EFFORTPOST Richard Cottingham's Victims (MAY BE A REPOST, VERY FAMOUS SERIAL KILLER)

Richard Francis Cottingham is a serial killer from New Jersey operating in New York between 1967 and 1980. He was nicknamed 'the torso killer', due to his habit of dismembering his victims, usually leaving nothing but a torso behind. In one case, he dismembered two prostitutes in a motel room, taking the hands and heads with him before setting the room on fire. He was eventually convicted of murder in 1981 after being caught fleeing an attempted murder.

Between 1967 and 1980, Cottingham brutally murdered and dismembered at least 6 women, and claimed to have killed at least 80 more. Known as the Torso Killer for his unique MO of dismembering the victims and leaving only their torsos behind, Cottingham is still considered to be one of the most sadistic serial killers in American history.

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. She agreed to have sex with him for money. 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. Cottingham offered to give O'Dell a massage and she rolled onto her stomach. Straddling her back, he drew a knife and put it to her throat as he snapped a pair of handcuffs on her wrists. He began torturing her, nearly biting off one of her nipples. She later testified that he said, "You have to take it. The other girls did, you have to take it, too. You're a whore and you have to be punished." O'Dell's muffled cries of pain became so loud that the motel staff, already uneased by the previous two murders of Carr and Street, called police and then rushed to the room demanding that Cottingham open the door. Cottingham was apprehended in the hallway by arriving police officers. When arrested, he had handcuffs, a leather gag, two slave collars, a switchblade knife, replica pistols, and a stockpile of prescription pills.

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). 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. Following his 1980 arrest, police found, in the locked room and in the trunk of his car, personal effects which they traced to several of his victims.

Known Victims:

-October 28, 1967, Ridgefield Park, New Jersey: Nancy Schiava Vogel, 29 (strangled)

-July 17, 1968, Midland Park, New Jersey: Jacalyn "Jackie" Harp, 13 (strangled)

1969:

-April 7, Saddle River, New Jersey: Irene Blase, 18 (strangled)

-July 14, Emerson, New Jersey: Denise Falasca, 15 (strangled)

-August 9 1974, Montvale, New Jersey: Lorraine Marie Kelly and Mary Ann Pryor (both were raped, tortured by burning, and drowned)

Lorraine Marie Kelly, 17

Mary Ann Pryor, 16

-December 15-16, 1977, Bergen County, New Jersey: Maryann Carr, 26 (raped, tortured, beaten, and fatally strangled)

1978:

-March 22-23, New York City, New York: Karen Schilt, 22 (attempted; raped and left for dead in a sewer; was rescued)

-October 10, Hackensack, New Jersey: Susan Geiger, 19 (raped and attempted to kill; was pregnant at the time)

-December 1-2, 1979, New York City, New York: The Travel Lodge Motor Inn killings (both were raped, tortured, and fatally strangled; burned and had their heads and hands cut off post-mortem):

Deedah Godzari, 22

An unidentified victim, 16

1980:

-May 5, Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey: Valerie Ann Street, 19 (bit and cut her breasts, beaten, and fatally strangled)

-May 12, Teaneck, New Jersey: Pamela Weisenfield (attempted; bit repeatedly and beaten)

-May 15, New York City, New York: Jean Reyner, 25 (raped, repeatedly stabbed, tortured, and fatally strangled; burned and removed both of her breasts post-mortem)

-May 22, Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey: Leslie Ann O'Dell, 18 (attempted; beaten, raped, sodomized, non-fatally slashed with a knife, bit her breasts, and tortured)

Photos of Victims:

" Obviously, I must be sick somehow. Normal people don't do what I did. " - Richard Cottingham

Sources: https://thecrimemag.com/torso-killer-crime-scene/ https://murderpedia.org/male.C/c/cottingham-richard-photos.htm