Very Scary People (2019–…): Season 5, Episode 8 - The Times Square Killer: Part 2 - full transcript

[Eleanor] Cordelia
was cleaning.

Next thing you know,
she's white as a ghost,

and she's telling me, frantic,
"I saw an arm, I saw an arm."

I go, "A what?"

She says, "Under the bed.

I hit something under the bed.
It was an arm."

Not just an arm.

It's a whole body naked.

[theme music playing]

Welcome to Very Scary People,
I'm Donnie Wahlberg.

For more than a decade,
starting in the late 1960s,



a vicious predator stalked
young women

on both the gritty streets
of Manhattan

and in the quiet bedroom
communities of New Jersey.

Dubbed the Times Square
Killer, his victims ranged

from suburban housewives
to sex workers.

For most of his murder spree,
the killer operated under
the radar,

blending into
his surroundings.

But as the body count
multiplied,

the killer's arrogance grew,
leaving detectives waiting
for him

to make the one mistake
that would lead
to his arrest.

This is part two
of "The Times Square Killer."

It was a busy morning like
any other in New York City.

[siren wailing]

Around 9:00 a.m.,
the fire department got a call



from the Travel Inn
Motor Hotel on 42nd Street

in Times Square.

[female reporter] Firemen
went into a fourth floor
motel room here

to find the source of smoke.

[Steve] A fireman thought
he saw people lying
on each bed.

He thought they were
just mannequins.

Then he realized that it was
two naked young females.

[Rod] He took their bodies out
as best he could
with some help,

prepared to take them
and give them mouth-to-mouth

respiration, recovery,

and discovered they were
without heads.

The killer cut off their hands
and their heads

so that they couldn't be
identified.

The sadistic murder of
two young women
in a Westside motel

early Sunday has become one
of the more bizarre cases

in memory.

[Larry] The killer leaves
the hotel.

He has a duffel bag,
and he's stopped by

two police officers who
were concerned for his safety

as he walked through
Times Square.

And he just explained
to the two cops

that he was staying at
a nearby hotel.

Everything was good.

If only police had asked
to see what was inside
the duffel bag.

Perhaps the reason
he wasn't questioned
more vigorously

is because the killer
just seemed like
another regular person.

He was an average guy
who had a family.

He had a wife and three
children, two boys and a girl.

Had a home, had a job.

And he was very disarming
to people because

he didn't look abnormal
or disturbed or deviant

in any way.

Yet in New Jersey,
where he'd been raised,

he'd been killing for years.

Teenage Mary Ann Pryor
and Lorraine Kelly

were going to the Jersey Shore
and they wanted to get
bathing suits.

So they were hitchhiking
to the Paramus Mall.

In the '70s, what was very
normal was hitchhiking.

A lot of these young kids
did it.

And that was the fatal mistake
they made that day.

[Steve] A man picked them up
and they never could
have imagined

what he planned to do.

[Mike] Then he took them
to a hotel.

[Steve] He had forced them in.

[Mike] They were tied
to the bed so they couldn't
escape during the night.

And eventually,

he drowned them
in the hotel bathtub.

[Brenna] Mary Ann's family
heard on the radio

that two bodies were found
in the woods.

And then there was
a knock on the door.

And it was the worst news
that any family could get.

[Steve] He's known as
the Times Square killer.

But it really is much
more the story,

I think, of a suburban
double life killer.

Police had no knowledge
of this guy.

He's smart enough to know
that what he's doing out

in New Jersey might not come
to the attention

of law enforcement in New York
and vice versa.

Law enforcement has always
been a tribal sort of thing,

even though they like
to talk about working
together,

the communication
isn't always there.

[Rod] The killer left
few clues, leaving
investigators

with nothing to go on.

[Steve] This story terrified
local residents.

If police had any suspects
in mind, they didn't include

the actual perpetrator,
who was a mainframe

computer operator
for a major insurance company.

And he's pretty bright.

And he knows it.

He has a level of tech savvy.

He's got his hobby,
his extracurricular activity,

where he's out
murdering women.

Chilling, horrifying
what he did to people.

We're talking about
atrociously striking
his female victims,

cutting them, burning them.

He was terrorizing women
very close to where he lived.

Go back to being
a regular family man.

It's a ridiculous dichotomy.

His wife
and his three children

never suspected a thing.

He never raised any red flags.

He just was at the point
where he wanted more

and more and more,
and it just began to escalate.

[Eleanor] I was at
the parking lot at work
at the Quality Inn,

waiting for a ride home.

All of a sudden,
this car pulls up.

And this guy with this stupid,
smirky smile, asking me,

"Oh, can you come here?
Do you work in there?"

And so now I'm like,
oh my God.

So I'm not going
to go near that car.

So I try walking around
the back of the car
to get into the hotel.

And he's now going
to back the car into me,

so I couldn't get
the license plate.

And I run in the door,
and I get Delia
that worked there.

"Delia, crazy guy out
there trying to get me."

"What?"

And we look out,
and he's gone.

[Larry] A housekeeper walked
into room 132,

and she noticed that the room

has a bit of
a foul stench in it.

She began cleaning up
the room, and as she tidied up

and tried to vacuum under
one of the beds,

she hit something
hard and large.

[Eleanor] Delia was
cleaning 132.

Next thing I know,
here comes Delia.

She's white as a ghost,
and she's telling me, frantic,

"I saw an arm.
I saw an arm."

I go, "A what?"

She says, "Under the bed.
I hit something under the bed.

It was an arm."

Not just an arm.

It's a whole body naked,

and the police are coming.

A naked 19-year-old
woman with strawberry
bleached blonde hair.

Fingerprints would later
identify her as
Valerie Ann Street,

who came north from Florida
with a conviction

for prostitution
in her home state.

She was handcuffed
so tightly that it left

deep marks on her wrists.

There was a wound
on her lower back,

which was apparently made
by some sort of knife.

Police had begun retracing
her steps from the day before

and realized that she had
started the day in New York.

[Larry] Valerie Ann Street
had been seen

by another sex worker
in Manhattan

working a corner
at Madison Avenue
and 32nd Street.

[Steve] On the surface,
her exchange with
a Manhattan office worker

was no different
than any of her
other interactions

with her other customers.

This appears to have been
a straight business
transaction.

He's the John.
She's the hooker.

They make a deal.

Eventually, the man brought
her to New Jersey.

She showed up at the hotel
and registered for the room

herself using her alias.

She's then taken hostage
and tortured.

He killed her and stuffed her
under the bed,

and that's where
the housekeeper found her

under the bed while
she was cleaning the room.

This was one of the only
incidents where any sort of

a usable court evidence
was found.

In this case, it was
a fingerprint.

[Eleanor] So the next day,
detectives called me
into the office,

and they're questioning me,
and they show me
a picture of Valerie.

And they go, "What does
she look like?"

Well, she looks a little
like my blonde Tamron.

"Have you noticed anything
strange around here?"

And then I told them
about the incident

in the parking lot
two weeks before that,

how the car pulled up,
the guy had a stupid,
smirky smile, and all that.

I just got this weird, like,

danger feeling,
stranger danger.

And the detectives
kept calling me, Ellie,

we think he's coming back.

You have to listen
for everything.

I said, I'll listen
for everything.

I'm on it.
Yeah, I'm on it, boy.

[Larry] By 1980,
the Times Square killer
was committing crimes

with more frequency.

It was like he didn't have
a care in the world.

He would do something
in New Jersey

and then go right back
to New York

looking for another victim.

But he committed
his first murder over
a decade earlier,

when he was just a young man.

He was 20 years old
when he evidently killed
his first victim.

Nancy Vogel is probably
the earliest known victim

in 1967.

She was a married woman
with two children.

She lived in Little Ferry,
New Jersey.

And she told her family
she was going out

to play bingo in
the local church one night

and never came back.

[Brenna] And, you know,
rather horrifyingly,

two schoolgirls found her
in her car.

They thought she was
a mannequin.

She was naked and bound,
and she had been strangled.

[John] There were some
shopping bags in the trunk.

Never quite knew why,
but the keys to the car
were missing.

They were nowhere
to be found inside,

nor were they found outside
the vehicle.

Why the keys were missing
and why the car was locked

just didn't seem
to make sense.

But it did point in
the direction
of an unlikely suspect.

On the day following
the report of her
being missing,

her brother showed up
at Little Ferry Police
and said,

"My sister is missing,
but I found her car keys,"

and gave the police
the keys to her car.

Investigators were thinking,

How else could Nancy Vogel's
brother have her car keys

unless he had killed her
and locked the car?

He soon became a suspect
in his own sister's murder.

But detectives couldn't find
any additional evidence

that would link him
to the crime.

So he was a suspect, nowhere
near enough to charge him.

[Steve] Even though police
cleared him,

that didn't stop some people
in his family from thinking

that he committed
his own sister's murder.

By now, sex workers
in New York had been
warned about

the Times Square Killer.

I feel like most serial
killers end up getting kind
of messy towards the end.

Last winter, we told you
about several especially
brutal murders

of alleged prostitutes
here in New York.

And so far, the murders
have gone unsolved.

[Louis] When you get
a case like this,

everybody wants to look for
a watershed event in his life

that made him
a serial sexual murderer.

But you're just not going
to find it.

Poor parenting,
stressful events,

and all of the rest of it
never are of help.

But this is not something
that's learned,

nor is it something a result
of some terrible event

that happened
in his childhood from

his mother, his father,
and so on.

His parents,
they didn't make him
to become a serial killer.

That's him.

In a 2009 French documentary,

the killer reflected
on how he was different
than most people.

[Richard speaking]

He may have had different
quirks like everybody else,

but there was really
nothing in his demeanor

or his presentation
that would make him
stand out in any way.

He went to high school.
He was on the track team.

He had friends.
He may have had
some difficulty with friends,

but that's not really abnormal
in any significant way.

[Rod]
He's a high school graduate,
graduated in 1964.

His father was
an executive with

Metropolitan
Insurance Company,

knew the business quite well,

and encouraged his son
to go in that direction

and gotten hired through his
father over

at Metropolitan Life.

He started at the bottom
in the mailroom.

Eventually, he worked
his way up

to mainframe
computer operator,

and then he found
a better-paying job
at Blue Cross Blue Shield.

[Larry] It seemed like
a perfectly healthy
father-son relationship,

but like everything
else about the killer,
there was a dark side.

[Rod] The father would
coach him on what to do

if he got into
an automobile accident

because, of course,
if he had booze on his breath,

he'd get the DUI.

His father's advice
was to feign injury

so that the police
would back off

and they would bring the EMTs
and take him to the hospital.

And by this time,
the cops are losing

their opportunity
to get him for DUI

because, of course,
the effect of the alcohol
is starting to wear off.

[Larry] There's no saying what
the father's influence

might have really had
on this young man,

but that alone doesn't explain
why he became what he became.

I don't use words
like evil, but I think that

there is something missing
in him.

He preyed on all kinds
of women,

but he preyed on
a lot of sex workers

and people on
the margins of society.

He probably thought
he had it down pat.

I feel like most serial
killers end up getting
kind of messy towards the end,

and maybe
that's overconfidence

or maybe it's wanting
to be caught somehow.

[Larry] Leslie Ann O'Dell,
who is an 18-year-old

who had just come to New York
after a four-day bus ride

from her hometown of Olympia
in the state of Washington.

[Dr. Melinda] It became
somewhat of a known quantity

that if you landed
at the bus station,

that there was probably
a fairly good possibility

that there would be
various men out there

who would provide you with all
sorts of glamorous promises.

If you've been sitting on
a bus for seven days,

you have to have been
totally exhausted

and very difficult to make
decisions about what was good.

[Steve] She found herself
in the clutches of a pimp.

It was a horrible
situation for a teenager
to find herself in.

Leslie had no idea
that the man

who would come out of nowhere
and pretend to be her savior

was actually worse
than anything

she could have imagined.

Leslie Ann O'Dell is working
on Lexington Avenue

on the east side of Manhattan

when she meets
just a random guy,

doesn't look like
anything special,

but he offers her $100
in return for sexual favors.

She agrees. They go to a bar.

He keeps feeding her drinks.

She spoke to him
a little bit about

the situation that she was in.

The man says to her,
I'll drive you out
of the city,

I'll take you to
a bus terminal over in Jersey,

and you'll be on your way back
to your hometown in Olympia

before your pimp even knows
that you're gone.

By now, sex workers
in New York

had been warned about
the Times Square killer,

but the man seemed so sincere
that Leslie believed him.

He looked completely normal.
He can speak very well.

She needed someone
to help her.

He's offering his help.
He seemed like a nice guy.

She went along with him.

Now the torture begins.

He's got a gun.

[Eleanor] I heard a commotion,
and I hear this girl.

"Oh, my God, no.
Oh, my God, no."

Welcome back
to Very Scary People.

The Times Square killer
may have thought

he could get away
with murder forever.

He hid behind a mask
of respectability,

wearing a suit to work
in New York

and raising a family in
the suburbs of New Jersey.

But by 1980, his crimes
are becoming more extreme,

and the Times Square killer
is becoming more reckless.

[Steve] Leslie Ann O'Dell
was only 18 years old.

She had just arrived
in New York City

from her home
in Washington State,

and met a pimp
that charmed her

and put her out on the street.

She met a John in Manhattan

who took her to a bar
and bought her some drinks.

She confided to him that
she was in over her head,

and she wanted to get away
from her pimp,

and he offered
to take her back

to a bus depot in New Jersey

so she could go back to her
home in Washington State.

[Larry] So this man
and Leslie come across

the George Washington
Bridge chatting.

He says to her, like, look,

could the two of us have sex
before you head out?

So she agrees to accompany him
to the Hasbrouck Heights

Quality Inn,

which has become his favorite
place to do his business.

[Rod] The people
who work there,

does he think
they're completely blind
or stupid?

He's got to realize
that he's raising,
you know, some alarms,

and, you know, who knows?

Don't forget, he was dressed
like a businessman in a suit
and tie.

I guess you could say
he wasn't dressed like
a killer.

Once they get inside the room,

he asks Leslie
if he could give her a massage

before they have sex.

She agrees to this,
and he pulls out a knife,

holds it to her throat,
and immediately handcuffs her.

In the 2009 documentary,

he explained how excited
he got during these

violent encounters.

[Richard speaking]

[Steve] Now
the torture begins.

He's got a gun.

He's telling her that
she's a whore

and deserves to be punished.

[Louis] The offender
very often has a twisted
sense of morality,

and so many of them
will say, you know,

prostitutes and sex workers,

I want to rid the world
of these sorts of things.

For the next several hours,
you know,

he sliced her with a knife.

He whipped her
with a leather belt.

And every time she passed out,

he would use a damp
washcloth to revive her

and go right back to it.

Leslie Ann O'Dell
was a fighter.

People don't expect
sex workers to fight back,

but thank goodness O'Dell
was willing to fight
for her life.

[Larry] At one point during
her ordeal, she's uncuffed,

and she immediately goes
for the gun that's nearby.

And when she tries to use it,

she realizes quickly
that it's a prop gun

and it's going to be
of no help at all.

[Eleanor] I heard a commotion
in 117.

So I run over real quick,
put my ear to the door,

and I hear this girl,
"Oh, my God, no.
Oh, my God, no."

And something about a gun.

And then I hear,
like, a struggle,

and it's coming closer
to the door.

And the first thought,
of course, is the murderer.

He's back. He's going
to murder the girl in 117.

So I head up the hall to go
to the front desk to get help.

"The girl's going
to be murdered.
We got to save her."

So Todd,
our assistant manager,
he's knocking on 117.

I don't know if this guy's
going to open the door
and shoot him

or what's going to happen,
but it was Leslie who opened

the door a tiny bit
with a chain

and stuck her little hand out
like this

and was moving her eyes.

And she's saying,
"Everything's okay,"

which it wasn't,
which we knew.

[Mike] She was able
to give a signal

to the employees that made
them call the police.

[siren wails]

The police show up,
and this is his last stand.

[Mike] And at that time,
he realized

that he had to get out
of there.

So he did take off,
ran down the hallway.

This guy is running by
with a suit on

and a gun and an attaché case.

So I think it's a detective,
right, who would have a gun.

So I said,
"Oh, did you get him?"

And he points the gun.

And with that, one of
the police come in
the side door

with their shotgun,
and they're aiming it
at this guy.

[Mike] The first responding
officer caught him
in a stairway.

[Eleanor] And then they had
the attaché case open

with all this weird stuff
in it,

black garbage bag,
adhesive tape, handcuffs.

[Larry] A leather gag,
two slave collars,

a switchblade, ankle cuffs,
replica pistols,

and pills that he used
to knock his victims out.

When I saw him arrested
sitting there,

I realized it was the same guy

that tried to get me
in the parking lot.

That's... I could cry.

That's when it gets
overwhelming.

Police identified him as
33-year-old Richard Cottingham

from Lodi, New Jersey.

There were many cold cases
that existed at that time,

and we believed
it was Cottingham.

[Brenna] There was no way
for the jurisdictions
in New Jersey

and New York to communicate.

If there had been
the Internet,

if there had been websites,

if there had been
the 24-hour news network

that there is today,

police departments in New York
might be able to say,

"Hey, that murder
in New Jersey

looks really similar
to this murder
in Times Square."

[Rod] It wasn't until
Cottingham was
finally arrested

and they finally were putting
two and two together

that they looked
at these cases.

[Mike] After police take
Cottingham into custody,

he tries to play all this off.

He carried his murder kit
in a attaché case.

[Larry] The paraphernalia
that they recovered

was just something that
he kept around

because he was a fan
of bondage and domination.

He said he wanted to see
what it felt like to have

someone under his control.

And that line has been used
a lot of times

by different people who have
abused women sexually,

and they explain it away,

"We were just trying
something new."

He's going to try to get
himself out of this
in some way.

And that's at least
an explanation
to the authorities

as to why they were
doing this.

[Steve] But when police raided
his house,

they found that the killer,

who had been so careful
to cover his tracks,

had actually left a stunning
record of his crimes.

He had a trophy room
of souvenirs

that he'd stolen from
the women he'd attacked.

That's not uncommon
for killers

to keep certain items
from their victims.

He's cherishing them,
so to speak.

He's putting them
in a safe place,

in a room in his home,

which he disallows
anyone to go to.

His wife can't go in there.

His children are forbidden
to go in there.

And he's got a place
where he's keeping

these little trinkets
to remember.

They bring back a memory
of an incident

that he largely enjoyed.

It brings him gratification.

Slowly, the potato
was peeling,

and we learned more and more
about him and who he was.

Cottingham was raised in
a fairly middle-class family

in New Jersey.

The first of four children,
he had three younger sisters.

[Rod] He's raised Catholic.

He was very nervous as
a child, very nervous
growing up.

His mother was
an innocent soul.

She didn't have a clue
of what was going on.

She did offer some
explanations about him

and his behavior
when he was young.

She would say things like

he would constantly
be chewing his nails,

constantly be waving
and swishing

back and forth with his leg.

[Larry] So we know he was
an anxious kid.

But aside from that,
no major red flags.

No evidence that he was
torturing animals,

setting fires,
behavior you might
expect from a serial killer.

When people saw him
in the community,

they saw this professional
working in New York,

working in
the computer industry.

[Steve] But there were secrets
that he was keeping
from his wife.

He had several extramarital
affairs.

And just as his wife
was giving birth
for the first time,

he was arrested for taking
advantage of sex workers.

There were two cases,
one in '73 and one in '74.

These were salacious
instances.

They involved robbery.

They involved sexual assault.

There was a charge of
unlawful imprisonment.

Okay, so we're talking
about handcuffs.

The prosecutors need
their testimony,

and these women were refusing,

refusing to cooperate
to that extent.

That's on Cottingham's side.

He's frightened these women.

He's scared them to death.

He's threatened them
with weapons.

And they're afraid
of the police.

He's got this mindset
that he's above the law.

In some ways, that's because
he literally thought

that he could get away
with murder.

In 1977, when his youngest
child was just a year old,

Maryann Carr was taken
from the parking lot

in her apartment complex.

Those who saw it later
told the police

that they thought
it was the husband.

[Larry] As it turned out,
after Cottingham was arrested,

investigators were able
to determine that

the victim's husband
and he looked very much alike.

As long as Cottingham's
methods were working for him,

he just kept repeating
the same patterns.

He kidnapped two
of his victims

from the same
apartment complex,

and he continually visited
the Quality Inn

in Hasbrouck Heights,
New Jersey.

[Larry] In 1979,
Cottingham's wife filed
for divorce.

She said he regularly
stayed out all night

and stopped having sex
with her

after she had
their third child.

[Rod] She got tired of
being the woman

who was taking care
of the house, taking care
of everything.

And for whatever reason,
and I think

it's his persuasiveness,

she agreed to back off.

I think she was
a little more docile

than a lot of women might be
with a guy like this,

letting him get away
with the whole lot.

Still, she had no idea that
she had married a killer.

[male reporter]
Richard Cottingham is
being arraigned today

on charges of murdering
a 19-year-old girl

in a motel
in Hasbrouck Heights.

The victim, Valerie Street,
had been sexually abused

and mutilated.

Cottingham is a suspect
in the killing and mutilation

of two prostitutes
last December in
a 42nd Street motel.

[Steve] In 1981,
Richard Cottingham was charged
with murder,

kidnapping and sexual assault

in connection with five
different women in New Jersey.

The first of three
scheduled trials.

He pleaded not guilty.

He kind of always
wanted his kids

to think that there was
a hint that maybe
he didn't do these things,

maybe it wasn't him.

He never confessed.

[male reporter] Cottingham's
blood type was found inside

the dead woman's hotel room.

And that adhesive tape,
like that found on
Valerie Street's mouth,

was found in Cottingham's car
when he was arrested.

[Eleanor] I had to go
and testify every time and...

When I had to get up
and testify,

they have it facing
where Cottingham's sitting.

And he kept looking at me.

So, it was horrifying,
horrifying.

As evidence piled up
against Cottingham,

he attempted suicide in jail.

Cottingham evidently made two
or three suicide gestures,

but they were
very superficial.

On one occasion,
he broke his glasses

and tried cutting himself
with the shards.

He also tried slicing himself
with a razor

and drinking liquid
antidepressants.

I think it was just
simple attention

because I think if he wanted
to kill himself,

he was an expert at killing,

then I think he probably
could have killed himself.

He was eventually sent back
to court

to hear the judge
pronounce him guilty.

The sentence he declared

must be for the protection
of modern society.

There were multiple trials
that Richard Cottingham

went through

and ultimately,

the result of those
multiple trials

resulted in numerous
life sentences

for Richard Cottingham.

He probably won't get out
of jail.

He's 34 years old now.

He was sent to jail
for almost 200 years.

[Rod] Finally,
his wife divorced him

after he was convicted
for these crimes.

She moved up to New York State
to get away from New Jersey,

get away from Bergen County,

and that's where
she raised her kids.

[John] Even after Cottingham
was convicted,

there were many cold cases
that existed at that time

and continue to exist,

but law enforcement
never forgets them.

When I first took
over as chief,

I decided to assign
the homicide detectives

to pull out a lot of the cold
cases, go through them,

and find whatever viable cases

they felt they should
pursue and reopen.

Many of the cold cases
in New York and New Jersey

fit Cottingham's M.O.

So as the years passed
and Cottingham sat
behind bars,

detectives continued
to go through his old files.

They were hoping to link him

to other unsolved murders
in the area.

I went down there
and sat down with him,

and I wasn't there
specifically

to get him to confess
to these murders.

I was there to see
if he would come
and speak to our detectives.

And he did end up calling
our office,

and there was
a young detective
at the time back then.

His name was Rob Anzilotti.

A lot of times to
get confessions,

you can't just walk into
a room and ask the person,

"Hey, did you do it?"
That's not gonna work.

It takes time, it takes
dialogue, it takes patience,

and I felt he was
the right guy for the job.

And so they spent
about 17 years

going back and forth
and just talking.

The serial killers, they like
that cat-and-mouse thing,

and even when they are caught
and they are in prison,

they enjoy the game.

You want to know something
that I know,

so what are you gonna give me
for it?

How are you gonna
twist it out of me?

And Cottingham definitely
continued that game

with Anzilotti for years.

[Mike] And Anzilotti
succeeded into

developing a rapport
with Cottingham,

which led
to several confessions.

[Brenna] Nancy Vogel was
the first confession

Cottingham gave
to Detective Anzilotti.

Cottingham claimed he drove
her up to a wooded area

in Montvale, New Jersey,
near the New York State line.

He killed her there
and put her
in the backseat of her car,

because that's the car
they used to get up there,

and he left the car
in a residential neighborhood

back near her home

and walked back to the hotel
where his car was.

You might not believe this,
but there are many people
out there

that confess to crimes
that they have absolutely
no connection with.

I had to satisfy myself that
it was indeed Mr. Cottingham

that committed this crime.

I am the prosecutor,
and I am the only one that

can actually authorize
the warrant to charge

Cottingham with murder.

And I recall there
were two things

that I was told
that tied him to it.

That he took the car keys
and he threw them away.

That was never in
any press release.

Only the killer would
have known that,

that the keys were not left
in the car.

The second thing is
he told us about

the Valley Fair shopping
bags in the truck.

Only the killer would
have known that.

And then Nancy Vogel's son
told me something that
I didn't expect.

He said,
"I can't believe this.

All these years, I thought
it was my uncle."

Cottingham had told us
he threw the keys away,

so we knew that
when the uncle put the keys

on the police desk,

it was just an extra set.

So, Nancy Vogel's two children
received two gifts that day.

The first gift is
the man who killed

their mother was brought
to justice.

The second gift is
it was never their uncle.

Over the next ten years,
Cottingham confessed

to Anzilotti about three
more murders.

The trails of which had
all gone cold.

In 2021, Robert Anzilotti
was about to retire.

But there was another
cold case that

had been bothering detectives
for years.

The murders of teenagers
Lorraine Kelly
and Mary Ann Pryor.

They were going down
the Jersey Shore
in August 1974.

They were going bathing suit
shopping before that.

They had planned to hitchhike
from their homes.

Five days later,
their bodies were discovered

in a construction site.

I wanted that case solved
and we had believed

it was Cottingham.

[Brenna] So, right before
Anzilotti's retiring,

Cottingham pleads guilty
to Mary Ann Pryor

and Lorraine Kelly.

According to him, he picked
them up and it was raining.

They sat in the car
for a while together.

First, he took them
to a McDonald's
to get something to eat.

Then he took them to a hotel.

He brought them
into the hotel room.

He had them tied up
and he spent several days

with them in the hotel.

He did bad things
to them and ended up

drowning them in a bathtub.

[Mike] And he brought them up
to the New York State line

and dumped their two bodies.

[Steve] The only reason that
he admitted to Anzilotti

that he killed Mary Ann Pryor
and Lorraine Kelly

was because Anzilotti
was retiring

and that was
his farewell gift.

[John] I know that
Rob Anzilotti didn't look
at it as a gift.

He looked at it as a gift
for the families.

Somewhere I knew
the Pryor and Kelly families

would begin to now maybe enjoy
never a normal life,

but a better life.

So, Cottingham
is now in his 70s.

He's in very poor health,
in a wheelchair.

He knows that he doesn't have
a lot of time left.

[Brenna] There's tons of
unsolved crimes

in New Jersey and New York,

and who knows how many
of them are Cottingham.

Time is ticking for him
to start confessing

to the rest of these.

[Eleanor] It affected me
a great deal.

I tell my grandchildren,
you don't walk down the street

by yourself.

I am, like, super
over-cautious.

I wouldn't even let
my granddaughter
walk from the bus stop

down a quarter of a block.

[laughs] I didn't even want
her on a bus.

You know, you get driven
to school,

you get picked up from school.

[Steve] According
to what Cottingham told
journalist Nadia Fezzani

in a 2009 documentary,

there's still a lot of murders

that the police
don't know about.

So, how many victims
do you think you have?

Oh, I know exactly how many.

[chuckles]

Over 85.

Under 100.

Despite the passage of time

and Richard Cottingham's
declining health,

law enforcement is still
vigorously trying to connect

cold cases
to the Times Square killer.

Thanks to the tenacity
and grit

of the detectives
on the case,

in December 2022,
Cottingham finally admitted

to killing five
Long Island women

between 1968 and 1973.

We can only hope
that even more of his victims

will find justice.

I'm Donnie Wahlberg.
Thanks for watching.
Good night.