What restaurant, investigators asked? Cottingham also didn’t remember that.
Afterwards, he told cops he went to a bar on Times Square, the Blarney Stone, and grabbed a drink. He then went to another bar for another drink.
He told them that Leslie Ann had approached him there, and they’d agreed on the sum of $180, and after a few other stops, they went to the hotel, where he registered under the name Caruthers.
He then began referring to Leslie Ann as “the female subject,” something many serial killers do, because they don’t see their victims as humans, but instead as essentially toys.
“When questioned about details as to the location and places that he frequents, and so on, he was evasive and consistently said I cannot recall or I don’t remember,” said Denning.
It was all a game, he said.
“At no time during this period did she object to any of these sexual acts,” Cottingham told police. “I just started playing the game.”
The handcuffs, he said, were for his own sexual pleasure.
The ankle cuffs, “were to keep her from running away if she got panicky,” he told detectives.
As for the knife, “I pointed the knife towards her and told her not to make any noise.”
But threatening? Of course not.
“The handcuffs and other paraphernalia were just something I kept on hand,” he said, matter of fact, as if the items were absolutely normal.
“It was just one of the games I like to play, and I wanted to see how it feels to have someone under control,” he said.
Police knew it was no game for Leslie, however, especially given the damage she’d suffered during her hours of torture.
“He sodomized her, he beat her very, very severely, he bit her breasts, very severely,” said Bergen County District Attorney Dennis Calo.
The evidence was incriminating, and Cottingham had no explanation for it.
So instead of talking, he lawyered up.
When defense attorney Dean Conway first got a good look at his client, he was not impressed by what he saw.
“He was at least average looking, but like I said, kind of stocky. Well built, you might say,” Conway said.
And Conway didn’t appreciate Cottingham’s unwillingness to take responsibility for his actions, giving the giant pile of evidence facing him, from Leslie Ann’s ravaged body to the bag of sadistic toys he’d carried with him as he tried to flee.
“He just flat out denied it,” said Conway. “I found it very difficult to accept. They sort of caught him red handed, one might say.”
Questioning goes cold
Police, finally comparing notes between jurisdictions, questioned him about the places he’d lived and the murders he was now suspected of committing based on his modus operandi.
Cottingham, however, was tough.
“I know you are doing your job, but I know what you’re trying to do,” he said. “You are trying to trick me and you’re being nice to me because you want me to admit to things I didn’t do. Aren’t you guys going to beat me like they do in New York?”
He then let officials know exactly how he planned to spend the rest of the interrogation.
“I don’t have to say anything,” he told officers.
A treasure trove of trophies
While their subject wouldn’t talk, his home would have plenty to say.
And it, the lower portion of a two-family home including a locked basement room, was much more forthcoming than the killer.
Grieco and Denning obtained a warrant and quickly uncovered Cottingham’s secrets.
“We wound up searching the premises and he had a private room down here,” said Grieco. “The only one who had access to it was Cottingham. He wouldn’t let his wife or his children in here.”
But in Cottingham’s basement, the things they found horrified the seasoned officers.
“He seemed to be a normal dad and husband,” said Grieco. “It’s what we didn’t know was hidden underneath. He truly was a monster.”
To everyone involved, it was a true Jekyll and Hyde case.
“Cottingham had two personalities. He went into his job as a computer tech, minded his own business, went home, then he'd go out in the evening and canvas Manhattan scenes, looking for victims,” said Rod Leith.
Souvenirs of death
The items included a tiny koala bear that Valerie Ann Street carried with her, perhaps as a reminder of happier, more innocent years, the earrings of which they’d previously recovered a broken bit and an apartment key that fit the door of Mary Ann Carr’s apartment.
“He had in this room, souvenirs or memorabilia, or whatever you want to call it,” Conway said. “Items that he took from these women after he tortured them and murdered them.”
Trophies are common for serial killers, and Cottingham was hardly the first serial killer to have a hiding place for his mementos of death.
Many serial killers have a locked place where they hide evidence of their crimes. Jerry Brudos kept his treasures, including photographs and a frozen foot, in a locked garage, and his wife was only allowed to communicate through an intercom system when he was in there, and only he had the keys. John Wayne Gacy had a basement crawlspace, and his wife was forbidden to venture down there. He told her the area was full of rodents, which was an easy ploy to keep her away. Jeffrey Dahmer took photos of his victims, often in the middle of dismemberment, which he kept in a drawer of his nightstand, close enough to use for masturbation sessions.
“People that we refer to as organized killers will often take trophies from their victims, an earring or a shoe,” said Schlesinger. “Like big game hunters, the trophy room helps them remember those moments when they felt most in control. It’s the place where they can go to indulge in their most sadistic fantasies of what they’d done to other people.”
For Rod Leith, that trophy room was one of the most horrifically graphic elements of the case.
“I got to know law enforcement in county and municipalities, breaking news about this guy. The most fascinating thing at first was that he was taking items from his victims, and putting them in his rented Lodi home. He was putting jewelry ... earrings, rings ... in his room as tokens of his ‘accomplishments.’”
Leith was not the only one involved in the case who was disturbed by the finds.
“Some people might have trophies for their exploits in baseball or basketball or golf. These were his trophies, these were his criminal activities which he had gotten away with, and these were his trophies about how intelligent he was, how charming he was, and how much smarter he was than everybody else,” said Calo grimly.
Charges pile up quickly
While Cottingham was initially charged only with holding Leslie against her will, his charges grew as officers learned more about the heinous man they were holding in their custody.
Within days, based on the items found in Cottingham’s basement chamber of horrors and in his car, Bergen County law enforcement officials were trading notes with New York City police, who were still a bit shell-shocked by the two prostitutes who had been beheaded and burned in a Times Square Hotel, and were looking for answers.
New York cops soon determined that Cottingham was not only responsible for those murders, but also was the lead suspect in the May 5 mutilation murder of Valerie Ann Street and the May 15, 1980, murder of Jean Reyner, whose breasts had been removed before her body was lit on fire.
Based on the growing pile of evidence shared between New Jersey and New York police, Cottingham was charged with kidnapping, attempted murder, aggravated assault, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, aggravated sexual assault while armed (rape), aggravated sexual assault while armed (sodomy), aggravated sexual assault while armed (fellatio), possession of a weapon, possession of controlled dangerous substances, Secobarbital and Amobarbital (also known as Tuinal) and possession of a controlled dangerous substance, Diazepam or Valium.
Within days, officials had amassed enough evidence
to charge him with the murder of Valerie Ann Street.
Eventually, after Karen Schilt and Susan Geiger identified him in a police lineup, a grand jury indicted him on charges that included two more murders, the attempted murder of another women, and the kidnapping of three others.
He continued to maintain his innocence, and October 5, 1980, through a second attorney, Peter Doyne, he entered a plea of not guilty in front of Superior Court Judge Fred C. Galda.
Cottingham was bound over for trial and held on a $350,000 bond.
The news was met with the first of three unsuccessful suicide attempts. This time, he smashed one of the lenses of his glasses and used a shard to slash his wrists. Not only did his attempt to take his own life fail, he was left without glasses for several weeks and was unable to keep up with the news articles that likely dominated more than a few front pages.
The Bergen County Record, the New York Times and the New York Daily News especially covered the Cottingham case, often with sensational front-page spreads.
“As we covered this, The Record was interested, as he was a local guy, so he was given a considerable amount of space,” said Leith, who attempted to get a one-on-one interview with Cottingham, but was rebuffed.
Cottingham was all the buzz at Blue Cross Blue Shield
At work, conversations about Cottingham definitely dominated.
His coworkers were both horrified and fascinated as they learned more and more grisly details about the man they’d worked with for years.
“He was a computer main frame console operator, and I was a programmer. He was a quiet, nervous man, but he didn't give off any other signs,” said one coworker after Cottingham’s arrest. “He was a family man living in Lodi and no one suspected him of what he was doing. Even his wife did not know what he was doing. He gave off no signs. He had a bunch of buddies working in the computer room with him that he hung out with. They did not even know.”
But then again, they did think he was a bit weird, especially Volpe, who worked so closely with Cottingham.
“I heard one time that he had a venereal disease that he contracted from a prostitute,” said Volpe, “and at that point he was kind of angry when he mentioned the hooker.”
Another coworker, Bruce Huff, also talked about the prostitutes Cottingham liked and the large wads of cash he would use to entice them.
Huff also mentioned Cottingham’s use of “black beauties,” or sedatives he would put in the glasses of prostitutes that weren’t drinking enough, just as a way to loosen them up for what other fun the evening had in store.
Another coworker told police about another one workplace habit Cottingham had, which didn’t really endear him to his coworkers. Cottingham, the coworker said, would steal the keys to coworkers’ drawers, file cabinets, and homes, a heist that gave him access to larger-ticket items such a camera, a calculator, and meal tickets, among other things.
Chapter 11: Cottingham on trial
Because he had committed his deranged crimes all over the region, Cottingham faced four separate trials in separate jurisdictions.
His first, in State Superior Court in Hackensack, New Jersey, with the Honorable Judge Paul R. Huot presiding, began in May 1981, and would last four weeks.
Jurors learned the horrifying details of Cottingham’s deranged desire to torture women.
Cottingham’s ruse was simple. He would tell prostitutes that he’d just won a lot of money in a card game, and wanted to take them out, not just for sex but for dinner as well, his attorney said.
“He would show them the wad of money, and of course the girls were impressed,” Conway said.
He would then find a way to drug them to leave them vulnerable and incapacitated, take them to the hotel, torture them, have sex with them and then torture them some more.
His victims did not always die – it was not the murder itself that satisfied Cottingham’s sexual urges, but the torture. If he victims died before he had finished having his fun, he would continue to torture them until he was satisfied, both emotionally and sexually.
The testimony would be grueling for everyone involved.
He faced one charge of murder along with charges of the kidnapping, assault, and attempted murder of four other women, all of whom testified against the computer operator.
He was indicted not only for the murder of Valerie Ann Street, but also the attempted murder of Leslie O’Dell and the kidnapping and assault of prostitutes Susan Geiger and Pamela Weisenfeld and cocktail waitress Karen Schilt.
A surprising suspect
A family man with three children, Cottingham looked like everyman when he sat beside his defense attorney.
Janet had since withdrawn her divorce and stood by her husband during his four trials.
“His wife, she described him as a devoted husband, and said he was very attentive to his children,” Calo said.
Neighbors said that while Cottingham was the private type, he was a devoted dad who traditionally took his three kids trick-or-treating every Halloween.
His younger sister was also convinced that the brother she’d grown up with was no serial killer.
“She was extremely upset with me because I had brought out where they lived, so the family was upset and embarrassed, adamant in his defense through the end,” said Rod Leigh, who covered the trial for the Bergen County Record. “I felt sorry for his wife, and I pitied his sister who fought the obvious truth in her brother.”
But Calo and his team of prosecutors – and Cottingham’s own defense attorney, for that matter – knew they were looking at a monster.
For his part, Cottingham took notes throughout the entire trial, tracking every bit of evidence against him so he could look for ways to place the blame squarely on someone else.
“He was very calm and collected during the trial, a very intelligent man, very involved in his defense, and he would pass notes to his attorneys to tell them what he thought they should do,” said lead prosecutor Caro.
And although he had been advised not to take the stand, the narcissist in him couldn’t resist the opportunity to talk – and to attempt to pull one over on police by offering up alibis that were flimsy at best.
“I told him, ‘You’re going to be cross examined, and there are a lot of holes in your story that probably will be exposed,’ but he wanted to testify,” said Conway.
That’s where Cottingham’s narcissism tripped him up. He thought that he would be able to read the room and use the information he gathered to not only play those questioning him but also the jury. His mission was to win everyone over and gain their trust, the same way he had with the prostitutes and other women he lured to their deaths.
Of course this time, pockets full of cash would be of no benefit.
“A guy like Cottingham enjoys being smarter than other people, particularly law enforcement. He thinks he’s the smartest person in the room no matter where he is,” said Schlesinger.
Chilling since childhood
The courtroom learned a lot about Cottingham during his first four-week trial.
Cottingham told the court that he has long fantasized about tying up defenseless women and having them at his mercy.
“The whole idea of bondage had aroused and fascinated me since I was very young,” Cottingham said under questioning from Conway.
He told the courtroom that he often demanded that his victims call him “master,” and when they failed to do so, there were grave consequences for the helpless women.
But murder? Of course not.
During his four hours on the stand, Cottingham claimed he was at work or with his girlfriend when four of the five incidents occurred.
He denied kidnapping and assaulting Susan Geiger and Pamela Weisenfeld, both prostitutes, and denied his assault on cocktail waitress Karen Schilt, although all of them took the stand to testify against him and point him out to the rest of the court as their assailant.
He also denied the mutilation and murder of Valerie Ann Street, who
was just 18 when she made the mistake of picking Cottingham as her next trick. However damning the fingerprint on the handcuffs she was wearing, one of Cottingham’s thumb, the narcissist brushed it off as nothing.
As for the testimony of William J. Van Atta, a fingerprint specialist with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who testified that the thumbprint was definitely Cottingham’s and demonstrated how it was made for the jury, well, Cottingham likely hoped the pool of his peers would completely forget.
He also hoped that they were able to overlook the similarities between the assaults, especially so the savagely bitten nipples that were in essence Cottingham’s callous calling card.
The timeline of Valerie Ann Street’s death
One of the main bits of evidence offered by the prosecution was the time of Valerie Ann Street’s death, and how easy it would have been for Cottingham to fit it into his 3 to 11 p.m. work schedule.
According to Dr. Louis V. Napolitano, Valerie Ann was killed between 9:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. on May 4, 1980, a length of time that could now be significantly more narrowed given the new technology detectives and medical examiners use to determine times of death decades later.
Cottingham’s wife, Janet, and his uncle, John Choromanski, both said that Cottingham was at home in Lodi from 5 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. He arrived at work at Blue Cross Blue Shield at about 3:45 p.m., according to his John Forgione.
That left a period of about two and a half hours that was unaccounted for. Was it enough time to torture a woman to his satisfaction, given the devious, detailed approach he used, first making small cuts, and then stabbing as the sight of blood and his arousal made him more frenzied? Was it enough time to rape and sodomize Valerie and then stuff her body beneath the mattress? Was it enough time to clean up?
Richard Cottingham: The True Story of The Torso Killer: Historical Serial Killers and Murderers (True Crime by Evil Killers Book 20) Page 6