On a summer day, August 9, 1974, seventeen-year-old Mary Ann Pryor and her sixteen-year-old friend, Lorraine Kelly, left their homes in North Bergen, New Jersey, with plans to go shopping for bathing suits at the Garden State Plaza mall in Paramus. Mary Ann, described by her sister as feisty and independent, told her older sister Nancy she would see her later, a promise that tragically would not be kept.
The last time the two friends were seen alive was on Broad Avenue in Ridgefield, where they were reportedly hitchhiking and got into a vehicle driven by an unknown white male. When Mary Ann, who always carried a dime to call home, didn't return that evening, her family grew deeply concerned and began a frantic search.
For five agonizing days, the families of Mary Ann and Lorraine held onto hope, following up on reported sightings that never materialized. The devastating news came on August 14, 1974, when their bodies were discovered in a wooded area in Montvale, about twenty miles from where they were last seen. A resident of an apartment complex discovered the nude and battered remains of the two teenage girls. Both had been sexually assaulted and had died from asphyxiation. The scene indicated they had endured significant torture before their lives were brutally taken.
The investigation into the double homicide spanned decades, leaving the families of Mary Ann Pryor and Lorraine Kelly without answers or justice for nearly 47 years. Investigators looked into numerous leads and potential suspects, including notorious serial killer Richard Cottingham, who was active in the area during that time. For many years, a definitive link to the girls' murders could not be established. A breakthrough finally came in April 2021, when Richard Cottingham, already imprisoned for other murders and known as the 'Torso Killer,' confessed to the kidnapping, rape, and murder of Mary Ann Pryor and Lorraine Kelly.
Cottingham admitted to abducting the two girls and holding them captive in a motel room where he repeatedly assaulted them before ultimately drowning them in the bathtub. In a court appearance, he pleaded guilty to the two murders. His confession brought a long-awaited, albeit painful, conclusion to a case that had haunted the community and the victims' families for generations. Cottingham was sentenced to two additional life sentences for the murders of Mary Ann Pryor and Lorraine Kelly.
