Richard Francis Cottingham

Serial Killer

Richard Francis Cottingham: The Torso Killer and Times Square Ripper

Background and Double Life

Richard Francis Cottingham was born on November 25, 1946, in New York City and grew up primarily in New Jersey. To people around him, he appeared to live an ordinary suburban life. He worked for years as a computer operator, married in 1970, and became the father of three children. Behind that outwardly conventional existence, however, Cottingham was abducting, sexually assaulting, torturing, and murdering women and girls throughout the New York and New Jersey metropolitan area. Cottingham eventually became known as the "Torso Killer," the "Times Square Ripper," and the "Times Square Killer." The nicknames came largely from his most notorious Manhattan crimes, in which victims were mutilated and portions of their bodies removed. His known crimes stretched from at least 1965 through his arrest in 1980, although Cottingham later claimed that his actual number of murders was far higher. He has said that he may have killed dozens of women, sometimes giving estimates approaching 100. Only a fraction of those claims have been independently substantiated.

Pattern of Violence

Cottingham did not follow one completely consistent method, which helped prevent investigators from immediately recognizing that numerous murders were connected. Some victims were teenagers walking alone or traveling to shopping centers. Others were adult women he encountered in public places, and several later victims were sex workers whom he met in Manhattan. He frequently transported victims between New York and New Jersey, creating additional jurisdictional complications for investigators. Common elements eventually emerged. Cottingham often restrained women with handcuffs or other bindings, gagged them, sexually assaulted them, beat or cut them, and killed many by strangulation or suffocation. In some cases he used drugs to incapacitate victims. He sometimes removed jewelry or other possessions and kept personal items. His later murders became increasingly mutilative, particularly the killings committed in Manhattan hotels during the late 1970s and 1980. ...

Confirmed Victims: (20)

Nancy Vogel Age: (29), Date of Death: October 28, 1967

Survivors:

Karen Schilt Age: (22), Date of Attack: March 22, 1978

Susan Geiger Age: (19), Date of Attack: October 10, 1978

Pamela Weisenfield Age: (27), Date of Attack: May 12, 1980

Leslie Ann ODell Age: (18), Date of Attack: May 22, 1980

Richard Cottingham - Wikipedia