Investigators noted the crime scene was devoid of evidence and they were unable to identify the victims. Richard Cottingham who is already serving time in state prison for several . 0000001425 00000 n 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. iP^ -KvWZvxhc'm$93tSz =oBTmD]+)bTJ T|u>/. Over time, though, one investigator was slowly developing a theory. Therefore, you should be respectful and not step foot on the property without permission. 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. It doesnt bring my mother back, but at least I have answers now. 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. He pleaded innocent and for decades insisted he was being "framed", until admitting in 2009 that he had actually perpetrated those five murders. Although Vogel was the earliest of Cottinghams murder victims, the killer has said she was not his first, according to Vronsky. 0000000016 00000 n 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). Correctional officers found contraband and evidence of bookmaking and transferred Mr. Cottingham to solitary confinement. During a search of the house, investigators discovered personal items belonging to some of his victims. Then he shared his intentions to retire. And for Cottingham, every night was a full moon.. Community Rules apply to all content you upload or otherwise submit to this site. He had not yet put in for retirement, or even told his boss he planned to do that the following week. He then left the scene with their severed heads and hands. Both men were keenly aware that it was their years-old relationship that had brought about this moment. 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. Ms. 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. 0000002420 00000 n 21 0 obj <> endobj HKo0l06CYf,Y(v (I?0c9 Altman, who was just 3 years old at the time, said her parents had separated prior to Cusicks killing. However, he started killing again in 1974, when he murdered Lorraine Marie Kelly and Mary Ann Pryor. 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. By all accounts, he seemed to be leading an everyday life in Lodi, New Jersey, with his wife and three kids. [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. xb```"WVf~g`0pt 9"~S?``Z V|bG!+N}TzYl@2 `QD2 @DACEDJaOs6x?+[Ihlrt ? Like two little dolls at Christmastime.. In December 2019, forensic historian and author Peter Vronsky, on the eve of publishing the revelation in his second edition of Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters, publicized the confessions with the BCPO's cooperation, in a community meeting in Midland Park. Again and again, for 15 years, Mr. Anzilotti met with the inmate, seeking the truth. Irene Blase, Denise Falasca and Jacalyn Harp all girls whose murders were unsolved. It was an era when the sex worker was criminalized. The house was built in 1974one year before Cottingham and his wife, Janet, moved in. The photographs are ordered from left to right and top to bottom. His crimes were discovered in May 1980, when a maid at a Hasbrouck Heights motel heard. All rights reserved (About Us). But the arrest in 1980 changed everything, exposing Richard's double life and deadly exploits. Author Peter Vronsky, who has a forthcoming book on Cottingham, and was first to publicly announce that the imprisoned Cottingham was responsible for the three 50-year-old crimes, says authorities want to add more to the list. Before his arrest, he was a successful computer operator who worked at the Blue Cross-Blue Shield insurance company in Midtown Manhattan. [2] Four surviving abduction-rape victims testified against Cottingham; he was convicted in three of the cases and acquitted in one. 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, 74, pleaded guilty Tuesday to murdering Mary Ann Pryor, 17, and Lorraine Marie Kelly, 16, both of North Bergen. 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. The potential payoff in return felt almost too important to describe. 0 Inmates were wagering everything from cash to cigarettes. It is my fervent hope that this arrest and conviction bring some semblance of closure to the friends and family of Mary Ann and Lorraine and a measure of justice to members of our communities, who have long feared this unknown actor.. 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. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Look her up, she looks like her. Others he remembered from a haircut.. She, like members of the other families, agreed to forgo a guilty plea in open court. 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. I never broke my promise to him, all these years later, the chief said. He said, Youre welcome.. He recalled the exact place in the woods where he left the bodies. But he told Mr. Cottingham. But Cottingham flew under the radar precisely because of how he chose his victims and who his victims were. Mr. Cottingham at his virtual hearing on April 27 in Bergen County Superior Court, where he pleaded guilty to killing Mary Ann Pryor and Lorraine Kelly 47 years later. The other girls did, you have to take it, too. On Dec. 2, 1979, the murders that earned Cottingham the nickname the "Torso Killer took place in New York City. [15], In 2022, Cottingham was arraigned from his prison hospital bed for the 1968 murder of Diane Cusick in Long Island, New York. ,X3ieG(>]/TUW#gI" p&gGgy`Un(aE6e#./"e3 [4], On May 3, 1970, Cottingham was married at Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Queens Village, Queens. Hearing prosecutors detail grisly crime scenes like where Laverne was found was especially difficult to endure, her son said. In other words, he may have been content and/or preoccupied. On May 22, Cottingham then picked up Leslie Ann ODell, a 19-year-old runaway desperate to escape her pimp something he promised to help her do over drinks in Midtown. With Ms. Pryor and a judge watching on Zoom that day, Mr. Cottingham pleaded guilty to the two murders. Cottingham primarily sought prostitutes who were petite blondes in their late teens to mid-twenties. Her name was Nancy Schiava Vogel. New Jersey . Absolutely, its completely plausible. He'd been a married father of three, but the Lodi resident - who would brutalize his victim's bodies, cutting off limbs, heads and breasts - would later become known as the "Torso Killer" for. 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. Theyre pushing him on multiple other cases. Hes been interviewing Cottingham in state prison for years. On May 5, 1980, a motel housekeeper found the body of 19-year-old Valerie Ann Street in the Hasbrouck Heights Quality Inn. And at the time, it was beyond our capacity to look beyond New York City, he told The Post. 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. (1981, June 25). 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. On April 14, in a recorded interview, Mr. Cottingham said he remembered Mary Ann Pryor and Lorraine Kelly, and Mr. Anzilotti asked why he knew their names, when he hadnt in past cases. [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). South Hackensack, Richard Cottingham, Lorraine Kelly, Mary Ann Pryor, Bergen County Prosecutor's Chief of Detectives Robert Anzilotti, Ecuadorian National Pleads Guilty To Brutal Stabbing Death Of Popular Bergen County Chef, Franklin Lakes Driver Indicted In Teaneck T-Bone Crash That Kil, Paterson Non-Violence Activist Shot Dead In Police Standoff Was, Man Killed By Amtrak Train In Central Jersey Was Family Breadwi, WATCH: YouTube Video Shows Rapper Assaulting Bergen Shop Rite W, Motel Guest Covered In Lotion Rescued From Knife-Wielding Woman, DWI Suspected In Horrific Route 80 Crash In Bergen County. Seth Wenig/Associated Press By Ed Shanahan Dec. 5, 2022 On a. Authorities tied him to the killings after police were called to a Hasbrouck Heights motel, where a maid had heard a woman screaming. But he eventually realized the years-long association, which involved countless state prison visits, was coming to an end. 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. The public in Bergen County deserved to know the outcome of those girls, he said. 0000000991 00000 n [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. xref Serial Killer House in Lodi, New Jersey, United States. Over the months that followed, Mr. Anzilotti cultivated an unusual relationship with Mr. Cottingham, sometimes testy, sometimes closer to a sort of warmth. And before I go, I want to close out the Kelly-Pryor case., Mr. Cottingham urged the chief to reconsider leaving the force. The man has no heart, no soul, no emotion whatsoever, she said. On Dec. 2, 1979, fire alarms rang out at the Travel Inn Motor Hotel on West 42nd Street. Cottingham had stuffed Streets body under the bed for housekeeping to find, Vronsky said. 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. YouTubes privacy policy is available here and YouTubes terms of service is available here. The girls vanished Aug. 9, 1974, while hitchhiking to a mall in . Filming Location in Lodi, New Jersey, United States, Filming Location in Paterson, New Jersey, United States, Filming Location in Clifton, New Jersey, United States, Filming Location in Bloomfield, New Jersey, United States, Crime Location Wylie, Texas, United States, Crime Location Memphis, Tennessee, United States, Place of Interest Brooklyn, New York, United States, Crash Site Location Beaufort, South Carolina, United States. 43 0 obj <>stream He remembers certain aspects of a person, Mr. Anzilotti said. According to one of his co-workers, he was smart, well-read, and up-to-date on current events. Again, he knew details from Ms. Falascas file. The following is a list of his victims in chronological order. But it was a way to get him comfortable to talk to me about murders.. He was imprisoned. And I said, Hop in., He drove to the mall. 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. James McMorrow, Cottingham confessed last year to three other cold-case slayings of teenage school girls in Bergen County: Jacalyn (Jackie) Harp, 13, of Midland Park, who was walking home from school band practice on July 17, 1968 when she was strangled with the leather strap of her flag sling; Irene Blase, 18, of Bogota, who went missing from Hackensack on April 7, 1969 and was found strangled in Saddle River; Denise Falasca, 15, of Closter, who went missing from Westwood on July 14, 1969. [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. I took over handling the calls, the arrangements. The body of Laverne Moye, of St. Albans, Queens, was discovered in a Rockville Centre creek on July 20, 1972. But first, he wanted to return to those two murders from 47 years ago. He stood trial in New York and New Jersey in a coat and tie and denied everything, but he was convicted in all five killings. 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. The chief agreed. Five months later, the serial slayer struck again, strangling Maria Emerita Rosado Nieves, an 18-year-old Manhattan woman originally from Puerto Rico. As the New Jersey press reported on Cottinghams arrest, the NYPD started to take notice. I have done many shows about serial killers, and I have always marveled at the fact that [Ted] Bundy, [John Wayne] Gacy, [Jeffrey] Dahmer and Berkowitz were all household names, perversely, Berlinger told The Post. Then in exchange for immunity from prosecution, he confessed to murdering three New Jersey schoolgirls. 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.