Richard Cottingham.Photo: Mug Shot
A light dusting of snow blanketed the parking lot of the Ledgewood Terrace Apartments in Little Ferry, N.J., on Dec. 15, 1977. That day, newlywed Maryann Carr returned home from her job as an X-ray technician, poured a glass of wine and flipped through her mail. But when she missed dinner that evening with her mother-in-law, worried family members called police.
“A resident of the building informed us that at approximately 7:45 p.m. she heard the scream of a female coming from the direction of Maryann’s apartment and the words being uttered: ‘I will, I will,” says Alan Grieco, retired chief of detectives with the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office in N.J. in Monday’s episode ofPeople Magazine Investigates. Titled “The Times Square Killer,” the special two-hour episode premieres tonight at 9/8c on ID and streams on Max. (An exclusive clip is shown below.)“
The case remained unsolved until 1980, when police arrested serial killer Richard Cottingham at gunpoint at the same Quality Inn where Carr was found, as well as a sex worker named Valerie Ann Street. Before police arrived, Cottingham had begun using a knife to torture an 18-year-old girl he had hired as a sex worker. It was the 18-year-old’s screams that led staff to call 911.
Maryann Carr.weremember.com
weremember.com
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Soon investigators began to suspect that Cottingham, a computer programmer for an insurance company, might also be responsible for three other homicides in two Manhattan hotels over the previous seven months, including those of two women who had been set on fire.
Mug shot of Richard Cottingham.Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office
Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office
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Cottingham was convicted of five murders and three assaults in three trials that ended in 1984.
Over the years, the killer, who is in failing health and incarcerated in New Jersey’s South Wood State Prison serving multiple life sentences, confessed to multiple murders in New Jersey and New York, bringing his deadly tally to at least 16.
However, investigators suspect the victim count is much higher.
“He’s a psychopath and a sexual sadist who has no remorse,” says Vernon J. Geberth, a retired NYPD lieutenant commander. “Some people don’t believe in evil, but I do. And he is evil. He’s a devil who came to earth.”
People Magazine Investigates: The Times Square Killer,a special two-hour episode, airs on ID and streams on Max Monday, Sept. 18, at 9/8c.
source: people.com
