richard cottingham lodi, nj address

His wife withdrew the petition upon his arrest in May 1980, then completed the divorce after his 1981 conviction. For decades, a string of killings of teenage girls haunted suburban New Jersey. Cottingham is currently in state prison on a life sentence . To this day, I dont even think they would have ever said anything. [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. All these factors created this crucible in the center of Manhattan for Richard Cottingham to flourish.. We've received your submission. 0000001001 00000 n 0000005280 00000 n It could only be Jackie Harp.. The year 2020 arrived, and running his office through the coronavirus outbreak kept Mr. Anzilotti too busy for cold cases. Serial Killer House in Lodi, New Jersey, United States. 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. He had his list of names, each one a dead girl and a crime long unsolved. A judge sentenced him to 25 years to life after Cusicks brother and only child read emotional impact statements in court. Maywood, Richard Cottingham seemed like a character from a pulp novel: the crazed killer and the family man. The 22-year-old's death appeared brutal: she had been beheaded and set on fire and her skull has yet to be found. In fact, Mr. Cottingham lurked around the fringes of a seedy Times Square and the prostitutes who worked its streets. Look her up, she looks like her. Others he remembered from a haircut.. WjgF\A9Ro9r/;l5Gh3h}NG2L -S$B{s"=z{ 0EaSe,&@yJQ>`n; ;dj7n (~>*}fEx*\W]xvpt]/k"0JTj4%`G?t$8I@FmYkr(_5_+ jfbXP{]~&I6"%}\STHD Ld2=ENhk$)HESdX,g o+IkRC~eC1 dm"GZBDM7~K&'/9"[{$AXH'my He asked to quietly close their daughters murder case without formally charging the killer. His yearbook photo shows a cross-country runner with blond hair slicked back. Denise Falasca, 15, of Closter, New Jersey. Did the old man kill those girls? 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. He said, Youre welcome.. And even worse, the rape laws were particularly onerous, and you had to provide a witness to bring an allegation of rape. On February 15, 1968, Cottingham killed his second known victim. Richard Cottingham, Lorraine . She was stunned. Then, with just days remaining before the chief retired, the inmate relented. [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). 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. He also claims that his true victim count is at least 85. 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. Her attacker was caught as he ran away. When arrested, he had handcuffs, a leather gag, two slave collars, a switchblade knife, replica pistols, and a stockpile of prescription pills. The man has no heart, no soul, no emotion whatsoever, she said. 0000000016 00000 n Maintenance workers found her body covered in plastic bags and wrapped in a gray blanket near a Jones Beach bus stop. Bergen County investigators realized there were numerous open sexual assault cases with similar hallmarks: Cottingham kidnapped them from Times Square, drugged and assaulted them. trailer Hes embarrassed by this case, he said. Cottingham offered to give O'Dell a massage and she rolled onto her stomach. Absolutely, its completely plausible. Anything that might close more cases, bring answers to more families. After their drink, Cottingham offered to bring Blase back to the bus station where they had taken the bus. 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. Math-wise its possible," said Vronsky. He lived with his wife and kids in. . The family lived in Lodi, and Mr. Cottingham commuted to a job as a computer operator at Blue Cross Blue Shield in Manhattan. This girl did everything right, Vronsky said. %PDF-1.4 % Unfortunately, we were unable to find a photograph of Jean Reyner. 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. Mr. Anzilotti, by then a sergeant, arranged a surprise search of the inmates cell the day after the Super Bowl. Later on, Richard took a job with Blue Cross Blue Shield in New York as a computer operator. Cottingham primarily sought prostitutes who were petite blondes in their late teens to mid-twenties. F! PB| Eventually, Mr. Cottingham began to loosen up, and he spoke about killing the prostitutes. Soon, the chief closed that case two down. He enjoys our time together., The chief also had another theory. 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". He called his detectives and gave the word: Bring in Cottingham. 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. They captured Cottingham soon after. Just shy of his 21st birthday, Richard Cottingham began a vicious killing spree that tore through north New Jersey and New York City. After those confessions, the two men barely spoke. <<8BD7E4F5B15F3F4A8993EB3A0150F7AC>]>> 0000000756 00000 n Location of first contact Maryann Carr = her apartment; Prostitutes = street or bar . A horrible scene, the police commissioner said that day. Cottingham lived here with his wife, Janet, and their three children, Blair, Scott, and Jenny. 0000006846 00000 n The 45th year passed in the same way. But he eventually realized the years-long association, which involved countless state prison visits, was coming to an end. Since his conviction, Cottingham has pleaded guilty to 12 murders. 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. 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. 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. 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. Questioning Mr. Cottingham was complicated. In 1964, Cottingham graduated from Pascack Valley High School in Hillsdale, New Jersey. View Richard Cottingham's record in Manchester, NJ including current phone number, address, relatives, background check report, and property record with Whitepages. Irene Blase, Denise Falasca and Jacalyn Harp all girls whose murders were unsolved. You are in complete control of somebodys destiny, he told Fezzani in footage shown in the series. On more than one occasion, he would openly talk about his experiences with sex workers. The picture in the top left corner shows Cottingham during one of his trials. Cottingham has confessed to murdering 12 women. The body of Laverne Moye, of St. Albans, Queens, was discovered in a Rockville Centre creek on July 20, 1972. 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. 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. Falasca, 15, accepted. He described in detail how, instead, he took the girls to a motel, held them captive and eventually drowned them in the bathtub. Hearing prosecutors detail grisly crime scenes like where Laverne was found was especially difficult to endure, her son said. 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. 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. Vronsky and Weiss had been meeting with Cottingham in prison since the spring of 2017, counseling him to make the confession. That was less than a year after Cottingham and his wife had their first child. It was pure evil. %PDF-1.4 % She was a mother, she was a wife, a daughter and a grandmother taken far too early. trailer 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. The weather worsened. She knew that Mr. Anzilotti had solved Denises killing, too. Blase was 18 when she was found strangled in Saddle River in 1969. I never thought I would get caught, he added. We've received your submission. These meetings went on for months, and then years, on top of Mr. Anzilottis regular caseload. This story has been shared 151,197 times. She, like members of the other families, agreed to forgo a guilty plea in open court. He has been charged with 11 murders in all. 21 0 obj <> endobj That man, Richard Cottingham, had been convicted of crimes that seemed to bear little resemblance to the murders of the girls. 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. And any new prison sentence would, practically speaking, be meaningless; Mr. Cottingham had no chance of ever being released. . 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. Her youth and difference in appearance, with a boyish haircut, set her apart from the other victims. The plea leaves the question: Will they be Cottinghams final admissions? Richard Cottingham was born in 1946 and grew up largely in New Jersey. HUMs@Wf~}m1`16N7NLf%=Io8. The girls, Mary Ann Pryor, 17, and Lorraine Kelly, 16, had last been seen days earlier at a nearby bus stop. Then he shared his intentions to retire. It is situated at 29 Vreeland Street in Lodi, New Jersey. Berlinger said well never truly know how many women died at Cottinghams hands, but his story had long fascinated the director, who sees a social justice component aspect to telling his story. But it was a way to get him comfortable to talk to me about murders.. They were facedown, side by side, as if placed there with care. 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. Hes hedged around and all but confessed.. He later detailed his brief 1979 encounter with Cottingham in Times Square Torso Ripper: Sex and Murder on The Deuce. His upcoming book on the vicious predator will be released next fall. But he told Mr. Cottingham. On May 4, 1980, the body of Street, a sex worker, was found at the same Quality Inn where Cottingham had dumped Carrs body. These include the Times Square Killer, the Torso Killer, and the Times Square Torso Ripper. Inmates were wagering everything from cash to cigarettes. Then he followed with an unusual request. 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. 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. It doesnt bring my mother back, but at least I have answers now. There were at least five unsolved killings of girls, each an open wound for families seeking resolution. He remembers certain aspects of a person, Mr. Anzilotti said. He admitted that those two killings weighed on him more than the others. 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. 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. 0000003431 00000 n 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. He was locked away to serve several life sentences, aging into a portly man with a thick white beard. Cottingham committed his first known murder when he was 20-years-old, although he claims to have started as an adolescent. My parents couldnt handle it., She had called Bergen County every few months to ask about the case for 47 years, she said. 0000001425 00000 n 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. Much of Cottinghams crimes were not murders, but other violent crimes like abductions and rapes. It is not a public place. 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.". Despite the gruesome nature of his murders, the butcher, named Richard Cottingham, never warranted the breathless news coverage of David Son of Sam Berkowitz, who only three years prior paralyzed the Big Apple with fear. 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. Richard Cottingham, convicted of murdering prostitute and kidnapping three. With Ms. Pryor and a judge watching on Zoom that day, Mr. Cottingham pleaded guilty to the two murders. 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. The clever killer slipped up, leaving a fingerprint on the cuffs. In 1981, he was found guilty of her murder and sentenced to nearly 200 years in prison. 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.. The girls vanished Aug. 9, 1974, while hitchhiking to a mall in . 0000000756 00000 n Richard is related to Rosemarie Marie Cunningham and Larry J Cunningham as well as 3 additional people. Its been half my career, he said. Shed been abducted by Cottingham from the Ledgewood Terrace apartments, in Little Ferry, where Cottingham had previously lived, said Vronsky. %%EOF Her name was Nancy Schiava Vogel. But the killer was a clever bastard, too. The killer would suddenly recall picking a girl up from a store somewhere, and the chief, in the front passenger seat as a detective drove, surreptitiously took notes. 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). 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. The brief encounter later inspired Vronsky to write his serial killer histories and paved the way for his prison meetings with Cottingham four decades later. But there was an even bigger problem. Mr. Cottingham was summoned before a judge on April 27, remotely, via Zoom, sitting in a wheelchair in a conference room at the prosecutors office. 0000001082 00000 n 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. Authorities tied him to the killings after police were called to a Hasbrouck Heights motel, where a maid had heard a woman screaming. 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. Justice was served and thats the end of it case closed. The photographs are ordered from left to right and top to bottom. He continued to live here until the police eventually arrested him on May 22nd, 1980. 0000003451 00000 n 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. [3], Cottingham was arrested on several lesser charges throughout his killing spree. His yearbook photo shows a cross-country runner with blond hair slicked back. These objects, along with his fingerprint on the handcuffs, were presented as evidence by prosecutors at his trial. On May 5, 1980, a motel housekeeper found the body of 19-year-old Valerie Ann Street in the Hasbrouck Heights Quality Inn. The inmate, with no real incentive to say anything about that crime, had given the chief what amounted to a parting gift. It represented closure, Moye said of this weeks hearing. One would remind him of a TV actress. Cottingham was apprehended in the hallway by arriving police officers. Anzilotti and BCPO subsequently confirmed the "exceptional closures" of these three murders.[13][8]. It also left enormous holes in the souls of family and friends of Mary Ann Pryor, 17, and Lorraine Kelly, 16. Authorities believed it to be, thus far, the oldest criminal case to be solved and prosecuted by direct DNA evidence. The five victims addressed . He married in 1970 and became a father of. During a search of the house, investigators discovered personal items belonging to some of his victims. He had not yet put in for retirement, or even told his boss he planned to do that the following week. 0000006151 00000 n 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. He said he wouldn't have done it if I wasn't retiring.. Their murders shook the region. Rodrigo Torrejon may be reached at rtorrejon@njadvancemedia.com. 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. This is the house where the "Times Square Killer," Richard Cottingham, lived between 1975 and 1980. That was roughly one month after his arrest. He began torturing her, nearly biting off one of her nipples. Cottingham was convicted of five murders in a series of three trials between 1981 and 1984 (two in New Jersey and one in New York). I think it was just an evolution in his killing.. He rented an apartment in Midtown and told his wife he worked nights. The public in Bergen County deserved to know the outcome of those girls, he said. 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. [2], In 2010, he pleaded guilty to the 1967 murder of Nancy Vogel. He had been dubbed the Times Square Torso Ripper setting off Vronskys lifelong fascination of serial killers. In 2022, Cottingham also confessed to the 1968 murder of Diane Cusick after DNA evidence linked him to the crime. I think sometimes he grapples with his own gruesomeness back then., On March 12, a Friday, Mr. Anzilotti summoned the inmate. 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. Detective Anzilotti was startled to discover the same man killed all three. The latitude and longitude coordinates for the house are: To view directions on how to get there, you can use the Google Maps shortcut below: 29 Vreeland StreetLodiNew JerseyNJ 07644United States. She was Nancy Pryor, and she was 19 when her sister, Mary Ann, was found dead. He tried a different approach. The New York Times, p. 26. 0000009264 00000 n 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. And later that same month, a fifth woman was found mutilated in the former Hotel Seville near Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. Cookie Settings/Do Not Sell My Personal Information. [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]. Photos of the house and other related images. Cottingham fled the scene with the victims heads and hands. Note that there seems to have been a "lull" between 1970 and 1973. But beneath the veneer of normalcy was a heinous double-existence as a serial killer. I thought he could be responsible for some, Mr. Anzilotti said. Five months later, the serial slayer struck again, strangling Maria Emerita Rosado Nieves, an 18-year-old Manhattan woman originally from Puerto Rico. The police believed they had given up on the bus and were trying to hitchhike to a mall. 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. FPh_3Gj Nt%Q[r L`%/9QTh/| Q4_g8KI}u'?xbif`H>;wNQ|sd2(? Cottinghams luck began to unravel in early May 1980 when the maid at the Quality Inn found the naked corpse of a handcuffed woman under the bed. According to his neighbors, he seemed like a regular family man. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. No leads were forthcoming. Therefore, you should be respectful and not step foot on the property without permission. YouTubes privacy policy is available here and YouTubes terms of service is available here. 0000002882 00000 n Thats not the natural order its supposed to go in.. In this case, instead, he removed her breasts and placed them on the headboard for shock value, former Commanding Officer of Bronx Homicide and criminal profiler Vernon Geberth says in the series, noting it convinced him of one thing: Still, at the time, no one suspected the scope of this sexual sadists homicidal footprint, which stretched into the Garden State and had started more than a decade prior.

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