Then, with just days remaining before the chief retired, the inmate relented. He forced his victims to address him as "master". [12] Both bodies had their hands and heads removed, and had been doused with lighter fluid and set on fire. Cottingham had stuffed Streets body under the bed for housekeeping to find, Vronsky said. 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. A notorious New Jersey serial killer pleaded guilty Tuesday to the cold case murders of two teenage girls in 1974. 0000007874 00000 n But something a hunch, past investigative speculation, the proximity of the crimes drew Mr. Anzilotti to the prisoner. She had been a teenager when her sister was killed. For over 40 years, its been folklore in this county.. Both men were keenly aware that it was their years-old relationship that had brought about this moment. Anything that might close more cases, bring answers to more families. He married in 1970 and became a father of three. The police were called and Cottingham was apprehended while trying to flee. Straddling her back, he drew a knife and put it to her throat as he snapped a pair of handcuffs on her wrists. 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. . In May of 1980, police arrested Cottingham while he was torturing a sex worker at a motel room in New Jersey. Rochelle Park & The schoolgirl murder confessions increased that to to nine. The picture in the top left corner shows Cottingham during one of his trials. No one could find any clues in the girls backgrounds: no drugs, no trouble with the law. Anzilottihas spent all but 4 years of his law enforcement career with the prosecutors office after coming over from the Woodcliff Lake Police Department. The sergeant was undeterred. You are in complete control of somebodys destiny, he told Fezzani in footage shown in the series. Three days later, Mr. Anzilotti walked out of his office for good. I never broke my promise to him, all these years later, the chief said. It was pure evil. 0000002847 00000 n 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. 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. Cottingham then confessed to more murders including Nancy Vogel, whom he killed in 1967, and five teenaged victims from New Jersey, none of whom were in the sex trade. Serial Killer House in Lodi, New Jersey, United States. 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. 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. With Ms. Pryor and a judge watching on Zoom that day, Mr. Cottingham pleaded guilty to the two murders. I had long suspected that whoever killed Irene Blase also killed Denise Falasca, Mr. Anzilotti said. 0000003107 00000 n Mr. Cottingham left behind no clues. He described in detail how, instead, he took the girls to a motel, held them captive and eventually drowned them in the bathtub. But in. [6] In 2022, Cottingham officially confessed to the 1970 murder of Lorraine McGraw, under a non-prosecution agreement. 43 0 obj<>stream By all accounts, he seemed to be leading an everyday life in Lodi, New Jersey, with his wife and three kids. The police believed they had given up on the bus and were trying to hitchhike to a mall. 0000002831 00000 n You can change your choice at any time by using the Privacy Center link in our footer. Hes embarrassed by this case, he said. Ms. Falasca was a 15-year-old who left her familys house in July 1969 and never returned. 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. [13][14] Anzilotti had spent 15 years interviewing Cottingham, working toward the confession. ,X3ieG(>]/TUW#gI" p&gGgy`Un(aE6e#./"e3 He said he would talk about other murders only on the condition that the revelations would be kept out of the papers. He recalled the exact place in the woods where he left the bodies. Described as average and normal, New Jersey man Richard Cottingham was a father-of-three with a marriage that was slowly unravelling. Cottingham has claimed in the past he. 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. We've received your submission. He had not yet put in for retirement, or even told his boss he planned to do that the following week. The chief pressed ahead with his list. The back and forth went on for weeks. Like a werewolf, Vronsky told The Post. 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. [1] He was nicknamed the New York Ripper, the Torso Killer and the Times Square Killer, since his crimes often targeted prostitutes and included mutilation. Fifty years after his mother was strangled and thrown from a Long Island bridge, John Moye finally got a glimpse of the wickedness that altered his life forever. Cottingham, who is also nicknamed "The Torso Killer," moved into this rented three-bedroom house in February of 1975. When a worker came to check on her, ODell cracked open the door and gave a hand signal asking for help. Long-Buried Secrets: The Serial Killer and the Detective, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/13/nyregion/new-jersey-serial-killer-cottingham-anzilotti.html. Richard Cottingham, Lorraine . It was Aug. 14, 1974, in Montvale, N.J., a suburb just over the New York state line. 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 April 7, 1969, Cottingham saw Blase, 18, shopping in Hackensack, Vronsky said. A killing in Somerset County a week after Cottingham got his drivers license may have been one of his first victims, Vronsky said. The plea leaves the question: Will they be Cottinghams final admissions? Photos of the house and other related images. You can set your cookie preferences below. However, he started killing again in 1974, when he murdered Lorraine Marie Kelly and Mary Ann Pryor. Then came Tuesdays pleas. I lost so much more than just my mother that day, Altman said. A judge sentenced him to 25 years to life after Cusicks brother and only child read emotional impact statements in court. Although Cottingham has formally admitted to eighteen killings and has claimed to have killed as many as 100, he is known to have only murdered seventeen girls between 1967 and 1980 and attempted to kill a further four. 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. And later that same month, a fifth woman was found mutilated in the former Hotel Seville near Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. The New York Times, p. 26. Unfortunately, we were unable to find a photograph of Jean Reyner. When Mr. Cottingham entered prison in 1981, Robert Anzilotti was not yet a teenager. At the time, Cottingham, who had not been arrested or identified, was dubbed the "Times Square Ripper.. 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. Twenty years later, he was reinvestigating several cold cases involving girls and young women who had been abducted, sexually abused and killed. Richard Cottingham was born in 1946 and was raised mostly in New Jersey, according to the The New York Times. He called his detectives and gave the word: Bring in Cottingham. Which, of course, I wasnt overly interested in, the former chief said. Just shy of his 21st birthday, Richard Cottingham began a vicious killing spree that tore through north New Jersey and New York City. 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. This case was always haunting me.. More Local News to Love Start today for 50% off Expires 3/6/23, Rodrigo Torrejon | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com, discovery of a Ridgefield Park woman dead, nude and bound. Bergen County investigators realized there were numerous open sexual assault cases with similar hallmarks: Cottingham kidnapped them from Times Square, drugged and assaulted them. Six months later, Vronsky would learn that the man he encountered on the elevator was Cottingham as the killers face appeared in newspapers across the region. I think it was just an evolution in his killing.. Between 1970 and 1974, Cottingham and his wife, Janet, lived at an apartment block called Ledgewood Terrace in Little Ferry, New Jersey. The Google Street View image above was taken in May of 2022. He began to speak about a particular case, he said. He had three children, two boys and a girl, with his wife. Instead, he drove her to the Quality Inn, where he tortured, beat and sexually assaulted her for hours, until a maid heard her scream. He was eventually convicted of five murders in New Jersey and New York and sent to a New Jersey state prison in the early 1980s. 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. After the hearing, the cameras off, Mr. Anzilotti approached Mr. Cottingham. And he sat there with literally no remorse. The year 2020 arrived, and running his office through the coronavirus outbreak kept Mr. Anzilotti too busy for cold cases. 0000006081 00000 n K3nVxb;X)oxeHME~> I took over handling the calls, the arrangements. Geberth noted that this was a time before the proliferation of surveillance cameras and the use of computer analysis to establish patterns and share information across jurisdictions. 0000000756 00000 n 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. He had come further in closing cases than his younger self could have imagined. 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. They have also lived in Whiting, IN. 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. Cottingham, a Lodi man who moonlighted as one of New Jersey's most savage serial killers, had been convicted of murdering five women in New York and New Jersey. There was also a lockbox filled with trophies from his murders, including Maryann Carrs apartment key and a necklace belonging to Jean Reyner. This location belongs to the following categories: Follow us on Facebook or Twitter to see future locations. 0000001982 00000 n In March, looking back on 25 years with the office, Mr. Anzilotti decided it was time to move on from the job. In fact, Mr. Cottingham lurked around the fringes of a seedy Times Square and the prostitutes who worked its streets. 0000002435 00000 n 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.