On one occasion, he dismembered two sex workers and set fire to their torsos at a hotel near Times Square. On Monday, July 13, 1969, at approximately 8:00 p.m., On March 1, 1970, a group of hikers came across a young woman's naked body in the woods to the west of Tweed Boulevard in, At approximately 7:00 a.m. on the morning of December 16, 1977, the body of X-ray technician, At 9:30 a.m. on May 22, 1980, police entered Room 117 at the same Quality Inn where Carr and Street were murdered and found 18-year-old, This page was last edited on 2 March 2023, at 15:20. 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. During a search of the house, investigators discovered personal items belonging to some of his victims. The investigators handed Ms. Mulder possessions of Jackies from half a century past. When the 40th year since the killings arrived in 2014, the local police asked the public for any new information. Cottingham had just raped, tortured and beheaded two sex workers in a room at the motel before setting it on fire. 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. [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. 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. 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. 0000007874 00000 n The back and forth went on for weeks. The Rent Zestimate for this home is $3,099/mo, which has increased by $3,099/mo in the last 30 days. Twenty years later, he was reinvestigating several cold cases involving girls and young women who had been abducted, sexually abused and killed. Anyone can read what you share. In March, looking back on 25 years with the office, Mr. Anzilotti decided it was time to move on from the job. Richard Cottingham, the notorious North Jersey serial killer known for dismembering the young women who were so often his victims, publicly confessed Tuesday to drowning two North Bergen girls. 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Over time, though, one investigator was slowly developing a theory. The victim, Valerie Street, had just been busted in Miami for prostitution, and was last seen getting picked up by a man in New York City. 0000010308 00000 n Retrieved April 2nd, 2007, from Factiva database. 0000004535 00000 n 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. 29 Vreeland St, Lodi, NJ is a single family home that contains 2,716 sq ft and was built in 1974. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Mr. Cottingham had a vulnerability, the chief realized: After divulging nothing during hours of questioning, hed sometimes loosen up on the drive back to prison, sitting in the back seat and believing the day was done. Hes younger when all this is going on in Bergen County, he 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. On Dec 15, 1977, Carr was found dead in the parking lot of a Quality Inn motel, in Hasbrouck Heights. But Cottingham flew under the radar precisely because of how he chose his victims and who his victims were. Rodrigo Torrejon may be reached at rtorrejon@njadvancemedia.com. This guy was particularly ruthless. This is possibly due to the fact that he got married in 1970. The 45th year passed in the same way. The teenagers were last seen on Aug. 9, 1974, in North Bergen. The chief questioned Mr. Cottingham. [2], In 2010, he pleaded guilty to the 1967 murder of Nancy Vogel. On May 4, 1980, the body of Street, a sex worker, was found at the same Quality Inn where Cottingham had dumped Carrs body. Soon, Cottingham persuaded Blase to go for a drink with him. Cottingham fled the scene with the victims heads and hands. %PDF-1.4 % document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Thanks for contacting us. They captured Cottingham soon after. 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. On December 2, 1979, firemen in New York responded to an alarm at the Travel Inn motel[11] near Times Square. This story has been shared 151,197 times. The picture in the top left corner shows Cottingham during one of his trials. 0000007658 00000 n Over the course of 13 years, beginning in 1967, Cottingham killed six women in New Jersey and New York. He remembers certain aspects of a person, Mr. Anzilotti said. However, his family moved to River Vale, New Jersey, when he was 12 years old. This murder was later linked to the 1977 murder of Maryann Carr, who was left in the same motel's parking lot. 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 had been dubbed the Times Square Torso Ripper setting off Vronskys lifelong fascination of serial killers. 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. Im leaving, he said. 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. His name had floated around in the lore of Bergen County cold cases.. 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. 0 When you have a series of crimes today, everything goes through the computers, andwe have computer analysis and a wayof moving these through jurisdictionalboundaries. We use cookies to deliver personalized advertisements, improve your online experience, and to analyze our site's performance. 0000002420 00000 n His yearbook photo shows a cross-country runner with blond hair slicked back. Her youth and difference in appearance, with a boyish haircut, set her apart from the other victims. The potential payoff in return felt almost too important to describe. 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. Justice was served and thats the end of it case closed. HUMs@Wf~}m1`16N7NLf%=Io8. After nearly 15 years of interviews by Anzilotti and Detective Capt. 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. Richard Cottingham, Lorraine . But he told Mr. Cottingham. He forced his victims to address him as "master". She later testified that he said, "You have to take it. 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. (1981, June 16). And later that same month, a fifth woman was found mutilated in the former Hotel Seville near Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. 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. Her glasses, a ring, a necklace, Ms. Mulder said. Moye, 55, stared down serial murderer and rapist Richard Cottingham in a Nassau County courtroom Monday as the 76-year-old notorious "Torso Killer" admitted to five more sadistic slayings. But on May 22, 1980 Cottingham's life as a predator came to light. These objects, along with his fingerprint on the handcuffs, were presented as evidence by prosecutors at his trial. But Cottingham had other victims, and he would later boast of killing 85 to 100 people. They were marginalized sex workers in a Times Square that was nearly lawless and when the police, at best, looked the other way.. Eventually, Mr. Cottingham began to loosen up, and he spoke about killing the prostitutes. Harp was found strangled to death the next day. The New York Times, p. 2. Ms. Falasca was a 15-year-old who left her familys house in July 1969 and never returned. 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. 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. 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. This is the house where the "Times Square Killer," Richard Cottingham, lived between 1975 and 1980. He then left the scene with their severed heads and hands. 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. I just ruled him out. The chief agreed. One would remind him of a TV actress. All rights reserved (About Us). Cottinghamss name came up several times, but it didnt fit for me, she said. [6] In 2022, Cottingham officially confessed to the 1970 murder of Lorraine McGraw, under a non-prosecution agreement. They'd left home for a trip 13 miles (21 kilometers) north to . She had been abducted while walking home from practice with her schools fife-and-drum team in 1968. As you can see, he didn't always look like Santa Claus. Correctional officers found contraband and evidence of bookmaking and transferred Mr. Cottingham to solitary confinement. To this day, their remains have never been recovered. I was an immediate adult when it happened, she said later in an interview. 0000003451 00000 n He lived with his wife and kids in. He began torturing her, nearly biting off one of her nipples. He enjoys our relationship. View Richard Cottingham's record in Manchester, NJ including current phone number, address, relatives, background check report, and property record with Whitepages.