Community Rules apply to all content you upload or otherwise submit to this site. The plea leaves the question: Will they be Cottinghams final admissions? Cottingham murdered at least twelve women between 1967 and 1980. The investigators handed Ms. Mulder possessions of Jackies from half a century past. Cottingham is currently in state prison on a life sentence . She had been abducted while walking home from practice with her schools fife-and-drum team in 1968. One day, Cottingham told his co-worker that he had stolen a sex worker's money and clothes while she was sleeping. Mr. Cottingham mentioned details of the killing that matched what Mr. Anzilotti knew from the case file. 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. Goodarzi was later identified as the woman who had been tortured, killed, beheaded and had her hands cut off by Cottingham. Through the years, other people were assigned. Right up to Mr. Anzilotti. 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. Furthermore, one of the women that he murdered in 1979 is still unidentified. 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. Cottingham fled the scene with the victims heads and hands. 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. A judge sentenced him to 25 years to life after Cusicks brother and only child read emotional impact statements in court. 0000007874 00000 n That girl was found drowned, similar to Blases killing, he said. It was Aug. 14, 1974, in Montvale, N.J., a suburb just over the New York state line. And for Cottingham, every night was a full moon.. 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. What they want is an outright statement and a sign-off of Yes thats me,' Vronsky continued. Since his conviction, Cottingham has pleaded guilty to 12 murders. YouTubes privacy policy is available here and YouTubes terms of service is available here. We use cookies to deliver personalized advertisements, improve your online experience, and to analyze our site's performance. Over decades, through his rise from sergeant to detective to chief of detectives, Robert Anzilotti plugged away at cold cases in New Jersey involving young womens murders.CreditBryan Anselm for The New York Times. 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. 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. This is a "Then and Now" photograph of Cottingham's former house at 29 Vreeland Street. The five victims addressed . 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. They were marginalized sex workers in a Times Square that was nearly lawless and when the police, at best, looked the other way.. I was shocked that one human being was capable of all this carnage, Moye said of Cottingham. I asked them where they were going. The mall, they replied. That night, city firefighters responded to a blaze at a motel in Times Square, the New York Daily News reported. 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. Vronsky and Weiss had been meeting with Cottingham in prison since the spring of 2017, counseling him to make the confession. He did not want his family hassled by reporters or the police, and he vowed to Mr. Anzilotti that he would never again allow himself to be thrust into the spotlight. [4], The BCPO "exceptionally closed" the three cold case murders with agreement from the victims' families and evidence corroborating the confessions, but for several years kept this secret from the public to keep Cottingham talking about other cases. His crimes were discovered in May 1980, when a maid at a Hasbrouck Heights motel heard. Taking a bus to another location, Cottingham and Blase spent some time together. He was also extremely fidgety and unable to sit still. But Mr. Anzilotti kept pressing him: You know youre going to tell me.. Richard Cottingham, convicted of murdering prostitute and kidnapping three. 3. It contains 0 bedroom and 0 bathroom. [3], Cottingham was arrested on several lesser charges throughout his killing spree. He was originally from the Bronx in New York City. 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 few days later, Mr. Anzilotti visited Mr. Cottingham in his new surroundings and told him, I put you here.. The other girls did, you have to take it, too. 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. He had not yet put in for retirement, or even told his boss he planned to do that the following week. 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. %PDF-1.4 % 0000001082 00000 n [5][17], The charges listed in Cottingham's New Jersey indictment included kidnapping, attempted murder, aggravated assault, aggravated assault with deadly weapon, aggravated sexual assault while armed (rape), aggravated sexual assault while armed (sodomy), aggravated sexual assault while armed (fellatio), possession of a weapon (switchblade knife), and possession of controlled substances (secobarbital, amobarbital and diazepam). 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. 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. Over decades, through his rise from sergeant to detective to chief of detectives, Robert Anzilotti plugged away at cold cases in New Jersey involving young womens murders. He abducted Vogel and took her to a field in Montvale, where he strangled her. . He enjoys our time together., The chief also had another theory. 0000000756 00000 n [2] Four surviving abduction-rape victims testified against Cottingham; he was convicted in three of the cases and acquitted in one. That man, Richard Cottingham, had been convicted of crimes that seemed to bear little resemblance to the murders of the girls. 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. On May 5, 1980, a motel housekeeper found the body of 19-year-old Valerie Ann Street in the Hasbrouck Heights Quality Inn. A married father of three, he lived in the. Everything that I was taught about evil was evident in his presence, in his demeanor, in the gaze of his eyes, Moye told The Post. 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. 0000006151 00000 n This number may increase in the future, as he has stated in the past that his victim count is much higher. 21 23 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. It will take her a while to forget the habit of calling the detectives for updates a lifetime constant, through the deaths of her parents, her marriage and divorce, her second marriage and widowhood. 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. Defense attorney John Bruno recited the details, which the white-bearded, 74-year-old killer acknowledged. Retrieved April 2nd, 2007, from Factiva database. Authorities executed a warrant on his Lodi home, which had a private room containing evidence linking him to the Torso Killer. Dont think youre going to mess with me and Im going to help you, Mr. Anzilotti recalled Mr. Cottingham saying. And even worse, the rape laws were particularly onerous, and you had to provide a witness to bring an allegation of rape. 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. He began to speak about a particular case, he said. For over 40 years, its been folklore in this county.. Much of Cottinghams crimes were not murders, but other violent crimes like abductions and rapes. 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. 0000003107 00000 n With Ms. Pryor and a judge watching on Zoom that day, Mr. Cottingham pleaded guilty to the two murders. He also claims that his true victim count is at least 85. 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. Blase was 18 when she was found strangled in Saddle River in 1969. I lost so much more than just my mother that day, Altman said. The man has no heart, no soul, no emotion whatsoever, she said. Investigators noted the crime scene was devoid of evidence and they were unable to identify the victims. For a year, he refused to speak to Mr. Anzilotti. Cottingham primarily sought prostitutes who were petite blondes in their late teens to mid-twenties. 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. 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. 0000003707 00000 n The year 2020 arrived, and running his office through the coronavirus outbreak kept Mr. Anzilotti too busy for cold cases. Seth Wenig/Associated Press By Ed Shanahan Dec. 5, 2022 On a. These meetings went on for months, and then years, on top of Mr. Anzilottis regular caseload. Richard Cottingham of Lodi (NJ) is sentenced to 173-179 years in prison. On December 2, 1979, firemen in New York responded to an alarm at the Travel Inn motel[11] near Times Square. He began torturing her, nearly biting off one of her nipples. Use of and/or registration on any portion of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement, Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement, and Your Privacy Choices and Rights (each updated 1/26/2023). The New York Times, p. 26. He described things only the killer would know, like where hed thrown her car keys afterward. Over the course of 13 years, beginning in 1967, Cottingham killed six women in New Jersey and New York. It doesnt bring my mother back, but at least I have answers now. This girl did everything right, Vronsky said. You are in complete control of somebodys destiny, he told Fezzani in footage shown in the series. HUMs@Wf~}m1`16N7NLf%=Io8. Cottingham, whose attorney did not return messages seeking comment, has claimed to have killed as many as 100 women. The bridge where Mallory Beach died in a boating accident. After those confessions, the two men barely spoke. He said, Im going to give you one, Mr. Anzilotti recalled. Then he shared his intentions to retire. But in. 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. 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. On May 22, Cottingham then picked up Leslie Ann ODell, a 19-year-old runaway desperate to escape her pimp something he promised to help her do over drinks in Midtown. For more details, please read our Privacy & Cookie Policy. 0000000756 00000 n The family lived in Lodi, and Mr. Cottingham commuted to a job as a computer operator at Blue Cross Blue Shield in Manhattan. Hes been chief of detectives nearly five years. ,X3ieG(>]/TUW#gI" p&gGgy`Un(aE6e#./"e3 He had been dubbed the Times Square Torso Ripper setting off Vronskys lifelong fascination of serial killers. Mr. Anzilotti, by then a sergeant, arranged a surprise search of the inmates cell the day after the Super Bowl. 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. 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. Hes younger when all this is going on in Bergen County, he 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. [13] In 2021, he pleaded guilty to the 1974 kidnapping, raping and drowning of Lorraine Marie Kelly and Mary Ann Pryor. It would take about five months after the grisly Travel Inn slayings for investigators to arrest their man, a married father of three from Lodi, New Jersey, who preyed on sex workers in Times Square, then a seedy nucleus of pornography, prostitution and crime. Ive never seen rain like that, he said. One day in 2014, the chief and a partner were driving the inmate back to prison when, from the back seat, Mr. Cottingham, who by then had spent almost half of his 68 years in prison, began describing a girl he once spotted near a store in Hackensack. 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. Crime: Cottingham, a Lodi resident, killed six women in New Jersey and New York between 1967 and 1980. 0000001982 00000 n This murder was later linked to the 1977 murder of Maryann Carr, who was left in the same motel's parking lot. 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. And later that same month, a fifth woman was found mutilated in the former Hotel Seville near Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. He then left the scene with their severed heads and hands. He had his list of names, each one a dead girl and a crime long unsolved. 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. Richard Cottingham, convicted of murdering prostitute and kidnapping three. 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. Their heads and hands had been cut off. Thats why [authorities are] not going to make another statement. The predator, dubbed The Torso Killer, would strike again in May 1980. 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. [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]. Richard Cottingham, serial killer from New Jersey operating in New York between 1967 and 1980. But as he considered retirement, he kept returning to the two girls found dead in the woods. xref 2023 Advance Local Media LLC. But it was a way to get him comfortable to talk to me about murders.. 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. It was a game to me. No leads were forthcoming. 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. [13][14] Anzilotti had spent 15 years interviewing Cottingham, working toward the confession. After the hearing, the cameras off, Mr. Anzilotti approached Mr. Cottingham. 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.. Select this result to view Richard P Cunningham's phone number, address, and more. He was locked away to serve several life sentences, aging into a portly man with a thick white beard. I had long suspected that whoever killed Irene Blase also killed Denise Falasca, Mr. Anzilotti said. 0000001968 00000 n 0000003183 00000 n H|U0+(QvG`b08NbHlSoZ2CRSs=* \e~ Then in exchange for immunity from prosecution, he confessed to murdering three New Jersey schoolgirls. Rodrigo Torrejon may be reached at rtorrejon@njadvancemedia.com. 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. Cottingham offered to give O'Dell a massage and she rolled onto her stomach. Much like John Moye, Altman, who now lives in Ocala, Fla., said she struggled to process Cottinghams savagery. There were similarities in the two cases: the girls ages, the apparently hasty disposal of their bodies, even their appearance, both with long, dark hair. Anzilottihas spent all but 4 years of his law enforcement career with the prosecutors office after coming over from the Woodcliff Lake Police Department. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. Described as average and normal, New Jersey man Richard Cottingham was a father-of-three with a marriage that was slowly unravelling. To this day, I dont even think they would have ever said anything. On more than one occasion, he would openly talk about his experiences with sex workers. He did a U-turn in a bank parking lot and approached, he said. 0000010308 00000 n Retrieved April 2nd, 2007, from Factiva database. The Blase family agreed. You can change your choice at any time by using the Privacy Center link in our footer. 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. 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. A local investigator began to wonder: Could there be a link to a series of infamous Times Square murders? The 45th year passed in the same way. 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. I knew, he recalled, that was Irene Blase.. Those cases were already closed. 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 said, Youre welcome.. He tried a different approach. Unfortunately, we were unable to find a photograph of Jean Reyner. 0000001262 00000 n 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. The chief pressed ahead with his list. Twenty years later, he was reinvestigating several cold cases involving girls and young women who had been abducted, sexually abused and killed. He called his detectives and gave the word: Bring in Cottingham. 0000006081 00000 n 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. Police were not aware of his murders at the time, nor were they aware that an active serial killer was at large in the New York-New Jersey area. 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. Getting to that point wasnt easy, Anzilotti said. 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. Falasca, 15, accepted. Anzilotti and BCPO subsequently confirmed the "exceptional closures" of these three murders.[13][8]. Look her up, she looks like her. Others he remembered from a haircut.. The weather worsened. 0000005253 00000 n 0000002865 00000 n 43 0 obj <>stream 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. 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. 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 0000001412 00000 n That made 11 murders Cottingham that admitted since his arrest more than 30 years ago. Its an ongoing process, Vronsky said. And I said, Hop in., He drove to the mall. 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.
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