Very Scary People

S05E07 The Times Square Killer: Part 1

Richard Francis Cottingham, born on November 25, 1946, is a notorious serial killer and rapist responsible for the deaths of at least eighteen young women and girls across New York and New Jersey from 1967 to 1980. He acquired several chilling nicknames, including The New York Ripper, The Torso Killer, and The Times Square Killer. Cottingham was apprehended on May 22, 1980, and subsequently convicted of multiple murders, receiving several life sentences. In 2009, years after his initial five convictions, he revealed to a journalist that he believed he had committed between 80 to 100 “perfect murders” of women throughout the United States.