She then grew up without a father because her grandparents did not like him, she said. Richard Cottingham was born in 1946 and grew up largely in New Jersey. 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. Hours later, her parents drove to the mall and found Dianes Plymouth Valiant in the parking lot, where her body was discovered in the backseat. In early December 1979, firefighters were called to the Travel Inn Motor Hotel on 42nd Street as a fire burned in room 417. On July 17, 1968, Harp, of Midland Park, was walking home from band practice when a strange man, Cottingham, tried to coax her into his car, Vronsky said. Which is entirely possible, especially in those days.. 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. How it ended was me literally shaking his hand and saying, Thank you, Mr. Anzilotti said. The New York Times, p. 26. He was the Torso Killer. Richard Cottingham, a family man who denied everything in court, was convicted of killing five women in the early 1980s. According to one of his co-workers, he was smart, well-read, and up-to-date on current events. 0000003431 00000 n Its not something you can ever get over, Altman, 58, told The Post. 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. [7] On October 28, 1967, he strangled Nancy Schiava Vogel, a 29-year-old married mother of two, in Little Ferry, 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.. Since his incarceration, he has attempted suicide on two occasions. She had been tied up and strangled, authorities said. The man has no heart, no soul, no emotion whatsoever, she said. 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. This is a private property. Taking a bus to another location, Cottingham and Blase spent some time together. Boyfriends, ex-boyfriends, family members all were questioned and cleared of suspicion. Richard was arrested at a motel in Hasbrouck . Anzilottihas spent all but 4 years of his law enforcement career with the prosecutors office after coming over from the Woodcliff Lake Police Department. Other locations that are relatively close to this place. 0000009264 00000 n She, like members of the other families, agreed to forgo a guilty plea in open court. His murders were not the outcome of stalking or planning but of fleeting encounters. 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 knew, he recalled, that was Irene Blase.. A horrible scene, the police commissioner said that day. In 2004, Vronsky published his first book on homicidal maniacs, Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters, an exhaustive look at executioners slayings dating back to ancient Rome. To this day, the other young female has never been identified. On the way out, he bumped the author on the shins with a bag that felt like it contained bowling balls, Vronsky said. 0000006846 00000 n 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. Although Cottingham has formally admitted to eighteen killings and has claimed to have killed as many as 100, he is known to have only murdered seventeen girls between 1967 and 1980 and attempted to kill a further four. They were never able to fully recover from the monumental loss, she said. 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. Hackensack, 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. The weather worsened. They were facedown, side by side, as if placed there with care. He said he wouldn't have done it if I wasn't retiring.. He called his detectives and gave the word: Bring in Cottingham. But as he considered retirement, he kept returning to the two girls found dead in the woods. A woman walking to her car found them: two teenage girls, naked and dead in a sliver of woods behind an apartment parking lot. [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. The third result is Richard Eric Cunningham age 50s in Skillman, NJ. 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 Rent Zestimate for this home is $3,099/mo, which has increased by $3,099/mo in the last 30 days. In 2022, Cottingham also confessed to the 1968 murder of Diane Cusick after DNA evidence linked him to the crime. New Jersey . 0000002831 00000 n View Richard Cottingham's record in Manchester, NJ including current phone number, address, relatives, background check report, and property record with Whitepages. Her breasts had been severed and torso had been set on fire, Vronsky said. He was imprisoned. Seth Wenig/Associated Press By Ed Shanahan Dec. 5, 2022 On a. Soon, the chief closed that case two down. He forced his victims to address him as "master". Described as average and normal, New Jersey man Richard Cottingham was a father-of-three with a marriage that was slowly unravelling. He continued to live here until the police eventually arrested him on May 22nd, 1980. 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. It will take her a while to forget the habit of calling the detectives for updates a lifetime constant, through the deaths of her parents, her marriage and divorce, her second marriage and widowhood. H|U0+(QvG`b08NbHlSoZ2CRSs=* \e~ On Dec. 2, 1979, fire alarms rang out at the Travel Inn Motor Hotel on West 42nd Street. [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. Later on, Richard took a job with Blue Cross Blue Shield in New York as a computer operator. [3], Cottingham was arrested on several lesser charges throughout his killing spree. 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. [8] Vogel's nude and bound body was found on October 31, under a blanket behind the passenger seat of her car parked in nearby Ridgefield Park. He abducted Vogel and took her to a field in Montvale, where he strangled her. 0000004577 00000 n On December 2, 1979, firemen in New York responded to an alarm at the Travel Inn motel[11] near Times Square. Richard Cottingham, convicted of murdering prostitute and kidnapping three. A local investigator began to wonder: Could there be a link to a series of infamous Times Square murders? 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. HKo0l06CYf,Y(v (I?0c9 Again and again, for 15 years, Mr. Anzilotti met with the inmate, seeking the truth. After their drink, Cottingham offered to bring Blase back to the bus station where they had taken the bus. <<69EF7C237A736942AE760EBDB9B8F80B>]>> Falasca, 15, accepted. His name had floated around in the lore of Bergen County cold cases.. For over 40 years, its been folklore in this county.. Defense attorney John Bruno recited the details, which the white-bearded, 74-year-old killer acknowledged. 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. The house was built in 1974one year before Cottingham and his wife, Janet, moved in. 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. This girl did everything right, Vronsky said. 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. But in. Cottingham didnt like the idea, apparently wanting to continue their dialogue. 0000001001 00000 n Mr. Cottingham left behind no clues. He rented an apartment in Midtown and told his wife he worked nights. 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. Richard Cottingham, 74, pleaded guilty Tuesday to murdering Mary Ann Pryor, 17, and Lorraine Marie Kelly, 16, both of North Bergen. (1981, June 16). I think sometimes he grapples with his own gruesomeness back then., On March 12, a Friday, Mr. Anzilotti summoned the inmate. 0000002847 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. Hes hedged around and all but confessed.. 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. 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. Retrieved April 2nd, 2007, from Factiva database. And any new prison sentence would, practically speaking, be meaningless; Mr. Cottingham had no chance of ever being released. This is the house where the "Times Square Killer," Richard Cottingham, lived between 1975 and 1980. On February 15, 1968, Cottingham killed his second known victim. This murder was later linked to the 1977 murder of Maryann Carr, who was left in the same motel's parking lot. PB| 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. Cottingham severed the victim's breasts and posed them on the headboard of the bed, and set fire to the mattress under her body before fleeing, similar to the Travel Inn torso killings. A married father of three, he lived in the. 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. Zestimate Home Value: $598,600. Richard Cottingham was born in 1946 and grew up largely in New Jersey. Blase was 18 when she was found strangled in Saddle River in 1969. 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. She had been a teenager when her sister was killed. Anzilotti and BCPO subsequently confirmed the "exceptional closures" of these three murders.[13][8]. As you can see, he didn't always look like Santa Claus. 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 thought he could be responsible for some, Mr. Anzilotti said. Hes embarrassed by this case, he said. In fact, Mr. Cottingham lurked around the fringes of a seedy Times Square and the prostitutes who worked its streets. Cottingham had just raped, tortured and beheaded two sex workers in a room at the motel before setting it on fire. Authorities tied him to the killings after police were called to a Hasbrouck Heights motel, where a maid had heard a woman screaming. But the arrest in 1980 changed everything, exposing Richard's double life and deadly exploits. The motel where Martin Luther King was assassinated. These meetings went on for months, and then years, on top of Mr. Anzilottis regular caseload. There was also a lockbox filled with trophies from his murders, including Maryann Carrs apartment key and a necklace belonging to Jean Reyner. 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. 0000000756 00000 n You are in complete control of somebodys destiny, he told Fezzani in footage shown in the series. Then, with just days remaining before the chief retired, the inmate relented. ADVERTISEMENT. Thats not the natural order its supposed to go in.. I think it was just an evolution in his killing.. It was quite a shock to learn it was him.. 0000000016 00000 n 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. [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. After the hearing, the cameras off, Mr. Anzilotti approached Mr. Cottingham. By all accounts, he seemed to be leading an everyday life in Lodi, New Jersey, with his wife and three kids. 43 0 obj <>stream Instead, she ended up shopping at one of Bergen Countys malls, according to Vronsky. Math-wise its possible," said Vronsky. 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. I didnt know what to expect. 0000004535 00000 n There were at least five unsolved killings of girls, each an open wound for families seeking resolution. Blase was found strangled to death in 4 feet of water in Saddle River the next day. ,X3ieG(>]/TUW#gI" p&gGgy`Un(aE6e#./"e3 However, please be aware that not allowing certain cookies may impact your experience of the site.