Seth Wenig/Associated Press By Ed Shanahan Dec. 5, 2022 On a. Photos of the house and other related images. Hackensack, Blase was found strangled to death in 4 feet of water in Saddle River the next day. After their drink, Cottingham offered to bring Blase back to the bus station where they had taken the bus. On February 15, 1968, Cottingham killed his second known victim. 29 Vreeland St, Lodi, NJ is a single family home that contains 2,716 sq ft and was built in 1974. Since his conviction, Cottingham has pleaded guilty to 12 murders. 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. When arrested, he had handcuffs, a leather gag, two slave collars, a switchblade knife, replica pistols, and a stockpile of prescription pills. If they came forward and said theyd been assaulted, they would be arrested for prostitution, so there was no reason to come forward, Berlinger said. PB| Straddling her back, he drew a knife and put it to her throat as he snapped a pair of handcuffs on her wrists. The other girls did, you have to take it, too. [2] Four surviving abduction-rape victims testified against Cottingham; he was convicted in three of the cases and acquitted in one. 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. 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. Hes embarrassed by this case, he said. Detective Anzilotti was startled to discover the same man killed all three. Once again, the victim did not appear in further proceedings and the case was dismissed.[6]. The 22-year-old's death appeared brutal: she had been beheaded and set on fire and her skull has yet to be found. His name had floated around in the lore of Bergen County cold cases.. He married in 1970 and became a father of three. Because I was with them for a couple of days, he replied, according to a transcript, and got to know them., It was raining that day in August 1974, and Mr. Cottingham, then 28, was driving to work in Manhattan when he passed the two girls walking in the opposite direction. His wife withdrew the petition upon his arrest in May 1980, then completed the divorce after his 1981 conviction. 0000007658 00000 n 0000001262 00000 n I had long suspected that whoever killed Irene Blase also killed Denise Falasca, Mr. Anzilotti said. This is possibly due to the fact that he got married in 1970. Everyone deserves justice under the law.. Its been half my career, he said. xref I can go all the way back to the first detective on the case. However, he started killing again in 1974, when he murdered Lorraine Marie Kelly and Mary Ann Pryor. 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. 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. 0 He described in detail how, instead, he took the girls to a motel, held them captive and eventually drowned them in the bathtub. H|U0+(QvG`b08NbHlSoZ2CRSs=* \e~ It was mainly psychological. 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. Authorities tied him to the killings after police were called to a Hasbrouck Heights motel, where a maid had heard a woman screaming. [4], On October 3, 1969, Cottingham was charged and convicted of drunk driving in New York City and was fined $50 (equivalent to $400 in 2021). Correctional officers found contraband and evidence of bookmaking and transferred Mr. Cottingham to solitary confinement. And I said, Hop in., He drove to the mall. Cottingham was apprehended in the hallway by arriving police officers. Thats not the natural order its supposed to go in.. startxref 0000002420 00000 n 0000002435 00000 n 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 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. This guy was particularly ruthless. HKo0l06CYf,Y(v (I?0c9 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. In March, looking back on 25 years with the office, Mr. Anzilotti decided it was time to move on from the job. 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. Mr. Anzilotti, doing his best not to betray any emotion, slowly pulled out his Blackberry and took notes. Community Rules apply to all content you upload or otherwise submit to this site. A notorious New Jersey serial killer pleaded guilty Tuesday to the cold case murders of two teenage girls in 1974. In early December 1979, firefighters were called to the Travel Inn Motor Hotel on 42nd Street as a fire burned in room 417. On one occasion, he dismembered two sex workers and set fire to their torsos at a hotel near Times Square. When they arrived, one firefighter attempted mouth-to-mouth resuscitation of a woman they found on the bed. Years ticked past, 1974 into 1975, into the 1980s, the 1990s. iP^ -KvWZvxhc'm$93tSz =oBTmD]+)bTJ T|u>/. It represented the opportunity to let the entire world know that Laverne Moye was a human being. He had come further in closing cases than his younger self could have imagined. Three days later, Mr. Anzilotti walked out of his office for good. As the New Jersey press reported on Cottinghams arrest, the NYPD started to take notice. Years after her sisters death, she had found some comfort speaking to another from her tribe, Karen Miller, a sister of Denise Falasca. Rodrigo Torrejon may be reached at rtorrejon@njadvancemedia.com. His yearbook photo shows a cross-country runner with blond hair slicked back. 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. Irene Blase, Denise Falasca and Jacalyn Harp all girls whose murders were unsolved. Blase was 18 when she was found strangled in Saddle River in 1969. Justice was served and thats the end of it case closed. According to his neighbors, he seemed like a regular family man. Other locations that are relatively close to this place. The girls vanished Aug. 9, 1974, while hitchhiking to a mall in . Peter Karas/The Record, via USA Today Network. 0000000991 00000 n The New York Times, p. 2. 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. He then left the scene with their severed heads and hands. He had no relationship to his victims. 0000009992 00000 n This number may increase in the future, as he has stated in the past that his victim count is much higher. Richard Cottingham, convicted of murdering prostitute and kidnapping three. 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. Maintenance workers found her body covered in plastic bags and wrapped in a gray blanket near a Jones Beach bus stop. Math-wise its possible," said Vronsky. But beneath the veneer of normalcy was a heinous double-existence as a serial killer. Knowing better, Harp, just 13 years old, refused. Boyfriends, ex-boyfriends, family members all were questioned and cleared of suspicion. 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. He was also known to threaten them with a plastic gun and leave it within their reach so they could try to grab it only to find out it was false, severely bite and scrape their nipples, cut around the breasts, and use other forms of torture. 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. A killing in Somerset County a week after Cottingham got his drivers license may have been one of his first victims, Vronsky said. It was pure evil. 0000003202 00000 n The potential payoff in return felt almost too important to describe. 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. . startxref Its hard to understand how someone could be like that. He did, however, leave behind their clothing, including a pair of Bonjour jeans, white leotards and a black fur coat, neatly folded in the bath tub. On Dec. 2, 1979, fire alarms rang out at the Travel Inn Motor Hotel on West 42nd Street. Neither complainant appeared in further proceedings, however, and the case was dismissed. In the thirteen-year period during which he is known to have committed at least seventeen murders, only one fingerprint belonging to him was ever recovered, from the ratchet mechanism of handcuffs left behind on Valerie Street. 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. I couldnt even imagine losing a child. The inmate, with no real incentive to say anything about that crime, had given the chief what amounted to a parting gift. The little perks for the older man the pizza, the poker, the distraction from prison life were always in the service of the younger mans long game. She, too, had been strangled. 0000001082 00000 n Richard Cottingham, serial killer from New Jersey operating in New York between 1967 and 1980. 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. So he would remember something on the way: a racetrack or a shopping mall. New Jersey . Instead, he drove her to the Quality Inn, where he tortured, beat and sexually assaulted her for hours, until a maid heard her scream. 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. I never broke my promise to him, all these years later, the chief said. They were marginalized sex workers in a Times Square that was nearly lawless and when the police, at best, looked the other way.. Mr. Anzilotti would arrange to have the inmate transported to his office more than hours drive from the prison. He said, Youre welcome.. [2], In 2010, he pleaded guilty to the 1967 murder of Nancy Vogel. Cottingham, a Lodi man who moonlighted as one of New Jersey's most savage serial killers, had been convicted of murdering five women in New York and New Jersey. As you can see, he didn't always look like Santa Claus. Richard Cottingham was born in 1946 and grew up largely in New Jersey. Cottingham, who is also nicknamed "The Torso Killer," moved into this rented three-bedroom house in February of 1975. The back and forth went on for weeks. The series features interviews with former sex workers, including Barbara Amaya, who was raped and robbed at gunpoint by a man she believes was Cottingham, although she was inexplicably spared. She was found strangled to death the next day in Saddle Brook. He recalled the exact place in the woods where he left the bodies. One day, Cottingham told his co-worker that he had stolen a sex worker's money and clothes while she was sleeping. Hed order pizza and play cards with the older man and other detectives. Pages in category "People from Lodi, New Jersey" The following 21 pages are in this category, out of 21 total. 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. He enjoys our time together., The chief also had another theory. 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. In 2009, decades after his first five murder convictions, Cottingham told a journalist that he had committed at least 80 to 100 "perfect murders" of women in various regions of the United States. That girl was found drowned, similar to Blases killing, he said. The family lived in Lodi, and Mr. Cottingham commuted to a job as a computer operator at Blue Cross Blue Shield in Manhattan. 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 married in 1970 and became a father of. At the time, Cottingham, who had not been arrested or identified, was dubbed the "Times Square Ripper.. Cottingham offered to give O'Dell a massage and she rolled onto her stomach. While some serial killers claim murders they have not committed, Mr. Anzilotti didnt believe Mr. Cottingham was that type, but still he meticulously lined up details of the admissions with facts that only the killer would know. 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. Its Godlike almost. It represented closure, Moye said of this weeks hearing. 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. ADVERTISEMENT. Cottingham has confessed to murdering 12 women. Cusick, an instructor at a dance school in the Oceanside community of Long Island, went to Green Acres Mall in Valley Stream to buy a pair of shoes. 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. Investigators noted the crime scene was devoid of evidence and they were unable to identify the victims. Authorities believed it to be, thus far, the oldest criminal case to be solved and prosecuted by direct DNA evidence. 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. Absolutely, its completely plausible. If you purchase a product or register for an account through one of the links on our site, we may receive compensation. [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. One would remind him of a TV actress. The chief pressed ahead with his list. 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. A few days later, Mr. Anzilotti visited Mr. Cottingham in his new surroundings and told him, I put you here.. At the mall, Cottingham, then a tall, brown-haired young man, met Vogel, a married mother of two. 2023 Advance Local Media LLC. In 1964, Cottingham graduated from Pascack Valley High School in Hillsdale, New Jersey. 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 I never thought I would get caught, he added. Those old enough to remember can recall the fear that many felt after the bodies of two girls from North Bergen whod gone missing after a shopping trip to Paramus were found raped, beaten and drowned in Bergen County. Its mind-boggling and very scary, especially to know theres more of them out there.. [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. 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. In a candid interview, the Bergen County chief who spent 20 years trying to wrangle new confessions out of serial killer Richard Cottingham revealed the 74-year-old prisoner has "regrets". 0000012661 00000 n . On May 4, 1980, the body of Street, a sex worker, was found at the same Quality Inn where Cottingham had dumped Carrs body. 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. The bridge where Mallory Beach died in a boating accident. 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. He began torturing her, nearly biting off one of her nipples. It was an era when the sex worker was criminalized. The police photograph on the left was taken in June of 1980. A judge sentenced him to 25 years to life after Cusicks brother and only child read emotional impact statements in court. Hes been chief of detectives nearly five years. The picture in the top left corner shows Cottingham during one of his trials. 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. 0000006081 00000 n He admitted that those two killings weighed on him more than the others. [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. Dont think youre going to mess with me and Im going to help you, Mr. Anzilotti recalled Mr. Cottingham saying. 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. 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. Which, of course, I wasnt overly interested in, the former chief said. Long-Buried Secrets: The Serial Killer and the Detective, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/13/nyregion/new-jersey-serial-killer-cottingham-anzilotti.html. The third result is Richard Eric Cunningham age 50s in Skillman, NJ. 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. A maid heard the teenagers guttural screams and called police. He asked to quietly close their daughters murder case without formally charging the killer.

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