Murder Inc. Exclusive: Did Richard Cottingham murder Elizabeth Wheeler in Midland Park, NJ in 1977?
In July 1968, Jaclyn Harp was murdered by Richard Cottingham in Midland Park, NJ. Almost a decade later, in January 1977, 76 year old Elizabeth Wheeler was found murdered inside her Midland Park home a few blocks from where Jackie Harp had been discovered in 1968. Elizabeth Wheeler was bludgeoned to death and suffered a fractured skull as well as multiple cracked ribs. A ski mask was found left behind by the killer on the kitchen counter of her home.
When Richard Cottingham murdered Deedeh Goodarzi and Jane Doe in a Manhattan hotel room in 1979, he used a fake address of 634 Anderson Place Merlin, NJ. There is no Merlin, New Jersey but police noted at the time that Wyckoff was the only town in Bergen or Passaic County that had a street called Merlin Place. Richard Cottingham, a resident of Lodi in Bergen County, was arrested in May 1980 and implicated in the murder of Deedeh Goodarzi and Jane Doe. Despite the fact that Merlin Place in Wyckoff borders Midland Park and was only a few blocks from Jackie Harp’s home, it took the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office 50 years to link Richard Cottingham to the murder of Jackie Harp. And even though Elizabeth Wheeler was murdered less than half a mile up the road from Jackie Harp, the linkage blind cops of the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office still haven’t figured out that Richard Cottingham killed Elizabeth Wheeler too. Soon after Elizabeth Wheeler’s murder a ski-masked serial rapist started terrorizing Bergen County….
Three months after the murder of Elizabeth Wheeler, a man in a ski mask began attacking babysitters in Bergen County. He was known as the Ramsey Rapist, or the Babysitter Rapist and attacked in Ramsey, Upper Saddle River and Allendale. Ramsey borders the town of Wyckoff. He was also linked to attacks in Tarrytown, NY. The police tried to frame in innocent man for the Ramsey Babysitter Rapes but he was cleared and the series of crimes remains unsolved by law enforcement over 40 years later. Richard Cottingham recently admitted to murdering Lorraine Kelly & Mary Ann Pryor in 1974 and dumping their remains in Montvale near where the Ramsey Rapist attacked. Richard Cottingham grew up in River Vale, NJ.
January 6 1977 Elizabeth Wheeler Murder Midland Park, NJ
Elizabeth Wheeler was murdered in Midland Park near where Jaclyn Harp was killed by Richard Cottingham in 1968
Ramsey Rapist/Babysitter Rapist
March 26 1977 Ramsey Rapist Upper Saddle River, NJ
The first known Ramsey Rapist attack was in Upper Saddle River where Richard Cottingham’s uncle lived and approximately one mile west of the site of the Lorraine Kelly & Mary Ann Pryor murder
July 23 1977 Ramsey Rapist Ramsey, NJ
September 30 1977 Ramsey Rapist/Babysitter Rapist Ramsey, NJ
October 8 1977 Tarrytown Babysitter Rapist Tarrytown, NY
October 10 1977 “Not the” Ramsey Rapist Allendale/Saddle River, NJ
October 29 1977 Ramsey Rapist James Comey’s House Allendale, NJ
November 2 1977 Bruce Ader Not the Ramsey Rapist False Arrest Allendale, NJ
December 15 1977 Mary Ann Carr Murder Hasbrouck Heights, NJ *Richard Cottingham Convicted*
November 1978 Ramsey Rapist Rapist Upper Saddle River, NJ
February 9 1979 Ramsey Rapist Ramsey, NJ
March 11 1980 Richard Cottingham Merlin Place, Wyckoff, NJ
Merlin Place was located near the sites of the Jaclyn Harp and Elizabeth Wheeler murder. Police took 50 years to link the 1968 murder of Jaclyn Harp to Richard Cottingham, and only because he confessed. They never linked the unsolved murder of Elizabeth Wheeler to Jaclyn Harp or Richard Cottingham
The idea that serial killers don’t change “modus operandi” is a myth propagated by law enforcement based on pseudoscience. Serial killers are not confined to presumed theoretical behavioral restrictions or set escalation patterns when they commit crimes. One night a serial killer can kidnap a young girl off the street, strangle her to death and dump her body by a creek. The next night he might break into a house and bludgeon an elderly widow. Maybe he spends most nights prowling around windows in a ski mask looking for teenage babysitters to rape. Or he might decide to hire two sex workers, decapitate them in a hotel room in the middle of New York City and then set the room on fire. The purpose of Murder Inc. is to expose the linkage blindness and dereliction of law enforcement investigating unsolved murders and in the process solve the crimes and unsolved murders that law enforcement is unable to solve due to their close minded linkage blindness.
Murder, Inc. 