(1981, June 25). 29 Vreeland St, Lodi, NJ is a single family home that contains 2,716 sq ft and was built in 1974. 0000003451 00000 n Richard was arrested at a motel in Hasbrouck . 0000003107 00000 n Richard Cottingham, convicted of murdering prostitute and kidnapping three. Cottingham has been given various nicknames over the years. 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. They were facedown, side by side, as if placed there with care. In October 1966, he became a computer operator for Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, where he worked until his 1980 arrest. The third result is Richard Eric Cunningham age 50s in Skillman, NJ. 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. Their heads and hands had been cut off. . [12] Both bodies had their hands and heads removed, and had been doused with lighter fluid and set on fire. Hes embarrassed by this case, he said. Richard Cottingham, convicted of murdering prostitute and kidnapping three. 2023 NYP Holdings, Inc. All Rights Reserved, Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters, Times Square Torso Ripper: Sex and Murder on The Deuce, cataloging 17,000 years of pathological homicide. On May 4, 1980, the body of Street, a sex worker, was found at the same Quality Inn where Cottingham had dumped Carrs body. In April 1978, after his wife had initiated divorce proceedings, he kept a locked room in a basement apartment of the house in which they lived in Lodi, New Jersey. Hackensack, With an uncomplicated enthusiasm for his work, Detective Anzilotti rose through the ranks, eventually becoming the chief of detectives with a busy office to lead. Hes younger when all this is going on in Bergen County, he said. [2], In 2010, he pleaded guilty to the 1967 murder of Nancy Vogel. Follow him on Twitter @rodrigotorrejon. He described things only the killer would know, like where hed thrown her car keys afterward. And considering the closure of yesterdays cases, I absolutely believe him.. [13][14] Anzilotti had spent 15 years interviewing Cottingham, working toward the confession. A third the killing of 13-year-old Jackie Harp seemed to be the work of another killer. The victim's hands were tightly handcuffed behind her back and police would later lift a fingerprint matching Cottingham, the only fingerprint successfully found from any of his known murders. He was originally from the Bronx in New York City. [13] In 2021, he pleaded guilty to the 1974 kidnapping, raping and drowning of Lorraine Marie Kelly and Mary Ann Pryor. 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. He had three children, two boys and a girl, with his wife. 0000007874 00000 n Instead, she ended up shopping at one of Bergen Countys malls, according to Vronsky. All these factors created this crucible in the center of Manhattan for Richard Cottingham to flourish.. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. 0000001412 00000 n To Mr. Anzilotti, what had once seemed like a great disparity between the two series of murders one a group of suburban teenagers and the other mostly sex workers in the city now made sense. 0000002435 00000 n Goodarzi was later identified as the woman who had been tortured, killed, beheaded and had her hands cut off by Cottingham. 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. For more details, please read our Privacy & Cookie Policy. 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. 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. On May 5, 1980, a motel housekeeper found the body of 19-year-old Valerie Ann Street in the Hasbrouck Heights Quality Inn. 0000009264 00000 n 0000010308 00000 n 21 0 obj <> endobj The Blase family agreed. A woman walking to her car found them: two teenage girls, naked and dead in a sliver of woods behind an apartment parking lot. iP^ -KvWZvxhc'm$93tSz =oBTmD]+)bTJ T|u>/. Boyfriends, ex-boyfriends, family members all were questioned and cleared of suspicion. 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. In August 2022, with a non-prosecution agreement, officials in Rockland County, New York, corroborated and accepted Cottingham's confession to the murder of 26-year-old Lorraine McGraw, who was beaten and killed March 1, 1970. Much of Cottinghams crimes were not murders, but other violent crimes like abductions and rapes. I was shocked that it was a serial killer, Moye said of his mothers confessed murderer. Note that there seems to have been a "lull" between 1970 and 1973. [5] On May 15, 1980, Jean Reyner was strangled and her throat cut in New York's historic Seville Hotel. Cottingham was indicted in Cusicks killing in June after DNA evidence linked him to the cold-case slaying believed to be the oldest match to ever lead to a prosecution, Nassau County prosecutors said. This is the house where the "Times Square Killer," Richard Cottingham, lived between 1975 and 1980. It was like a game to him, Anzilotti recently said. For more information, please read our Privacy & Cookie Policy. 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. 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. I lost so much more than just my mother that day, Altman said. They have also lived in Manasquan, NJ and Ada, MI. The house was built in 1974one year before Cottingham and his wife, Janet, moved in. To this day, the other young female has never been identified. Her breasts had been severed and torso had been set on fire, Vronsky said. 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. A hotel worker arrived at Room 417 to find smoke and a horrible scene: the scorched remains of two women on a bed. Theyre pushing him on multiple other cases. Hes been interviewing Cottingham in state prison for years. The other girls did, you have to take it, too. On September 4, 1973, Cottingham was arrested in New York City for robbery, oral sodomy and sexual abuse on the complaint of a prostitute and her pimp. Responding officers found an 18-year-old victim whod been bitten, stabbed and bound with handcuffs. She had been tied up and strangled, authorities said. When you have a series of crimes today, everything goes through the computers, andwe have computer analysis and a wayof moving these through jurisdictionalboundaries. Altman, who was just 3 years old at the time, said her parents had separated prior to Cusicks killing. 0000000756 00000 n Everyone deserves justice under the law.. A friend of one victim came forward and the slain woman was later positively identified through a cesarean-section scar and chest X-ray as 22-year-old prostitute Deedeh Goodarzi. Rochelle Park & 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 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. But her light shines brightly against the backdrop of evil.. Among the other faces in separate windows on the Zoom screen was a 66-year-old woman, identified simply as Nancy. During a search of the house, investigators discovered personal items belonging to some of his victims. Cottingham had just raped, tortured and beheaded two sex workers in a room at the motel before setting it on fire. 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. Serial Killer House in Lodi, New Jersey, United States. The body of Laverne Moye, of St. Albans, Queens, was discovered in a Rockville Centre creek on July 20, 1972. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Thanks for contacting us. This story has been shared 150,597 times. What started in 1967 with the discovery of a Ridgefield Park woman dead, nude and bound in her own car continued until 1980, when the hulking Cottingham, then 33, was arrested after the screams of a would-be victim pierced the walls of a Hasbrouck Heights motel room. 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. Retrieved April 2nd, 2007, from Factiva database. He called his detectives and gave the word: Bring in Cottingham. 0000000016 00000 n 0000013001 00000 n They were never able to fully recover from the monumental loss, she said. And at. That girl was found drowned, similar to Blases killing, he said. trailer It could only be Jackie Harp.. He pleaded guilty to the killing in 2010, but when the news got out, Mr. Cottingham, who evidently thought the hearing would be ignored, was furious. The murders committed by the Torso Killer bore little resemblance to the ones Mr. Anzilotti was investigating, but their timing matched up with Mr. Cottinghams settling in New Jersey. His wife withdrew the petition upon his arrest in May 1980, then completed the divorce after his 1981 conviction. Then he followed with an unusual request. He worked hard on this., There were never any meaningful updates, until a Monday this April, when detectives knocked on her door in Ocean County, N.J., and said they had obtained a confession. %%EOF 0000007658 00000 n Therefore, you should be respectful and not step foot on the property without permission. (1981, June 16). His name had floated around in the lore of Bergen County cold cases.. The chief contacted the Blase family and told them what they had ached to know for decades: He knew who had killed Irene. Twenty years later, he was reinvestigating several cold cases involving girls and young women who had been abducted, sexually abused and killed. [8] Vogel's nude and bound body was found on October 31, under a blanket behind the passenger seat of her car parked in nearby Ridgefield Park. But as he considered retirement, he kept returning to the two girls found dead in the woods. xref 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. No one could find any clues in the girls backgrounds: no drugs, no trouble with the law. 0000002420 00000 n Just shy of his 21st birthday, Richard Cottingham began a vicious killing spree that tore through north New Jersey and New York City. The plea leaves the question: Will they be Cottinghams final admissions? Irene Blase, aged 18, vanished on April 7, 1969, in Hackensack and was found face down in four feet of water in the Saddle River, strangled with a wire, a cord, or perhaps the chain of a crucifix she was wearing. But it was a way to get him comfortable to talk to me about murders.. 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. 0000004535 00000 n Described as average and normal, New Jersey man Richard Cottingham was a father-of-three with a marriage that was slowly unravelling. Now 74, Cottingham, who claims responsibility for dozens of murders, has confessed to a. 0000002831 00000 n But on May 22, 1980 Cottingham's life as a predator came to light. They were marginalized sex workers in a Times Square that was nearly lawless and when the police, at best, looked the other way.. He admitted that those two killings weighed on him more than the others. Soon, Cottingham persuaded Blase to go for a drink with him. 0000005253 00000 n 0000001262 00000 n 0000006846 00000 n In 2022, Cottingham also confessed to the 1968 murder of Diane Cusick after DNA evidence linked him to the crime. On Dec 15, 1977, Carr was found dead in the parking lot of a Quality Inn motel, in Hasbrouck Heights. 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. Authorities tied him to the killings after police were called to a Hasbrouck Heights motel, where a maid had heard a woman screaming. Her attacker was caught as he ran away. Harp was found strangled to death the next day. Her youth and difference in appearance, with a boyish haircut, set her apart from the other victims. Like a werewolf, Vronsky told The Post. He forced his victims to address him as "master". Cottingham, a depraved killer already serving more than 200 years in prison, confessed to tossing the 22-year-old mother of two from a bridge ending her familys half-century quest for answers. YouTubes privacy policy is available here and YouTubes terms of service is available here. I believe hes killed between 85 and 100, as he claims, Vronsky told The Post. They found an 18-year-old victim who'd been bitten and stabbed bound with handcuffs. 0000006081 00000 n Anzilottihas spent all but 4 years of his law enforcement career with the prosecutors office after coming over from the Woodcliff Lake Police Department. 0000002865 00000 n A married father of three, he lived in the. He was imprisoned. I was an immediate adult when it happened, she said later in an interview. Both men were keenly aware that it was their years-old relationship that had brought about this moment. 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. Its not something you can ever get over, Altman, 58, told The Post. She was found strangled to death the next day in Saddle Brook. I can go all the way back to the first detective on the case. Since his incarceration, he has attempted suicide on two occasions. On Dec. 2, 1979, fire alarms rang out at the Travel Inn Motor Hotel on West 42nd Street. He lived with his wife and kids in. In other words, he may have been content and/or preoccupied. We've received your submission. 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. The man has no heart, no soul, no emotion whatsoever, she said. Mary Anne and Lorraine deserve it, God rest their souls, Bergen County Prosecutors Chief of Detective Robert Anzilotti said Tuesday after Richard Cottingham of Lodi admitted killing both in 1974. 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. Mr. Anzilotti had begun to believe, he said in a recent interview, that Mr. Cottingham, between his history and the suspicions of detectives that came before me, could be responsible for one or more of those deaths. They'd left home for a trip 13 miles (21 kilometers) north to . Ms. [7] On October 28, 1967, he strangled Nancy Schiava Vogel, a 29-year-old married mother of two, in Little Ferry, New Jersey. Soon, the chief closed that case two down. The murder remained unsolved until Cottingham confessed and entered a guilty plea in August 2010. 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). 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. 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. Anyone can read what you share. His "justification" for doing this was that he "didn't like anyone getting one over" on him. It was a game to me. By all accounts, he seemed to be leading an everyday life in Lodi, New Jersey, with his wife and three kids. 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. This location belongs to the following categories: Follow us on Facebook or Twitter to see future locations. Consequently, he was charged with attempted murder and kidnapping. It was pure evil. Furthermore, one of the women that he murdered in 1979 is still unidentified. Hes been chief of detectives nearly five years. 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. Unfortunately, we were unable to find a photograph of Jean Reyner. <<69EF7C237A736942AE760EBDB9B8F80B>]>> 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. Authorities believed it to be, thus far, the oldest criminal case to be solved and prosecuted by direct DNA evidence. Five months later, the serial slayer struck again, strangling Maria Emerita Rosado Nieves, an 18-year-old Manhattan woman originally from Puerto Rico. This murder was later linked to the 1977 murder of Maryann Carr, who was left in the same motel's parking lot. Richard Cottingham, the notorious North Jersey serial killer known for dismembering the young women who were so often his victims, publicly confessed Tuesday to drowning two North Bergen girls. Maywood, Did the old man kill those girls? 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. Inside they found the bodies of 22-year-old sex worker Deedeh Goodarzi[9] and an unidentified woman estimated between 16 and 22. On April 14, in a recorded interview, Mr. Cottingham said he remembered Mary Ann Pryor and Lorraine Kelly, and Mr. Anzilotti asked why he knew their names, when he hadnt in past cases. He would describe to me certain routes he would drive, Vronsky said of Cottinghamm relaying his murderous spree in letters and interviews over the span of five years. 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. In recent years, he had asked Mr. Cottingham about the case, and the inmate had simultaneously denied responsibility and let on that he knew more than he would share. A few days later, Mr. Anzilotti visited Mr. Cottingham in his new surroundings and told him, I put you here.. He didnt have the decency or the dignity to ask for forgiveness or to even address the victims families. Bergen County investigators realized there were numerous open sexual assault cases with similar hallmarks: Cottingham kidnapped them from Times Square, drugged and assaulted them. Location of first contact Maryann Carr = her apartment; Prostitutes = street or bar . Geberth noted that this was a time before the proliferation of surveillance cameras and the use of computer analysis to establish patterns and share information across jurisdictions. Much like John Moye, Altman, who now lives in Ocala, Fla., said she struggled to process Cottinghams savagery. He remembers certain aspects of a person, Mr. Anzilotti said. Neither complainant appeared in further proceedings, however, and the case was dismissed. He was the Torso Killer. She was believed to have accepted a ride from a stranger, and her body was found on the side of a road near a cemetery. A notorious New Jersey serial killer pleaded guilty Tuesday to the cold case murders of two teenage girls in 1974. She later testified that he said, "You have to take it. Knowing better, Harp, just 13 years old, refused. He described in detail how, instead, he took the girls to a motel, held them captive and eventually drowned them in the bathtub. Cottingham, whose attorney did not return messages seeking comment, has claimed to have killed as many as 100 women. 0000004577 00000 n 0000009992 00000 n We've received your submission. So he would remember something on the way: a racetrack or a shopping mall.
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