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What started in 1967 with the discovery of a Ridgefield Park woman dead, nude and bound in her own car continued until 1980, when the hulking Cottingham, then 33, was arrested after the screams of a would-be victim pierced the walls of a Hasbrouck Heights motel room. Over the months that followed, Mr. Anzilotti cultivated an unusual relationship with Mr. Cottingham, sometimes testy, sometimes closer to a sort of warmth. It contains 0 bedroom and 0 bathroom. This is possibly due to the fact that he got married in 1970. The police hunted for leads, questioning prostitutes about suspicious men, examining the handwriting of the guest who had checked into Room 417: Carl Wilson of Merlin, N.J., a fake name from a fake place. Cottingham fled the scene with the victims heads and hands. The murder remained unsolved until Cottingham confessed and entered a guilty plea in August 2010. The weather worsened. He said he would talk about other murders only on the condition that the revelations would be kept out of the papers. I was shocked that one human being was capable of all this carnage, Moye said of Cottingham. 0000013001 00000 n Cottingham had just raped, tortured and beheaded two sex workers in a room at the motel before setting it on fire. She, like members of the other families, agreed to forgo a guilty plea in open court. However, his family moved to River Vale, New Jersey, when he was 12 years old. The confessed killer then fatally bludgeoned Sheila Heiman, a 33-year-old mother of three, in July 1973, at her North Woodmere, NY, home, where her husband found her upon returning from shopping, authorities said. Straddling her back, he drew a knife and put it to her throat as he snapped a pair of handcuffs on her wrists. He had his list of names, each one a dead girl and a crime long unsolved. Mr. Anzilotti, by then a sergeant, arranged a surprise search of the inmates cell the day after the Super Bowl. But on May 22, 1980 Cottingham's life as a predator came to light. Years ticked past, 1974 into 1975, into the 1980s, the 1990s. I took over handling the calls, the arrangements. He did not know the names of those he killed. Since his incarceration, he has attempted suicide on two occasions. 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. 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. But as he considered retirement, he kept returning to the two girls found dead in the woods. Knowing better, Harp, just 13 years old, refused. 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. 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. How it ended was me literally shaking his hand and saying, Thank you, Mr. Anzilotti said. The sergeant was undeterred. He would let his guard down, Mr. Anzilotti said. What they want is an outright statement and a sign-off of Yes thats me,' Vronsky continued. 0000003125 00000 n (1981, June 25). 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. Cottingham had kept these items as souvenirs so that he could remember his victims and relive his attacks. 0000001412 00000 n 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. 3. When arrested, he had handcuffs, a leather gag, two slave collars, a switchblade knife, replica pistols, and a stockpile of prescription pills. The New York Times, p. 26. 0000002865 00000 n [4], On October 3, 1969, Cottingham was charged and convicted of drunk driving in New York City and was fined $50 (equivalent to $400 in 2021). His search for a killer led him to a man already locked away, in New Jersey State Prison, 75 miles from his office. James McMorrow, Cottingham confessed last year to three other cold-case slayings of teenage school girls in Bergen County: Jacalyn (Jackie) Harp, 13, of Midland Park, who was walking home from school band practice on July 17, 1968 when she was strangled with the leather strap of her flag sling; Irene Blase, 18, of Bogota, who went missing from Hackensack on April 7, 1969 and was found strangled in Saddle River; Denise Falasca, 15, of Closter, who went missing from Westwood on July 14, 1969. This case was always haunting me.. 0000000756 00000 n He did, however, leave behind their clothing, including a pair of Bonjour jeans, white leotards and a black fur coat, neatly folded in the bath tub. Responding officers found an 18-year-old victim whod been bitten, stabbed and bound with handcuffs. With Cottinghams next victim, a killers hunting ground of sorts began to form. WjgF\A9Ro9r/;l5Gh3h}NG2L -S$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 Its hard to understand how someone could be like that. The house is close to Lodi High School, the Riverside Cemetery and Interstate 80. 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. [5] On May 15, 1980, Jean Reyner was strangled and her throat cut in New York's historic Seville Hotel. endstream endobj 34 0 obj<>stream However, please be aware that not allowing certain cookies may impact your experience of the site. He continued to live here until the police eventually arrested him on May 22nd, 1980. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. Her youth and difference in appearance, with a boyish haircut, set her apart from the other victims. 0000002420 00000 n Long-Buried Secrets: The Serial Killer and the Detective, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/13/nyregion/new-jersey-serial-killer-cottingham-anzilotti.html. Peter Karas/The Record, via USA Today Network. The back and forth went on for weeks. The girls vanished Aug. 9, 1974, while hitchhiking to a mall in . His "justification" for doing this was that he "didn't like anyone getting one over" on him. He had pornographic artwork, adhesive tape, books about S&M, said Geberth. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. HUMs@Wf~}m1`16N7NLf%=Io8. You're a whore and you have to be punished." 0000003107 00000 n 7{(~tm LB IBJ*ZB`0 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. He began torturing her, nearly biting off one of her nipples. 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. A horrible scene, the police commissioner said that day. 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. Shed been abducted by Cottingham from the Ledgewood Terrace apartments, in Little Ferry, where Cottingham had previously lived, said Vronsky. <<69EF7C237A736942AE760EBDB9B8F80B>]>> Since his conviction, Cottingham has pleaded guilty to 12 murders. Its Godlike almost. He enjoys our relationship. He pleaded innocent and for decades insisted he was being "framed", until admitting in 2009 that he had actually perpetrated those five murders. 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. The bodies of the women had no heads and no hands. F! Furthermore, one of the women that he murdered in 1979 is still unidentified. Hes embarrassed by this case, he said. This guy was particularly ruthless. 0000002435 00000 n Click here to follow Daily Voice Hackensack and receive free news updates. 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. . This location belongs to the following categories: Follow us on Facebook or Twitter to see future locations. Richard Cottingham of Lodi (NJ) is sentenced to 173-179 years in prison. It was pure evil. Serial killer Richard Cottingham made his admission in the cold case murders of the high school girls, acknowledging that he kidnapped, raped and finally drowned the pair inside a motel room. 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. 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 Rent Zestimate for this home is $3,099/mo, which has increased by $3,099/mo in the last 30 days. To this day, their remains have never been recovered. [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. At the time, Cottingham, who had not been arrested or identified, was dubbed the "Times Square Ripper.. 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. trailer The police believed they had given up on the bus and were trying to hitchhike to a mall. 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 . The chief questioned Mr. Cottingham. Just shy of his 21st birthday, Richard Cottingham began a vicious killing spree that tore through north New Jersey and New York City. startxref 0000000016 00000 n In his possession, the 33-year-old had a stash of handcuffs, tape and sedatives. 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. It could only be Jackie Harp.. It represented the opportunity to let the entire world know that Laverne Moye was a human being. The Google Street View image above was taken in May of 2022. Rochelle Park & Their heads and hands had been cut off. 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. On the way out, he bumped the author on the shins with a bag that felt like it contained bowling balls, Vronsky said. %PDF-1.4 % Like two little dolls at Christmastime.. [15] In December 2022, Cottingham was convicted of Diane Cusick's 1968 murder and, under a non-prosecution agreement, officially admitted to killing another four women during 19721973 in Long Island, New York: Mary Beth Heinz, Laverne Moye, Sheila Heiman, and Maria Emerita Rosado Nieves. trailer It was quite a shock to learn it was him.. But he eventually realized the years-long association, which involved countless state prison visits, was coming to an end. His yearbook photo shows a cross-country runner with blond hair slicked back. Mr. Cottingham at his virtual hearing on April 27 in Bergen County Superior Court, where he pleaded guilty to killing Mary Ann Pryor and Lorraine Kelly 47 years later. Investigators noted the crime scene was devoid of evidence and they were unable to identify the victims. 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. 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. 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. Despite the gruesome nature of his murders, the butcher, named Richard Cottingham, never warranted the breathless news coverage of David Son of Sam Berkowitz, who only three years prior paralyzed the Big Apple with fear. I have done many shows about serial killers, and I have always marveled at the fact that [Ted] Bundy, [John Wayne] Gacy, [Jeffrey] Dahmer and Berkowitz were all household names, perversely, Berlinger told The Post. [7] On October 28, 1967, he strangled Nancy Schiava Vogel, a 29-year-old married mother of two, in Little Ferry, New Jersey. endstream endobj 22 0 obj<> endobj 23 0 obj<> endobj 24 0 obj<>/ColorSpace<>/Font<>/ProcSet[/PDF/Text/ImageC]/ExtGState<>>> endobj 25 0 obj<> endobj 26 0 obj<> endobj 27 0 obj<> endobj 28 0 obj[/ICCBased 41 0 R] endobj 29 0 obj<> endobj 30 0 obj<> endobj 31 0 obj<> endobj 32 0 obj<> endobj 33 0 obj<>stream The 22-year-old's death appeared brutal: she had been beheaded and set on fire and her skull has yet to be found.