NJ NJ - Richard Cottingham, Torso/Times Square Serial Killer, 1968-1980

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The sweater is a European size. 38 is an 8 in US sizes, which fits with the size 7/8 jeans she had on.

I'm so glad you started this thread! And that she is finally in NamUs.
 

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The Rarest and Most Common Blood Types by Percentage | Live Science
"In general, the rarest blood type is AB-negative and the most common is O-positive. Here's a breakdown of the most rare and common blood types by ethnicity, according to the American Red Cross.''
''AB-positive
  • African-American: 4 percent
  • Asian: 7 percent
  • Caucasian: 3 percent
  • Latino-American: 2 percent
AB-negative:
  • African-American: 0.3 percent
  • Asian: 0.1 percent
  • Caucasian: 1 percent
  • Latino-American: 0.2 percent''

  • rbbm.
My Blood Type is AB+ - Carter BloodCare
''The AB blood group is believed to be the newest blood type. The AB blood group is the result of the intermingling between Caucasian (commonly group A) and Mongolian (commonly group B) people. For these reasons, the AB blood group is found in low percentages throughout the European population, but appears more commonly within the sub-continental Indian population.
 
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Lengthy article.
Sept 28 2020
Get Access
''Bandstra, a 66-year-old plumbing and heating contractor who had lived around the corner from the Harp family, rented a church hall to accommodate the 50-person crowd. He invited Peter Vronsky, a Canadian author who has written several books about serial killers and had been meeting with Cottingham regularly over the past two years, to share what he knew.

At the meeting, Vronsky told the group of Cottingham's confession.

Cottingham, an inmate in New Jersey State Prison in Trenton who is serving multiple life sentences, was convicted in the early 1980s for the murders of five women. In 2010, he also confessed to the 1967 murder of Nancy Vogel, a Little Ferry woman who was found strangled in her car.''

''Vronsky said he had heard of the confessions while working on his latest book and confirmed with the Prosecutor’s Office that those cases were in fact closed. He decided to share the information after considering the effect Harp’s killing had on the tight-knit community.

“The murder affected that community in a very deep way,” he said. “I just didn’t want people to suffer anymore, particularly those boys who were suspected and some almost ostracized by the community”

''Close family members knew about the confessions, but many other people who were profoundly affected by the killings did not, Vronsky said.''

“These people are reaching an age where they’re much more fragile. Some are passing away,” he said “People were carrying that trauma to this day. They carried this almost all their lives, and they needed to know.”
 
Shes the only cottingham victim still unidentified to this date. Shes not on namus and just recently added to doenetwork. Cottingham confessed to 3 additional unsolved murdered he committed in the late 60s but it seems like he couldn't help much more in this case because shes a unidentified victim. Could Dna geneology help us solve this?
 
pryor-kelly-purple-pink.png

Mary Ann Pryor (L) and Lorraine Kelly (R)

On Friday, August 9, 1974, 17-year-old Mary Ann Pryor and 16-year-old Lorraine Marie Kelly left North Bergen, New Jersey with plans to go shopping at the Garden State Plaza. The last person to see the pair was Kelly’s boyfriend, Ricky Molinari, who dropped them off at a bus stop on Broad Street in Ridgefield, New Jersey. From there, they planned to get to Paramus either by bus or by hitchhiking.

Pryor and Kelly never made it to the mall that day. Despite the fact that Pryor always carried a dime to ensure she’d have enough money to call home, neither girl made contact with family and friends. They were reported missing within 24 hours...

LINK:
https://prettydeathseller.com/2019/...who-killed-mary-ann-pryor-and-lorraine-kelly/
 
I'm sure LE is looking at Richard Cottingham for these murders. Bergen County was his original hunting ground, one of his victims Nancy Vogel, was abducted from a mall in Bergen County, taken to a field in Montvale, and then dumped in her own car in Ridgefield Park... sounds very similar to these two young ladies with a minor variation.

ETA just this past year he admitted to three other killings in the late 1960's in BC. All three young women had been strangled, Irene Blase, Denise Falasca and Jackie Harp.
 
April 27 2021
‘Torso Killer' Pleads Guilty in 1974 New Jersey Cold-Case Murders
''What to Know
  • A New Jersey serial killer known as the “Torso Killer” pleaded guilty Tuesday 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.
  • Richard Cottingham, 74, is currently in state prison on a life sentence for other murders. He has claimed he was responsible for up to 100 murders, but authorities in New York and New Jersey have linked him to nine so far — not including the two 1974 murders — though they believe the death toll is higher.
  • Cottingham has been in prison since 1981 but confessed to three of the murders, dating back to the late 1960s, last year.
A New Jersey serial killer known as the “Torso Killer” pleaded guilty Tuesday 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.

Richard Cottingham, 74, is currently in state prison on a life sentence for other murders. He has claimed he was responsible for up to 100 murders, but authorities in New York and New Jersey have linked him to nine so far — not including the two 1974 murders — though they believe the death toll is higher.''

Ws thread..
NJ - NJ - Mary Ann Pryor, 17, & Lorraine Kelly, 16, Ridgefield, 9 Aug 1974
 
Apr 27, 2021

June 15 2021
Retired cop convinces serial killer to confess to murders | Toronto Sun
CP122361143-e1619637795621.jpg

In this image taken from a New Jersey Courts virtual hearing, Richard Cottingham, centre, known as the "Torso Killer," pleads guilty Tuesday, April 27, 2021, to two 1974 murders. Photo by New Jersey Courts via AP /New Jersey Courts via AP

''In an interview with the New York Times, Robert Anzilotti, the former chief of detectives for the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office, said he spent years developing an unusual relationship with 74-year-old Richard Cottingham — nicknamed the Torso Killer — before he shared details of previously unsolved cases.''

''In April, Cottingham finally confessed to the Kelly-Pryor killings, describing how he trapped the two teens in his motel room and raped them for days before he drowned them in a bathtub.

Three days after Cottingham pleaded guilty to the deaths, Anzilotti retired from the force.''
 
dotr said:
Apr 27, 2021

June 15 2021
Retired cop convinces serial killer to confess to murders | Toronto Sun
CP122361143-e1619637795621.jpg

In this image taken from a New Jersey Courts virtual hearing, Richard Cottingham, centre, known as the "Torso Killer," pleads guilty Tuesday, April 27, 2021, to two 1974 murders. Photo by New Jersey Courts via AP /New Jersey Courts via AP

''In an interview with the New York Times, Robert Anzilotti, the former chief of detectives for the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office, said he spent years developing an unusual relationship with 74-year-old Richard Cottingham — nicknamed the Torso Killer — before he shared details of previously unsolved cases.''

''In April, Cottingham finally confessed to the Kelly-Pryor killings, describing how he trapped the two teens in his motel room and raped them for days before he drowned them in a bathtub.

Three days after Cottingham pleaded guilty to the deaths, Anzilotti retired from the force.''
Click to expand...
One thing I haven't heard a lot of - how these crimes affect the detectives and forensic folks and their families. I can't begin to imagine the toll it takes on them as well.
 
On the New Jersey Girl Murders site linked by Peter Vronsky above, there is a pair of victims - Susan Davis and Elizabeth Perry - who died of stab wounds in 1969. The superficial pen knife scratches and deep fatal stab wound to the chest of one of the victims share similarities to Cottingham's 1979 "torso murders". The 1979 Travel Inn victims were also scratched superficially with a knife before being stabbed fatally. We know he has pleaded guilty to murdering at least one other pair of teenagers (which happened in 1974), so this crime seems to fit his MO in some ways. Cases New Jersey Girl Murders 1960-1980

They do stand out as somewhat different from his known victims though. Much like Bundy, Cottingham seems to have had a "type". For example, 18 year old Irene Blase and 15 year old Denise Falasca - murdered by Cottingham 3 months apart in 1969, look like sisters. The similarity between them is striking. And like most of his other victims, they had darker hair and brown eyes. Susan Davis and Elizabeth Perry, on the other hand, look like they were both blonde and fair (as far as I can tell in the B&W photos), which sets them apart from most of his known victims.

But you never know. This guy's victim profile just keeps expanding the more he's investigated.
 
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Raging Ranter said:
On the New Jersey Girl Murders site linked by Peter Vronsky above, there is a pair of victims - Susan Davis and Elizabeth Perry - who died of stab wounds in 1969. The superficial pen knife scratches and deep fatal stab wound to the chest of one of the victims share similarities to Cottingham's 1979 "torso murders". The 1979 Travel Inn victims were also scratched superficially with a knife before being stabbed fatally. We know he has pleaded guilty to murdering at least one other pair of teenagers (which happened in 1974), so this crime seems to fit his MO in some ways. Cases New Jersey Girl Murders 1960-1980

They do stand out as somewhat different from his known victims though. Much like Bundy, Cottingham seems to have had a "type". For example, 18 year old Irene Blase and 15 year old Denise Falasca - murdered by Cottingham 3 months apart in 1969, look like sisters. The similarity between them is striking. And like most of his other victims, they had darker hair and brown eyes. Susan Davis and Elizabeth Perry, on the other hand, look like they were both blonde and fair (as far as I can tell in the B&W photos), which sets them apart from most of his known victims.

But you never know. This guy's victim profile just keeps expanding the more he's investigated.
Click to expand...

Further to my last post, I see now that Davis & Perry were well outside Cottingham's normal hunting groun, making them less likely to be victims of his.
 
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