Maria Emerita Rosado Nieves, sometimes reported as Marita Rosado Nieves, was an 18-year-old Hispanic/Latina woman living in Manhattan whose life ended in the winter of 1973. On the afternoon of December 27, 1973, park workers at Jones Beach found her body in thick grass along Ocean Parkway at a bus-loading area beside the East Bathhouse. She had been wrapped in a gray blanket and covered in plastic bags; investigators determined she had been strangled.

The case saw no public criminal resolution for many years. Decades later, a separate Nassau County cold-case probe that used DNA testing and modern forensics led to Richard Cottingham. In December 2022 Cottingham pleaded guilty to a 1968 Nassau County murder and admitted to additional killings from the early 1970s, including Nieves’ strangulation and the dumping of her body. Prosecutors said they would not pursue separate prosecutions because he is already serving life sentences, and authorities reported they had been unable to locate her family when the confession emerged.

If anyone knew Marita Nieves, where she lived, or has information about her life in Manhattan before December 1973, please share what you know.