Cottingham had been in the process of torturing his latest victim, 19-year-old Leslie Ann O'Dell, who survived the attack and testified against him during his trial. A search of Cottingham's home turned up a bizarre "trophy room," containing personal effects from several of the murdered prostitutes. Police arrested 33-year-old Richard Cottingham at the scene. You're in complete control of somebody's destiny. During a court appearance Tuesday, 74-year-old Richard Cottingham, also known as the "Torso Killer," pleaded guilty and admitted he kidnapped and raped the girls, then drowned them in a motel room . Later, Cottingham claimed that Times Square cops stopped him as he carried the severed heads in a large potato sack to his car before letting him go. The doc also spotlights a conversation with Jennifer Weiss, DeedahGoodarzi's biological daughter, who made headlines last year when she struck up an unlikely friendship with her mother's killer while he served his prison sentence. She had gone missing from Times Square in January 1979. But just a week later, police were able to apprehend him back at the Quality Inn when his would-be victim Leslie Ann ODell screamed for help. Then in exchange for immunity from prosecution, he confessed to murdering three New Jersey schoolgirls. But the arrest in 1980 changed everything, exposing Richards double life and deadly exploits. Once inside, Richard would bind both females and torture the two for hours. Criminal profiling was still in its infancy and it was before CCTV footage was commonplace and the use of computers helped detectives share information across states. She agreed to have sex with him for money. She would later be found in Queens horribly mutilated. June 12, 2022 | tj maxx distribution center san antonio | Category: . She was positively identified through a cesarean-section scar after a friend recognized her clothing. Richard Cottingham's arrest in May 1980 closed the doors on one of the most violent crime sprees to have ever occurred. Her body would be left in the room and subsequently set ablaze by Cottingham before fleeing the scene. He later admitted that his psychopathic hobby for hunting sex workers in Times Square 'as a game.'. He also cut off her breasts and placed them on the headboard in the room. [4][5], After his graduation, Cottingham worked for Metropolitan Life, where his father was a vice-president, starting in the mail room at the firm's Manhattan headquarters and eventually became a mainframe computer operator upon taking computer courses. His murders were calculated and methodical, and he managed to evade . . Although Cottingham has formally admitted to eighteen killings and has claimed to have killed as many as 100, he is known to have only murdered seventeen girls between 1967 and 1980 and attempted to kill a further four. [3], Cottingham was arrested on several lesser charges throughout his killing spree. Hed eventually leave the company and start working for Blue Cross, where he performed the same tasks. But there were signs that Richard Cottingham was living a double life. Richard Francis Cottingham was born on November 25, 1946, in the Mott Haven neighborhood of the Bronx in New York City, the first of four children. With only torsos, police were unable to identify the victims. And less than a month after that, firefighters made yet another gruesome discovery near Times Square. Anzilotti and BCPO subsequently confirmed the "exceptional closures" of these three murders.[13][8]. The following week on May 15th, 1980, another sex worker was lured into a Manhattan motel room under the guise of more work but was most likely ambushed when Cottingham locked the door. Still, the extent of Richard Cottinghams crimes shocked New York and New Jersey. 'It was pretty much the hotel room from hell,' said detective Malcolm Reiman in the documentary. Richard Cottingham brutally murdered prostitutes he found on the seedy streets of 1970s New York, earning his horrifying legacy as the Times Square Torso Killer. He was also a married, respectable man with three children. Around dawn, they checked into the same Hasbrouck Heights Quality Inn where he had left Valerie Street's handcuffed body under a bed to be discovered by a housekeeper. 595 Words3 Pages. Cottingham was eventually arrested in May 1980 after committing a string of grisly murders across Manhattan and New Jersey, with the same hallmark traits, Cottingham evaded law enforcement by deliberately preying on marginalized sex workers during a time when crime-ridden New York City was dubbed 'Fear City.' A few months later, on May 5, 1980, a housekeeper at a Quality Inn in New Jersey found the body of 19-year old Valerie Ann Street stuffed under the bed. In a similar case, Richard killed Jean Reyner, a sex worker, in another hotel in New York. According to The Associated Press, Cottingham confessed to. Her killer had cut her throat, left bite marks on her body, and severed her breasts. Thankfully, Cottingham's reign of terror would not last forever. Looking for more answers, she reached out to Richard Cottingham in prison and has visited him over 30 times. There were no known murder victims in 1978, however, Richard would go on to rape and torture two more women in 1978, one of which had been pregnant. The body of 25-year-old Jean Reyner, a single mother who was turning tricks to finance a child custody battle, was found violently murdered on May 15, 1980 in a midtown hotel. Within his home, detectives were able to find his trophy room which contained multiple personal items and keepsakes which belonged to his victims. Later on, the police also found a room in the basement of Richards home that served as his trophy room. This site contains affiliate links. We may, at no cost to you, receive a commission for purchases made through these links. But beneath the veneer of normalcy was a heinous double-existence as a serial killer. Richard Cottingham (1977-1980) was a 31-year old computer operator and valued employee of Blue Cross-Blue Shield in downtown New York City. Hopefully new developments are made and one day we will know the full scope of Cottinghams crimes, as well as hold him accountable for his actions. Cottingham was caught in 1980 when a maid heard a woman's screams coming from his motel room. One of Cottinghams only admissions of guilt was, I have a problem with women. Weeks after his arrest, his wife was able to finalize the divorce from the monster. But when first responders attempted CPR, they realized the bodies had no heads and no hands. Three of those murders Cottingham later confessed to included Jacalyn Harp. On December 2, 1979, firemen in New York responded to an alarm at the Travel Inn motel[11] near Times Square. Haunted by a handful of unsolved New Jersey homicides, Detective Robert Anzilotti began to wonder if Cottingham had killed more people than police knew. Powered by WordPress.com VIP. [15], In 2022, Cottingham was arraigned from his prison hospital bed for the 1968 murder of Diane Cusick in Long Island, New York. She would die of asphyxiation and once finished, Richard stuffed the girl under the bed. one strange rock gasp quizlet New Lab; glider timetable dundonald park and ride; 12 gauge 100 round drum; union square hospitality group gift card; clubhouse baseball baseball; forest service lease cabin for sale utah. He had three children, two boys and a girl, with his wife. In 1964, Cottingham graduated from Pascack Valley High School in Hillsdale, New Jersey. But it had a much seedier reputation in the latter half of the 20th century. NYPD realized they had a serial killer on their hands in December 1979, after they uncovered the charred, mutilated remains of two women at the Travel Inn Motor Hotel in Times Square. Richard Cottingham wasconvicted of five murders and numerous counts of kidnapping and sexual assault using evidence found in his 'trophy room' combined with a matching fingerprint left on handcuffs used in the murder of Valerie Street. As Cottingham was fleeing the scene of the torso murders, he briefly encountered the 23-year-old Peter Vronsky, who was attempting to check into the Travel Inn while in New York on a film production assignment. Cottingham was arrested and put on trial, where he initially denied his acts of violence. Their skulls and hands were never found. When arrested, he had handcuffs, a leather gag, two slave collars, a switchblade knife, replica pistols, and a stockpile of prescription pills. Lives that never came to fruition. Non-hormonal contraceptive tablet can prevent 99% of pregnancies, trial finds, 'You can bang the gavel as loud as you want': Cruz fumes at Democrat Durbin for cutting him off after grilling Ketanji Brown Jackson on why she can't define the word 'woman' and why she halved the sentence of a pedophile, Baby formula manufacturer Abbott's production line was filthy around the same time firm was linked to bacterial outbreak that killed two babies and sickened others, FDA report reveals. Subscribe to our mailing list and get interesting stuff and updates to your email inbox. This murder was linked to an earlier murder in the same motel. In May 1980, Richard Cottingham attacked four women with terrible barbarity, killing three of them. Prison records indicate that Richard, now about 74 years old, remains incarcerated at South Woods State Prison in Bridgeton, New Jersey. They offered a possible description of a man in his 30s, about 510 and 175 pounds, with brown hair. In October 1966, he became a computer operator for Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, where he worked until his 1980 arrest. [1] He was nicknamed the New York Ripper, the Torso Killer and the Times Square Killer, since his crimes often targeted prostitutes and included mutilation. Once he spotted his prey he would attempt to slip drugs into their drinks, take them to a motel, then sexually torture the women for hours. [2] Four surviving abduction-rape victims testified against Cottingham; he was convicted in three of the cases and acquitted in one. Richard had also kidnapped 17-year-old Mary Ann Pryor and 16-year-old Lorraine Marie Kelly in August 1974 Manhattan, New York. In 1948, Cottingham's family moved to Dumont, New Jersey, and in 1956 to River Vale, New Jersey, where he began his fascination with bondage pornography. Police had no suspects and the case quickly grew cold, collecting dust in a file for years. Ailing serial killer Richard Cottingham a.k.a. A search of Cottinghams home turned up a bizarre trophy room, containing personal effects from several of the murdered prostitutes. So, if youre curious to know what happened to Richard, weve got you covered. Authorities believed it to be, thus far, the oldest criminal case to be solved and prosecuted by direct DNA evidence. The teenagers were last seen on Aug. 9, 1974, in North Bergen. On December 15, 1977, the body of X-ray technician Maryann Carr, 26, was found brutally beaten and strangled in the parking lot of the Quality Inn motel in Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey, but police did not link the murder to Cottingham until his 1980 arrest at the same motel. In April 1978, after his wife had initiated divorce proceedings, he kept a locked room in a basement apartment of the house in which they lived in Lodi, New Jersey. Someone had called about a girl screaming, as if she was being tortured. His additional confession to a 1974 murder was discounted by Rockland County police. Post author: Post published: February 17, 2022; Post category: miami university facilities management; Post comments: . 'So I maintain a relationship with Richard now because I want the names of the unidentified victims he took. One week before Jean Reyner's body was discovered at a Manhattan hotel, a maid at the Quality Inn in New Jersey found the naked corpse of Valerie Ann Street under the bed, with her hands tightly handcuffed behind her back. Cottingham murdered Jennifer Weiss' birth mom Deedeh Goodarzi in a Times Square motel room in 1979. Richard Cottingham Research Paper. Responds in about 10 minutes. Today, Times Square is a glittering tourist attraction. A killing spree that lasted a few months eventually led to his arrest in May 1980, bringing to the fore previously unconnected murders as well. They bodies also had their hands removed. It was the same motel that a maid had discovered the mutilated body of Valerie Street just two weeks earlier, and the body of Maryann Car in 1977. Homicide detectives linked the murder with that of the murder of teenage hooker Helen Sikes. Farm Heroes Saga, the #4 Game on iTunes. A year after the previous charges he would then be charged with unlawful imprisonment and robbery. 3 years later, in 1972, Richard would be caught shoplifting from a local store. Graduating, landing a solid job, marriage and having multiple children. This case was soon linked to his previous murder victim, Helen Sikes, letting police know they were dealing with a serial killer. Like before, the murderous butcher had set the room on fire, which immediately tipped off authorities that they had a serial killer on their hands. Goodarzi gave up her daughter for adoption when she was less than two weeks old, it wasn't until Weiss tried to reconnect with her biological mother in 2002 that she discovered the disturbing truth of her violent demise, 'All of the women that Richard killed left this world in a horrific way,' said Jennifer Weiss in the doc. The legs were laying side by side as if still attached to a body. She then screamed, and the muffled noises were heard by a maid, leading to the police being called. Maryann Carr was also brutally beaten, but police could not positively link the crimes. The brief encounter later inspired Vronsky to write his serial killer histories and paved the way for his prison meetings with Cottingham four decades later. You're a whore and you have to be punished.". Cottingham was not charged with this murder until June 2022, when he was implicated by DNA.[10]. After this look at Richard Cottingham, The Torso Killer, read up on Ed Kemper, the Co-Ed Killer, and Rodney Alcala, the Dating Game Killer. Then, read the stories of Jack the Rippers victims. [16], In the early hours of May 22, 1980, Cottingham picked up 18-year-old Leslie Ann O'Dell, who was soliciting on the corner of Manhattan's Lexington Avenue and 25th Street. On September 4, 1973, Cottingham was arrested in New York City for robbery, oral sodomy and sexual abuse on the complaint of a prostitute and her pimp. except for their clothing, a pair of Bonjour jeans, a white leotard, patent leather boots and a black fur coat, which the killer had curiously folded neatly in the bathtub. She was a respected nurse. Netflix's documentary Crime Scene: The Times Square Killer examines the notorious case of Richard Cottingham - also known as 'The Torso Killer' -who claimed to have raped, slaughtered and mutilated more than 100 women between 1967 and 1980.