How a retired detective snared his seventh ‘Torso Killer’ confession
nypost.comThe Torso Killer Confessions,” Anzilotti has now closed his seventh cold-case linked to serial killer Richard Cottingham: the murder of Mary Ann Della Sala, who was 17 when she vanished in January 1967 after working her shift at the Shop-Rite on Essex Street in Hackensack.Her body was found three months later in the Passaic River in Hawthorne; the case remained unsolved until March 2022, when Anzilotti elicited a confession from Cottingham, kept secret until now.
Cottinghman, 76, is serving six life sentences after terrorizing Bergen County and the surrounding area with a string of brutal, unsolved murders from at least 1967 until his arrest in 1980.“I was determined … to use my retirement as a tool to get [Cottingham] to talk about more of those [cold] cases,” Anzilotti, 53, told The Post. “He had teased me over the years that he was responsible for other murders but never wanted to admit to it.“Unfortunately many of [Mary Ann’s] family have passed, but her brother and sister are still here and I’ve spoken to her sister a number of times and made sure her brother knows as well.
They’ve been more inclined to stay out of the spotlight … but have been extraordinarily supportive of my efforts. Mary Ann’s sister cried … about not having her big sister around all these years.”In 2004, Anzilotti was tasked with re-opening a slew of cold-case murders of women, most of them living in Bergen County, dating back to the mid-1960s.
Eventually the trail led him to Cottingham, dubbed “The Torso Killer” after dismembering the bodies of two female victims in a midtown Manhattan hotel room.As documented in A&E’s “The Torso Killer Confessions,” airing March 9 and 10 (9-11 p.m.
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