Denise Didn't Come Home | 5. The Broken Road

Speaker 1 A decade ago, I was on the trail of one of the country's most elusive serial killers. But it wasn't until 2023 when he was finally caught.
The answers were there, hidden in plain sight.

Speaker 1 So why did it take so long to catch him? I'm Josh Zeman, and this is Monster, Hunting Lisk, the investigation into the most notorious killer in New York since the son of Sam.

Speaker 3 Available now.

Speaker 1 Listen for free on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 5 Karen Falaska told me that in the summer of 2017, she was working in her office in Boulder, Colorado, and she got a call from the University of Colorado Police Department.

Speaker 6 I was at my desk, just a parking lot away from the police department, and they were wanting me to come over there.

Speaker 6 I already knew in my heart that something was going on with Denise's case.

Speaker 5 Karen was nervous. She'd spent almost 50 years hunting for the man who murdered her sister, and she sensed the truth might have finally arrived.

Speaker 5 But now, it seemed like all she wanted to do was get away from it.

Speaker 6 And I kept saying, you know what, I can't come out today. I'm just, my back's up against the wall and I have deadlines.
And then they kind of broke down and said, you've got to come.

Speaker 6 Bergen County is flying here to tell you something that you want to hear.

Speaker 6 And I was like, oh, geez, I got to go smoke a cigarette. I've got to go smoke like three cigarettes.

Speaker 6 I was just like walking around the parking structure. I started trembling, like really trembling, like an alcoholic that needs a drink, not knowing what they were coming here to tell me.

Speaker 6 I didn't want to get my hopes up, you know.

Speaker 5 Finally, Karen made her way over to the police department, where she was greeted by a familiar face, Detective Rob Anzalatti of the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office.

Speaker 7 I had made her a promise that I would never stop the pursuit of finding out who killed her sister Denise, and I thought she deserved the respect of me personally being there.

Speaker 7 It was important to to me to personally look her in the eye and tell her that we had solved it.

Speaker 5 Anzalatti told Karen that Richard Cottingham had finally confessed to murdering Denise.

Speaker 5 I just finally fell apart and I cried.

Speaker 6 It was startling how heavy the grief was. I didn't know how to make sense of this or grieve it.

Speaker 7 I think it was extraordinarily emotional for Karen.

Speaker 7 I kind of knew that she was going to have some doubt just because I knew who she was. You know, I knew the person Karen was.
And she,

Speaker 7 anything short of DNA evidence, she was absolutely going to question the validity of it.

Speaker 6 And he said, do you have doubts, Karen? And I said, yeah, I do. I really do.

Speaker 6 And he was like, well, I'm telling you, for surely, for surely, Cottingham did this. And I said, yeah, but don't we need any kind of evidence that could corroborate his confession?

Speaker 6 And he was like, well, I'm beyond the shadow of a doubt sure that he killed Denise.

Speaker 5 Karen told me that Anzalati had come empty-handed. No copy of the confession, no official report, just his word that Cottingham did it.

Speaker 5 He told her that because of his deal with Cottingham, there wouldn't be any charges. He asked her not to tell anyone about the confession because he was afraid that Cottingham would stop talking.

Speaker 6 I told them, okay.

Speaker 6 All right.

Speaker 6 And I walked out of there.

Speaker 6 As each day goes from that meeting, I accept it less and less.

Speaker 6 Seems like such an easy solution for such a terrible, terrible crime that stunked everyone for decades to suddenly be quietly solved and put away after getting no exposure whatsoever and then swearing me to silence.

Speaker 6 It's not right.

Speaker 5 Not long after that, Karen got a phone call out of the blue from this dumb kid from New Jersey who'd heard about Denise's murder, who was interested enough in what happened to reach out, who didn't really seem to know what he was reaching out for.

Speaker 6 Hello. Hi, Karen.
Hi.

Speaker 5 Me. If you feel comfortable, I'm ready to start recording.

Speaker 6 Okay.

Speaker 6 I'm ready.

Speaker 5 And that brings us back to the beginning of this story. To when I started talking to Karen.
First, I guess it's just like a little bit of background of like who you are.

Speaker 6 Sure, um I'm Karen Palaska and Denise is my older sister.

Speaker 5 I had no idea that I'd stumbled into Karen's life at this pivotal moment. That to Karen, my timing was almost too perfect, maybe even a little suspicious.

Speaker 6 It has run through my mind that maybe someone asked you to do this. No, no, no.

Speaker 6 I just wanted to make sure that nobody sent you to try to get me on tape saying things about her case that I've sworn I wouldn't say.

Speaker 5 Eventually, she broke that promise. She told me about the confession, that according to Bergen County, this 50-year-old murder had finally been solved.
And she told me that she wasn't buying it.

Speaker 5 Their story is a great story, but it's a story just like my story. And I just can't know what all of their interviews involved.
I wish I could sit and view that confession.

Speaker 5 It didn't take long for Karen's wish to come true. A few weeks later, Anzalatti flew back to Colorado to meet with Karen at her home.

Speaker 6 Yeah.

Speaker 6 I thought we would sit view this.

Speaker 5 And this time, he brought something with him that Karen had been asking for.

Speaker 6 I would like to see his confession.

Speaker 7 Yeah, why brought his confession?

Speaker 5 My name is Anthony Scalia. From Truth Media and Sony Music Entertainment, this is Denise Didn't Come Home.

Speaker 7 What I knew about Codahim was that he was this torso killer killing prostitutes and easy prey.

Speaker 6 His murders were gruesome and brutal. Death and desecration and torture and dismemberment.
Why would you think that he did this?

Speaker 7 So what was the thrill? Was it more rape?

Speaker 8 Control?

Speaker 8 It was getting away with it.

Speaker 9 It still was the game, the stalking.

Speaker 7 We're still taking the word of a convicted serial killer. I trusted him when I could verify what he had to say.

Speaker 8 You recall abducting a girl from Old Hook Road. I definitely took the girl from Old Hook Road.

Speaker 7 There's only one unsolved homicide of a girl that we last saw on Old Hook Road, and it's Denise Velasca.

Speaker 5 Chapter 5: The Broken Road.

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Speaker 2 Nicole Ernest Pate was 21 years old when a predator assaulted her in her own home. He is kind of the boogeyman in the night that you are truly afraid of.
She went straight to the cops.

Speaker 5 She said, this sounds like some sort of movie plot.

Speaker 2 No one believed her until one day, The man who helped put the Golden State killer behind bars helped figure out the serial predator's pattern.

Speaker 9 This is the serious offender.

Speaker 2 He'd been hiding in plain sight. But even when the attacker was unmasked, Nicole still had questions.

Speaker 5 The why, the what, the why meet.

Speaker 2 She wanted to meet him.

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Speaker 5 On January 30th, 2018, Karen secretly recorded this conversation with Detective Rob Anzalati and his partner.

Speaker 5 Anzalati is here to let Karen read a copy of Richard Cottingham's confession to the murder of her sister, Denise.

Speaker 7 Because it's overdue. And again, I apologize because I told you months ago that we were going to get out of here to do this.

Speaker 7 Thank you. You're welcome.

Speaker 8 Yeah.

Speaker 6 I can guarantee you that I'm ready to see the truth of what he said and I'm ready to see her son.

Speaker 5 Karen only got to read a transcript of the confession. But a few years later, I was able to get this recording of the confession itself.

Speaker 7 Today's date is Wednesday, March 1st, 2017.

Speaker 7 And seated to my left is Mr. Richard Cottingham.

Speaker 7 Do you swear this statement you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you, God?

Speaker 9 Yes.

Speaker 7 Can you tell me, to the best of your recollection, when did this homicide occur?

Speaker 9 The summer of 69.

Speaker 7 The summer of 1969?

Speaker 9 Yes, I remember it to be a hot day,

Speaker 9 and it was before I got married, May of 70.

Speaker 9 It was a summer night.

Speaker 9 I was on my way to work

Speaker 9 and I seen a young lady walking on the side of a road in the opposite direction. I went a couple more blocks and I made a U-turn.

Speaker 9 I asked the girl if she needed a ride or something to that effect and she said okay and she got in my car.

Speaker 9 I pulled up in front of the pizza shop that was right on the corner. I asked her if she wanted to size the pizza.
She said, okay, but she said I have to go meet my friends in a few minutes.

Speaker 9 I think she was just trying to be nice to me because I gave her a ride.

Speaker 9 I had to talk to her to get back in the car and I told her I'd help her look for her friends.

Speaker 5 When Karen read that part of Cottingham's confession, it made sense to her.

Speaker 6 The girl he's describing is Denise.

Speaker 6 Like, I bet she was uncomfortable and trying to get away, but

Speaker 7 trying not to be rude or...

Speaker 6 I think she was scared. She really knew she was in trouble.

Speaker 9 When she got back in the car, I drove over to St. Andrew's Elementary School

Speaker 9 and I went down into the yard area, which was deserted at that time.

Speaker 7 What did you have in mind? What was the purpose of bringing her there?

Speaker 9 To mess mess around with her, have sex with her.

Speaker 7 Did you force her to do this?

Speaker 9 I didn't physically force her, no.

Speaker 9 But I let her know that she had no choice. I told her to do it, she did it.
She wouldn't have done it unless I told her to do it.

Speaker 9 I

Speaker 9 made the decision that she was dangerous to me, that she'd seen my face, and that she definitely would tell people.

Speaker 9 So I decided that I would have to get rid of her.

Speaker 9 So I pulled on the side of the road, pushed her over the seat, I climbed over the seat, and that's where I killed her.

Speaker 5 At that point in the confession, Cottingham started to get really vague about the crucial details.

Speaker 7 Can you explain to me how you killed her?

Speaker 9 It's hazy. I would almost definitely say that I strangled her.

Speaker 7 When you say strangled, would it be manual strangulation with your hands or could you have used a ligature? Could you have used something?

Speaker 9 Usually I use something.

Speaker 7 Okay, do you have any recollection of what you used?

Speaker 9 Not specifically.

Speaker 5 Denise was found badly beaten and Anzalati wanted an explanation for that.

Speaker 7 At any time did you have to assault her in some way where, you know, where she would have gotten started bleeding?

Speaker 9 Not that I recall.

Speaker 7 Okay, is it possible?

Speaker 9 It's possible that she struggled for a bit and, you know, she may have got injured, but I don't recall.

Speaker 5 Denise was found with a bloody handprint on her leg. Anzalati wanted to know where that came from.

Speaker 9 I got out of the car and I pulled her out.

Speaker 7 When you dragged her out from the car, would it have been from the top or from her feet?

Speaker 9 I don't recall.

Speaker 9 It would

Speaker 9 probably be by her legs.

Speaker 7 Do you remember what side of the road you you dumped her on?

Speaker 9 I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure it was on the right-hand side.

Speaker 7 Do you remember actually what town you were in on Westminster Road? I have no idea. Okay.

Speaker 7 After removing her body from the car and leaving it on the side at Westminster Road, what did you do next?

Speaker 9 I believe I drove into the city.

Speaker 9 I think I just went in and had some deed.

Speaker 6 I think he's really not

Speaker 6 wholly convincing. I mean, if that makes you certain, that interview there.

Speaker 7 He doesn't remember as much detail as I would like him to, but also to his defense of some of the haziness, we're asking to remember something at this point that was almost 50 years ago.

Speaker 5 One thing about the confession that really bothered Karen was that Cottingham said he picked Denise up at night in the dark.

Speaker 5 But Karen remembered the sun still being up and seeing Denise walk off down Old Hook Road in daylight.

Speaker 6 I know that when we left the house it was light out. I mean it was probably starting out going to sunset but it was still light out.

Speaker 6 So either my timeline is off or...

Speaker 7 Yeah, you totally could be off on your time. You could be you thought you saw something you didn't.

Speaker 8 I mean

Speaker 6 You know, I don't know. It's just odd.
But anyway, okay.

Speaker 6 I just want to make sure that we are definitely accusing the right person of dominance.

Speaker 7 While I would love for more detail, it just all makes a ton of sense. He has no incentive to give this stuff to us, and we certainly have no incentive to accept it from him.

Speaker 7 And we would not come tell you unless we were 1,000% certain.

Speaker 7 Without DNA evidence or fingerprint, is there ever that 1% chance where you got the wrong guy? We'd like to think not, but we certainly know that it happens.

Speaker 7 But I don't see any scenario where he duped us into this, because for what?

Speaker 8 Toward what end?

Speaker 6 Because he didn't have to say it.

Speaker 6 Yeah, I am.

Speaker 6 If you guys are hanging your hat on this confession,

Speaker 6 I don't know what to say. I mean,

Speaker 6 he's a pig. He's a piece of shit.

Speaker 7 You just gotta hope that there's a hell.

Speaker 6 Yeah, there is a help.

Speaker 6 There's a hell.

Speaker 7 And he gets a front row seat.

Speaker 5 After it was all over, Karen called me to tell me about the confession.

Speaker 6 This was really far from home run slam dunk. Some details were lost to him, and then that was very clear in his confession, you know.

Speaker 6 But he doesn't remember if he strangled her. They asked him about blood, and he said, Well, there was maybe a little bit of blood.

Speaker 6 He's not clear about it.

Speaker 6 But there were certain things he said that gave me the feeling that he really did have her.

Speaker 6 He had her. her.

Speaker 6 It made sense when I read it in the confession. He said, well, you know what? She was really trying to be nice.
She was really trying to blow me off in a nice way. And when he said that,

Speaker 8 I just knew it was her.

Speaker 6 We were raised to have manners. to treat people with dignity, to be kind even to the unlovable.

Speaker 6 I really see her outside of his car, really trying to nicely negotiate her way out of this person's path.

Speaker 6 And I could feel her fear, knowing that she was in a bad place with this person, and really not being able to get away.

Speaker 5 That moment terrifies me. I could just picture it like I just.

Speaker 8 Me too.

Speaker 6 You know, I said, that's when I knew I had to kill her because she saw me and she was the kind of girl that would tell.

Speaker 6 And I thought,

Speaker 6 yeah, she was.

Speaker 6 She was smart. She was a smart girl, and she was probably trying to manipulate him as much as he was trying to manipulate her.

Speaker 5 Do you still need like a little bit more of proof that you were once looking for, or are you pretty much just really accepting this now?

Speaker 6 That's a really good question.

Speaker 6 I feel like I have to accept it.

Speaker 6 There's something wrong in it. And I'm sure that I'm always going to be stuck with this doubt.
But, I mean,

Speaker 6 everything I asked for, I got.

Speaker 6 Everything I've struggled for just came true.

Speaker 6 And I'm sitting here going, yeah, but really,

Speaker 6 you know?

Speaker 6 I feel this sense of surrender like this is as far as it's going to go. And that's kind of where I am.
I don't know what to think.

Speaker 6 It really has been hitting me

Speaker 6 that I don't have to really search for her murderer anymore.

Speaker 6 I can just remember her and

Speaker 6 accept the fact that she's gone. She's dead, you know.

Speaker 5 After Karen read Richard Cottingham's confession, I thought she had finally found an answer to the question of who killed her sister. I thought maybe she had found some peace.

Speaker 5 But I realized that with Karen, it wouldn't be that easy.

Speaker 6 And I still

Speaker 6 have a doubt in my mind as to whether he killed her. I still don't really have any real confirmation.

Speaker 6 I would be pushing it way over the limit to to carry on and keep saying, I'm not satisfied, I'm not satisfied. Really, they would label me as a crazy person.

Speaker 5 I remember being a little frustrated. I mean, I could admit that the confession was hazy and it had some holes.

Speaker 5 But by this time, I was starting to feel more and more every day that Cottingham killed Denise.

Speaker 5 And that's because I was spending all my free time researching his cases. How he used to prowl the streets of Bergen County for victims.
He knew his hunting ground well. And it turns out, I did too.

Speaker 5 I came across something that was really interesting this weekend that I had no idea. I don't know if you knew this, but he lived in Lodi.
Right, I did know. Yeah.

Speaker 5 At one point, Cottingham lived right in my hometown of Lodi. That blew my mind.
And then I found out he lived on Vreeland Street, a street I'd known my entire life.

Speaker 5 It was less than two blocks from my grandma's house. Vreeland Street is maybe a minute and a half drive from where Denise was found.
I did the drive last night.

Speaker 5 I was with my girlfriend and I was like, turn down this street and then turn down this street. And I looked at the time and I saw how long it took and it was right there.

Speaker 5 Like ridiculously, ridiculously, ridiculously close. Not only that, but Cottingham lived close to where another victim was found, Irene Blace.
She was killed just a few months before Denise.

Speaker 5 I just, I see Cottingham doing it.

Speaker 6 Well, I'd say it's very, very possible that he did.

Speaker 5 My question to you is,

Speaker 5 would it ever be enough for you to say, you know what, yeah, that is it, or do you think it's just like a thing?

Speaker 6 Well, I know I'm never going to get that really good feeling that people think they're gonna get when they get to the end of something that has been a lifelong quest almost I know I'm never gonna feel that good Karen was still hung up on her own memories of the night of the murder the things she remembered that weren't in Cottingham's confession I just recall so clearly these things

Speaker 6 from the real memory and the real experience of having been there

Speaker 6 People will say, you're not remembering it right.

Speaker 6 You don't forget.

Speaker 6 You go over it and over it and over it in your mind.

Speaker 5 I asked Karen to take me through those memories again.

Speaker 5 She said that Cottingham claimed he had picked up Denise at night in the dark.

Speaker 6 People keep saying it was nighttime, it was dark, and it wasn't. It was early evening, light out, and we left the house.

Speaker 5 Karen remembered that she and Denise walked down the street together to catch a bus in daylight.

Speaker 6 She turned around and she said, I have to go do something, and said to me very sternly, do not follow me. Karen, do not follow me.

Speaker 6 And I said, please stay with me.

Speaker 6 I see her walking away from me in daylight. It's not even dusk yet.

Speaker 6 She split off from me and walked down Old Hook Road.

Speaker 5 Karen said she sat down at the bus stop, and that's when she saw a man in a blue car.

Speaker 6 He drove by real slow

Speaker 6 and just gave me an evil, evil look, like gawking at me.

Speaker 6 And then he made a U-turn and came back towards me and I was really scared when I saw him do that. So I just stood there.
I just stood my ground.

Speaker 6 I just looked right at him, and I stepped out and acted like I was writing his license plate down on my hand.

Speaker 6 And he just took off. He just switched away and he headed towards Old Hook Road.

Speaker 6 The person that stalked me that day to me was so creepy and ugly and scary, like the devil himself.

Speaker 6 If it was the same guy who stalked me that night, I always wondered if I just sent him straight to Denise.

Speaker 5 I suddenly realized why Karen couldn't let go of that moment, because she felt guilty.

Speaker 6 I see now that it so easily could have been me.

Speaker 6 I did think in the early times of her death that it should have been me. That people wouldn't have been so ripped up had it been me.

Speaker 8 Hmm.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I definitely want to come back to that.

Speaker 5 Of all Karen's memories, this was the memory that tortured her the most.

Speaker 6 It's hard to tell, but it could have. It could have been him.

Speaker 5 Unless we could somehow somehow confirm that cottingham saw Karen that night I worried that she would never find peace

Speaker 5 but a couple weeks later Karen called me she found out that anyone could message an inmate through the prison email system I feel it roaring up from deep inside of me like

Speaker 6 you know it might be possible for me to speak to the person who caused all this

Speaker 6 This whole road has been leading here.

Speaker 6 It's a broken road and I'm trying to make it straight.

Speaker 5 No more middlemen. No more hearing about what happened secondhand or reading it from a transcript.
Karen needed to go to the source.

Speaker 6 The only two people that know what happened that night is

Speaker 6 Denise and Richard.

Speaker 6 If I really want to know what happened that night, I should just ask him.

Speaker 5 I was worried about Karen. On the one hand, I wanted her to get the answer she needed.

Speaker 5 On the other, I wasn't sure what she would find in the dark recesses of Cunningham's mind and whether any of it would help.

Speaker 5 If you only have a serial killer's word, how can you believe anything he says? He's gotten this far by lying.

Speaker 5 We're talking about a guy who is the master of deception.

Speaker 5 That's on the next episode of Denise Didn't Come Home.

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Speaker 5 Denise Didn't Come Home is a production of Truth Media in partnership with Sony Music Entertainment. I'm your host, Anthony Scalia.

Speaker 5 The show is produced by Ryan Swikert Swiker and me. Story editing by Mark Smerling.
Kevin Shepard is our associate producer. Scott Curtis is our production manager.

Speaker 5 From Sony, our executive producers are Jonathan Hirsch and Catherine St. Louis.

Speaker 5 Fact-checking by Dania Suleiman. Kenny Cuziak Did the Mix.
Sound design by Kenny Cuziak and Ryan Swiker. Music by Kenny Kuziak, Epidemic Sound, and Marmaset.

Speaker 5 Our title track is Give Me Some by Weevil. If you've been enjoying the show, we'd love to hear from you.
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And thanks for listening.

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