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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. This story has been shared 151,197 times. I was able to get almostany woman to do whatever I wanted them to do . Cottingham has been given various nicknames over the years. To bring Mr. Cottingham back to court, where the case would certainly draw attention, would stop him from talking about other open cases, the chief explained. . He lived with his wife and kids in. Then came Tuesdays pleas. 0000008501 00000 n
Both men were keenly aware that it was their years-old relationship that had brought about this moment. Starting in 2014, Cottingham confidentially admitted to Detective Robert Anzilotti of the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office (BCPO) to being the perpetrator of the murders of three teenage females between 1968 and 1969. 0000002882 00000 n
It was Aug. 14, 1974, in Montvale, N.J., a suburb just over the New York state line. 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. Like two little dolls at Christmastime.. On April 7, 1969, Cottingham saw Blase, 18, shopping in Hackensack, Vronsky said. Since his conviction, Cottingham has pleaded guilty to 12 murders. All rights reserved (About Us). The family lived in Lodi, and Mr. Cottingham commuted to a job as a computer operator at Blue Cross Blue Shield in Manhattan. In 1964, Cottingham graduated from Pascack Valley High School in Hillsdale, New Jersey. On December 15, 1977, the body of X-ray technician Maryann Carr, 26, was found brutally beaten and strangled in the parking lot of the Quality Inn motel in Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey, but police did not link the murder to Cottingham until his 1980 arrest at the same motel. 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). To Mr. Anzilotti, what had once seemed like a great disparity between the two series of murders one a group of suburban teenagers and the other mostly sex workers in the city now made sense. The Blase family agreed. He said he would talk about other murders only on the condition that the revelations would be kept out of the papers. 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.. That made 11 murders Cottingham that admitted since his arrest more than 30 years ago. She had been abducted while walking home from practice with her schools fife-and-drum team in 1968. When the 40th year since the killings arrived in 2014, the local police asked the public for any new information. [2], In 2010, he pleaded guilty to the 1967 murder of Nancy Vogel. Richard was arrested at a motel in Hasbrouck . It will take her a while to forget the habit of calling the detectives for updates a lifetime constant, through the deaths of her parents, her marriage and divorce, her second marriage and widowhood. Her name was Nancy Schiava Vogel. 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 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. 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. Below, you will find the address and the GPS coordinates for this location. Cottingham fled the scene with the victims heads and hands. 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. 0000003183 00000 n
2023 Advance Local Media LLC. He tried a different approach. 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. Click here to follow Daily Voice Hackensack and receive free news updates. 0000007658 00000 n
Serial Killer House in Lodi, New Jersey, United States. Unfortunately, we were unable to find a photograph of Jean Reyner. 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. 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. . startxref
They have also lived in Whiting, IN. 0000005280 00000 n
Maywood, His proclivity toward violence and the lack of solid profiling tactics for serial killers made Vronsky believe that Cottinghams claim of 100 victims was possible. 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. One day, Cottingham told his co-worker that he had stolen a sex worker's money and clothes while she was sleeping. Then he shared his intentions to retire. In March, looking back on 25 years with the office, Mr. Anzilotti decided it was time to move on from the job. It was quite a shock to learn it was him.. Getting to that point wasnt easy, Anzilotti said. He kept these "trophies" in a locked room in the basement. Canadian author Peter Vronsky is now writing his second book on the horrifying killing spree that culminated in May 1980 at a New Jersey motel, where cops arrested Cottingham after he handcuffed, stabbed and bit an 18-year-old woman. One would remind him of a TV actress. This is the house where the "Times Square Killer," Richard Cottingham, lived between 1975 and 1980. At the mall, Cottingham, then a tall, brown-haired young man, met Vogel, a married mother of two. 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. His name had floated around in the lore of Bergen County cold cases.. Knowing better, Harp, just 13 years old, refused. He continued to live here until the police eventually arrested him on May 22nd, 1980. 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. 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. Therefore, you should be respectful and not step foot on the property without permission. Over time, though, one investigator was slowly developing a theory. Its not something you can ever get over, Altman, 58, told The Post. Seth Wenig/Associated Press By Ed Shanahan Dec. 5, 2022 On a. They were facedown, side by side, as if placed there with care. Since his incarceration, he has attempted suicide on two occasions. I never broke my promise to him, all these years later, the chief said. But as he considered retirement, he kept returning to the two girls found dead in the woods. 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. [16], In the early hours of May 22, 1980, Cottingham picked up 18-year-old Leslie Ann O'Dell, who was soliciting on the corner of Manhattan's Lexington Avenue and 25th Street. Peter Karas/The Record, via USA Today Network. He did a U-turn in a bank parking lot and approached, he said. Later on, Richard took a job with Blue Cross Blue Shield in New York as a computer operator. He had three children, two boys and a girl, with his wife. During his trial, he testified that he had been fascinated by bondage since he was a young child. He remembers certain aspects of a person, Mr. Anzilotti said. The 22-year-old's death appeared brutal: she had been beheaded and set on fire and her skull has yet to be found. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. 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 few days later, Mr. Anzilotti visited Mr. Cottingham in his new surroundings and told him, I put you here.. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Advance Local. Their murders shook the region. 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. Hes embarrassed by this case, he said.
A hotel worker arrived at Room 417 to find smoke and a horrible scene: the scorched remains of two women on a bed. The teenagers were last seen on Aug. 9, 1974, in North Bergen. In April of 1979, he started living in the basement of the property after his wife initiated divorce proceedings against him for "abandonment" and "mental cruelty.". Authorities tied him to the killings after police were called to a Hasbrouck Heights motel, where a maid had heard a woman screaming. The public in Bergen County deserved to know the outcome of those girls, he said. Again and again, for 15 years, Mr. Anzilotti met with the inmate, seeking the truth. The New York Times, p. 2. 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. 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. Richard Cottingham, 74, pleaded guilty Tuesday to murdering Mary Ann Pryor, 17, and Lorraine Marie Kelly, 16, both of North Bergen. All these factors created this crucible in the center of Manhattan for Richard Cottingham to flourish.. She had been a teenager when her sister was killed. Her attacker was caught as he ran away. They found an 18-year-old victim who'd been bitten and stabbed bound with handcuffs. 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. Vronsky and Weiss had been meeting with Cottingham in prison since the spring of 2017, counseling him to make the confession. The girls, Mary Ann Pryor, 17, and Lorraine Kelly, 16, had last been seen days earlier at a nearby bus stop. Years after her sisters death, she had found some comfort speaking to another from her tribe, Karen Miller, a sister of Denise Falasca. 29 Vreeland St, Lodi, NJ is a single family home that contains 2,716 sq ft and was built in 1974. But Cottingham had other victims, and he would later boast of killing 85 to 100 people. 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. xb```"WVf~g`0pt 9"~S?``Z V|bG!+N}TzYl@2
`QD2 @DACEDJaOs6x?+[Ihlrt ? 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. On Dec 15, 1977, Carr was found dead in the parking lot of a Quality Inn motel, in Hasbrouck Heights. The chief contacted the Blase family and told them what they had ached to know for decades: He knew who had killed Irene. To this day, the other young female has never been identified. 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. Richard Cottingham pleaded guilty to murder in the death of one Long Island woman and admitted under oath to killing four others. In 1981, he was found guilty of her murder and sentenced to nearly 200 years in prison. Now I just have to go on with my life.. But something a hunch, past investigative speculation, the proximity of the crimes drew Mr. Anzilotti to the prisoner. But first, he wanted to return to those two murders from 47 years ago. 0000003202 00000 n
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. Ms. Falasca was a 15-year-old who left her familys house in July 1969 and never returned.