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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. Look her up, she looks like her. Others he remembered from a haircut.. Ms. Falasca was a 15-year-old who left her familys house in July 1969 and never returned. He married in 1970 and became a father of three. 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. 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 captured Cottingham soon after. Blase was 18 when she was found strangled in Saddle River in 1969. 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. Bergen County investigators realized there were numerous open sexual assault cases with similar hallmarks: Cottingham kidnapped them from Times Square, drugged and assaulted them. He was a coward.. It is not a public place. Its hard to understand how someone could be like that. 0000002831 00000 n 0000001082 00000 n 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. The plea leaves the question: Will they be Cottinghams final admissions? Like two little dolls at Christmastime.. Both men were keenly aware that it was their years-old relationship that had brought about this moment. It also left enormous holes in the souls of family and friends of Mary Ann Pryor, 17, and Lorraine Kelly, 16. 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. There was also a lockbox filled with trophies from his murders, including Maryann Carrs apartment key and a necklace belonging to Jean Reyner. How it ended was me literally shaking his hand and saying, Thank you, Mr. Anzilotti said. Richard Cottingham seemed like a character from a pulp novel: the crazed killer and the family man. The chief contacted the Blase family and told them what they had ached to know for decades: He knew who had killed Irene. Their murders shook the region. In his possession, the 33-year-old had a stash of handcuffs, tape and sedatives. Feech La Manna's house from The Sopranos. He continued to live here until the police eventually arrested him on May 22nd, 1980. Years ticked past, 1974 into 1975, into the 1980s, the 1990s. 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. (1981, June 16). 2023 Advance Local Media LLC. The teenagers were last seen on Aug. 9, 1974, in North Bergen. 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. 0000001968 00000 n And at. [3], Richard Francis Cottingham was born on November 25, 1946, in the Mott Haven neighborhood of the Bronx in New York City, the first of four children. He was originally from the Bronx in New York City. 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.. 0000006081 00000 n [16], In the early hours of May 22, 1980, Cottingham picked up 18-year-old Leslie Ann O'Dell, who was soliciting on the corner of Manhattan's Lexington Avenue and 25th Street. Inside they found the bodies of 22-year-old sex worker Deedeh Goodarzi[9] and an unidentified woman estimated between 16 and 22. It was Aug. 14, 1974, in Montvale, N.J., a suburb just over the New York state line. %PDF-1.4 % Since his conviction, Cottingham has pleaded guilty to 12 murders. Cottingham, who is also nicknamed "The Torso Killer," moved into this rented three-bedroom house in February of 1975. Goodarzi had come to the United States years prior from Iran. This location belongs to the following categories: Follow us on Facebook or Twitter to see future locations. 0000007874 00000 n To this day, their remains have never been recovered. 0000009264 00000 n Thats not the natural order its supposed to go in.. For a year, he refused to speak to Mr. Anzilotti. Richard Cottingham, serial killer from New Jersey operating in New York between 1967 and 1980. This is a private property. The body of Laverne Moye, of St. Albans, Queens, was discovered in a Rockville Centre creek on July 20, 1972. Other locations that are relatively close to this place. 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. Its been half my career, he said. 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. He also claimed to have committed 80 perfect murders no one knows about. [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. Mr. Anzilotti insisted that this case be resolved in open court. In October 1966, he became a computer operator for Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, where he worked until his 1980 arrest. Defense attorney John Bruno recited the details, which the white-bearded, 74-year-old killer acknowledged. [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. 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. I knew, he recalled, that was Irene Blase.. 0000013001 00000 n Investigators noted the crime scene was devoid of evidence and they were unable to identify the victims. Their heads and hands had been cut off. 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. H|U0+(QvG`b08NbHlSoZ2CRSs=* \e~ Her killer, Richard Cottingham, was a computer operator, married with three children of his own, living a seemingly normal life. It is situated at 29 Vreeland Street in Lodi, New Jersey. A number of killings of young women and girls in New Jersey and New York had gone unsolved for years before a night in May 1980 when a maid at . [6] In 2022, Cottingham officially confessed to the 1970 murder of Lorraine McGraw, under a non-prosecution agreement. This story has been shared 151,197 times. Thats why [authorities are] not going to make another statement. Like a werewolf, Vronsky told The Post. Its an ongoing process, Vronsky said. His upcoming sentencing will add more time to a prison term that already extends beyond his remaining years. [5] On May 15, 1980, Jean Reyner was strangled and her throat cut in New York's historic Seville Hotel. That made 11 murders Cottingham that admitted since his arrest more than 30 years ago. When arrested, he had handcuffs, a leather gag, two slave collars, a switchblade knife, replica pistols, and a stockpile of prescription pills. Hearing prosecutors detail grisly crime scenes like where Laverne was found was especially difficult to endure, her son said. Cottingham was serving time for five murders, following convictions in New Jersey and New York, when Bergen prosecutors detectives in 2010 tied him to the killing of 29-year-old Ridgefield Park mom Nancy Schiava Vogel, bringing the total then to six. The year 2020 arrived, and running his office through the coronavirus outbreak kept Mr. Anzilotti too busy for cold cases. Rodrigo Torrejon may be reached at rtorrejon@njadvancemedia.com. startxref According to his neighbors, he seemed like a regular family man. PB| He didnt have the decency or the dignity to ask for forgiveness or to even address the victims families. I think it was just an evolution in his killing.. 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. The five victims addressed . He had not yet put in for retirement, or even told his boss he planned to do that the following week. Then he followed with an unusual request. )' When a worker came to check on her, ODell cracked open the door and gave a hand signal asking for help. They were marginalized sex workers in a Times Square that was nearly lawless and when the police, at best, looked the other way.. 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. . Mr. Anzilotti would arrange to have the inmate transported to his office more than hours drive from the prison. There were at least five unsolved killings of girls, each an open wound for families seeking resolution. Now 74, Cottingham, who claims responsibility for dozens of murders, has confessed to a. He tried a different approach. Falasca, 15, accepted. Im leaving, he said. 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. 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. Through the years, other people were assigned. Right up to Mr. Anzilotti. Zestimate Home Value: $598,600. Furthermore, one of the women that he murdered in 1979 is still unidentified. 0000000991 00000 n Anything that might close more cases, bring answers to more families. The police pursued a welter of tips, rumors and false alarms, The New York Times reported at the time. Consequently, he was charged with attempted murder and kidnapping. 43 0 obj<>stream When Mr. Cottingham entered prison in 1981, Robert Anzilotti was not yet a teenager. In the case of Diane Cusick, it was a drive-in that no longer exists there He remembers the victims characteristics, but he doesnt remember their names.. It was quite a shock to learn it was him.. 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. Hes been chief of detectives nearly five years. Richard Cottingham pleaded guilty to murder in the death of one Long Island woman and admitted under oath to killing four others. 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. A woman walking to her car found them: two teenage girls, naked and dead in a sliver of woods behind an apartment parking lot. 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. The schoolgirl murder confessions increased that to to nine. They were facedown, side by side, as if placed there with care. On one occasion, he dismembered two sex workers and set fire to their torsos at a hotel near Times Square. She had been a teenager when her sister was killed. Richard Cottingham was born in 1946 and grew up largely in New Jersey. Mr. Cottingham left behind no clues. In April 1978, Cottingham's wife filed for divorce on the grounds of "abandonment" and "mental cruelty" (refusing to have sex with her after the birth of their third child, staying out until early morning, and leaving her with insufficient household funds). Richard Francis Cottingham was born on November 25, 1946, in the Mott Haven neighborhood of the Bronx in New York City, the first of four children. When you have a series of crimes today, everything goes through the computers, andwe have computer analysis and a wayof moving these through jurisdictionalboundaries. The Blase family agreed. In other words, he may have been content and/or preoccupied. And later that same month, a fifth woman was found mutilated in the former Hotel Seville near Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. His search for a killer led him to a man already locked away, in New Jersey State Prison, 75 miles from his office. The house is close to Lodi High School, the Riverside Cemetery and Interstate 80. [12] Both bodies had their hands and heads removed, and had been doused with lighter fluid and set on fire. On May 5, 1980, a motel housekeeper found the body of 19-year-old Valerie Ann Street in the Hasbrouck Heights Quality Inn. Described as average and normal, New Jersey man Richard Cottingham was a father-of-three with a marriage that was slowly unravelling. Richard Cottingham, 74, pleaded guilty Tuesday to murdering Mary Ann Pryor, 17, and Lorraine Marie Kelly, 16, both of North Bergen. She was Nancy Pryor, and she was 19 when her sister, Mary Ann, was found dead. 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. I was shocked that it was a serial killer, Moye said of his mothers confessed murderer. 0000005253 00000 n K3nVxb;X)oxeHME~> 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. Moye, who traveled from Georgia to see Cottingham confess to killing his mother and four other women as part of a plea deal, said he leaned heavily on his Catholic faith as the unrepentant killer watched via video feed from South Woods State Prison in New Jersey, where hes serving multiple life sentences. You're a whore and you have to be punished." 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. 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. 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. Cottingham has been given various nicknames over the years. After his wife filed for divorce in April of 1979, it seems as though his killings became far more frequent. 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. Trophies like jewellery and other personal items belonging to his victims were taken by him. The other girls did, you have to take it, too. Five months later, the serial slayer struck again, strangling Maria Emerita Rosado Nieves, an 18-year-old Manhattan woman originally from Puerto Rico. I just ruled him out. 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. 0000002420 00000 n 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. He said, Im going to give you one, Mr. Anzilotti recalled. Pages in category "People from Lodi, New Jersey" The following 21 pages are in this category, out of 21 total. Cottingham was apprehended in the hallway by arriving police officers. 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 called his detectives and gave the word: Bring in Cottingham. Much like John Moye, Altman, who now lives in Ocala, Fla., said she struggled to process Cottinghams savagery. By all accounts, he seemed to be leading an everyday life in Lodi, New Jersey, with his wife and three kids. 0000001412 00000 n He remembers certain aspects of a person, Mr. Anzilotti said. 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. Cottingham's reign of terror on both sides of the Hudson River is the subject of Crime Scene: The Times Square Killer, whose tale begins on Dec. 2, 1979, with New York City police and fire. A judge sentenced him to 25 years to life after Cusicks brother and only child read emotional impact statements in court. 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. His wife withdrew the petition upon his arrest in May 1980, then completed the divorce after his 1981 conviction. She, too, had been strangled. Cookie Settings/Do Not Sell My Personal Information. 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. 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. 0000003107 00000 n He had no relationship to his victims. 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. Hackensack, 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. Photos of the house and other related images. The motel where Martin Luther King was assassinated. 0000006846 00000 n Cottingham, who is already serving a lifetime state prison sentence for killing several other women and girls, was brought to the office of Bergen County Prosecutor Mark Musella in Paramus to enter his pleas before Superior Court Judge Keith Bachmann in Hackensack. 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. 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. Note that there seems to have been a "lull" between 1970 and 1973. Richard Cottingham, convicted of murdering prostitute and kidnapping three. He also claims that his true victim count is at least 85. More Local News to Love Start today for 50% off Expires 3/6/23, Rodrigo Torrejon | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com, discovery of a Ridgefield Park woman dead, nude and bound. 0000008501 00000 n So he would remember something on the way: a racetrack or a shopping mall. 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". 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. However, his family moved to River Vale, New Jersey, when he was 12 years old. It doesnt bring my mother back, but at least I have answers now. In fact, Mr. Cottingham lurked around the fringes of a seedy Times Square and the prostitutes who worked its streets. One day, Cottingham told his co-worker that he had stolen a sex worker's money and clothes while she was sleeping. He soon realized the woman had no head, the Daily News reported. He had pornographic artwork, adhesive tape, books about S&M, said Geberth. Vogel was found dead in her own car in Ridgefield Park, nude and bound. Before his arrest, he was a successful computer operator who worked at the Blue Cross-Blue Shield insurance company in Midtown Manhattan. Neither complainant appeared in further proceedings, however, and the case was dismissed. But Cottingham flew under the radar precisely because of how he chose his victims and who his victims were. On December 2, 1979, firemen in New York responded to an alarm at the Travel Inn motel[11] near Times Square. 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. 0000004535 00000 n One would remind him of a TV actress. Its his fault this is out.. 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. Getting to that point wasnt easy, Anzilotti said. Then, with just days remaining before the chief retired, the inmate relented. 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. He would let his guard down, Mr. Anzilotti said. Correctional officers found contraband and evidence of bookmaking and transferred Mr. Cottingham to solitary confinement. Since his incarceration, he has attempted suicide on two occasions. Detective Anzilotti was startled to discover the same man killed all three. It represented the opportunity to let the entire world know that Laverne Moye was a human being. You are in complete control of somebodys destiny, he told Fezzani in footage shown in the series. These include the Times Square Killer, the Torso Killer, and the Times Square Torso Ripper. Months later, in May 1980, another prostitute from Times Square was found dead, this time in a New Jersey motel; that murder was linked to yet another at the same location. . xref No leads were forthcoming. He lived with his wife and kids in. His yearbook photo shows a cross-country runner with blond hair slicked back. 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. 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. Mr. Anzilotti, doing his best not to betray any emotion, slowly pulled out his Blackberry and took notes. Then hed clear the room until only he and Mr. Cottingham faced each another, and begin with his questions. You can change your choice at any time by using the Privacy Center link in our footer. He was the Torso Killer. Richard Cottingham was born in 1946 and was raised mostly in New Jersey, according to the The New York Times. My whole life has been this, she said. 0000002882 00000 n Richard Cottingham, a family man who denied everything in court, was convicted of killing five women in the early 1980s. He pleaded innocent and for decades insisted he was being "framed", until admitting in 2009 that he had actually perpetrated those five murders. He began to speak about a particular case, he said. A notorious New Jersey serial killer pleaded guilty Tuesday to the cold case murders of two teenage girls in 1974. Responding officers found an 18-year-old victim whod been bitten, stabbed and bound with handcuffs. 0000009543 00000 n 0000010308 00000 n 29 Vreeland St, Lodi, NJ is a single family home that contains 2,716 sq ft and was built in 1974. Again, he knew details from Ms. Falascas file. 21 23 He recalled the exact place in the woods where he left the bodies. In 2010, Bergen County authorities announced hed pleaded guilty to a sixth murder, a 1967 strangling in Bergen County. We've received your submission. 21 0 obj <> endobj Much of Cottinghams crimes were not murders, but other violent crimes like abductions and rapes. Vronsky, who aided investigators in obtaining Junes indictment, is trying to coax as many confessions out of the aging, 300-pound serial killer as possible, but the clock is ticking since he suffers from diabetes and kidney disease, he said. [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). 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. It is situated at 29 Vreeland Street in Lodi, New Jersey. After failing to return home from a trip to buy shoes at the Green Acres Mall in Valley Stream, New York,[9] 23-year old Diane Cusick was found raped, beaten, and strangled to death in the back seat of her car, parked near the mall. trailer 0000001262 00000 n Vronsky and Weiss had been meeting with Cottingham in prison since the spring of 2017, counseling him to make the confession. They'd left home for a trip 13 miles (21 kilometers) north to . 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.