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Richard Cottingham |
VICTIMS: 5 |
On December 2, 1979, Fireman in New York responded to an alarm at a shitty little hotel near Times Square. When they forced their way inside and put the fire out they found something more than burnt furniture. Stretched out on the beds were two headless corpses. They bodies also had their hands removed. They had been doused with lighter fluid and set alight. 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. The other headless corpse was never identified. Homicide detectives linked the murder with that of the murder of teenage hooker Helen Sikes. She had gone missing from Times Square in January 1979. When found her head was hanging by a thread. Her legs had also been hacked off, and were eventually found a block away from the rest of the body. The legs were laying side by side as if still attached to a body. On May 5, 1980, police found another prostitute, who's street name was Shelley Dudley, dead in a motel room. She had been beaten and strangled then stuffed under the bed of the room. She had been given one hell of a beating and her killer had eaten away at her nipples, almost severing one. This murder was linked to an earlier murder in the same motel. Maryann Carr was also brutally beaten, but police could not positively link the crimes. On May 15 another prostitute was found murdered in a motel room. Jean Reyner was stabbed to death in a motel near Time Square. Her breasts had been hacked off and her body was set on fire. This time it seems the police were able to link this crime. One week later police were called to the same motel, but this time it was for a disturbance. Someone had called about a girl screaming, as if she was being tortured. When police arrived they caught a man trying to flee the room. When they entered the room they found a young girl handcuffed to the bed. She was in hysterics, crapping on about what this guy had put her through. She had been beaten, raped, sodomized and forced at knife point to give the man a blow job. he had also stabbed her and bit almost right through her nipples. Richard Francis Cottingham was arrested for the attack. At a glance it would seem he was a very unlikely suspect. He was a respected family man and had a good job in computers for a major health insurance firm. But once police searched him and his house it would reveal a different story. When arrested he had handcuffs, a leather gag, two slave collars, a switchblade, a replica pistols and a shitload of pills. At his house he had a trophy room where he kept some personal stuff from some of the victims also. His wife had recently filed for divorce and he was a known regular at certain gay bars. While in prison police were building a very strong case against Cottingham and had found three surviving victims. The attacks on these three had taken place in 1978, one year before his first known murder. He was eventually found guilty of the Dudley murder, drawing a sentence of 173 to 197 years in prison. In two following trials he was found guilty of four second degree murders. One would very much doubt that Richard Cottingham will be freed in the near future.
OTHER SHIT
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MY OPINION Another early favourite of mine. Cottingham was one of the first killers I read about, and was one of the first I liked. The thoughts going through the heads of the firemen who found those two whores must have been really freaky. I don't think you would expect to find headless corpses lying in a burning room. This is my favourite memory of Cottingham's crimes. Despite being another who receives little attention from the press, and not having the biggest numbers, he will always have a place high in my record books. |
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