All was quiet and one can be certain that it was probably looking like an average, quiet night. She was positively identified through a cesarean-section scar after a friend recognized her clothing. This case was soon linked to his previous murder victim, Helen Sikes, letting police know they were dealing with a serial killer. [18], During the early 1980s, Cottingham was convicted of five murders in two separate New Jersey trials in 1981[19] and 1982,[20] and in a single New York trial in 1984 for three murders. Tow Guys Towing. the Torso Killer pleaded guilty to the 1968 murder of Long Island mother Diane Cusick Monday in front of a Nassau County, New York judge, as . Police responded to a fire in Room 417, where two women had been discovered on a pair of twin beds. Cottingham was convicted of five murders in a series of three trials between 1981 and 1984 (two in New Jersey and one in New York). The crime scene was particularly gruesome. Jean Reyner was stabbed to death in a motel near Time Square. Directed by serial killer-aficionado Joe Berlinger, the Netflix series features interviews with former detectives, police officers, sex workers. Straddling her back, he drew a knife and put it to her throat as he snapped a pair of handcuffs on her wrists. Their monster would end up being 33-year-old Richard Cottingham, a married milquetoast father of three from Lodi, New Jersey, who worked as a computer operator for BlueCross BlueShield in Manhattan. 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. One detective said it was 'the cleanest crime scene he's ever seen.' Richard then dumped the bodies in a wooded area in Bergen County, New Jersey. He mainly stayed at home where he started to develop an obsession with bondage pornography. In 1964, Cottingham graduated from Pascack Valley High School in Hillsdale, New Jersey. 24/7 Availability. 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. With that in mind, many investigators as well as the hotel staff had a lingering question. Cops eventually tied him to the crime when they found Reyner's necklace among his 'trophies.' We may, at no cost to you, receive a commission for purchases made through these links. [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. ', Over four trials in the early 1980s, three in Jersey and one in New York, Richard Cottingham was convicted of five murders. They were three teenagers who became Cottingham's victims between 1968 and 1969. Three of those murders Cottingham later confessed to included Jacalyn Harp. Deedeh Goodarzi, Jane Doe, Jean Reyner, Valerie Street, and Maryann Carr (who was killed in 1977). Netflixs Crime Scene: The Times Square Killer is a three-part docuseries that explores the horrific crimes committed by serial killer Richard Cottingham. A married mother of 2, Nancy Vogel was found dumped in her car. The police apprehended Richard Cottingham while trying to flee. Investigation of the suspects background revealed two arrests for consorting with hookers in the early 1970s, with both cases dismissed. I was preparing to give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, the firefighter said, when I suddenly noticed there was no head.. 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. Hed spent his childhood in New Jersey, married his wife Janet in 1970, and had three children. 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. In the early morning hours, a couple decided to check in to a Quality Inn Hotel. The comments below have not been moderated. Beneath the happy exterior lurked an incredibly dangerous and vicious animal. Emergency services. He would be charged with the murders of most of his victims in New Jersey and in New York City. On Monday, July 13, 1969, at approximately 8:00 p.m., On March 1, 1970, a group of hikers came across a young woman's naked body in the woods to the west of Tweed Boulevard in, At approximately 7:00 a.m. on the morning of December 16, 1977, the body of X-ray technician, At 9:30 a.m. on May 22, 1980, police entered Room 117 at the same Quality Inn where Carr and Street were murdered and found 18-year-old, This page was last edited on 16 February 2023, at 09:15. You're in complete control of somebody's destiny. He bragged to police officers and fellow inmates that he had murdered more than 100 women in various parts of the United States throughout his active years. She would die of asphyxiation and once finished, Richard stuffed the girl under the bed. [21] Cottingham was apparently "forensically aware" in the era before DNA analysis. Richard Francis Cottingham was linked with the brutal . Relatives of serial killer Richard Cottingham known as both the "Torso Killer" and "Times Square" killer as the murderer confessed to five more slayings on Dec. 5, 2022, bringing his known . On May 15th another prostitute was found murdered in a motel room. Recently, her daughter that she gave up for adoption while turning tricks has made headlines for forging an unlikely friendship with Richard Cottingham in prison, Richard Cottingham earned his moniker as 'the Torso Killer' after he raped and murdered two women in a Times Square motel before setting their decapitated torsos ablaze. Looking for more answers, she reached out to Richard Cottingham in prison and has visited him over 30 times. But it soon came out that the Torso Killer had murdered many more than five victims. Maryann Carr was also brutally beaten, but police could not positively link the crimes. Deedah Goodarzi, a sex worker who Cottingham killed and dismembered. Authorities believed it to be, thus far, the oldest criminal case to be solved and prosecuted by direct DNA evidence. An animal who lacked empathy for all and cared only for satisfying his sexual desires at any cost. He said that uncountable times.. 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. 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. Someone had called about a girl screaming, as if she was being tortured. Instead, they borrowed mannequins from nearby department stores and dressed them in the victims' clothing (above), hoping someone might come forward with information. Over there, he began to torture and rape her repeatedly. Richard Cottingham, now 78, is a former computer programmer linked to at least 12 murders from the 60s and 70s. Investigators were again able to quickly link this murder with many others due to the killers M.O. Vronsky and Weiss had been meeting with Cottingham in prison since the spring of 2017, counseling him to make the confession. 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. Cottingham was not charged with this murder until June 2022, when he was implicated by DNA.[10]. He would occasionally remove and dispose of his victims heads and hands, presumably to make identification more difficult. He bragged to police officers and fellow inmates that he had murdered more than 100 women in various parts of the United States throughout his active years. Officers began linking the then 33-year-old to more unsolved murders and violent attacks across New York State and New Jersey. She had been cut about the chest and legs, beaten with a blunt instrument, and covered in bites and bruises, A picture taken of the New Jersey Courts virtual hearing in April 2021, when Richard Cottingham pleaded guilty to two 1974 murders, finally closing the cold case deaths of teenage friends who had left home for a trip to the mall and never returned. He returned back to the hotel to soak the crime scene in lighter fluid and set the room ablaze. [3], Cottingham was arrested on several lesser charges throughout his killing spree. You're in complete control of somebody's destiny.'. Now 74, Cottingham, who claims responsibility for dozens of murders, has confessed to a handful. The missing body part were never found, but once x-rayed one victim was identified as Deedeh Goodarzi, 22, an immigrant from Kuwait who was working as a prostitute. He was also found guilty of kidnapping and assault, with his sentence going up to more than 200 years. [7] On October 28, 1967, he strangled Nancy Schiava Vogel, a 29-year-old married mother of two, in Little Ferry, New Jersey. Cottingham was caught in 1980 when a maid heard a woman's screams coming from his motel room. 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. She had been restrained and ultimately strangled, ending the 26-year-olds short life. He would graduate in 1964 and shortly afterwards, take a job with his father at the Met Life Insurance Company, working on the companys computers. Janet had even filed for divorce in 1979, though she reneged the next year. This time it seems the police were able to link this crime. Trophies like jewellery and other personal items belonging to his victims were taken by him. Before doing so the pair agreed on a price and after awhile found themselves checking in to a room. He brought them to a hotel room, tortured them, and dumped their nude bodies. They offered a possible description of a man in his 30s, about 510 and 175 pounds, with brown hair. He admitted that he brought the two girls to a motel room where he tied them up, raped them, then drowned them in bathtub. The basement became known as the "trophy room." The "Torso Killer" had been found. Still, the extent of Richard Cottinghams crimes shocked New York and New Jersey. [4], On May 3, 1970, Cottingham was married at Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Queens Village, Queens. She had been beaten, raped, sodomized and forced at knife point to give the man a blow job. At the time of his arrest, he was living in New Jersey with his family and spending his days working in New York as a computer operator at Blue Cross Blue Shield Association. And less than a month after that, firefighters made yet another gruesome discovery near Times Square. He was with Leslie ODell, a teenage sex worker. 'So I maintain a relationship with Richard now because I want the names of the unidentified victims he took. New Jersey Department of CorrectionsRichard Cottingham has confessed to a number of other murders in recent years. Richard was arrested, and at the time, he had handcuffs, knives, prescription pills, and other suspicious items on him. WickedWe is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. Cottingham confessed to Vogel's murder in 2010, nearly 30 years after his arrest. It also came out at one of Cottinghams trials that hed killed a fifth victim 28-year-old X-ray technician Maryanne Carr, whose body was found at the Quality Inn in 1977. [5][17], The charges listed in Cottingham's New Jersey indictment included kidnapping, attempted murder, aggravated assault, aggravated assault with deadly weapon, aggravated sexual assault while armed (rape), aggravated sexual assault while armed (sodomy), aggravated sexual assault while armed (fellatio), possession of a weapon (switchblade knife), and possession of controlled substances (secobarbital, amobarbital and diazepam). One more detail about this case was that the severed body parts of the two women were never located and are still a mystery as to what Richard did with them. It is believed that she was his first victim, In 2021Cottingham confessed and pleaded guilty to the double kidnapping and murders of Lorraine Marie Kelly, 16 and Mary Ann Pryor, 17 in 1974. For about six months between 1979 and 1980, Cottingham murdered sex workers in brutal fashion. He would continue this line of work until his arrest. The other, a 16-year-old, remains a Jane Doe to this day. In October 1966, he became a computer operator for Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, where he worked until his 1980 arrest. On December 2, 1979, fireman in New York responded to an alarm at a shitty little hotel near Times Square. Leaving some without hands or heads, he soon earned the moniker of The Times Square Torso Killer or The New York Ripper.. Cottingham targeted sex workers in Times Square before torturing and mutilating their bodies, often leaving only their torsos behind as evidence. Crystal Ponti. In the thirteen-year period during which he is known to have committed at least seventeen murders, only one fingerprint belonging to him was ever recovered, from the ratchet mechanism of handcuffs left behind on Valerie Street. One slain woman was positively identified througha cesarean-section scar as 22-year-old, Iranian prostitute, Deedeh Goodarzi. Published on January 3, 2022. In his possession police found a murder kit which consisted of handcuffs, leather gags, slave collars, knives, pistols, and pills. At three different trials in New Jersey and New York, Richard was convicted for murdering Deedeh Goodarzi, Jane Doe, Jean Reyner, Valerie Street, and Maryann Carr (who was killed in 1977). He has officially been charged with 11 murders but says he's killed over 100 women, Netflix's new 'Crime Scene' docuseries examines the notorious case of Richard Cottingham who left a bloody trail of victims between 1967 and 1980. 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. In his possession were handcuffs, a leather gag, two slave collars, a switchblade, replica pistols and a stockpile of sedatives. On December 2, 1979, firemen in New York responded to an alarm at the Travel Inn motel[11] near Times Square. [2] Four surviving abduction-rape victims testified against Cottingham; he was convicted in three of the cases and acquitted in one. Despondent in custody, Cottingham smashed a lens of his spectacles and attempted suicide by slashing his wrists with the glass. North-jersey.comA father of three, Richard Cottingham seemed an unlikely killer. Richard was arrested at a motel in Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey, in May 1980. She later testified that he said, "You have to take it. After failing to return home from a trip to buy shoes at the Green Acres Mall in Valley Stream, New York,[9] 23-year old Diane Cusick was found raped, beaten, and strangled to death in the back seat of her car, parked near the mall. As the smoke cleared, the firefighters realized theyd stumbled onto a gruesome crime scene. . He also confessed under immunity to the 1968 and 1969 homicides of New Jersey teenagers Jackie Harp, Irene Blase, and Denise Falasca. Deedeh Goodarzi and another unknown female had joined Richard in a hotel room near his stomping grounds of Times Square. Denise Falasca, aged 15, was abducted on July 14, 1969, in Emerson, while walking to a friend's home and found the next morning in Saddle Brook, by the side of a road next to a cemetery, strangled with the cord or the chain of her crucifix. 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. 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. 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