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. (1981, June 25). document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Thanks for contacting us. But then, four years ago, Mr. Cottingham stunned the chief. This is a "Then and Now" photograph of Cottingham's former house at 29 Vreeland Street. Rodrigo Torrejon may be reached at [email protected]. The year 2020 arrived, and running his office through the coronavirus outbreak kept Mr. Anzilotti too busy for cold cases. 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. After those confessions, the two men barely spoke. Richard Cottingham in NJ - Address & Phone Number | Whitepages 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. After years in prison, Mr. Cottingham began to open up to the detective about past unsolved crimes. The following is a list of his victims in chronological order. %PDF-1.4
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Long-Buried Secrets: The Serial Killer and the Detective 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. 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. We use cookies to deliver personalized advertisements, improve your online experience, and to analyze our site's performance. 0000009264 00000 n
A killing in Somerset County a week after Cottingham got his drivers license may have been one of his first victims, Vronsky said. 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. 0000008735 00000 n
He also claimed to have committed 80 perfect murders no one knows about. New documentary The 12th Victim: Is Fugate a Natural Born Killer or Starkweather victim? The third result is Richard Eric Cunningham age 50s in Skillman, NJ.
Like two little dolls at Christmastime.. His "justification" for doing this was that he "didn't like anyone getting one over" on him. The girls vanished Aug. 9, 1974, while hitchhiking to a mall in . [1] He was nicknamed the New York Ripper, the Torso Killer and the Times Square Killer, since his crimes often targeted prostitutes and included mutilation. He would occasionally remove and dispose of his victims heads and hands, presumably to make identification more difficult. He lived with his wife and kids in. The chief questioned Mr. Cottingham. 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. My whole life has been this, she said. He had been dubbed the Times Square Torso Ripper setting off Vronskys lifelong fascination of serial killers. A Detective's Work Ends: Lodi Serial Killer Admits Raping, Drowning 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. For a year, he refused to speak to Mr. Anzilotti. Sitting in a conference room, Mr. Cottingham calmly reached back more than 40 years and described how hed murdered a woman whose name he couldnt remember, a 29-year-old mother found strangled in her car in Ridgefield Park, N.J., in 1967. Feech La Manna's house from The Sopranos. His name had floated around in the lore of Bergen County cold cases.. 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. And at. On February 15, 1968, Cottingham killed his second known victim. She later testified that he said, "You have to take it. Mr. Anzilotti had begun to believe, he said in a recent interview, that Mr. Cottingham, between his history and the suspicions of detectives that came before me, could be responsible for one or more of those deaths. Cottingham then confessed to more murders including Nancy Vogel, whom he killed in 1967, and five teenaged victims from New Jersey, none of whom were in the sex trade. 0000003686 00000 n
The investigators handed Ms. Mulder possessions of Jackies from half a century past. Richard Cottingham, New Jersey prison photo. He married in 1970 and became a father of three. 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. 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. 0000003451 00000 n
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. 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. For more details, please read our Privacy & Cookie Policy. Richard Cottingham, Lorraine . 'Torso Killer' Richard Cottingham admits drowning North Bergen girls Click here to follow Daily Voice Hackensack and receive free news updates. According to one of his co-workers, he was smart, well-read, and up-to-date on current events. Authorities believed it to be, thus far, the oldest criminal case to be solved and prosecuted by direct DNA evidence. Note that there seems to have been a "lull" between 1970 and 1973. 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. Cottingham had stuffed Streets body under the bed for housekeeping to find, Vronsky said. 0000001968 00000 n
Irene Blase, aged 18, vanished on April 7, 1969, in Hackensack and was found face down in four feet of water in the Saddle River, strangled with a wire, a cord, or perhaps the chain of a crucifix she was wearing. However, he started killing again in 1974, when he murdered Lorraine Marie Kelly and Mary Ann Pryor. 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. 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 then left the scene with their severed heads and hands. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Thanks for contacting us. Over the months that followed, Mr. Anzilotti cultivated an unusual relationship with Mr. Cottingham, sometimes testy, sometimes closer to a sort of warmth. 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. 0000000991 00000 n
He drove his car ahead of Harp, pulled over and walked back toward her, Vronsky said. It was an era when the sex worker was criminalized. Below, you will find the address and the GPS coordinates for this location. When the 40th year since the killings arrived in 2014, the local police asked the public for any new information. 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. Cottingham fled the scene with the victims heads and hands. He had not yet put in for retirement, or even told his boss he planned to do that the following week. Cottingham was apprehended in the hallway by arriving police officers. 'Torso Killer' pleads guilty in 1974 cold-case murders - AP NEWS [5] On May 15, 1980, Jean Reyner was strangled and her throat cut in New York's historic Seville Hotel. 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. She was found strangled to death the next day in Saddle Brook. He abducted Vogel and took her to a field in Montvale, where he strangled her. 2023 Advance Local Media LLC. Cottingham, whose attorney did not return messages seeking comment, has claimed to have killed as many as 100 women. Cottingham offered to give O'Dell a massage and she rolled onto her stomach. Questioning Mr. Cottingham was complicated. It is situated at 29 Vreeland Street in Lodi, New Jersey. [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). She, too, had been strangled. . Before his arrest, he was a successful computer operator who worked at the Blue Cross-Blue Shield insurance company in Midtown Manhattan. The schoolgirl murder confessions increased that to to nine. Three days later, Mr. Anzilotti walked out of his office for good. 0000001082 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.". He described things only the killer would know, like where hed thrown her car keys afterward. That made 11 murders Cottingham that admitted since his arrest more than 30 years ago. 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. The man has no heart, no soul, no emotion whatsoever, she said. That was roughly one month after his arrest. YouTubes privacy policy is available here and YouTubes terms of service is available here. A third the killing of 13-year-old Jackie Harp seemed to be the work of another killer. Absolutely, its completely plausible. Vogel was found dead in her own car in Ridgefield Park, nude and bound. Much of Cottinghams crimes were not murders, but other violent crimes like abductions and rapes. 0000009992 00000 n
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After his wife filed for divorce in April of 1979, it seems as though his killings became far more frequent. It represented the opportunity to let the entire world know that Laverne Moye was a human being. Photos of the house and other related images. Over the course of 13 years, beginning in 1967, Cottingham killed six women in New Jersey and New York. The potential payoff in return felt almost too important to describe. Inside they found the bodies of 22-year-old sex worker Deedeh Goodarzi[9] and an unidentified woman estimated between 16 and 22. One would remind him of a TV actress. NJ's infamous 'Torso Killer' confesses to 1974 murders of two Garden Little more than a week after Street was found, Reyner was found butchered in the Seville Motel in New York City. Consequently, he was charged with attempted murder and kidnapping. After the hearing, the cameras off, Mr. Anzilotti approached Mr. Cottingham. 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. But in. He had come further in closing cases than his younger self could have imagined. If hes going to confess to some others, if they can get him to talk, just for those families if he can confess to those, that right there would be I dont know the right word to say, Ms. Mulder said. Falasca was walking by the side of the road in Emerson on July 14, 1969, when Cottingham pulled up beside her and offered her a ride. Times Square Torso Killer: Grisly crimes of Richard Cottingham laid Shed been abducted by Cottingham from the Ledgewood Terrace apartments, in Little Ferry, where Cottingham had previously lived, said Vronsky. 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. 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. He said he would talk about other murders only on the condition that the revelations would be kept out of the papers. A woman walking to her car found them: two teenage girls, naked and dead in a sliver of woods behind an apartment parking lot. He also claims that his true victim count is at least 85. Then he followed with an unusual request. Correctional officers found contraband and evidence of bookmaking and transferred Mr. Cottingham to solitary confinement. They captured Cottingham soon after. 0000000016 00000 n
The details stopped him cold. [4][5], After his graduation, Cottingham worked for Metropolitan Life, where his father was a vice-president, starting in the mail room at the firm's Manhattan headquarters and eventually became a mainframe computer operator upon taking computer courses. 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. The back and forth went on for weeks. Once again, the victim did not appear in further proceedings and the case was dismissed.[6]. Hed order pizza and play cards with the older man and other detectives. trailer
He was locked away to serve several life sentences, aging into a portly man with a thick white beard. F!
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. 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. 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. It doesnt bring my mother back, but at least I have answers now. 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.
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