Denise Falasca, aged 15, was abducted on July 14, 1969, in Emerson, while walking to a friend's home and found the next morning in Saddle Brook, by the side of a road next to a cemetery, strangled with the cord or the chain of her crucifix. The chief contacted the Blase family and told them what they had ached to know for decades: He knew who had killed Irene. Both men were keenly aware that it was their years-old relationship that had brought about this moment. 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. Trophies like jewellery and other personal items belonging to his victims were taken by him. I couldnt even imagine losing a child. Then, in January of this year, the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office made an announcement: The notorious serial killer Richard Cottingham, known as "The Torso Killer," had confessed to the murders. . She had been abducted while walking home from practice with her schools fife-and-drum team in 1968. What they want is an outright statement and a sign-off of Yes thats me,' Vronsky continued. He had been dubbed the Times Square Torso Ripper setting off Vronskys lifelong fascination of serial killers. 0000001982 00000 n He forced his victims to address him as "master". His upcoming sentencing will add more time to a prison term that already extends beyond his remaining years. 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. 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. Berlinger said well never truly know how many women died at Cottinghams hands, but his story had long fascinated the director, who sees a social justice component aspect to telling his story. 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. 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. In 2010, Bergen County authorities announced hed pleaded guilty to a sixth murder, a 1967 strangling in Bergen County. And for Cottingham, every night was a full moon.. After nearly 15 years of interviews by Anzilotti and Detective Capt. [13][14] Anzilotti had spent 15 years interviewing Cottingham, working toward the confession. These objects, along with his fingerprint on the handcuffs, were presented as evidence by prosecutors at his trial. In 2000, as a young detective in the Bergen County prosecutors office, Robert Anzilotti was tasked with looking into the murders, along with a few other similar cold cases from the 1960s and 1970s. Justice was served and thats the end of it case closed. Rochelle Park & The house was built in 1974one year before Cottingham and his wife, Janet, moved in. The teenagers were last seen on Aug. 9, 1974, in North Bergen. These meetings went on for months, and then years, on top of Mr. Anzilottis regular caseload. Ms. 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. [6] In 2022, Cottingham officially confessed to the 1970 murder of Lorraine McGraw, under a non-prosecution agreement. The killer would suddenly recall picking a girl up from a store somewhere, and the chief, in the front passenger seat as a detective drove, surreptitiously took notes. Her glasses, a ring, a necklace, Ms. Mulder said. For more information, please read our Privacy & Cookie Policy. Then came Tuesdays pleas. He stood trial in New York and New Jersey in a coat and tie and denied everything, but he was convicted in all five killings. When the 40th year since the killings arrived in 2014, the local police asked the public for any new information. Canadian author Peter Vronsky is now writing his second book on the horrifying killing spree that culminated in May 1980 at a New Jersey motel, where cops arrested Cottingham after he handcuffed, stabbed and bit an 18-year-old woman. There were at least five unsolved killings of girls, each an open wound for families seeking resolution. 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. The family lived in Lodi, and Mr. Cottingham commuted to a job as a computer operator at Blue Cross Blue Shield in Manhattan. Rodrigo Torrejon may be reached at rtorrejon@njadvancemedia.com. In October 1966, he became a computer operator for Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, where he worked until his 1980 arrest. His search for a killer led him to a man already locked away, in New Jersey State Prison, 75 miles from his office. It was mainly psychological. But he eventually realized the years-long association, which involved countless state prison visits, was coming to an end. 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. Goodarzi was later identified as the woman who had been tortured, killed, beheaded and had her hands cut off by Cottingham. Three days later, Mr. Anzilotti walked out of his office for good. It is my fervent hope that this arrest and conviction bring some semblance of closure to the friends and family of Mary Ann and Lorraine and a measure of justice to members of our communities, who have long feared this unknown actor.. He was imprisoned. He drove his car ahead of Harp, pulled over and walked back toward her, Vronsky said. The Rent Zestimate for this home is $3,099/mo, which has increased by $3,099/mo in the last 30 days. That was roughly one month after his arrest. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Advance Local. 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. But then, four years ago, Mr. Cottingham stunned the chief. "From the sense of other things that Im uncovering, he was a very busy boy., I think the math worked out to one every six weeks, Vronsky also said. They have also lived in Manasquan, NJ and Ada, MI. Richard Cottingham, 74, appeared virtually in court Tuesday to admit to the slayings of 17-year-old Mary Ann Pryor and 16-year-old Lorraine Marie Kelly. 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. It was a game to me. ADVERTISEMENT. If hes going to confess to some others, if they can get him to talk, just for those families if he can confess to those, that right there would be I dont know the right word to say, Ms. Mulder said. 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. It took some effort to convince him to go to court and let me make it public, Anzilotti said Tuesday. [4], On May 3, 1970, Cottingham was married at Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Queens Village, Queens. It represented closure, Moye said of this weeks hearing. Soon, Cottingham persuaded Blase to go for a drink with him. A few days later, Mr. Anzilotti visited Mr. Cottingham in his new surroundings and told him, I put you here.. But Cottingham had other victims, and he would later boast of killing 85 to 100 people. The girls vanished Aug. 9, 1974, while hitchhiking to a mall in . Then, with just days remaining before the chief retired, the inmate relented. When you have a series of crimes today, everything goes through the computers, andwe have computer analysis and a wayof moving these through jurisdictionalboundaries. My parents couldnt handle it., She had called Bergen County every few months to ask about the case for 47 years, she said. The chief questioned Mr. Cottingham. Richard Cottingham, New Jersey prison photo. They were facedown, side by side, as if placed there with care. When Mr. Cottingham entered prison in 1981, Robert Anzilotti was not yet a teenager. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Thanks for contacting us. 0000001425 00000 n %%EOF xb```"WVf~g`0pt 9"~S?``Z V|bG!+N}TzYl@2 `QD2 @DACEDJaOs6x?+[Ihlrt ? In his possession, the 33-year-old had a stash of handcuffs, tape and sedatives. A case based on his "signature pattern" was built against him, combined with the testimony of four surviving victims, as well as pieces of his victims' jewellery and other items found in his possession after his arrest. Eventually, Mr. Cottingham began to loosen up, and he spoke about killing the prostitutes. He would let his guard down, Mr. Anzilotti said. His name had floated around in the lore of Bergen County cold cases.. 0000001968 00000 n 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. . 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. Hes hedged around and all but confessed.. 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. He did a U-turn in a bank parking lot and approached, he said. He has been charged with 11 murders in all. With Cottinghams next victim, a killers hunting ground of sorts began to form. It was like a game to him, Anzilotti recently said. In early December 1979, firefighters were called to the Travel Inn Motor Hotel on 42nd Street as a fire burned in room 417. The police were called and Cottingham was apprehended while trying to flee. 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. I was shocked that it was a serial killer, Moye said of his mothers confessed murderer. 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. Falasca was walking by the side of the road in Emerson on July 14, 1969, when Cottingham pulled up beside her and offered her a ride. 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. He married in 1970 and became a father of three. He had three children, two boys and a girl, with his wife. But Mr. Anzilotti kept pressing him: You know youre going to tell me.. 21 23 The man has no heart, no soul, no emotion whatsoever, she said. (1981, June 16). He needed a way to approach Mr. Cottingham and found an opening in 2003, when he got a tip: Mr. Cottingham was taking bets on sporting events from his cell. On February 15, 1968, Cottingham killed his second known victim. That was less than a year after Cottingham and his wife had their first child. Mr. Anzilotti, by then a sergeant, arranged a surprise search of the inmates cell the day after the Super Bowl. But there was an even bigger problem. Richard Cottingham, 74, pleaded guilty Tuesday to murdering Mary Ann Pryor, 17, and Lorraine Marie Kelly, 16, both of North Bergen. 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. xb```"VV~g`0pt 9mzQ[2fXar9XcK',6=3Yb%^)= RZlr$:kX;e =_i& ` ?# On the way out, he bumped the author on the shins with a bag that felt like it contained bowling balls, Vronsky said. Defense attorney John Bruno recited the details, which the white-bearded, 74-year-old killer acknowledged. 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. Mr. Cottingham left behind no clues. Jacalyn "Jackie" Harp, aged 13, was randomly ambushed as she walked home in the evening of July 17, 1968, from school band practice in Midland Park and strangled with the leather strap of her bag. 0000000756 00000 n 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. 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. They sat at the kitchen table, very professional, very polite, very considerate, Ms. Mulder recalled. Much of Cottinghams crimes were not murders, but other violent crimes like abductions and rapes. He had no relationship to his victims. I have done many shows about serial killers, and I have always marveled at the fact that [Ted] Bundy, [John Wayne] Gacy, [Jeffrey] Dahmer and Berkowitz were all household names, perversely, Berlinger told The Post. This is a private property. Hackensack, She, like members of the other families, agreed to forgo a guilty plea in open court. To this day, the other young female has never been identified. 0000000016 00000 n However, please be aware that not allowing certain cookies may impact your experience of the site. A notorious New Jersey serial killer pleaded guilty Tuesday to the cold case murders of two teenage girls in 1974. Mr. Anzilotti would arrange to have the inmate transported to his office more than hours drive from the prison. PB| I was an immediate adult when it happened, she said later in an interview. Years ticked past, 1974 into 1975, into the 1980s, the 1990s. Over the course of 13 years, beginning in 1967, Cottingham killed six women in New Jersey and New York. Getting to that point wasnt easy, Anzilotti said. This story has been shared 151,197 times. There was also a lockbox filled with trophies from his murders, including Maryann Carrs apartment key and a necklace belonging to Jean Reyner. In March, looking back on 25 years with the office, Mr. Anzilotti decided it was time to move on from the job. And last week, three more were added to his grisly toll. When reporters ran with the story, Mr. Anzilotti considered himself absolved from keeping his silence about the cases. Cottingham, 75, admitted before state Superior Court Judge Keith Bachmann in April 2021 that he had killed Mary Ann Pryor, 17, and her friend Lorraine Kelly, 16, when the pair went shopping for. Cusicks daughter, Darlene Altman, told Nassau County Judge Caryn Fink her late grandparents raised her after her mothers shocking slaying. 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. 0000002882 00000 n startxref Among the other faces in separate windows on the Zoom screen was a 66-year-old woman, identified simply as Nancy. Then in exchange for immunity from prosecution, he confessed to murdering three New Jersey schoolgirls. Hed order pizza and play cards with the older man and other detectives. 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. As you can see, he didn't always look like Santa Claus. Zestimate Home Value: $598,600. The chief agreed. But beneath the veneer of normalcy was a heinous double-existence as a serial killer. Absolutely, its completely plausible. Her name was Nancy Schiava Vogel. Irene Blase, Denise Falasca and Jacalyn Harp all girls whose murders were unsolved. I asked them where they were going. The mall, they replied. During his trial, he testified that he had been fascinated by bondage since he was a young child. And later that same month, a fifth woman was found mutilated in the former Hotel Seville near Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. As Cottingham was fleeing the scene of the torso murders, he briefly encountered the 23-year-old Peter Vronsky, who was attempting to check into the Travel Inn while in New York on a film production assignment. The plea leaves the question: Will they be Cottinghams final admissions? Long-Buried Secrets: The Serial Killer and the Detective, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/13/nyregion/new-jersey-serial-killer-cottingham-anzilotti.html. Thats not the natural order its supposed to go in.. Since his conviction, Cottingham has pleaded guilty to 12 murders. Before his arrest, he was a successful computer operator who worked at the Blue Cross-Blue Shield insurance company in Midtown Manhattan. Therefore, you should be respectful and not step foot on the property without permission. The year 2020 arrived, and running his office through the coronavirus outbreak kept Mr. Anzilotti too busy for cold cases. They captured Cottingham soon after. 0000008501 00000 n 0000009992 00000 n 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. 0000002847 00000 n 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. <<69EF7C237A736942AE760EBDB9B8F80B>]>> He married in 1970 and had three children. The police hunted for leads, questioning prostitutes about suspicious men, examining the handwriting of the guest who had checked into Room 417: Carl Wilson of Merlin, N.J., a fake name from a fake place. Feech La Manna's house from The Sopranos. Its not something you can ever get over, Altman, 58, told The Post. It is situated at 29 Vreeland Street in Lodi, New Jersey. That night, city firefighters responded to a blaze at a motel in Times Square, the New York Daily News reported. Straddling her back, he drew a knife and put it to her throat as he snapped a pair of handcuffs on her wrists. Although Vogel was the earliest of Cottinghams murder victims, the killer has said she was not his first, according to Vronsky. 0000003202 00000 n [7] On October 28, 1967, he strangled Nancy Schiava Vogel, a 29-year-old married mother of two, in Little Ferry, New Jersey. 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. The latitude and longitude coordinates for the house are: To view directions on how to get there, you can use the Google Maps shortcut below: 29 Vreeland StreetLodiNew JerseyNJ 07644United States. 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. But it was a way to get him comfortable to talk to me about murders.. This girl did everything right, Vronsky said. It was an era when the sex worker was criminalized. 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. Then he followed with an unusual request. But Cottingham flew under the radar precisely because of how he chose his victims and who his victims were. Sitting in a conference room, Mr. Cottingham calmly reached back more than 40 years and described how hed murdered a woman whose name he couldnt remember, a 29-year-old mother found strangled in her car in Ridgefield Park, N.J., in 1967. Described as average and normal, New Jersey man Richard Cottingham was a father-of-three with a marriage that was slowly unravelling. One would remind him of a TV actress. 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. Location of first contact Maryann Carr = her apartment; Prostitutes = street or bar . The Zestimate for this house is $598,600, which has decreased by $7,680 in the last 30 days. According to one of his co-workers, he was smart, well-read, and up-to-date on current events. 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.. 0000009543 00000 n But her light shines brightly against the backdrop of evil.. This guy was particularly ruthless. 0000000991 00000 n Cottingham has claimed in the past he. Again, he knew details from Ms. Falascas file. %%EOF He called his detectives and gave the word: Bring in Cottingham. And thats what bothers me, because I probably didnt have to do anything to them., Mr. Anzilotti left the confession both exhausted and relieved. 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. 0000005253 00000 n He married in 1970 and became a father of. It was quite a shock to learn it was him.. He abducted Vogel and took her to a field in Montvale, where he strangled her. Other locations that are relatively close to this place. On December 2, 1979, firemen in New York responded to an alarm at the Travel Inn motel[11] near Times Square. A maid heard the teenagers guttural screams and called police. Since his incarceration, he has attempted suicide on two occasions. In 1981, he was found guilty of her murder and sentenced to nearly 200 years in prison. Richard Cottingham, convicted of murdering prostitute and kidnapping three. [2], In 2010, he pleaded guilty to the 1967 murder of Nancy Vogel. Mr. Anzilotti, doing his best not to betray any emotion, slowly pulled out his Blackberry and took notes. His wife withdrew the petition upon his arrest in May 1980, then completed the divorce after his 1981 conviction. The New York Times, p. 26. I was able to get almostany woman to do whatever I wanted them to do . He said, Im going to give you one, Mr. Anzilotti recalled. 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. Five months later, the serial slayer struck again, strangling Maria Emerita Rosado Nieves, an 18-year-old Manhattan woman originally from Puerto Rico. Pages in category "People from Lodi, New Jersey" The following 21 pages are in this category, out of 21 total. Cottingham fled the scene with the victims heads and hands. Knowing better, Harp, just 13 years old, refused. He had come further in closing cases than his younger self could have imagined. 0000001082 00000 n On July 17, 1968, Harp, of Midland Park, was walking home from band practice when a strange man, Cottingham, tried to coax her into his car, Vronsky said. HUMs@Wf~}m1`16N7NLf%=Io8. 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. At the mall, Cottingham, then a tall, brown-haired young man, met Vogel, a married mother of two. The bridge where Mallory Beach died in a boating accident. But in. This is the house where the "Times Square Killer," Richard Cottingham, lived between 1975 and 1980. The items included necklaces, broaches, earrings, and other pieces of jewelry. 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.". Its an ongoing process, Vronsky said. 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. 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. Mr. Cottingham mentioned details of the killing that matched what Mr. Anzilotti knew from the case file. But the arrest in 1980 changed everything, exposing Richard's double life and deadly exploits. Hes younger when all this is going on in Bergen County, he said. Boyfriends, ex-boyfriends, family members all were questioned and cleared of suspicion. [12] Both bodies had their hands and heads removed, and had been doused with lighter fluid and set on fire. He then left the scene with their severed heads and hands. He continued to live here until the police eventually arrested him on May 22nd, 1980. 0000009264 00000 n The Blase family agreed. 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. [4][5], After his graduation, Cottingham worked for Metropolitan Life, where his father was a vice-president, starting in the mail room at the firm's Manhattan headquarters and eventually became a mainframe computer operator upon taking computer courses.

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