Then, with just days remaining before the chief retired, the inmate relented. 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. Which, of course, I wasnt overly interested in, the former chief said. Then in exchange for immunity from prosecution, he confessed to murdering three New Jersey schoolgirls. Twenty years later, he was reinvestigating several cold cases involving girls and young women who had been abducted, sexually abused and killed. They have also lived in Whiting, IN. If you purchase a product or register for an account through one of the links on our site, we may receive compensation. startxref On April 7, 1969, Cottingham saw Blase, 18, shopping in Hackensack, Vronsky said. 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. South Hackensack, Richard Cottingham, Lorraine Kelly, Mary Ann Pryor, Bergen County Prosecutor's Chief of Detectives Robert Anzilotti, Ecuadorian National Pleads Guilty To Brutal Stabbing Death Of Popular Bergen County Chef, Franklin Lakes Driver Indicted In Teaneck T-Bone Crash That Kil, Paterson Non-Violence Activist Shot Dead In Police Standoff Was, Man Killed By Amtrak Train In Central Jersey Was Family Breadwi, WATCH: YouTube Video Shows Rapper Assaulting Bergen Shop Rite W, Motel Guest Covered In Lotion Rescued From Knife-Wielding Woman, DWI Suspected In Horrific Route 80 Crash In Bergen County. Her name was Nancy Schiava Vogel. 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. FPh_3Gj Nt%Q[r L`%/9QTh/| Q4_g8KI}u'?xbif`H>;wNQ|sd2(? Cottingham fled the scene with the victims heads and hands. With Cottinghams next victim, a killers hunting ground of sorts began to form. He would occasionally remove and dispose of his victims heads and hands, presumably to make identification more difficult. Cottingham was apprehended in the hallway by arriving police officers. He would let his guard down, Mr. Anzilotti said. 43 0 obj <>stream A number of killings of young women and girls in New Jersey and New York had gone unsolved for years before a night in May 1980 when a maid at a Hasbrouck Heights hotel called police saying shed heard a woman screaming. In this image taken from a New Jersey Courts virtual hearing, Richard Cottingham, center, known as the "Torso Killer," pleads guilty April 27, 2021, to two 1974 murders, finally closing the cold case deaths of teenage friends who had left home for a trip to the mall and never returned. Hes younger when all this is going on in Bergen County, he said. A third the killing of 13-year-old Jackie Harp seemed to be the work of another killer. That was less than a year after Cottingham and his wife had their first child. 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. For years, the three confessions remained a secret, until January 2020, when a true-crime writer who had been visiting Mr. Cottingham in prison, Peter Vronsky, announced that the inmate had revealed his crimes in interviews for a forthcoming book. This case was always haunting me.. I couldnt even imagine losing a child. At the mall, Cottingham, then a tall, brown-haired young man, met Vogel, a married mother of two. According to his neighbors, he seemed like a regular family man. What they want is an outright statement and a sign-off of Yes thats me,' Vronsky continued. Two focused entirely on him: Rod Leith's The Prostitute Murders: The People vs. Richard Cottingham (Lyle Stuart Inc., 1983) and Crime Scene: The Times Square Killer (Netflix, 2021). Around dawn, they checked into the same Hasbrouck Heights Quality Inn where he had left Valerie Street's handcuffed body under a bed to be discovered by a housekeeper. This location belongs to the following categories: Follow us on Facebook or Twitter to see future locations. According to one of his co-workers, he was smart, well-read, and up-to-date on current events. Vronsky, whose works also include an authoritative tome cataloging 17,000 years of pathological homicide, said Cottingham scouted his victims before transforming from a family man into a ferocious monster. 0000012661 00000 n The year 2020 arrived, and running his office through the coronavirus outbreak kept Mr. Anzilotti too busy for cold cases. [6] In 2022, Cottingham officially confessed to the 1970 murder of Lorraine McGraw, under a non-prosecution agreement. Anzilotti and BCPO subsequently confirmed the "exceptional closures" of these three murders.[13][8]. Straddling her back, he drew a knife and put it to her throat as he snapped a pair of handcuffs on her wrists. The Google Street View image above was taken in May of 2022. This is a private property. Cottingham had kept these items as souvenirs so that he could remember his victims and relive his attacks. Other locations that are relatively close to this place. H|U0+(QvG`b08NbHlSoZ2CRSs=* \e~ The New York Times, p. 2. I had long suspected that whoever killed Irene Blase also killed Denise Falasca, Mr. Anzilotti said. [7] On October 28, 1967, he strangled Nancy Schiava Vogel, a 29-year-old married mother of two, in Little Ferry, New Jersey. Following his 1980 arrest, police found, in the locked room and in the trunk of his car, personal effects which they traced to several of his victims. The police believed they had given up on the bus and were trying to hitchhike to a mall. Taking a bus to another location, Cottingham and Blase spent some time together. Responding officers found an 18-year-old victim whod been bitten, stabbed and bound with handcuffs. Location of first contact Maryann Carr = her apartment; Prostitutes = street or bar . We've received your submission. You're a whore and you have to be punished." These include the Times Square Killer, the Torso Killer, and the Times Square Torso Ripper. 2023 NYP Holdings, Inc. All Rights Reserved, How a retired detective snared his seventh Torso Killer confession, Expert reveals biological reason why were obsessed with true crime shows. 0 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. 29 Vreeland St, Lodi, NJ is a single family home that contains 2,716 sq ft and was built in 1974. Richard Cottingham was born in 1946 and grew up largely in New Jersey. After failing to return home from a trip to buy shoes at the Green Acres Mall in Valley Stream, New York,[9] 23-year old Diane Cusick was found raped, beaten, and strangled to death in the back seat of her car, parked near the mall. And even though Harp ran, Cottingham soon overtook her and dragged her into a grouping of bushes where teens would often go to smoke and make out, he said. HKo0l06CYf,Y(v (I?0c9 Hours later, her parents drove to the mall and found Dianes Plymouth Valiant in the parking lot, where her body was discovered in the backseat. [1] He was nicknamed the New York Ripper, the Torso Killer and the Times Square Killer, since his crimes often targeted prostitutes and included mutilation. She had been tied up and strangled, authorities said. He has been charged with 11 murders in all. 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. On May 4, 1980, the body of Street, a sex worker, was found at the same Quality Inn where Cottingham had dumped Carrs body. O'Dell's muffled cries of pain became so loud that the motel staff, already uneased by the previous two murders of Carr and Street, called police and then rushed to the room demanding that Cottingham open the door. But there was an even bigger problem. A few days later, Mr. Anzilotti visited Mr. Cottingham in his new surroundings and told him, I put you here.. Serial Killer House in Lodi, New Jersey, United States. In his possession, the 33-year-old had a stash of handcuffs, tape and sedatives. Over the course of 13 years, beginning in 1967, Cottingham killed six women in New Jersey and New York. Richard Cottingham of Lodi (NJ) is sentenced to 173-179 years in prison. Between 1970 and 1974, Cottingham and his wife, Janet, lived at an apartment block called Ledgewood Terrace in Little Ferry, New Jersey. His yearbook photo shows a cross-country runner with blond hair slicked back. 21 0 obj <> endobj Peter Karas/The Record, via USA Today Network. No leads were forthcoming. 0000009264 00000 n 0 0000002882 00000 n A woman walking to her car found them: two teenage girls, naked and dead in a sliver of woods behind an apartment parking lot. 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.

Drug Bust Carbondale, Pa 2020, Priority Pass Bristol Airport, How Often Do Disposable Vapes Explode, Articles R