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. And at. Richard Cottingham's house in Lodi - The Times Square Killer. - Odd Stops 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. Authorities believed it to be, thus far, the oldest criminal case to be solved and prosecuted by direct DNA evidence. 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. 0000013001 00000 n However, his family moved to River Vale, New Jersey, when he was 12 years old. Hackensack, Soon, Cottingham persuaded Blase to go for a drink with him. I had long suspected that whoever killed Irene Blase also killed Denise Falasca, Mr. Anzilotti said. Cottingham is currently in state prison on a life sentence . I think sometimes he grapples with his own gruesomeness back then., On March 12, a Friday, Mr. Anzilotti summoned the inmate. We've received your submission. 0000006081 00000 n Much like John Moye, Altman, who now lives in Ocala, Fla., said she struggled to process Cottinghams savagery. The picture in the top left corner shows Cottingham during one of his trials. 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. A killing in Somerset County a week after Cottingham got his drivers license may have been one of his first victims, Vronsky said. Goodarzi, of Trenton, was a sex worker who had been traveling to the then-seedy streets of midtown Manhattan, Vronsky said. As he moved through Midtown undetected, Cottingham, a successful computer operator at Blue Cross Blue Shield in Manhattan, was also committing sadistic sexual assault and sometimes murder at the Quality Inn, a motel in Hasbrouck Heights, NJ. 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. Investigators noted the crime scene was devoid of evidence and they were unable to identify the victims. 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 Defense attorney John Bruno recited the details, which the white-bearded, 74-year-old killer acknowledged. 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. The year 2020 arrived, and running his office through the coronavirus outbreak kept Mr. Anzilotti too busy for cold cases. 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. With Ms. Pryor and a judge watching on Zoom that day, Mr. Cottingham pleaded guilty to the two murders. Richard Cottingham, a family man who denied everything in court, was convicted of killing five women in the early 1980s. It was pure evil. 0000003451 00000 n 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. On February 15, 1968, Cottingham killed his second known victim. 0000003125 00000 n In October 1966, he became a computer operator for Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, where he worked until his 1980 arrest. The body of Laverne Moye, of St. Albans, Queens, was discovered in a Rockville Centre creek on July 20, 1972. 0 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. The New York Times, p. 26. A notorious New Jersey serial killer pleaded guilty Tuesday to the cold case murders of two teenage girls in 1974. 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. This is the house where the "Times Square Killer," Richard Cottingham, lived between 1975 and 1980. After nearly 15 years of interviews by Anzilotti and Detective Capt. Knowing better, Harp, just 13 years old, refused. 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. 21 23 He pleaded guilty to the killing in 2010, but when the news got out, Mr. Cottingham, who evidently thought the hearing would be ignored, was furious. ,X3ieG(>]/TUW#gI" p&gGgy`Un(aE6e#./"e3 The back and forth went on for weeks. Long-Buried Secrets: The Serial Killer and the Detective, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/13/nyregion/new-jersey-serial-killer-cottingham-anzilotti.html. Its been half my career, he said. In his possession, the 33-year-old had a stash of handcuffs, tape and sedatives. It was quite a shock to learn it was him.. To this day, I dont even think they would have ever said anything. 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. 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. 0000001425 00000 n 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. New Jersey 'Torso Killer' Pleads Guilty to 1974 Cold Case Murders Altman, who was just 3 years old at the time, said her parents had separated prior to Cusicks killing. They found an 18-year-old victim who'd been bitten and stabbed bound with handcuffs. He was originally from the Bronx in New York City. But he eventually realized the years-long association, which involved countless state prison visits, was coming to an end. The bodies of the women had no heads and no hands. Taking a bus to another location, Cottingham and Blase spent some time together. The motel where Martin Luther King was assassinated. trailer I was an immediate adult when it happened, she said later in an interview. So he would remember something on the way: a racetrack or a shopping mall. The clever killer slipped up, leaving a fingerprint on the cuffs. She, like members of the other families, agreed to forgo a guilty plea in open court. He has been charged with 11 murders in all. Hed order pizza and play cards with the older man and other detectives. 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. Its mind-boggling and very scary, especially to know theres more of them out there.. 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. 0000002420 00000 n Inside they found the bodies of 22-year-old sex worker Deedeh Goodarzi[9] and an unidentified woman estimated between 16 and 22. [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. 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. [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. 0000001982 00000 n 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. On one occasion, he dismembered two sex workers and set fire to their torsos at a hotel near Times Square. Cusicks daughter, Darlene Altman, told Nassau County Judge Caryn Fink her late grandparents raised her after her mothers shocking slaying. After years in prison, Mr. Cottingham began to open up to the detective about past unsolved crimes. Now I just have to go on with my life.. 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.. Since his incarceration, he has attempted suicide on two occasions. The chief pressed ahead with his list. [6] In 2022, Cottingham officially confessed to the 1970 murder of Lorraine McGraw, under a non-prosecution agreement. Over time, though, one investigator was slowly developing a theory. 0000009543 00000 n Again, he knew details from Ms. Falascas file. His name had floated around in the lore of Bergen County cold cases.. I was shocked that it was a serial killer, Moye said of his mothers confessed murderer. He rented an apartment in Midtown and told his wife he worked nights. On December 2, 1979, firemen in New York responded to an alarm at the Travel Inn motel[11] near Times Square. Her youth and difference in appearance, with a boyish haircut, set her apart from the other victims.
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