He asked to quietly close their daughters murder case without formally charging the killer. Then came Tuesdays pleas. I was able to get almostany woman to do whatever I wanted them to do . The New York Times, p. 2. JUSTICE STORY: 'Torso Killer' Richard Cottingham left a bloody trail of Soon, Cottingham persuaded Blase to go for a drink with him. Richard Cottingham, serial killer from New Jersey operating in New York between 1967 and 1980. The Google Street View image above was taken in May of 2022. He had not yet put in for retirement, or even told his boss he planned to do that the following week. 0000002420 00000 n I was an immediate adult when it happened, she said later in an interview. 0000003431 00000 n The police believed they had given up on the bus and were trying to hitchhike to a mall. Cottingham had kept these items as souvenirs so that he could remember his victims and relive his attacks. It could only be Jackie Harp.. In 1964, Cottingham graduated from Pascack Valley High School in Hillsdale, New Jersey. He continued to live here until the police eventually arrested him on May 22nd, 1980. 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. 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. 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. YouTubes privacy policy is available here and YouTubes terms of service is available here. 0000003107 00000 n 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. Richard Cottingham was convicted of five murders and numerous counts of kidnapping and sexual assault using evidence found in his 'trophy room' combined with a matching fingerprint left on. His yearbook photo shows a cross-country runner with blond hair slicked back. Cottingham has confessed to murdering 12 women. [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). But on May 22, 1980 Cottingham's life as a predator came to light. 'Crime Scene' reveals true depravity of 'Times Square Killer' Its not something you can ever get over, Altman, 58, told The Post. Vogel was found dead in her own car in Ridgefield Park, nude and bound. Hes embarrassed by this case, he said. [4], On May 3, 1970, Cottingham was married at Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Queens Village, Queens. 0000007658 00000 n 29 Vreeland St, Lodi, NJ 07644 | Zillow I knew, he recalled, that was Irene Blase.. Monday marked the first time Moye ever laid eyes on Cottingham, who dismembered some of victims, including two women whose bodies were found without their heads and hands in a Times Square motel in December 1979. Below, you will find the address and the GPS coordinates for this location. 0000004577 00000 n 0000001001 00000 n Bergen County investigators realized there were numerous open sexual assault cases with similar hallmarks: Cottingham kidnapped them from Times Square, drugged and assaulted them. . Anzilotti and BCPO subsequently confirmed the "exceptional closures" of these three murders.[13][8]. The case also had parallels to a previously unsolved murder of nurse Maryann Carr, who was found dead in the same motel three years earlier. Instead, he drove her to the Quality Inn, where he tortured, beat and sexually assaulted her for hours, until a maid heard her scream. 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. Cottingham, who is also nicknamed "The Torso Killer," moved into this rented three-bedroom house in February of 1975. Over time, though, one investigator was slowly developing a theory. 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. Get the latest updates right in your inbox. In other words, he may have been content and/or preoccupied. The back and forth went on for weeks. Vronsky and Weiss had been meeting with Cottingham in prison since the spring of 2017, counseling him to make the confession. The Zestimate for this house is $598,600, which has decreased by $7,680 in the last 30 days. He said he would talk about other murders only on the condition that the revelations would be kept out of the papers. 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. Feech La Manna's house from The Sopranos. Richard Cottingham who is already serving time in state prison for several . 0000000991 00000 n This story has been shared 150,597 times. 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. [13] In 2021, he pleaded guilty to the 1974 kidnapping, raping and drowning of Lorraine Marie Kelly and Mary Ann Pryor. So he would remember something on the way: a racetrack or a shopping mall. When you have a series of crimes today, everything goes through the computers, andwe have computer analysis and a wayof moving these through jurisdictionalboundaries. During his trial, he testified that he had been fascinated by bondage since he was a young child. Detective Anzilotti was startled to discover the same man killed all three. And even worse, the rape laws were particularly onerous, and you had to provide a witness to bring an allegation of rape. Its taken more than 46 years, but a Bergen County police veteran who is only days from retirement got one of the countrys most notorious serial killers to confess. Again, he knew details from Ms. Falascas file. The following is a list of his victims in chronological order. Click here to follow Daily Voice Hackensack and receive free news updates. And before I go, I want to close out the Kelly-Pryor case., Mr. Cottingham urged the chief to reconsider leaving the force. The police pursued a welter of tips, rumors and false alarms, The New York Times reported at the time. But Mr. Anzilotti kept pressing him: You know youre going to tell me.. The potential payoff in return felt almost too important to describe. [21] Cottingham was apparently "forensically aware" in the era before DNA analysis. 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. Pages in category "People from Lodi, New Jersey" The following 21 pages are in this category, out of 21 total. Inmates were wagering everything from cash to cigarettes. 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 . He had come further in closing cases than his younger self could have imagined. The murder remained unsolved until Cottingham confessed and entered a guilty plea in August 2010. To this day, their remains have never been recovered. PDF Richard Francis Cottingham On Thursday, authorities told NJ Advance Media that Cottingham confessed to the murders of three Bergen County teenagers in the late 1960s - each a cold case for over 50 years. But as he considered retirement, he kept returning to the two girls found dead in the woods. He described in detail how, instead, he took the girls to a motel, held them captive and eventually drowned them in the bathtub. She, like members of the other families, agreed to forgo a guilty plea in open court. And thats what bothers me, because I probably didnt have to do anything to them., Mr. Anzilotti left the confession both exhausted and relieved. The Google Street View image on the right was taken 38 years later, in June of 2018. HKo0l06CYf,Y(v (I?0c9 But beneath the veneer of normalcy was a heinous double-existence as a serial killer. That girl was found drowned, similar to Blases killing, he said. The third result is Richard Eric Cunningham age 50s in Skillman, NJ. 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. 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. startxref He forced his victims to address him as "master". I can go all the way back to the first detective on the case. His name had floated around in the lore of Bergen County cold cases.. They captured Cottingham soon after. Zestimate Home Value: $598,600. 0000009543 00000 n . They have also lived in Manasquan, NJ and Ada, MI. Its been half my career, he said. 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. Select this result to view Richard P Cunningham's phone number, address, and more. 0000001425 00000 n Cottingham, a former computer programmer whose wrath of terror spanned from 1967 to 1980, also copped on Monday to strangling Mary Beth Heinz, 21, in May 1972, three months before he killed Moye and dumped her body in the same creek. That made 11 murders Cottingham that admitted since his arrest more than 30 years ago. We've received your submission. Over the course of 13 years, beginning in 1967, Cottingham killed six women in New Jersey and New York. 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. Correctional officers found contraband and evidence of bookmaking and transferred Mr. Cottingham to solitary confinement. Absolutely, its completely plausible. Why NJ serial killer Richard Cottingham confessed to 1974 murders Therefore, you should be respectful and not step foot on the property without permission. 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.. 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. PB| %PDF-1.4 % 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. He tried a different approach. 0000008735 00000 n Cottingham was apprehended in the hallway by arriving police officers. Theyre pushing him on multiple other cases. Hes been interviewing Cottingham in state prison for years. But in. 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. . A horrible scene, the police commissioner said that day. But Cottingham flew under the radar precisely because of how he chose his victims and who his victims were. [15] In December 2022, Cottingham was convicted of Diane Cusick's 1968 murder and, under a non-prosecution agreement, officially admitted to killing another four women during 19721973 in Long Island, New York: Mary Beth Heinz, Laverne Moye, Sheila Heiman, and Maria Emerita Rosado Nieves. Ms. Her body was found the next morning by the side of a road next to a cemetery in Saddle Brook. She, too, had been strangled. The photographs are ordered from left to right and top to bottom. As you can see, he didn't always look like Santa Claus. They were facedown, side by side, as if placed there with care. They found an 18-year-old victim who'd been bitten and stabbed bound with handcuffs. [13][14] Anzilotti had spent 15 years interviewing Cottingham, working toward the confession. Her breasts had been severed and torso had been set on fire, Vronsky said. You can set your cookie preferences below. She had been abducted while walking home from practice with her schools fife-and-drum team in 1968. His additional confession to a 1974 murder was discounted by Rockland County police. When arrested, he had handcuffs, a leather gag, two slave collars, a switchblade knife, replica pistols, and a stockpile of prescription pills. Shed been abducted by Cottingham from the Ledgewood Terrace apartments, in Little Ferry, where Cottingham had previously lived, said Vronsky. 0000002847 00000 n But he told Mr. Cottingham. [6] In 2022, Cottingham officially confessed to the 1970 murder of Lorraine McGraw, under a non-prosecution agreement. His murders were not the outcome of stalking or planning but of fleeting encounters. Her youth and difference in appearance, with a boyish haircut, set her apart from the other victims. )' Cottingham primarily sought prostitutes who were petite blondes in their late teens to mid-twenties. 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. Rodrigo Torrejon may be reached at rtorrejon@njadvancemedia.com. On February 15, 1968, Cottingham killed his second known victim. 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 a Hasbrouck Heights hotel called police saying shed heard a woman screaming. They were never able to fully recover from the monumental loss, she said. 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. These include the Times Square Killer, the Torso Killer, and the Times Square Torso Ripper. But first, he wanted to return to those two murders from 47 years ago. Those cases were already closed. A killing in Somerset County a week after Cottingham got his drivers license may have been one of his first victims, Vronsky said. 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. 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). A married father of three, he lived in the. Which is entirely possible, especially in those days.. Maywood, According to one of his co-workers, he was smart, well-read, and up-to-date on current events. 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. It represented the opportunity to let the entire world know that Laverne Moye was a human being. On August 21, 1972, he is charged and convicted of shoplifting at a Stern's department store in Paramus, New Jersey, and was sentenced to pay a $50 fine or ten days in jail. Its an ongoing process, Vronsky said. The public in Bergen County deserved to know the outcome of those girls, he said. What they want is an outright statement and a sign-off of Yes thats me,' Vronsky continued. 0000002831 00000 n Two focused entirely on him: Rod Leith's The Prostitute Murders: The People vs. Richard Cottingham (Lyle Stuart Inc., 1983) and Crime Scene: The Times Square Killer (Netflix, 2021). He kept his glasses case tucked in a vest pocket of his prison scrubs, beneath his white beard, and folded his hands over his broad belly. The sergeant was undeterred. When the 40th year since the killings arrived in 2014, the local police asked the public for any new information. 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. 0000003125 00000 n It took some effort to convince him to go to court and let me make it public, Anzilotti said Tuesday. Richard Cottingham seemed like a character from a pulp novel: the crazed killer and the family man. 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. Here are the nine victims Cottingham has confessed to or been convicted of killing: On Oct. 28, 1967, Vogel, 29, told friends she was going to play bingo at a local church. 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. Again and again, for 15 years, Mr. Anzilotti met with the inmate, seeking the truth. New Jersey 'Torso Killer' admits he tied up, raped, drowned - PIX11 What Is 'Torso Killer' Richard Cottingham's Life Like Today? Anzilottihas spent all but 4 years of his law enforcement career with the prosecutors office after coming over from the Woodcliff Lake Police Department. 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). Richard is related to Rosemarie Marie Cunningham and Larry J Cunningham as well as 3 additional people. However, he started killing again in 1974, when he murdered Lorraine Marie Kelly and Mary Ann Pryor. Now 74, Cottingham, who claims responsibility for dozens of murders, has confessed to a. It was a game to me. Cottingham committed his first known murder when he was 20-years-old, although he claims to have started as an adolescent. 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. He kept these "trophies" in a locked room in the basement. trailer 0000002882 00000 n In 2022, Cottingham also confessed to the 1968 murder of Diane Cusick after DNA evidence linked him to the crime. Cottingham has been given various nicknames over the years. 0000009992 00000 n He abducted Vogel and took her to a field in Montvale, where he strangled her. Instead, she ended up shopping at one of Bergen Countys malls, according to Vronsky. N.J serial killer now linked to 9 victims, but will his murder toll Infamous New Jersey 'Torso Killer' admits to abducting, torturing and She had been a teenager when her sister was killed. He began to speak about a particular case, he said. Then in exchange for immunity from prosecution, he confessed to murdering three New Jersey schoolgirls. In 2010, Bergen County authorities announced hed pleaded guilty to a sixth murder, a 1967 strangling in Bergen County. And later that same month, a fifth woman was found mutilated in the former Hotel Seville near Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. No leads were forthcoming. The other girls did, you have to take it, too. She agreed to have sex with him for money. Notably, none of his crimes took place on the property. A maid heard the teenagers guttural screams and called police. Richard Cottingham, a family man who denied everything in court, was convicted of killing five women in the early 1980s. In May of 1980, police arrested Cottingham while he was torturing a sex worker at a motel room in New Jersey. This is a private property. 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. 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 married in 1970 and became a father of three. 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. Inside they found the bodies of 22-year-old sex worker Deedeh Goodarzi[9] and an unidentified woman estimated between 16 and 22. Her name was Nancy Schiava Vogel. 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. And any new prison sentence would, practically speaking, be meaningless; Mr. Cottingham had no chance of ever being released. Hes been chief of detectives nearly five years. Photos of the house and other related images. Little more than a week after Street was found, Reyner was found butchered in the Seville Motel in New York City. "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. 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. What started in 1967 with the discovery of a Ridgefield Park woman dead, nude and bound in her own car continued until 1980, when the hulking Cottingham, then 33, was arrested after the screams of a would-be victim pierced the walls of a Hasbrouck Heights motel room. On March 12, 1974, Cottingham was arrested in New York City for robbery and unlawful imprisonment on the complaint of another prostitute. Although Vogel was the earliest of Cottinghams murder victims, the killer has said she was not his first, according to Vronsky. View Richard Cottingham's record in Manchester, NJ including current phone number, address, relatives, background check report, and property record with Whitepages. You are in complete control of somebodys destiny, he told Fezzani in footage shown in the series. Follow him on Twitter @rodrigotorrejon. And for Cottingham, every night was a full moon.. Among the other faces in separate windows on the Zoom screen was a 66-year-old woman, identified simply as Nancy. One day, Cottingham told his co-worker that he had stolen a sex worker's money and clothes while she was sleeping. After 'Torso Killer' confession, NJ loved ones explain how 1960s 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.. 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. 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. 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. The Rent Zestimate for this home is $3,099/mo, which has increased by $3,099/mo in the last 30 days. 0000003183 00000 n His search for a killer led him to a man already locked away, in New Jersey State Prison, 75 miles from his office. xb```"VV~g`0pt 9mzQ[2fXar9XcK',6=3Yb%^)= RZlr$:kX;e =_i& ` ?# 0000000756 00000 n Then hed clear the room until only he and Mr. Cottingham faced each another, and begin with his questions. Infamous New Jersey 'Torso Killer' admits to abducting, torturing and On May 4, 1980, the body of Street, a sex worker, was found at the same Quality Inn where Cottingham had dumped Carrs body. 0000000756 00000 n Years ticked past, 1974 into 1975, into the 1980s, the 1990s. 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. Boyfriends, ex-boyfriends, family members all were questioned and cleared of suspicion.
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richard cottingham lodi, nj address