richard cottingham lodi, nj address richard cottingham lodi, nj address

As you can see, he didn't always look like Santa Claus. This girl did everything right, Vronsky said. But first, he wanted to return to those two murders from 47 years ago. xref And any new prison sentence would, practically speaking, be meaningless; Mr. Cottingham had no chance of ever being released. The Blase family agreed. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Her breasts had been severed and torso had been set on fire, Vronsky said. I had long suspected that whoever killed Irene Blase also killed Denise Falasca, Mr. Anzilotti said. 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. Photos of the house and other related images. His wife withdrew the petition upon his arrest in May 1980, then completed the divorce after his 1981 conviction. He was imprisoned. [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). [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". Cottingham is currently in state prison on a life sentence . [6] In 2022, Cottingham officially confessed to the 1970 murder of Lorraine McGraw, under a non-prosecution agreement. 0000007874 00000 n Since his conviction, Cottingham has pleaded guilty to 12 murders. Instead, she ended up shopping at one of Bergen Countys malls, according to Vronsky. The body of Laverne Moye, of St. Albans, Queens, was discovered in a Rockville Centre creek on July 20, 1972. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. He has been charged with 11 murders in all. 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. Cottingham committed his first known murder when he was 20-years-old, although he claims to have started as an adolescent. The Google Street View image above was taken in May of 2022. 0 Getting to that point wasnt easy, Anzilotti said. Later on, Richard took a job with Blue Cross Blue Shield in New York as a computer operator. 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. He was the Torso Killer. In 2022, Cottingham also confessed to the 1968 murder of Diane Cusick after DNA evidence linked him to the crime. trailer Long-Buried Secrets: The Serial Killer and the Detective, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/13/nyregion/new-jersey-serial-killer-cottingham-anzilotti.html. She, too, had been strangled. But Cottingham had other victims, and he would later boast of killing 85 to 100 people. She was stunned. The family lived in Lodi, and Mr. Cottingham commuted to a job as a computer operator at Blue Cross Blue Shield in Manhattan. . 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. 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. 2023 Advance Local Media LLC. Neither man has claimed to have been aware of the other, nor is there any evidence they were familiar with each other prior to their respective arrests. Crime: Cottingham, a Lodi resident, killed six women in New Jersey and New York between 1967 and 1980. I think it was just an evolution in his killing.. Mr. Cottingham left behind no clues. After years in prison, Mr. Cottingham began to open up to the detective about past unsolved crimes. In other words, he may have been content and/or preoccupied. 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. Taking a bus to another location, Cottingham and Blase spent some time together. It was pure evil. 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. They were facedown, side by side, as if placed there with care. According to his neighbors, he seemed like a regular family man. Mr. Anzilotti, doing his best not to betray any emotion, slowly pulled out his Blackberry and took notes. In March, looking back on 25 years with the office, Mr. Anzilotti decided it was time to move on from the job. On the way out, he bumped the author on the shins with a bag that felt like it contained bowling balls, Vronsky said. It was a game to me. Inside they found the bodies of 22-year-old sex worker Deedeh Goodarzi[9] and an unidentified woman estimated between 16 and 22. 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 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 a Hasbrouck Heights hotel called police saying shed heard a woman screaming. 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. While some serial killers claim murders they have not committed, Mr. Anzilotti didnt believe Mr. Cottingham was that type, but still he meticulously lined up details of the admissions with facts that only the killer would know. Cottingham lived here with his wife, Janet, and their three children, Blair, Scott, and Jenny. She, like members of the other families, agreed to forgo a guilty plea in open court. 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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. Detective Anzilotti was startled to discover the same man killed all three. But he carried those cold cases with him literally, his thick files in cardboard boxes that he moved from office to office chipping away at the false leads, seeking similarities in the victims and in the crime scenes. 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. The chief questioned Mr. Cottingham. Since his incarceration, he has attempted suicide on two occasions. [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). 0000000756 00000 n Ms. Falasca was a 15-year-old who left her familys house in July 1969 and never returned. Denise Falasca, 15, of Closter, New Jersey. She had been tied up and strangled, authorities said. These include the Times Square Killer, the Torso Killer, and the Times Square Torso Ripper. Both men were keenly aware that it was their years-old relationship that had brought about this moment. Cottingham had stuffed Streets body under the bed for housekeeping to find, Vronsky said. 0000001071 00000 n 0000001262 00000 n Retrieved April 2nd, 2007, from Factiva database. They found an 18-year-old victim who'd been bitten and stabbed bound with handcuffs. My whole life has been this, she said. Eventually, Mr. Cottingham began to loosen up, and he spoke about killing the prostitutes. The motel where Martin Luther King was assassinated. Authorities tied him to the killings after police were called to a Hasbrouck Heights motel, where a maid had heard a woman screaming. In the 1970s, he had preyed on prostitutes in Times Square 30 miles but a world away from Montvale not just killing them, but torturing and dismembering them. Richard Cottingham, serial killer from New Jersey operating in New York between 1967 and 1980. These objects, along with his fingerprint on the handcuffs, were presented as evidence by prosecutors at his trial. %%EOF And at the time, it was beyond our capacity to look beyond New York City, he told The Post. The items included necklaces, broaches, earrings, and other pieces of jewelry. . He said, Im going to give you one, Mr. Anzilotti recalled. Cottingham admitted during the plea hearing that he brought Mary Ann and Lorraine to a hotel, where he raped both and bound the girls to keep them from getting away. 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. Mr. Anzilotti would arrange to have the inmate transported to his office more than hours drive from the prison. Their heads and hands had been cut off. Richard is related to Rosemarie Marie Cunningham and Larry J Cunningham as well as 3 additional people. 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. But there was an even bigger problem. Theyre pushing him on multiple other cases. Hes been interviewing Cottingham in state prison for years. However, he started killing again in 1974, when he murdered Lorraine Marie Kelly and Mary Ann Pryor. This is a "Then and Now" photograph of Cottingham's former house at 29 Vreeland Street. They have also lived in Whiting, IN. It represented the opportunity to let the entire world know that Laverne Moye was a human being. Use of and/or registration on any portion of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement, Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement, and Your Privacy Choices and Rights (each updated 1/26/2023). And thats what bothers me, because I probably didnt have to do anything to them., Mr. Anzilotti left the confession both exhausted and relieved. She was Nancy Pryor, and she was 19 when her sister, Mary Ann, was found dead. Thats not the natural order its supposed to go in.. On May 4, 1980, the body of Street, a sex worker, was found at the same Quality Inn where Cottingham had dumped Carrs body. endstream endobj 34 0 obj<>stream 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 . That night, city firefighters responded to a blaze at a motel in Times Square, the New York Daily News reported. Hes been chief of detectives nearly five years. (1981, June 16). 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. 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. During a search of the house, investigators discovered personal items belonging to some of his victims. (1981, June 16). A maid heard the teenagers guttural screams and called police. Her glasses, a ring, a necklace, Ms. Mulder said. Location of first contact Maryann Carr = her apartment; Prostitutes = street or bar . I was an immediate adult when it happened, she said later in an interview. 0000005280 00000 n He lived with his wife and kids in. 0000003451 00000 n [4], The BCPO "exceptionally closed" the three cold case murders with agreement from the victims' families and evidence corroborating the confessions, but for several years kept this secret from the public to keep Cottingham talking about other 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. Consequently, he was charged with attempted murder and kidnapping. 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. 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. He worked hard on this., There were never any meaningful updates, until a Monday this April, when detectives knocked on her door in Ocean County, N.J., and said they had obtained a confession. 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. After those confessions, the two men barely spoke. He married in 1970 and became a father of three. He enjoys our time together., The chief also had another theory. Richard was arrested at a motel in Hasbrouck . That was roughly one month after his arrest. 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. 0000000991 00000 n In a candid interview, the Bergen County chief who spent 20 years trying to wrangle new confessions out of serial killer Richard Cottingham revealed the 74-year-old prisoner has "regrets". 0000001968 00000 n Vronsky, who frequently visits Cottingham in prison, said he had a freak, random elevator encounter with the serial killer on the early morning of Dec. 2, 1979, as he tried to check into the Travel Inn Motel near a seedy and sex-crazed Times Square. He married in 1970 and had three children. 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. Which, of course, I wasnt overly interested in, the former chief said. She then grew up without a father because her grandparents did not like him, she said. Hackensack, He tried a different approach. Its been half my career, he said. 21 0 obj <> endobj He soon realized the woman had no head, the Daily News reported. 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. Accused serial killer nurse allegedly tried to murder premature infant twice. He had pornographic artwork, adhesive tape, books about S&M, said Geberth. That man, Richard Cottingham, had been convicted of crimes that seemed to bear little resemblance to the murders of the girls. Cottinghamss name came up several times, but it didnt fit for me, she said. Its his fault this is out.. Inmates were wagering everything from cash to cigarettes. 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. 0000001082 00000 n And last week, three more were added to his grisly toll. Seth Wenig/Associated Press By Ed Shanahan Dec. 5, 2022 On a. And considering the closure of yesterdays cases, I absolutely believe him.. Richard Cottingham, 74, appeared virtually in court Tuesday to admit to the slayings of 17-year-old Mary Ann Pryor and 16-year-old Lorraine Marie Kelly. When arrested, he had handcuffs, a leather gag, two slave collars, a switchblade knife, replica pistols, and a stockpile of prescription pills. 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. 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. 43 0 obj<>stream 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. 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. They have also lived in Manasquan, NJ and Ada, MI. Goodarzi had come to the United States years prior from Iran. 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. 0000001412 00000 n Her killer, Richard Cottingham, was a computer operator, married with three children of his own, living a seemingly normal life. Like a werewolf, Vronsky told The Post. 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. The five victims addressed . The clever killer slipped up, leaving a fingerprint on the cuffs. 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 picture in the top left corner shows Cottingham during one of his trials. 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. 0 0000006081 00000 n 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. However, please be aware that not allowing certain cookies may impact your experience of the site. When Mr. Cottingham entered prison in 1981, Robert Anzilotti was not yet a teenager. But Cottingham flew under the radar precisely because of how he chose his victims and who his victims were. Its an ongoing process, Vronsky said. Because I was with them for a couple of days, he replied, according to a transcript, and got to know them., It was raining that day in August 1974, and Mr. Cottingham, then 28, was driving to work in Manhattan when he passed the two girls walking in the opposite direction. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Thanks for contacting us. She was a mother, she was a wife, a daughter and a grandmother taken far too early. )' 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. All these factors created this crucible in the center of Manhattan for Richard Cottingham to flourish.. He did not know the names of those he killed. The police were called and Cottingham was apprehended while trying to flee. In December 2019, forensic historian and author Peter Vronsky, on the eve of publishing the revelation in his second edition of Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters, publicized the confessions with the BCPO's cooperation, in a community meeting in Midland Park. But he told Mr. Cottingham. 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. Now 74, Cottingham, who claims responsibility for dozens of murders, has confessed to a. [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. 0000003686 00000 n Vogel was found dead in her own car in Ridgefield Park, nude and bound. This is a private property. He would describe to me certain routes he would drive, Vronsky said of Cottinghamm relaying his murderous spree in letters and interviews over the span of five years. In April 1978, Cottingham's wife filed for divorce on the grounds of "abandonment" and "mental cruelty" (refusing to have sex with her after the birth of their third child, staying out until early morning, and leaving her with insufficient household funds). iP^ -KvWZvxhc'm$93tSz =oBTmD]+)bTJ T|u>/. The chief pressed ahead with his list. His murders were not the outcome of stalking or planning but of fleeting encounters. Did the old man kill those girls? No leads were forthcoming. On February 15, 1968, Cottingham killed his second known victim. Cottingham, a former computer programmer whose wrath of terror spanned from 1967 to 1980, also copped on Monday to strangling Mary Beth Heinz, 21, in May 1972, three months before he killed Moye and dumped her body in the same creek. [13] In 2021, he pleaded guilty to the 1974 kidnapping, raping and drowning of Lorraine Marie Kelly and Mary Ann Pryor. 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. 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 third the killing of 13-year-old Jackie Harp seemed to be the work of another killer. Cottingham had just raped, tortured and beheaded two sex workers in a room at the motel before setting it on fire.