Incarcerated since 1980 in five serial murders, Cottingham
publically admitted in 2009: "I killed between
eighty-five and a hundred, maybe a little less, or a little more..."
He claims he committed his first murder in the summer or autumn of 1962 when he
was a junior in high school and perpetrated murders primarily in the New Jersey
and New York, but also in other bordering states and along the eastern seaboard
as far south as Florida.
If true, a 100 murders between his earliest confirmed murder in January 1967 and his random
arrest in May 1980, would work out arithmetically to be
a very manageable 1 murder every 7 weeks in the 1960s and 1970s. This
would be in an era prior to DNA,
cell phone data, video surveillance, ubiquitous credit card use, the FBI
Behavioral Sciences "Mindhunters" profiling, ViCAP,
CODIS & NDIS , "linkage blindness" awareness,
inter-jurisdictional database and e-mail connections, and
before the popular use of
the term "serial killer" entered our our
common vocabulary. (In May 1981,
when the "serial murderer" construct began appearing in the New York Times
to describe the Atlanta Child Killer Wayne
Williams..)
Arrested on May 22, 1980 in Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey.
1981-1984:
5 murder convictions in trials in NJ and NY
(2 counts in Bergen County, NJ; 3 counts in New York County (Manhattan), NY
2010-2024: 14 confessions total
(4) guilty pleas; (10) exceptional closures (4 in Bergen County, NJ; 4 in Nassau
County, NY; 1 in Rockland County, NY; 1 currently undisclosed.)
(1) indictment and plea: Nassau County, 2021-2022)
2 cases were rare double abduction-rape torture murders (Kelly & Pryor (1974) and Deedeh Goodarzi & "Torso Jane Doe" (1979)
Cottingham had also perpetrated a double abduction rape in February 1968 in Queens Village, Queens, New York in which the two victims survived. [See coming link here] Four abduction victims who survived testified in the trials and three more survivors were identified in 2017-2018. (including the double-abduction in Queens)
The victim ages ranged from 13 to 33;
5 victims were under the age of 18;
6 from the 19
were confirmed sex workers - roughly a third. (32%);
13 (68%) were housewives and mothers, adolescent teenage school girls, or
employed, and (1) undetermined;
Victim racial-ethnic background: 2 Hispanic; 4
Italian-American; 1 Persian-Iranian; 1 African-American; 11 White
ethnicity
undetermined;
11 ligature strangulations (4 of which are combined with stabbing and throat
slashed)
2 forcible drowning
2 suffocations
1 bludgeoned to death
1 stabbed to death
2 cause of death undetermined
4 victims were not penetratively raped
12 were battered and bruised about the body and limbs
10 victims had been punched in the face and head without causing facial, dental
or cranial fractures
6 were or had been restrained by ligature or handcuffs
3 had adhesive tape or traces of (2) on their mouth
3 were grossly mutilated (head severed, breasts, hands) and set on fire
5 were burnt with cigarettes antemortem, (3) burned
postmortem with an open flame from a lighter or matches
55 miles is the mean distance between the two furthest from
each other locations of confirmed victim body sites
(Lorraine McGraw in S. Nyack, Rockland County New York (1970) - Maria Emerita
Rosado Nieves, 18, 1973
Zack's Bay, Jones Beach, Nassau County, NY)
2 victims were found in their own home
2 in their cars (with a 3rd murdered and transported in her own vehicle before
being "dumped")
5 in rivers
4 indoors in hotel or motel room of which
(3) were mutilated and set on fire post-mortem in NYC hotel rooms
6 outdoors at or near roadsides or in parking lots
7 victims were at or coming from or head to a shopping mall or a store as a
shopper or employee
10 of the 19 victims at the crime
scene were missing their shoes
(5 of the 10 were missing shoes and all their
clothing)13 were partially disrobed, or clothes in disarray, or redressed, with
(5) missing their shoes
Cottingham's MO is no MO.
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