richard cottingham lodi, nj address

Richard Cottingham of Lodi (NJ) is sentenced to 173-179 years in prison. The photographs are ordered from left to right and top to bottom. [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]. Math-wise its possible," said Vronsky. The Rent Zestimate for this home is $3,099/mo, which has increased by $3,099/mo in the last 30 days. Retrieved April 2nd, 2007, from Factiva database. Starting in 2014, Cottingham confidentially admitted to Detective Robert Anzilotti of the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office (BCPO) to being the perpetrator of the murders of three teenage females between 1968 and 1969. They were marginalized sex workers in a Times Square that was nearly lawless and when the police, at best, looked the other way.. The 45th year passed in the same way. 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. 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). 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 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. 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. 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. Over time, though, one investigator was slowly developing a theory. 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. Then, in January of this year, the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office made an announcement: The notorious serial killer Richard Cottingham, known as "The Torso Killer," had confessed to the murders. 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. 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. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. 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. The chief questioned Mr. Cottingham. On May 5, 1980, a motel housekeeper found the body of 19-year-old Valerie Ann Street in the Hasbrouck Heights Quality Inn. Taking a bus to another location, Cottingham and Blase spent some time together. She knew that Mr. Anzilotti had solved Denises killing, too. The items included necklaces, broaches, earrings, and other pieces of jewelry. It was Aug. 14, 1974, in Montvale, N.J., a suburb just over the New York state line. It was quite a shock to learn it was him.. The murder remained unsolved until Cottingham confessed and entered a guilty plea in August 2010. Thats not the natural order its supposed to go in.. After six years of visits, there was a break. 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. 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. 0000000016 00000 n Zestimate Home Value: $598,600. 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. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Thanks for contacting us. 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. Irene Blase, Denise Falasca and Jacalyn Harp all girls whose murders were unsolved. He recalled the exact place in the woods where he left the bodies. That made 11 murders Cottingham that admitted since his arrest more than 30 years ago. Richard Cottingham pleaded guilty to murder in the death of one Long Island woman and admitted under oath to killing four others. Getting to that point wasnt easy, Anzilotti said. [21] Cottingham was apparently "forensically aware" in the era before DNA analysis. Cottingham, who is also nicknamed "The Torso Killer," moved into this rented three-bedroom house in February of 1975. I just kind of looked at it and touched it and put it in a box where I had some dried flowers for my mother when she passed.. 0000003125 00000 n He said, Youre welcome.. 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 The public in Bergen County deserved to know the outcome of those girls, he said. Like two little dolls at Christmastime.. He admitted that those two killings weighed on him more than the others. He forced his victims to address him as "master". The body of Laverne Moye, of St. Albans, Queens, was discovered in a Rockville Centre creek on July 20, 1972. Serial Killer House in Lodi, New Jersey, United States. She, too, had been strangled. He didnt have the decency or the dignity to ask for forgiveness or to even address the victims families. I didnt know what to expect. No leads were forthcoming. Its not something you can ever get over, Altman, 58, told The Post. Location of first contact Maryann Carr = her apartment; Prostitutes = street or bar . 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. For a year, he refused to speak to Mr. Anzilotti. He had no relationship to his victims. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. 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 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. xref All rights reserved (About Us). But as he considered retirement, he kept returning to the two girls found dead in the woods. Richard Cottingham was born in 1946 and grew up largely in New Jersey. I could feel it.. Accused serial killer nurse allegedly tried to murder premature infant twice. 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. [6] In 2022, Cottingham officially confessed to the 1970 murder of Lorraine McGraw, under a non-prosecution agreement. 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 Trenton's New Jersey State Prison. 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 bodies of the women had no heads and no hands. Since his conviction, Cottingham has pleaded guilty to 12 murders. But Cottingham had other victims, and he would later boast of killing 85 to 100 people. With Cottinghams next victim, a killers hunting ground of sorts began to form. [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). His proclivity toward violence and the lack of solid profiling tactics for serial killers made Vronsky believe that Cottinghams claim of 100 victims was possible. Ive never seen rain like that, he said. I believe hes killed between 85 and 100, as he claims, Vronsky told The Post. Long-Buried Secrets: The Serial Killer and the Detective, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/13/nyregion/new-jersey-serial-killer-cottingham-anzilotti.html. 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. 0000007078 00000 n A local investigator began to wonder: Could there be a link to a series of infamous Times Square murders? Like a werewolf, Vronsky told The Post. 0000003431 00000 n He had pornographic artwork, adhesive tape, books about S&M, said Geberth. Cottingham is currently in state prison on a life sentence . Cottingham has claimed in the past he. This case was always haunting me.. Ms. Falasca was a 15-year-old who left her familys house in July 1969 and never returned. [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". A few days later, Mr. Anzilotti visited Mr. Cottingham in his new surroundings and told him, I put you here.. Hes younger when all this is going on in Bergen County, he said. But it was a way to get him comfortable to talk to me about murders.. The New York Times, p. 2. 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"[{$AXH'my After years in prison, Mr. Cottingham began to open up to the detective about past unsolved crimes. Cottingham has been given various nicknames over the years. xb```"VV~g`0pt 9mzQ[2fXar9XcK',6=3Yb%^)= RZlr$:kX;e =_i& ` ?# On Dec. 2, 1979, the murders that earned Cottingham the nickname the "Torso Killer took place in New York City. 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. 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. Hed been a married father of three, but the Lodi resident - who would brutalize his victims bodies, cutting off limbs, heads and breasts - would later become known as the Torso Killer" for what he left behind. A judge sentenced him to 25 years to life after Cusicks brother and only child read emotional impact statements in court. After the hearing, the cameras off, Mr. Anzilotti approached Mr. Cottingham. The police pursued a welter of tips, rumors and false alarms, The New York Times reported at the time. Later on, Richard took a job with Blue Cross Blue Shield in New York as a computer operator. He tortured women before he killed them and did terrible things to them, and yet we still dont know who he is because he preyed on sex workers, Berlinger said, adding that he hopes this series helps destigmatize sex work and potentially solve more cold 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). 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. iP^ -KvWZvxhc'm$93tSz =oBTmD]+)bTJ T|u>/. The Zestimate for this house is $598,600, which has decreased by $7,680 in the last 30 days. 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. 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. Blase was 18 when she was found strangled in Saddle River in 1969. Justice was served and thats the end of it case closed. Goodarzi had come to the United States years prior from Iran. Cottingham, 75, admitted before state Superior Court Judge Keith Bachmann in April 2021 that he had killed Mary Ann Pryor, 17, and her friend Lorraine Kelly, 16, when the pair went shopping for. Furthermore, one of the women that he murdered in 1979 is still unidentified. I was able to get almostany woman to do whatever I wanted them to do . They were facedown, side by side, as if placed there with care. Cottingham murdered at least twelve women between 1967 and 1980. In October 1966, he became a computer operator for Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, where he worked until his 1980 arrest. The chief pressed ahead with his list. Maintenance workers found her body covered in plastic bags and wrapped in a gray blanket near a Jones Beach bus stop. [2] Four surviving abduction-rape victims testified against Cottingham; he was convicted in three of the cases and acquitted in one. 0000002847 00000 n F! But in. In March, looking back on 25 years with the office, Mr. Anzilotti decided it was time to move on from the job. The schoolgirl murder confessions increased that to to nine. 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. FPh_3Gj Nt%Q[r L`%/9QTh/| Q4_g8KI}u'?xbif`H>;wNQ|sd2(? When Mr. Cottingham entered prison in 1981, Robert Anzilotti was not yet a teenager. [13][14] Anzilotti had spent 15 years interviewing Cottingham, working toward the confession. Cottingham, whose attorney did not return messages seeking comment, has claimed to have killed as many as 100 women. That was less than a year after Cottingham and his wife had their first child. Rochelle Park & 0000001425 00000 n He enjoys our relationship. Photos of the house and other related images. (1981, June 25). Seth Wenig/Associated Press By Ed Shanahan Dec. 5, 2022 On a. After their drink, Cottingham offered to bring Blase back to the bus station where they had taken the bus. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Mr. Cottingham had a vulnerability, the chief realized: After divulging nothing during hours of questioning, hed sometimes loosen up on the drive back to prison, sitting in the back seat and believing the day was done. But Mr. Anzilotti kept pressing him: You know youre going to tell me.. With an uncomplicated enthusiasm for his work, Detective Anzilotti rose through the ranks, eventually becoming the chief of detectives with a busy office to lead. Denise Falasca, 15, of Closter, New Jersey. Mr. Anzilotti, doing his best not to betray any emotion, slowly pulled out his Blackberry and took notes. This is a "Then and Now" photograph of Cottingham's former house at 29 Vreeland Street. It was pure evil. Richard Cottingham, New Jersey prison photo. 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. A woman walking to her car found them: two teenage girls, naked and dead in a sliver of woods behind an apartment parking lot. Cottingham, a divorced father of three who previously lived in Lodi, NJ, also pleaded guilty to the February 1968 rape and murder of Diane Cusick, 23, a dance instructor from New Hyde Park, NY. The teenagers were last seen on Aug. 9, 1974, in North Bergen. He did a U-turn in a bank parking lot and approached, he said. Her glasses, a ring, a necklace, Ms. Mulder said. 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. The year 2020 arrived, and running his office through the coronavirus outbreak kept Mr. Anzilotti too busy for cold cases. Therefore, you should be respectful and not step foot on the property without permission. View Richard Cottingham's record in Manchester, NJ including current phone number, address, relatives, background check report, and property record with Whitepages. The New York Times, p. 26. The Google Street View image above was taken in May of 2022. 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. 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. 43 0 obj<>stream He was a coward.. One would remind him of a TV actress. 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. 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. 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. It is not a public place. Then he shared his intentions to retire. After those confessions, the two men barely spoke. 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. 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. 0000003202 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. Years after her sisters death, she had found some comfort speaking to another from her tribe, Karen Miller, a sister of Denise Falasca. Mr. Anzilotti and another investigator drove to the town of Reading, Vt., to deliver the news to Jackies older sister, Suzan Mulder, then 69. He enjoys our time together., The chief also had another theory. 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. Moye, who traveled from Georgia to see Cottingham confess to killing his mother and four other women as part of a plea deal, said he leaned heavily on his Catholic faith as the unrepentant killer watched via video feed from South Woods State Prison in New Jersey, where hes serving multiple life sentences. 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. He had come further in closing cases than his younger self could have imagined. Then hed clear the room until only he and Mr. Cottingham faced each another, and begin with his questions. But first, he wanted to return to those two murders from 47 years ago. It is situated at 29 Vreeland Street in Lodi, New Jersey. On one occasion, he dismembered two sex workers and set fire to their torsos at a hotel near Times Square. In early December 1979, firefighters were called to the Travel Inn Motor Hotel on 42nd Street as a fire burned in room 417. 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. %%EOF For more information, please read our Privacy & Cookie Policy. Blase was found strangled to death in 4 feet of water in Saddle River the next day. "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. Now I just have to go on with my life.. The Blase family agreed. This is the house where the "Times Square Killer," Richard Cottingham, lived between 1975 and 1980. He did not know the names of those he killed. 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. Cookie Settings/Do Not Sell My Personal Information. The police were called and Cottingham was apprehended while trying to flee. The man has no heart, no soul, no emotion whatsoever, she said. 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. 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. Prosecutors will seek dual life sentences to run alongside his current lifetime term when Cottingham is sentenced on July 9 for what Musella said were the willful, deliberate, and premediated murders of Mary Ann Prior and Lorraine Kelly. I never broke my promise to him, all these years later, the chief said. In 1964, Cottingham graduated from Pascack Valley High School in Hillsdale, New Jersey. The inmate made it clear that pressure would not work. 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. I lost so much more than just my mother that day, Altman said. So he would remember something on the way: a racetrack or a shopping mall. PB| Straddling her back, he drew a knife and put it to her throat as he snapped a pair of handcuffs on her wrists. 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. They'd left home for a trip 13 miles (21 kilometers) north to . He abducted Vogel and took her to a field in Montvale, where he strangled her. A hotel worker arrived at Room 417 to find smoke and a horrible scene: the scorched remains of two women on a bed. 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. Just shy of his 21st birthday, Richard Cottingham began a vicious killing spree that tore through north New Jersey and New York City. Correctional officers found contraband and evidence of bookmaking and transferred Mr. Cottingham to solitary confinement. By all accounts, he seemed to be leading an everyday life in Lodi, New Jersey, with his wife and three kids. Did the old man kill those girls? Described as average and normal, New Jersey man Richard Cottingham was a father-of-three with a marriage that was slowly unravelling. 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 girls, Mary Ann Pryor, 17, and Lorraine Kelly, 16, had last been seen days earlier at a nearby bus stop. On more than one occasion, he would openly talk about his experiences with sex workers. They captured Cottingham soon after. xref Its an ongoing process, Vronsky said. Responding officers found an 18-year-old victim whod been bitten, stabbed and bound with handcuffs.