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. However, please be aware that not allowing certain cookies may impact your experience of the site. I just ruled him out. 0000000756 00000 n In other words, he may have been content and/or preoccupied. We've received your submission. 0000002882 00000 n New Jersey . Crime: Cottingham, a Lodi resident, killed six women in New Jersey and New York between 1967 and 1980. Detective Anzilotti was startled to discover the same man killed all three. On December 2, 1979, firemen in New York responded to an alarm at the Travel Inn motel[11] near Times Square. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. This number may increase in the future, as he has stated in the past that his victim count is much higher. For a year, he refused to speak to Mr. Anzilotti. Cottingham, who is also nicknamed "The Torso Killer," moved into this rented three-bedroom house in February of 1975. Richard Cottingham of Lodi (NJ) is sentenced to 173-179 years in prison. To this day, the other young female has never been identified. Maintenance workers found her body covered in plastic bags and wrapped in a gray blanket near a Jones Beach bus stop. Blase was found strangled to death in 4 feet of water in Saddle River the next day. His wife withdrew the petition upon his arrest in May 1980, then completed the divorce after his 1981 conviction. 21 0 obj <> endobj We've received your submission. You can change your choice at any time by using the Privacy Center link in our footer. 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. At the time, Cottingham, who had not been arrested or identified, was dubbed the "Times Square Ripper.. 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 picture in the top left corner shows Cottingham during one of his trials. The police believed they had given up on the bus and were trying to hitchhike to a mall. Hes been chief of detectives nearly five years. 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. Getting to that point wasnt easy, Anzilotti said. Her glasses, a ring, a necklace, Ms. Mulder said. But he told Mr. Cottingham. 0000002865 00000 n He had not yet put in for retirement, or even told his boss he planned to do that the following week. After his wife filed for divorce in April of 1979, it seems as though his killings became far more frequent. He lived with his wife and kids in. 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. Other locations that are relatively close to this place. 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. The New York Times, p. 26. The New York Times, p. 2. Ive never seen rain like that, he said. [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 additional confession to a 1974 murder was discounted by Rockland County police. She then grew up without a father because her grandparents did not like him, she said. 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. 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. 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. 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. He admitted that those two killings weighed on him more than the others. Cottingham severed the victim's breasts and posed them on the headboard of the bed, and set fire to the mattress under her body before fleeing, similar to the Travel Inn torso killings. 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. He was a coward.. [6] In 2022, Cottingham officially confessed to the 1970 murder of Lorraine McGraw, under a non-prosecution agreement. Its been half my career, he said. Her body was found the next morning by the side of a road next to a cemetery in Saddle Brook. Select this result to view Richard P Cunningham's phone number, address, and more. The Rent Zestimate for this home is $3,099/mo, which has increased by $3,099/mo in the last 30 days. About a week later, Big Apple authorities would find Reyners body, but still, no one in New Jersey connected them to the Times Square killer, says former NYPD detective Malcolm Reiman in the series. However, his family moved to River Vale, New Jersey, when he was 12 years old. Hearing prosecutors detail grisly crime scenes like where Laverne was found was especially difficult to endure, her son 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. 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. To this day, I dont even think they would have ever said anything. In 2010, Bergen County authorities announced hed pleaded guilty to a sixth murder, a 1967 strangling in Bergen County. But Mr. Anzilotti kept pressing him: You know youre going to tell me.. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. The five victims addressed . But the arrest in 1980 changed everything, exposing Richard's double life and deadly exploits. His name had floated around in the lore of Bergen County cold cases.. I knew, he recalled, that was Irene Blase.. She had been abducted while walking home from practice with her schools fife-and-drum team in 1968. Once, he outright explained his hesitation: He said, I know once I give you that case, Ill never see you again, Mr. Anzilotti recalled last month. FPh_3Gj Nt%Q[r L`%/9QTh/| Q4_g8KI}u'?xbif`H>;wNQ|sd2(? This story has been shared 151,197 times. 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. 0000003451 00000 n All these factors created this crucible in the center of Manhattan for Richard Cottingham to flourish.. 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. This story has been shared 150,597 times. She, too, had been strangled. 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. 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. Her name was Nancy Schiava Vogel. HUMs@Wf~}m1`16N7NLf%=Io8. 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. 21 0 obj <> endobj %PDF-1.4 % 0000007874 00000 n She was a mother, she was a wife, a daughter and a grandmother taken far too early. Then hed clear the room until only he and Mr. Cottingham faced each another, and begin with his questions. Retrieved April 2nd, 2007, from Factiva database. 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, a family man who denied everything in court, was convicted of killing five women in the early 1980s. H|U0+(QvG`b08NbHlSoZ2CRSs=* \e~ They were facedown, side by side, as if placed there with care. 2023 NYP Holdings, Inc. All Rights Reserved, How a retired detective snared his seventh Torso Killer confession, Expert reveals biological reason why were obsessed with true crime shows. But first, he wanted to return to those two murders from 47 years ago. Over the months that followed, Mr. Anzilotti cultivated an unusual relationship with Mr. Cottingham, sometimes testy, sometimes closer to a sort of warmth. The clever killer slipped up, leaving a fingerprint on the cuffs. But something a hunch, past investigative speculation, the proximity of the crimes drew Mr. Anzilotti to the prisoner. <<8BD7E4F5B15F3F4A8993EB3A0150F7AC>]>> Their heads and hands had been cut off. %%EOF He tried a different approach. In 2000, as a young detective in the Bergen County prosecutors office, Robert Anzilotti was tasked with looking into the murders, along with a few other similar cold cases from the 1960s and 1970s. [5] On May 15, 1980, Jean Reyner was strangled and her throat cut in New York's historic Seville Hotel. In this image taken from a New Jersey Courts virtual hearing, Richard Cottingham, center, known as the "Torso Killer," pleads guilty April 27, 2021, to two 1974 murders, finally closing the cold case deaths of teenage friends who had left home for a trip to the mall and never returned. Once again, the victim did not appear in further proceedings and the case was dismissed.[6]. The latitude and longitude coordinates for the house are: To view directions on how to get there, you can use the Google Maps shortcut below: 29 Vreeland StreetLodiNew JerseyNJ 07644United States. 0000012661 00000 n Hes hedged around and all but confessed.. 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. Dont think youre going to mess with me and Im going to help you, Mr. Anzilotti recalled Mr. Cottingham saying. She had been tied up and strangled, authorities said. [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". On February 15, 1968, Cottingham killed his second known victim. 0000004535 00000 n He did a U-turn in a bank parking lot and approached, he said. I was able to get almostany woman to do whatever I wanted them to do . 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. 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. The police photograph on the left was taken in June of 1980. <<69EF7C237A736942AE760EBDB9B8F80B>]>> Neither complainant appeared in further proceedings, however, and the case was dismissed. In this case, instead, he removed her breasts and placed them on the headboard for shock value, former Commanding Officer of Bronx Homicide and criminal profiler Vernon Geberth says in the series, noting it convinced him of one thing: Still, at the time, no one suspected the scope of this sexual sadists homicidal footprint, which stretched into the Garden State and had started more than a decade prior.
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