I just ruled him out. He then left the scene with their severed heads and hands. Her glasses, a ring, a necklace, Ms. Mulder said. His "justification" for doing this was that he "didn't like anyone getting one over" on him. It is my fervent hope that this arrest and conviction bring some semblance of closure to the friends and family of Mary Ann and Lorraine and a measure of justice to members of our communities, who have long feared this unknown actor.. . The Zestimate for this house is $598,600, which has decreased by $7,680 in the last 30 days. After their drink, Cottingham offered to bring Blase back to the bus station where they had taken the bus. He married in 1970 and became a father of. The teenagers were last seen on Aug. 9, 1974, in North Bergen. She had been abducted while walking home from practice with her schools fife-and-drum team in 1968. 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. The picture in the top left corner shows Cottingham during one of his trials. 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. In August 2022, with a non-prosecution agreement, officials in Rockland County, New York, corroborated and accepted Cottingham's confession to the murder of 26-year-old Lorraine McGraw, who was beaten and killed March 1, 1970. After those confessions, the two men barely spoke. 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. Like a werewolf, Vronsky told The Post. They sat at the kitchen table, very professional, very polite, very considerate, Ms. Mulder recalled. He soon realized the woman had no head, the Daily News reported. 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. He did not know the names of those he killed. Cottingham has confessed to murdering 12 women. Its hard to understand how someone could be like that. At the mall, Cottingham, then a tall, brown-haired young man, met Vogel, a married mother of two. 3. %%EOF We've received your submission. 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 Trentons New Jersey State Prison. Did the old man kill those girls? Feech La Manna's house from The Sopranos. 0000001982 00000 n Follow him on Twitter @rodrigotorrejon. She was Nancy Pryor, and she was 19 when her sister, Mary Ann, was found dead. 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. The police were called and Cottingham was apprehended while trying to flee. Therefore, you should be respectful and not step foot on the property without permission. He began torturing her, nearly biting off one of her nipples. Hackensack, 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. Bergen County investigators realized there were numerous open sexual assault cases with similar hallmarks: Cottingham kidnapped them from Times Square, drugged and assaulted them. Cottingham had stuffed Streets body under the bed for housekeeping to find, Vronsky said. At the time, Cottingham, who had not been arrested or identified, was dubbed the "Times Square Ripper.. Described as average and normal, New Jersey man Richard Cottingham was a father-of-three with a marriage that was slowly unravelling. Both men were keenly aware that it was their years-old relationship that had brought about this moment. trailer 0000013001 00000 n Neither complainant appeared in further proceedings, however, and the case was dismissed. 0000007658 00000 n The inmate, with no real incentive to say anything about that crime, had given the chief what amounted to a parting gift. This girl did everything right, Vronsky said. He recalled the exact place in the woods where he left the bodies. Cottingham was serving time for five murders, following convictions in New Jersey and New York, when Bergen prosecutors detectives in 2010 tied him to the killing of 29-year-old Ridgefield Park mom Nancy Schiava Vogel, bringing the total then to six. 0000002831 00000 n In May of 1980, police arrested Cottingham while he was torturing a sex worker at a motel room in New Jersey. He also claims that his true victim count is at least 85. It could only be Jackie Harp.. No one could find any clues in the girls backgrounds: no drugs, no trouble with the law. Blase was 18 when she was found strangled in Saddle River in 1969. This story has been shared 151,197 times. 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. Around dawn, they checked into the same Hasbrouck Heights Quality Inn where he had left Valerie Street's handcuffed body under a bed to be discovered by a housekeeper. 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. Authorities executed a warrant on his Lodi home, which had a private room containing evidence linking him to the Torso Killer. Look her up, she looks like her. Others he remembered from a haircut.. Blase was found strangled to death in 4 feet of water in Saddle River the next day. 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. Her attacker was caught as he ran away. Denise Falasca, 15, of Closter, New Jersey. 0 But he told Mr. Cottingham. Because I was with them for a couple of days, he replied, according to a transcript, and got to know them., It was raining that day in August 1974, and Mr. Cottingham, then 28, was driving to work in Manhattan when he passed the two girls walking in the opposite direction. The police photograph on the left was taken in June of 1980. [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. [21] Cottingham was apparently "forensically aware" in the era before DNA analysis. Cookie Settings/Do Not Sell My Personal Information. Straddling her back, he drew a knife and put it to her throat as he snapped a pair of handcuffs on her wrists. Years after her sisters death, she had found some comfort speaking to another from her tribe, Karen Miller, a sister of Denise Falasca. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Advance Local. And at the time, it was beyond our capacity to look beyond New York City, he told The Post. Soon, Cottingham persuaded Blase to go for a drink with him. 0000001968 00000 n Inside they found the bodies of 22-year-old sex worker Deedeh Goodarzi[9] and an unidentified woman estimated between 16 and 22. Goodarzi had come to the United States years prior from Iran. Boyfriends, ex-boyfriends, family members all were questioned and cleared of suspicion. [4], The BCPO "exceptionally closed" the three cold case murders with agreement from the victims' families and evidence corroborating the confessions, but for several years kept this secret from the public to keep Cottingham talking about other cases. The Google Street View image on the right was taken 38 years later, in June of 2018. This number may increase in the future, as he has stated in the past that his victim count is much higher. Then hed clear the room until only he and Mr. Cottingham faced each another, and begin with his questions. It contains 0 bedroom and 0 bathroom. O'Dell's muffled cries of pain became so loud that the motel staff, already uneased by the previous two murders of Carr and Street, called police and then rushed to the room demanding that Cottingham open the door. She was found strangled to death the next day in Saddle Brook. 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"[{$AXH'my The Blase family agreed. Mr. Cottingham had a vulnerability, the chief realized: After divulging nothing during hours of questioning, hed sometimes loosen up on the drive back to prison, sitting in the back seat and believing the day was done. 0000009543 00000 n xb```"VV~g`0pt 9mzQ[2fXar9XcK',6=3Yb%^)= RZlr$:kX;e =_i& ` ?# His crimes were discovered in May 1980, when a maid at a Hasbrouck Heights motel heard. With Ms. Pryor and a judge watching on Zoom that day, Mr. Cottingham pleaded guilty to the two murders. 0000006151 00000 n He lived with his wife and kids in. I believe hes killed between 85 and 100, as he claims, Vronsky told The Post. His yearbook photo shows a cross-country runner with blond hair slicked back. The chief questioned Mr. Cottingham. He married in 1970 and became a father of three. 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. Getting to that point wasnt easy, Anzilotti said. A killing in Somerset County a week after Cottingham got his drivers license may have been one of his first victims, Vronsky said. This location belongs to the following categories: Follow us on Facebook or Twitter to see future locations. Through the years, other people were assigned. Right up to Mr. Anzilotti. A woman walking to her car found them: two teenage girls, naked and dead in a sliver of woods behind an apartment parking lot. On Thursday, authorities told NJ Advance Media that Cottingham confessed to the murders of three Bergen County teenagers in the late 1960s - each a cold case for over 50 years. [5] On May 15, 1980, Jean Reyner was strangled and her throat cut in New York's historic Seville Hotel. Then, in January of this year, the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office made an announcement: The notorious serial killer Richard Cottingham, known as "The Torso Killer," had confessed to the murders. Unfortunately, we were unable to find a photograph of Jean Reyner.