richard cottingham lodi, nj address

In October 1966, he became a computer operator for Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, where he worked until his 1980 arrest. Her killer, Richard Cottingham, was a computer operator, married with three children of his own, living a seemingly normal life. In early December 1979, firefighters were called to the Travel Inn Motor Hotel on 42nd Street as a fire burned in room 417. 29 Vreeland St, Lodi, NJ is a single family home that contains 2,716 sq ft and was built in 1974. Cusicks daughter, Darlene Altman, told Nassau County Judge Caryn Fink her late grandparents raised her after her mothers shocking slaying. He would let his guard down, Mr. Anzilotti said. He had three children, two boys and a girl, with his wife. 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.. In 2010, Bergen County authorities announced hed pleaded guilty to a sixth murder, a 1967 strangling in Bergen County. For decades, a string of killings of teenage girls haunted suburban New Jersey. He was originally from the Bronx in New York City. Following his 1980 arrest, police found, in the locked room and in the trunk of his car, personal effects which they traced to several of his victims. He needed a way to approach Mr. Cottingham and found an opening in 2003, when he got a tip: Mr. Cottingham was taking bets on sporting events from his cell. 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. Defense attorney John Bruno recited the details, which the white-bearded, 74-year-old killer acknowledged. 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. 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. Years after her sisters death, she had found some comfort speaking to another from her tribe, Karen Miller, a sister of Denise Falasca. 0000001071 00000 n There was also a lockbox filled with trophies from his murders, including Maryann Carrs apartment key and a necklace belonging to Jean Reyner. The house was built in 1974one year before Cottingham and his wife, Janet, moved in. 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. It was quite a shock to learn it was him.. Richard Cottingham pleaded guilty to murder in the death of one Long Island woman and admitted under oath to killing four others. [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). During a search of the house, investigators discovered personal items belonging to some of his victims. Denise Falasca, aged 15, was abducted on July 14, 1969, in Emerson, while walking to a friend's home and found the next morning in Saddle Brook, by the side of a road next to a cemetery, strangled with the cord or the chain of her crucifix. The Rent Zestimate for this home is $3,099/mo, which has increased by $3,099/mo in the last 30 days. After his wife filed for divorce in April of 1979, it seems as though his killings became far more frequent. The Google Street View image on the right was taken 38 years later, in June of 2018. Community Rules apply to all content you upload or otherwise submit to this site. Now I just have to go on with my life.. %PDF-1.4 % Photos of the house and other related images. 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. It could only be Jackie Harp.. Ms. We've received your submission. Her youth and difference in appearance, with a boyish haircut, set her apart from the other victims. 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 Location of first contact Maryann Carr = her apartment; Prostitutes = street or bar . It would take about five months after the grisly Travel Inn slayings for investigators to arrest their man, a married father of three from Lodi, New Jersey, who preyed on sex workers in Times Square, then a seedy nucleus of pornography, prostitution and crime. She had been tied up and strangled, authorities said. 43 0 obj<>stream Five months later, the serial slayer struck again, strangling Maria Emerita Rosado Nieves, an 18-year-old Manhattan woman originally from Puerto Rico. (1981, June 25). 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. Mr. Anzilotti would arrange to have the inmate transported to his office more than hours drive from the prison. On the way out, he bumped the author on the shins with a bag that felt like it contained bowling balls, Vronsky said. 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. His murders were not the outcome of stalking or planning but of fleeting encounters. Vronsky and Weiss had been meeting with Cottingham in prison since the spring of 2017, counseling him to make the confession. It was Aug. 14, 1974, in Montvale, N.J., a suburb just over the New York state line. How it ended was me literally shaking his hand and saying, Thank you, Mr. Anzilotti said. The New York Times, p. 26. 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. Cusick, an instructor at a dance school in the Oceanside community of Long Island, went to Green Acres Mall in Valley Stream to buy a pair of shoes. He had not yet put in for retirement, or even told his boss he planned to do that the following week. . 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. He then left the scene with their severed heads and hands. Among the other faces in separate windows on the Zoom screen was a 66-year-old woman, identified simply as Nancy. The police were called and Cottingham was apprehended while trying to flee. xb```"VV~g`0pt 9mzQ[2fXar9XcK',6=3Yb%^)= RZlr$:kX;e =_i& ` ?# %%EOF 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. Did the old man kill those girls? His "justification" for doing this was that he "didn't like anyone getting one over" on him. Over the course of 13 years, beginning in 1967, Cottingham killed six women in New Jersey and New York. [3], Cottingham was arrested on several lesser charges throughout his killing spree. On Dec. 2, 1979, fire alarms rang out at the Travel Inn Motor Hotel on West 42nd Street. He asked to quietly close their daughters murder case without formally charging the killer. When they arrived, one firefighter attempted mouth-to-mouth resuscitation of a woman they found on the bed. He kept these "trophies" in a locked room in the basement. In March, looking back on 25 years with the office, Mr. Anzilotti decided it was time to move on from the job. 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. On Dec 15, 1977, Carr was found dead in the parking lot of a Quality Inn motel, in Hasbrouck Heights. For years, the three confessions remained a secret, until January 2020, when a true-crime writer who had been visiting Mr. Cottingham in prison, Peter Vronsky, announced that the inmate had revealed his crimes in interviews for a forthcoming book. A horrible scene, the police commissioner said that day. Cottingham, whose attorney did not return messages seeking comment, has claimed to have killed as many as 100 women. But Cottingham flew under the radar precisely because of how he chose his victims and who his victims were. The police pursued a welter of tips, rumors and false alarms, The New York Times reported at the time. 0000013001 00000 n He said he wouldn't have done it if I wasn't retiring.. 0000003202 00000 n 0000001262 00000 n Inmates were wagering everything from cash to cigarettes. 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. The potential payoff in return felt almost too important to describe. His wife withdrew the petition upon his arrest in May 1980, then completed the divorce after his 1981 conviction. Denise Falasca, 15, of Closter, New Jersey. Absolutely, its completely plausible. The girls, Mary Ann Pryor, 17, and Lorraine Kelly, 16, had last been seen days earlier at a nearby bus stop. I had long suspected that whoever killed Irene Blase also killed Denise Falasca, Mr. Anzilotti said. Neither complainant appeared in further proceedings, however, and the case was dismissed. 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. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Advance Local. It was a game to me. 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. xref Harp was found strangled to death the next day. But there was an even bigger problem. 0000001425 00000 n The murder remained unsolved until Cottingham confessed and entered a guilty plea in August 2010. Her attacker was caught as he ran away. [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. But something a hunch, past investigative speculation, the proximity of the crimes drew Mr. Anzilotti to the prisoner. 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. 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. He married in 1970 and became a father of. 0000000756 00000 n HKo0l06CYf,Y(v (I?0c9 Ive never seen rain like that, he said. YouTubes privacy policy is available here and YouTubes terms of service is available here. 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. Vogel was found dead in her own car in Ridgefield Park, nude and bound. Furthermore, one of the women that he murdered in 1979 is still unidentified. This is a private property. She had been a teenager when her sister was killed. 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. He called his detectives and gave the word: Bring in Cottingham. On December 2, 1979, firemen in New York responded to an alarm at the Travel Inn motel[11] near Times Square. And considering the closure of yesterdays cases, I absolutely believe him.. Therefore, you should be respectful and not step foot on the property without permission. It represented closure, Moye said of this weeks hearing. Altman, who was just 3 years old at the time, said her parents had separated prior to Cusicks killing. New Jersey . That was less than a year after Cottingham and his wife had their first child. 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. Once again, the victim did not appear in further proceedings and the case was dismissed.[6]. 0000006081 00000 n This is the house where the "Times Square Killer," Richard Cottingham, lived between 1975 and 1980. Much of Cottinghams crimes were not murders, but other violent crimes like abductions and rapes. 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. The other girls did, you have to take it, too. Taking a bus to another location, Cottingham and Blase spent some time together. As the New Jersey press reported on Cottinghams arrest, the NYPD started to take notice. As you can see, he didn't always look like Santa Claus. And any new prison sentence would, practically speaking, be meaningless; Mr. Cottingham had no chance of ever being released. 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 So he would remember something on the way: a racetrack or a shopping mall. The following is a list of his victims in chronological order. 0000002865 00000 n [4], On May 3, 1970, Cottingham was married at Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Queens Village, Queens. Before his arrest, he was a successful computer operator who worked at the Blue Cross-Blue Shield insurance company in Midtown Manhattan. Around dawn, they checked into the same Hasbrouck Heights Quality Inn where he had left Valerie Street's handcuffed body under a bed to be discovered by a housekeeper. %%EOF [5] On May 15, 1980, Jean Reyner was strangled and her throat cut in New York's historic Seville Hotel. The police photograph on the left was taken in June of 1980. She had been abducted while walking home from practice with her schools fife-and-drum team in 1968. Richard Cottingham seemed like a character from a pulp novel: the crazed killer and the family man. Between 1970 and 1974, Cottingham and his wife, Janet, lived at an apartment block called Ledgewood Terrace in Little Ferry, New Jersey. On May 4, 1980, the body of Street, a sex worker, was found at the same Quality Inn where Cottingham had dumped Carrs body. This is possibly due to the fact that he got married in 1970. The man has no heart, no soul, no emotion whatsoever, she said. Soon, the chief closed that case two down. It also left enormous holes in the souls of family and friends of Mary Ann Pryor, 17, and Lorraine Kelly, 16. I knew, he recalled, that was Irene Blase.. God rest their souls," Bergen County Prosecutor's Chief of Detective Robert Anzilotti said Tuesday after Richard Cottingham of Lodi admitted killing both in 1974. . He did a U-turn in a bank parking lot and approached, he said. 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. Her glasses, a ring, a necklace, Ms. Mulder said. [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. According to one of his co-workers, he was smart, well-read, and up-to-date on current events. 0000009543 00000 n Correctional officers found contraband and evidence of bookmaking and transferred Mr. Cottingham to solitary confinement. A case based on his "signature pattern" was built against him, combined with the testimony of four surviving victims, as well as pieces of his victims' jewellery and other items found in his possession after his arrest. 0000001082 00000 n I was shocked that one human being was capable of all this carnage, Moye said of Cottingham. 0000007658 00000 n He also claims that his true victim count is at least 85. 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. His crimes were discovered in May 1980, when a maid at a Hasbrouck Heights motel heard. )' All rights reserved (About Us). But on May 22, 1980 Cottingham's life as a predator came to light. 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. On Dec. 2, 1979, the murders that earned Cottingham the nickname the "Torso Killer took place in New York City. 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. On May 22, Cottingham then picked up Leslie Ann ODell, a 19-year-old runaway desperate to escape her pimp something he promised to help her do over drinks in Midtown. And later that same month, a fifth woman was found mutilated in the former Hotel Seville near Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. 21 0 obj <> endobj [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 said he would talk about other murders only on the condition that the revelations would be kept out of the papers. 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. I think sometimes he grapples with his own gruesomeness back then., On March 12, a Friday, Mr. Anzilotti summoned the inmate. [15] In December 2022, Cottingham was convicted of Diane Cusick's 1968 murder and, under a non-prosecution agreement, officially admitted to killing another four women during 19721973 in Long Island, New York: Mary Beth Heinz, Laverne Moye, Sheila Heiman, and Maria Emerita Rosado Nieves. Retrieved April 2nd, 2007, from Factiva database. No one could find any clues in the girls backgrounds: no drugs, no trouble with the law. 0000002435 00000 n (1981, June 16). [6] In 2022, Cottingham officially confessed to the 1970 murder of Lorraine McGraw, under a non-prosecution agreement. 0000000016 00000 n PB| She, like members of the other families, agreed to forgo a guilty plea in open court. The inmate, with no real incentive to say anything about that crime, had given the chief what amounted to a parting gift. Select this result to view Richard P Cunningham's phone number, address, and more. She was a mother, she was a wife, a daughter and a grandmother taken far too early. Her body was found the next morning by the side of a road next to a cemetery in Saddle Brook. Their murders shook the region. He began to speak about a particular case, he said. Stumped, the police used mannequins from nearby department stores and dressed them in the victims clothing, hoping to spark an identification from friends or family who recognized the outfits. [3], Richard Francis Cottingham was born on November 25, 1946, in the Mott Haven neighborhood of the Bronx in New York City, the first of four children. He said, Youre welcome.. 43 0 obj <>stream Click here to follow Daily Voice Hackensack and receive free news updates. The police hunted for leads, questioning prostitutes about suspicious men, examining the handwriting of the guest who had checked into Room 417: Carl Wilson of Merlin, N.J., a fake name from a fake place. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Thanks for contacting us. Serial Killer House in Lodi, New Jersey, United States. The house is close to Lodi High School, the Riverside Cemetery and Interstate 80. 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. 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. 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. When reporters ran with the story, Mr. Anzilotti considered himself absolved from keeping his silence about the cases. I never thought I would get caught, he added. One day, Cottingham told his co-worker that he had stolen a sex worker's money and clothes while she was sleeping. A number of killings of young women and girls in New Jersey and New York had gone unsolved for years before a night in May 1980 when a maid at . The back and forth went on for weeks. K3nVxb;X)oxeHME~> 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. 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 Goodarzi was later identified as the woman who had been tortured, killed, beheaded and had her hands cut off by Cottingham. This is a "Then and Now" photograph of Cottingham's former house at 29 Vreeland Street. Its mind-boggling and very scary, especially to know theres more of them out there.. And thats what bothers me, because I probably didnt have to do anything to them., Mr. Anzilotti left the confession both exhausted and relieved. He had pornographic artwork, adhesive tape, books about S&M, said Geberth. Its his fault this is out.. Richard Cottingham, convicted of murdering prostitute and kidnapping three. 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.