21 0 obj <> endobj Ms. Falasca was a 15-year-old who left her familys house in July 1969 and never returned. No one could find any clues in the girls backgrounds: no drugs, no trouble with the law. 0000003183 00000 n It was like a game to him, Anzilotti recently said. I could feel it.. 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. I thought he could be responsible for some, Mr. Anzilotti said. I had long suspected that whoever killed Irene Blase also killed Denise Falasca, Mr. Anzilotti said. 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. 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. That girl was found drowned, similar to Blases killing, he said. The Rent Zestimate for this home is $3,099/mo, which has increased by $3,099/mo in the last 30 days. 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. That night, city firefighters responded to a blaze at a motel in Times Square, the New York Daily News reported. iP^ -KvWZvxhc'm$93tSz =oBTmD]+)bTJ T|u>/. Richard Francis Cottingham (born November 25, 1946) is an American serial killer and rapist who murdered at least eighteen young women and girls in New York and New Jersey between 1967 and 1980. The murder remained unsolved until Cottingham confessed and entered a guilty plea in August 2010. It was Aug. 14, 1974, in Montvale, N.J., a suburb just over the New York state line. 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. Thats why [authorities are] not going to make another statement. A married father of three, he lived in the. 43 0 obj <>stream 0000003707 00000 n During his trial, he testified that he had been fascinated by bondage since he was a young child. Mr. Anzilotti would arrange to have the inmate transported to his office more than hours drive from the prison. Authorities believed it to be, thus far, the oldest criminal case to be solved and prosecuted by direct DNA evidence. The police believed they had given up on the bus and were trying to hitchhike to a mall. However, he started killing again in 1974, when he murdered Lorraine Marie Kelly and Mary Ann Pryor. 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. Then, with just days remaining before the chief retired, the inmate relented. It also left enormous holes in the souls of family and friends of Mary Ann Pryor, 17, and Lorraine Kelly, 16. 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. 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. xref Shed been abducted by Cottingham from the Ledgewood Terrace apartments, in Little Ferry, where Cottingham had previously lived, said Vronsky. Its hard to understand how someone could be like that. Mr. Anzilotti, by then a sergeant, arranged a surprise search of the inmates cell the day after the Super Bowl. Harp was found strangled to death the next day. K3nVxb;X)oxeHME~> Inside they found the bodies of 22-year-old sex worker Deedeh Goodarzi[9] and an unidentified woman estimated between 16 and 22. [13][14] Anzilotti had spent 15 years interviewing Cottingham, working toward the confession. 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 [6] At Blue Cross, Cottingham worked in an office with Rodney Alcala, the fugitive child molester and future serial killer who lived in New York under the alias "John Berger". He began to speak about a particular case, he said. Its been half my career, he said. 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. 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. 0000001262 00000 n In April of 1979, he started living in the basement of the property after his wife initiated divorce proceedings against him for "abandonment" and "mental cruelty.". The New York Times, p. 26. Mr. Cottingham mentioned details of the killing that matched what Mr. Anzilotti knew from the case file. 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. This time, at the Seville Hotel, where he strangled Jean Reyner, a 25-year-old mother working in the sex trade to finance a child custody battle. 0000007078 00000 n She was found strangled to death the next day in Saddle Brook. This story has been shared 150,597 times. [7] On October 28, 1967, he strangled Nancy Schiava Vogel, a 29-year-old married mother of two, in Little Ferry, New Jersey. He also claims that his true victim count is at least 85. The confessed killer then fatally bludgeoned Sheila Heiman, a 33-year-old mother of three, in July 1973, at her North Woodmere, NY, home, where her husband found her upon returning from shopping, authorities said. 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. 0000002847 00000 n Thats not the natural order its supposed to go in.. 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. He had pornographic artwork, adhesive tape, books about S&M, said Geberth. xb```"VV~g`0pt 9mzQ[2fXar9XcK',6=3Yb%^)= RZlr$:kX;e =_i& ` ?# But first, he wanted to return to those two murders from 47 years ago. At the mall, Cottingham, then a tall, brown-haired young man, met Vogel, a married mother of two. Hed order pizza and play cards with the older man and other detectives. For a year, he refused to speak to Mr. Anzilotti. 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. Zestimate Home Value: $598,600. Soon, the chief closed that case two down. The man has no heart, no soul, no emotion whatsoever, she said. By all accounts, he seemed to be leading an everyday life in Lodi, New Jersey, with his wife and three kids. 0000009992 00000 n He has been charged with 11 murders in all. In 2010, Bergen County authorities announced hed pleaded guilty to a sixth murder, a 1967 strangling in Bergen County. She, too, had been strangled. He had three children, two boys and a girl, with his wife. The plea leaves the question: Will they be Cottinghams final admissions? 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. As the New Jersey press reported on Cottinghams arrest, the NYPD started to take notice. [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. 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. 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. After their drink, Cottingham offered to bring Blase back to the bus station where they had taken the bus. 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. 0000000016 00000 n Cottingham, who is also nicknamed "The Torso Killer," moved into this rented three-bedroom house in February of 1975. A third the killing of 13-year-old Jackie Harp seemed to be the work of another killer. After dismembering Goodarzi, Cottingham lit her torso on fire, along with a second unidentified woman, who was found next to Goodarzi on the same bed. Which, of course, I wasnt overly interested in, the former chief said. 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. 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. Over the course of 13 years, beginning in 1967, Cottingham killed six women in New Jersey and New York. The house was built in 1974one year before Cottingham and his wife, Janet, moved in. Mr. Anzilotti insisted that this case be resolved in open court. For decades, a string of killings of teenage girls haunted suburban New Jersey. So we just stayed in the car and we kept talking to each other, getting to know each other and so forth., If the rain wasnt there, they would have just went to the mall and that would have been it, he said, And I would have went to work.. 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. [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. He married in 1970 and had three children. Follow him on Twitter @rodrigotorrejon. They have also lived in Whiting, IN. 0000002420 00000 n He asked to quietly close their daughters murder case without formally charging the killer. It is not a public place. I believe hes killed between 85 and 100, as he claims, Vronsky told The Post. I asked them where they were going. The mall, they replied. 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. A maid heard the teenagers guttural screams and called police. But he told Mr. Cottingham. (1981, June 16). After his wife filed for divorce in April of 1979, it seems as though his killings became far more frequent. But something a hunch, past investigative speculation, the proximity of the crimes drew Mr. Anzilotti to the prisoner. Richard Cottingham pleaded guilty to murder in the death of one Long Island woman and admitted under oath to killing four others. If you purchase a product or register for an account through one of the links on our site, we may receive compensation. Those cases were already closed. Notably, none of his crimes took place on the property. The girls vanished Aug. 9, 1974, while hitchhiking to a mall in . He enjoys our relationship. Denise Falasca, 15, of Closter, New Jersey. 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. This is a somber day as we revisit the horrific acts and terror this man brought upon Bergen County nearly 50 years ago, the prosecutor said Tuesday. He would describe to me certain routes he would drive, Vronsky said of Cottinghamm relaying his murderous spree in letters and interviews over the span of five years. 3. 21 23 The investigators handed Ms. Mulder possessions of Jackies from half a century past. He had his list of names, each one a dead girl and a crime long unsolved. 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. 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. The details stopped him cold. 29 Vreeland St, Lodi, NJ is a single family home that contains 2,716 sq ft and was built in 1974. 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. 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. I was able to get almostany woman to do whatever I wanted them to do . 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. Richard is related to Rosemarie Marie Cunningham and Larry J Cunningham as well as 3 additional people. View Richard Cottingham's record in Manchester, NJ including current phone number, address, relatives, background check report, and property record with Whitepages. On Dec 15, 1977, Carr was found dead in the parking lot of a Quality Inn motel, in Hasbrouck Heights. 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". On May 5, 1980, a motel housekeeper found the body of 19-year-old Valerie Ann Street in the Hasbrouck Heights Quality Inn. Long-Buried Secrets: The Serial Killer and the Detective, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/13/nyregion/new-jersey-serial-killer-cottingham-anzilotti.html. [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. The Google Street View image above was taken in May of 2022. Vronsky, who frequently visits Cottingham in prison, said he had a freak, random elevator encounter with the serial killer on the early morning of Dec. 2, 1979, as he tried to check into the Travel Inn Motel near a seedy and sex-crazed Times Square. 0000012661 00000 n Ms. 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. But in. Cottinghamss name came up several times, but it didnt fit for me, she said. This is possibly due to the fact that he got married in 1970. 0000002435 00000 n Boyfriends, ex-boyfriends, family members all were questioned and cleared of suspicion. 0000001968 00000 n Soon, Cottingham persuaded Blase to go for a drink with him. In his possession, the 33-year-old had a stash of handcuffs, tape and sedatives. To this day, the other young female has never been identified. [3], Cottingham was arrested on several lesser charges throughout his killing spree. My whole life has been this, she said. The police photograph on the left was taken in June of 1980. 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. [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. 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. He remembers certain aspects of a person, Mr. Anzilotti said. Its his fault this is out.. 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. After those confessions, the two men barely spoke. 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. 0000010308 00000 n The year 2020 arrived, and running his office through the coronavirus outbreak kept Mr. Anzilotti too busy for cold cases. 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. . 7{(~tm LB IBJ*ZB`0 Then in exchange for immunity from prosecution, he confessed to murdering three New Jersey schoolgirls. Getting to that point wasnt easy, Anzilotti said. Serial killer Richard Cottingham made his admission in the cold case murders of the high school girls, acknowledging that he kidnapped, raped and finally drowned the pair inside a motel room. 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. After nearly 15 years of interviews by Anzilotti and Detective Capt. The weather worsened. He continued to live here until the police eventually arrested him on May 22nd, 1980. 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. Its an ongoing process, Vronsky said. He had been dubbed the Times Square Torso Ripper setting off Vronskys lifelong fascination of serial killers. 0000007658 00000 n Goodarzi, of Trenton, was a sex worker who had been traveling to the then-seedy streets of midtown Manhattan, Vronsky said. 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. We've received your submission. Her breasts had been severed and torso had been set on fire, Vronsky said. I knew, he recalled, that was Irene Blase.. Authorities tied him to the killings after police were called to a Hasbrouck Heights motel, where a maid had heard a woman screaming. And at. No leads were forthcoming. 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 married in 1970 and became a father of three. [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. Select this result to view Richard P Cunningham's phone number, address, and more. 0000000991 00000 n Richard Cottingham, convicted of murdering prostitute and kidnapping three. 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. [22][23] He pleaded guilty in a December court appearance, and also officially admitted killing four other women in Long Island: Mary Beth Heinz,[24] Laverne Moye,[16] Sheila Heiman,[25] and Maria Emerita Rosado Nieves.[26]. And at the time, it was beyond our capacity to look beyond New York City, he told The Post. startxref 43 0 obj<>stream I didnt know what to expect. 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).

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