Goodarzi, of Trenton, was a sex worker who had been traveling to the then-seedy streets of midtown Manhattan, Vronsky said. Cottingham has confessed to murdering 12 women. 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. The people listed below were born in, residents of, or otherwise closely associated with Lodi, New Jersey. She was found strangled to death the next day in Saddle Brook. [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". 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. The third result is Richard Eric Cunningham age 50s in Skillman, NJ. And even worse, the rape laws were particularly onerous, and you had to provide a witness to bring an allegation of rape. Inside they found the bodies of 22-year-old sex worker Deedeh Goodarzi[9] and an unidentified woman estimated between 16 and 22. Anzilottihas spent all but 4 years of his law enforcement career with the prosecutors office after coming over from the Woodcliff Lake Police Department. Richard Cottingham pleaded guilty to murder in the death of one Long Island woman and admitted under oath to killing four others. Richard Cottingham was born in 1946 and was raised mostly in New Jersey, according to the The New York Times. He enjoys our relationship. But beneath the veneer of normalcy was a heinous double-existence as a serial killer. Five months later, the serial slayer struck again, strangling Maria Emerita Rosado Nieves, an 18-year-old Manhattan woman originally from Puerto Rico. He said he would talk about other murders only on the condition that the revelations would be kept out of the papers. 43 0 obj <>stream 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. 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. But as he considered retirement, he kept returning to the two girls found dead in the woods. Over the course of 13 years, beginning in 1967, Cottingham killed six women in New Jersey and New York. 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. He asked to quietly close their daughters murder case without formally charging the killer. With Ms. Pryor and a judge watching on Zoom that day, Mr. Cottingham pleaded guilty to the two murders. This case was always haunting me.. Shed been abducted by Cottingham from the Ledgewood Terrace apartments, in Little Ferry, where Cottingham had previously lived, said Vronsky. 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.. Im leaving, he said. 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. Cottingham was serving time for five murders, following convictions in New Jersey and New York, when Bergen prosecutors detectives in 2010 tied him to the killing of 29-year-old Ridgefield Park mom Nancy Schiava Vogel, bringing the total then to six. iP^ -KvWZvxhc'm$93tSz =oBTmD]+)bTJ T|u>/. 0000002831 00000 n During a search of the house, investigators discovered personal items belonging to some of his victims. 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. That was roughly one month after his arrest. 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. My parents couldnt handle it., She had called Bergen County every few months to ask about the case for 47 years, she said. A woman walking to her car found them: two teenage girls, naked and dead in a sliver of woods behind an apartment parking lot. 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. But he eventually realized the years-long association, which involved countless state prison visits, was coming to an end. 0000003451 00000 n 0000003707 00000 n You're a whore and you have to be punished." However, his family moved to River Vale, New Jersey, when he was 12 years old. 0000002882 00000 n In May of 1980, police arrested Cottingham while he was torturing a sex worker at a motel room in New Jersey. K3nVxb;X)oxeHME~> [5] On May 15, 1980, Jean Reyner was strangled and her throat cut in New York's historic Seville Hotel. 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. Cottingham had kept these items as souvenirs so that he could remember his victims and relive his attacks. Which, of course, I wasnt overly interested in, the former chief said. Cottingham lived here with his wife, Janet, and their three children, Blair, Scott, and Jenny. You can set your cookie preferences below. Richard Cottingham was convicted of five murders and numerous counts of kidnapping and sexual assault using evidence found in his 'trophy room' combined with a matching fingerprint left on. 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. He married in 1970 and became a father of. 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. Which is entirely possible, especially in those days.. Cusicks daughter, Darlene Altman, told Nassau County Judge Caryn Fink her late grandparents raised her after her mothers shocking slaying. I think it was just an evolution in his killing.. [13][14] Anzilotti had spent 15 years interviewing Cottingham, working toward the confession. Straddling her back, he drew a knife and put it to her throat as he snapped a pair of handcuffs on her wrists. 0000001425 00000 n In 2010, Bergen County authorities announced hed pleaded guilty to a sixth murder, a 1967 strangling in Bergen County. [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. That night, city firefighters responded to a blaze at a motel in Times Square, the New York Daily News reported. He admitted that those two killings weighed on him more than the others. All rights reserved (About Us). His wife withdrew the petition upon his arrest in May 1980, then completed the divorce after his 1981 conviction. 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. Their heads and hands had been cut off. Long-Buried Secrets: The Serial Killer and the Detective, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/13/nyregion/new-jersey-serial-killer-cottingham-anzilotti.html. PB| On May 4, 1980, the body of Street, a sex worker, was found at the same Quality Inn where Cottingham had dumped Carrs body. He has been charged with 11 murders in all. But it was a way to get him comfortable to talk to me about murders.. They found an 18-year-old victim who'd been bitten and stabbed bound with handcuffs. The potential payoff in return felt almost too important to describe. 0000003125 00000 n He recalled the exact place in the woods where he left the bodies. They were marginalized sex workers in a Times Square that was nearly lawless and when the police, at best, looked the other way.. When Mr. Cottingham entered prison in 1981, Robert Anzilotti was not yet a teenager. It was quite a shock to learn it was him.. 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. Instead, she ended up shopping at one of Bergen Countys malls, according to Vronsky. 0000009264 00000 n 0000000991 00000 n On more than one occasion, he would openly talk about his experiences with sex workers. 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. Vogel was found dead in her own car in Ridgefield Park, nude and bound. Her killer, Richard Cottingham, was a computer operator, married with three children of his own, living a seemingly normal life. 0000004535 00000 n xref To Mr. Anzilotti, what had once seemed like a great disparity between the two series of murders one a group of suburban teenagers and the other mostly sex workers in the city now made sense. 0000005280 00000 n 0000008735 00000 n Cottingham was apprehended in the hallway by arriving police officers. Denise Falasca, 15, of Closter, New Jersey. 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. The predator, dubbed The Torso Killer, would strike again in May 1980. 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. On the way out, he bumped the author on the shins with a bag that felt like it contained bowling balls, Vronsky said. xb```"WVf~g`0pt 9"~S?``Z V|bG!+N}TzYl@2 `QD2 @DACEDJaOs6x?+[Ihlrt ? One would remind him of a TV actress. 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. She, like members of the other families, agreed to forgo a guilty plea in open court. It doesnt bring my mother back, but at least I have answers now. New documentary The 12th Victim: Is Fugate a Natural Born Killer or Starkweather victim? [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 then grew up without a father because her grandparents did not like him, she said. 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. Harp was found strangled to death the next day. But Cottingham had other victims, and he would later boast of killing 85 to 100 people. He said, Im going to give you one, Mr. Anzilotti recalled. She had been a teenager when her sister was killed. Location of first contact Maryann Carr = her apartment; Prostitutes = street or bar . 0000006846 00000 n trailer Maintenance workers found her body covered in plastic bags and wrapped in a gray blanket near a Jones Beach bus stop. 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. Richard Cottingham, Lorraine . 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. Cottingham, a Lodi man who moonlighted as one of New Jersey's most savage serial killers, had been convicted of murdering five women in New York and New Jersey. 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. The police photograph on the left was taken in June of 1980. That girl was found drowned, similar to Blases killing, he said. 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. Ms. Falasca was a 15-year-old who left her familys house in July 1969 and never returned. 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. In October 1966, he became a computer operator for Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, where he worked until his 1980 arrest. When they arrived, one firefighter attempted mouth-to-mouth resuscitation of a woman they found on the bed. Mr. Cottingham left behind no clues. Over the months that followed, Mr. Anzilotti cultivated an unusual relationship with Mr. Cottingham, sometimes testy, sometimes closer to a sort of warmth. The chief agreed. After failing to return home from a trip to buy shoes at the Green Acres Mall in Valley Stream, New York,[9] 23-year old Diane Cusick was found raped, beaten, and strangled to death in the back seat of her car, parked near the mall. 0000012661 00000 n 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. Hes hedged around and all but confessed.. According to his neighbors, he seemed like a regular family man. [7] On October 28, 1967, he strangled Nancy Schiava Vogel, a 29-year-old married mother of two, in Little Ferry, New Jersey. On Dec. 2, 1979, the murders that earned Cottingham the nickname the "Torso Killer took place in New York City. I took over handling the calls, the arrangements. Hackensack, He abducted Vogel and took her to a field in Montvale, where he strangled her. And he sat there with literally no remorse. 0000002435 00000 n 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. 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. [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. He did, however, leave behind their clothing, including a pair of Bonjour jeans, white leotards and a black fur coat, neatly folded in the bath tub. 0000002865 00000 n Trophies like jewellery and other personal items belonging to his victims were taken by him. This story has been shared 150,597 times. In March, looking back on 25 years with the office, Mr. Anzilotti decided it was time to move on from the job. But in. Cottingham committed his first known murder when he was 20-years-old, although he claims to have started as an adolescent. Then came Tuesdays pleas. Although Vogel was the earliest of Cottinghams murder victims, the killer has said she was not his first, according to Vronsky. When arrested, he had handcuffs, a leather gag, two slave collars, a switchblade knife, replica pistols, and a stockpile of prescription pills. The family lived in Lodi, and Mr. Cottingham commuted to a job as a computer operator at Blue Cross Blue Shield in Manhattan. We've received your submission. Again and again, for 15 years, Mr. Anzilotti met with the inmate, seeking the truth. Goodarzi had come to the United States years prior from Iran. 0000001001 00000 n One day in 2014, the chief and a partner were driving the inmate back to prison when, from the back seat, Mr. Cottingham, who by then had spent almost half of his 68 years in prison, began describing a girl he once spotted near a store in Hackensack. That made 11 murders Cottingham that admitted since his arrest more than 30 years ago. I was shocked that one human being was capable of all this carnage, Moye said of Cottingham. In this image taken from a New Jersey Courts virtual hearing, Richard Cottingham, center, known as the "Torso Killer," pleads guilty Tuesday, April 27, 2021, to two 1974 murders. 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. The house is close to Lodi High School, the Riverside Cemetery and Interstate 80. Its not something you can ever get over, Altman, 58, told The Post. Cottingham was indicted in Cusicks killing in June after DNA evidence linked him to the cold-case slaying believed to be the oldest match to ever lead to a prosecution, Nassau County prosecutors said. Six months later, Vronsky would learn that the man he encountered on the elevator was Cottingham as the killers face appeared in newspapers across the region. The chief pressed ahead with his list. Cottinghamss name came up several times, but it didnt fit for me, she 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. 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. The clever killer slipped up, leaving a fingerprint on the cuffs. They were facedown, side by side, as if placed there with care. A local investigator began to wonder: Could there be a link to a series of infamous Times Square murders? He pleaded innocent and for decades insisted he was being "framed", until admitting in 2009 that he had actually perpetrated those five murders. (1981, June 16). [15], In 2022, Cottingham was arraigned from his prison hospital bed for the 1968 murder of Diane Cusick in Long Island, New York. Richard Cottingham who is already serving time in state prison for several . Morgan Wallen has best-selling album of 2021 despite his N Canadian teacher with size-Z prosthetic breasts placed on paid leave, Buster Murdaugh got 'very drunk' with dad 2 months after mom, brother murdered: source, What's next for Buster Murdaugh after dad's murder conviction, life sentence, I'm a professional cleaner ditch these 4 household products immediately, Prince Harry was scared to lose Meghan Markle after fight that led to therapy, Prince Harry says psychedelics are fundamental part of his life, Inside Scheana Shay, Raquel Leviss heated confrontation about Tom Sandoval affair, Kellyanne Conway and George Conway to divorce. That man, Richard Cottingham, had been convicted of crimes that seemed to bear little resemblance to the murders of the girls. Cottingham, a depraved killer already serving more than 200 years in prison, confessed to tossing the 22-year-old mother of two from a bridge ending her familys half-century quest for answers. He was eventually convicted of five murders in New Jersey and New York and sent to a New Jersey state prison in the early 1980s. (1981, June 25). For decades, a string of killings of teenage girls haunted suburban New Jersey. Rodrigo Torrejon may be reached at rtorrejon@njadvancemedia.com. Richard Cottingham of Lodi (NJ) is sentenced to 173-179 years in prison. Richard was arrested at a motel in Hasbrouck . "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. Rochelle Park & The details stopped him cold. Retrieved April 2nd, 2007, from Factiva database. Irene Blase, Denise Falasca and Jacalyn Harp all girls whose murders were unsolved. 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. I lost so much more than just my mother that day, Altman said. But Cottingham flew under the radar precisely because of how he chose his victims and who his victims were. [3], Cottingham was arrested on several lesser charges throughout his killing spree. Below, you will find the address and the GPS coordinates for this location. To this day, I dont even think they would have ever said anything. He described in detail how, instead, he took the girls to a motel, held them captive and eventually drowned them in the bathtub. The motel where Martin Luther King was assassinated. 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. To this day, their remains have never been recovered. This is possibly due to the fact that he got married in 1970.