The sister of a teenage girl who disappeared in the 1970s has told of her extraordinary lifelong search for answers, which culminated this year in her writing a letter to a notorious American serial killer.
Maryann Collette was only nine years old when her sister, Patricia Nieuwsom16, disappeared from her boarding school in New York’s Monticello neighborhood.
Patricia’s whereabouts remained a mystery until last year, when Maryann’s DNA was used to identify her as the victim of a cold case murder from August 1975.
An unknown suspect strangled, gagged and wrapped the teen in tarps before abandoning her body in New Haven, Connecticut. The case, however, has been considered a “Jane Doe” mystery and has puzzled investigators for decades.
And now, in 2024, her sister Maryann, now 59, lives a peaceful life in Blountville, in northeastern Tennessee, where she raises chickens that could be heard clucking in the background of her phone conversation with DailyMail.com, but not in the dark tale she was about to tell.
Maryann Collette was only nine years old when her sister, Patricia Newsom (pictured), 16, disappeared from her boarding school in New York’s Monticello neighborhood.
Maryann, now 59, lives a peaceful life in Blountville, in northeastern Tennessee, where she keeps chickens that could be heard clucking in the background of her phone call to DailyMail.com – belying the dark story she was about to reveal.
Maryann explained to DailyMail.com why she wrote to the man she believes is responsible for her sister’s death – the infamous ‘Times Square Killer’ Richard Cottingham (pictured)
Maryann described her arduous search for answers to the question of what happened to her beloved sister. She also explained why she wrote a letter to the man she believes is responsible: the notorious “Times Square Killer” Richard Cottingham.
“Writing a serial killer wasn’t something I saw on my list,” Maryann told Dailymail.com. “But I had been searching for my sister for 47 years. If I got a confession, it would mean I was done with that chapter of my life.”
“You have to take your emotions out of the situation,” she added. “I’m a very direct person. He’s alive. I wanted to know, did he kill my sister? Does he remember anything about my sister?
“Because he’s old and I don’t know how much he remembers, I basically explained to him who my sister was, why I was writing to him, and why I thought he was responsible for this.”
Patricia’s body was found in a drainage ditch in New Haven, Connecticut, on August 16, 1975. At the time, investigators knew only that she had died of asphyxiation and that the case would remain unsolved for decades.
Maryann says she believes Cottingham, also known as the “Torso Killer,” is the killer because of the similarities between the way Patricia was found and several of the killer’s other victims.
“There are similarities to other crimes he’s committed: the way the bodies were left, the way he committed the murder – and the things he didn’t do with it,” she told DailyMail.com.
“I’ve ruled out so many other serial killers. I can’t rule him out.”
Maryann Collette was only nine years old when her sister, Patricia Newsom, 16, disappeared from her boarding school in the Monticello neighborhood of New York. (Pictured: Maryann, left, with her sister Patricia, center, and their deceased brother Peter, right
Patricia’s body was found in a drainage ditch in New Haven, Connecticut, on August 16, 1975. At the time, investigators knew only that she had died of asphyxiation, and the case would remain unsolved for decades.
Patricia’s identification came in April of last year after Maryann shared her DNA from the genealogy company Ancestry with a public database called GEDmatch, which compares data samples from different testing companies.
Cottingham, 77, claims he killed as many as 100 women in Florida, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Baltimore in the second half of the 20th century.
Although he was notorious for mutilating the bodies of some of his victims (which was not the case with Patricia), in many of his murders he left the bodies untouched.
“I found an old interview with him,” Maryann said. “He said he threw some young ladies down a well after he killed them, and he was worried about them decomposing.”
She drew a parallel between Cottingham’s self-professed concern and the fact that Patricia’s body had been left in a place where it could easily be discovered.
Patricia’s identification came in April of last year, after Maryann shared her DNA from the genealogy company Ancestry with a public database called GEDmatch, which compares data samples from different testing companies.
When asked what that moment was like, Maryann said, “Unbelievable. It’s still unbelievable. Forty-seven years, that’s a really long time.
Patricia is now buried next to her mother and grandparents in their family cemetery in Pennsylvania
‘A detective from our local police department came to my house and asked if I could talk to him for a minute. He called me up with the captains and they said, “We found your sister.” I mean, what do you say?
“There’s a piece of me that I’ve been missing my whole life, and now I’ve found that piece.”
Maryann noted that she was wearing a pendant necklace with Patricia’s ashes. “She’s always with me,” she said.
Patricia is now buried next to her mother and grandparents in the family cemetery in Pennsylvania.
Maryann said she doesn’t know if Cottingham has received her letter yet, or if he will write back.
However, East Haven Police Capt. Murgo, who notified Maryann of Patricia’s identification, said he has attempted to arrange a meeting with Cottingham to discuss the case.
“Mr. Cottingham was active from the mid to late 1960s until he was arrested in New York City in 1980, so that certainly fits the time frame of when Patricia was murdered,” he said. NBC News.