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'Torso Killer' Has Confessed to More Than 20 Murders · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I want you to imagine, just for a second, carrying
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: a heavy, deeply painful question around with you every single day. Right.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: Like a physical weight you just can't put down.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Not just for a week or a month or even
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: a year. I mean, I want you to imagine carrying
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: an unanswered question about the violent, sudden loss of someone
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: you love for over six decades.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: Wow. 60 years.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah. A literal lifetime. You wake up with it, you
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: go to sleep with it, and it just never, ever
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: goes away.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: And it becomes this foundational part of your family's architecture, right?
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: The ghost that sits at the dinner table at every holiday.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: It's a shadow over every major life event. The sheer
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: weight of that kind of prolonged ambiguity is something most
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: of us, thankfully, just never have to endure.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: No, we don't.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: It physically alters how a family operates across generations.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: But for the families we are talking about today on
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: this deep dive, that was their reality. They spent entire
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: lifetimes waiting for a single piece of the puzzle. to
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: fall into place.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: Just waiting for a phone call. Right.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: And the man holding all those missing pieces is Richard Cottingham.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: Notoriously known as the torso killer.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Yeah. But we aren't just here today to recount
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: a list of grim events. That's not what we do.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: This is about understanding how a human being can fracture
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: their own reality so completely that they can, you know,
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: destroy lives by night and carpool by day.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: Which is the most terrifying part.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: It really is. It's struck about how law enforcement is
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: completely blindfolded by the technology of their time, had to
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: eventually invent a totally new kind of psychological warfare to
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: catch him.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: Because if you only look at the sheer horror of
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: the crimes, I mean, you miss the machinery of the evasion. Right.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: You miss the glaring vulnerabilities in our society that he
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: exploited for years. We have to look at the systems
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: that failed, the psychology that allowed him to hide, and honestly,
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: the immense agonizing patience it took to finally back him
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: into a corner.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: And what brings all of this to the forefront right now,
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: the reason we're diving in these sources today, is a
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: staggering update. Cottingham just recently confessed to his 20th murder.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: 20. That's just a lot to process.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: It is. But here is the number that absolutely stopped
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: me in my tracks when I was reading through the material.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: He has boasted of murdering up to 100 people.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: Let that sink in for a second for everyone listening.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: One hundred. If that claim is true, it would make
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: him the most prolific serial killer in United States history.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: It's a paralyzing number to even conceptualize. I mean, to
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: really grasp how a single person could possibly accrue a
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: victim count, even a fraction of that size, we have
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: to completely reset our understanding of the world.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: How do you mean?
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: Well, we have to mentally travel back to an era
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: long before the term serial killer was even, you know,
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: in the public lexicon, before behavioral profiling existed. And way
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: before DNA databases could catch a suspect from a single
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: stray hair. Right.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: So let's set the scene then. Let's go back to
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: the 1970s. We have this terrifying dichotomy in Cottingham's life.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: During the day, he is the absolute picture of mundane
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: suburban normalcy.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: The classic American dream setup.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: Exactly. He marries his wife, Janet, in May of 1970.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: They settle down. They have three children together. And he
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: has this steady, very respectable job working as a computer
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: operator in New York City.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: Which, by the way, is a crucial detail to dwell on.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: In the 1970s, working as a computer operator meant dealing
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: with massive mainframe systems. Right.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: We're not talking about laptops here.
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: No, not at all. It was an environment of punch cards,
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: strict sequential logic, absolute order. It required a highly methodical,
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: cool-headed approach to problem-solving. you are essentially managing the rigid,
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: uncompromising rules of early technology.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: That actually makes me think of an analogy. When I
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: hear computer operator, I think of partitioned hard drives.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's interesting.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: You know, when you format a drive so that one
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: section of the computer has absolutely no idea the other
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: section exists. Right.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: Totally separate environments on the same machine.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Because it's like looking at a split screen of
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: this man's life. On one side, he's going to Little
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: League games. He's running these massive mainframes. He's eating meatloaf
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: with his family. But on the other side of the screen...
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: As soon as the sun goes down, he is a brutal,
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: sadistic predator trolling the streets.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: It's a complete disconnect.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: It is. And how does the human brain physically or
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: psychologically partition that level of violence? I mean, how do
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: you go from reading a bedtime story to your kid
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: to hunting human beings without the mask slipping?
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: Well, that analogy of the partitioned hard drive is remarkably
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: accurate for psychopathy. What you're describing is a mechanism called
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: extreme psychological compartmentalization.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: Okay, break that down for us.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: So for a non-psychopathic person, our emotions, our guilt, our empathy,
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: they all bleed into everything we do. If you have
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: a terrible argument at work, you carry that stress home.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: Sure, you snap at your spouse or whatever.
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: Right, it affects your tone of voice. The boundaries are porous.
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: But for a highly organized psychopath like Cottingham... those boundaries
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: are practically made of reinforced steel. They possess a profound
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: lack of effective empathy, which means they just do not
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: internalize the pain of others.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: So it's not just that he doesn't care. It's that
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: he literally doesn't feel it.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: Exactly. So when he stepped out of his role as
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: the father and into his role as a predator, there
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: was no emotional bleed over. He could close the file
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: on one persona and open the file on the other
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: seamlessly because neither role was driven by genuine emotional connection.
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: They were just functions he was executing.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: Wow. So he's essentially just running different software programs depending
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: on the time of day.
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: Precisely. And that rigid compartmentalization is what allowed his violent
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: impulses to mutate and escalate without disrupting his suburban facade.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: Which is terrifying.
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: It is. By the late 1970s, he had killed more
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: than a dozen women and girls. His victims ranged widely
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: in age from as young as 13 all the way
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: to 33. And he didn't just start at his most
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: violent either.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: Right, the source's note in escalation.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the sadistic behavior escalated drastically over time. It began
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: with sexual assault and strangulation, and eventually it morphed into extreme,
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: grotesque mutilation and decapitation.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: And yet, he's still clocking in to work the next morning.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: Still making coffee.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: Still sitting at the dinner table asking his kids how
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: school was. It defies belief. But this naturally begs the question,
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: If the violence was escalating so dramatically and the crime
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: teams were becoming so chaotic and brutal, how on earth
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: was he not caught during that escalation?
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: What's fascinating here is that it comes down to a
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: perfect storm of his own cunning and the massive structural
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: blind spots of law enforcement during that specific decade. He
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: was constantly changing his modus operandi. His M.O. wasn't static.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: Which feels completely counterintuitive to everything we've been taught about
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: true crime.
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: Right, the media trope.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, usually you hear about a killer's signature. They always
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: use the same knot or the same caliber weapon, or
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: they target the exact same physical type of victim.
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: Yes, modern media has heavily conditioned us to expect that
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: level of uniformity. We expect the killer to leave a
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: calling card. But Cottingham weaponized inconsistency. He purposefully created static
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: in the system.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: He scrambled the data.
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Some victims were stabbed, others were drowned. He varied
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: the ages, the physical descriptions, and the socioeconomic backgrounds of
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: the women he targeted. And he was operating in New
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: York and various jurisdictions across New Jersey.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: So if I'm a detective in 1975 New Jersey and
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: I'm looking at a drowning case, I have absolutely no
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: reason to call up a detective in New York who
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: is looking at a stabbing case.
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: None whatsoever. And let's dive into the mechanics of what
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: a detective's desk actually looked like back then.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: Paint the picture for us.
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: We're talking about carbon copy paper, landline telephones, physical filing cabinets.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: If a body was found in Bergen County, New Jersey,
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: the details of that crime lived in a manila folder
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: in that specific precinct.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: Sitting in a metal drawer.
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Unless that local detective happened to attend a regional
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: conference and chat with a detective from Manhattan over coffee,
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: or unless they sent out physical teletype messages that someone
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: actually paid attention to, those two cases would never intersect.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: There was no algorithm to flag the similarities, no national
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: database pinging a match on a computer screen.
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: Nothing. There was no behavioral science unit at the FBI
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: handing down a psychological blueprint to local cops saying, hey,
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: these seemingly disparate crimes are actually the work of one
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: highly disorganized or organized individual.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: They were on their own.
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: They were. Cottingham exploited the analog nature of the era.
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: He knew that simply crossing a county line or changing
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: his weapon was effectively hitting the reset button on the
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: entire investigation.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: The police lacked the technological and psychological framework to see
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: the spider sitting in the center of the web. They
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: were just looking at isolated, tragic strands of silk.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: He was the ultimate chameleon, blending perfectly into the background
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: noise of a sprawling analog metropolis. But, you know, that
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: level of successful compartmentalization, that ability to constantly hit the
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: reset button, It eventually breeds a very specific kind of arrogance,
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: doesn't it?
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely. Hubris.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: Right. Because no matter how cold and calculated a predator is,
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: the thrill of getting away with it eventually demands higher stakes.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: That hubris didn't just stay in his head. It bled
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: into his actual methodology. Which brings us to the moment
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: his split-screen life finally shattered.
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: The facade always cracks eventually. The immense psychological energy required
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: to maintain that double life starts to fray. And as
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: the pathology deepens, the craving to escalate the violence and
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: the risk often outpaces the desire to remain safely hidden.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: And that escalation takes us to May 20th in 1980.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: This is a massive turning point in the timeline. Cottingham
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: checks into the Quality Inn Motel in Hasbrook Heights, New Jersey. Now,
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: I want to emphasize this for everyone listening. He is
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: not creeping around an abandoned industrial lot or a dark alley.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: No, it's a very public space.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: It's a highly populated commercial motel with thin wall and
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: housekeeping staff in the hallways. He checks in with a
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: sex worker named Leslie O'Dell. And for several hours, he
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: sexually abused and tortured her inside that room.
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: Look at the profound shift in his behavior here. He
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: has transitioned from hunting in the shadows, controlling the environment,
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: leaving victims in isolated areas. to conducting a prolonged, agonizing
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: torture session in a room surrounded by civilians.
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: It feels incredibly reckless because her screams, even though they
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: were muffled, were loud enough that the motel staff heard them.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: Which tells you how loud they must have been.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: Exactly. They heard the struggle, realized something horrific was happening,
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: and called the police. That 911 call is what led
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: directly to officers kicking down the door and arresting him
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: right there on the scene.
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: This incident is a textbook example of how the concept
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: of invincibility poisons a criminal's methodology.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: He thought he was a ghost.
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: Exactly. For someone who had successfully hidden a mountain of
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: bodies for well over a decade, taking a victim to
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: a populated motel implies a terrifying mental shift. It suggests
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: he had reached a point where he truly believed he
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: was untouchable. The thrill of the risk, the proximity to
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: getting caught, had become just as intoxicating, if not more so,
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: than the violence itself.
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: He was getting sloppy.
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: He was, but it was a sloppiness born entirely of
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: absolute narcissistic arrogance.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: He thought he was smarter than everyone else in the building.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: He thought the rules of consequence simply didn't apply to
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: him anymore. But that arrogance is exactly what saved Leslie
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: O'Dell's life. And a desk would finally put handcuffs on
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: Richard Cottingham.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: Thank goodness.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: Truly. And once he was in custody for that assault,
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: the dam broke. The police had his fingerprints. They had
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: his vehicle. They had a physical starting point. they were
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: finally able to start linking him to the other recent
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: undeniable cases. The physical evidence and the timelines converged, resulting
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: in multiple trials.
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: They had him dead to rights.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: They did. He was convicted of five murders and handed
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: down multiple life sentences. The physical threat he posed was neutralized.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: The doors were locked, and he was never, ever getting out.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: The immediate physical danger to society was over. But that
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: 1980 arrest created a completely new kind of problem for
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: law enforcement.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: How so?
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: Well, it stopped him from killing, yes. But it also
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: locked his entire history in a vault inside his head.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: Oh, exactly. He's sitting in a concrete cell with a
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: mind full of secrets. And outside those prison walls, there
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: are dozens of families still living in that agonizing limbo
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: we talked about earlier.
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: The families with the empty chairs at the table. Right.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: To unlock that vault and trace this man all the
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: way back to his very first known kill... Law enforcement
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: couldn't rely on fingerprint dust or crime scene tape anymore.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: They had to transition into entirely uncharted territory. They had
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: to navigate the twisted labyrinth of a psychopath's memory.
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: Which requires an investigator to fundamentally alter their approach. You
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: can't be a hunter anymore. You have to become a psychologist,
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: a negotiator, and, frankly, a willing participant in a very dark,
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: manipulative game.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: And to understand the stakes of that game, we have
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: to look at the prize. We have to look at
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: his earliest known murder. which he only recently confessed to.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: It is the tragic anchor of this entire story, and
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: it brings us back to the family of Alice Eberhardt.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: Examining this specific 1965 crime is vital for understanding Cottingham's baseline.
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: It strips away the decades of escalation and shows us
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: exactly the kind of predator he was at the very
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: beginning of his lethal career at just 18 years old.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about Alice. She was also just 18. She
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: had an incredibly bright future ahead of her. The sources
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: say she had just started attending the Hackensack Hospital School
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: of Nursing in New Jersey. She was a natural leader,
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: so well-liked by her peers that she had already been
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: elected an officer for her freshman class.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: She was dedicating her life to caregiving.
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: The starkest possible contract to the person who was about
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: to intercept her path.
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: It really is heartbreaking.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: It is. The date was September 24, 1965. Alice left
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: her campus with plans to attend her aunt's funeral, driving
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: home to nearby Fairlawn, New Jersey. But Richard Cottingham... happened
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: to spot her in the school parking lot. He saw her,
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: and he just decided to follow her home.
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: It is the purest definition of predatory selection.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: Just totally random.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's no prior connection, no stalking over weeks, just
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: a visual targeting of an opportunity.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: But his method here is what really chills me, especially
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: considering his age. He doesn't just attack her in the driveway.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: He employs a highly calculated ruse.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: The fake police officer bit.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: Exactly. He impersonates a police officer. He walks up. knocks
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: on the front door of her home. And when Alice answers,
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: he flashes a fake badge and tells her he needs
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: to speak with her parents.
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: This is a classic compliance strategy, and it's incredibly sophisticated
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: for a teenager committing his first known murder.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: Right, because most 18-year-olds wouldn't have the nerve.
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: No, they wouldn't. By presenting himself as an authority figure,
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: he instantly lowers her natural defenses. Human beings are socially
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: conditioned from birth to trust and defer to a badge.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: He is hijacking her social conditioning. It's deeply manipulative social engineering.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: He's exploiting her inherent trust in the social contract. So
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: Elise tells him her parents aren't home. He pivots smoothly.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: He asks her for a piece of paper so he
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: can write down his phone number for them to call
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: him back.
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: It's such a simple, seemingly innocent request.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: But the second she turns her back to walk into
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: the house and fetch the paper, he steps inside and
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: locks the front door behind him.
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: He isolates her in the one place she is supposed
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: to feel entirely safe.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: But Alsace didn't just freeze. According to the confession relayed
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: by Fairlawn Police Sergeant Eric Galishiewicz, Alice fought back. She
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: was incredibly aggressive.
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: Good for her.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Cottingham actually admitted that Alice, quote, kind of foiled
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: his plans, end quote, because he wasn't expecting her to
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: fight him so fiercely. He actually used the word frustrated.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: He said he was frustrated by the fight she put
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: up because his original plan was simply to, quote, have
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: fun with her.
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: Stop and analyze that phrasing for a moment. Have fun
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: with her.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: It makes my skin crawl.
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: It is a terrifying window into a complete vacuum of empathy.
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: He views this bright, living, breathing, 18-year-old woman entirely as
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: an inanimate object placed there for his own amusement. And
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: when the object resists, when Alice asserts her humanity and
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: fights for her survival, his reaction isn't panic or remorse,
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: it's annoyance.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: You're annoyed.
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: Right. It's the frustration of a director whose lead actor
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: is refusing to read the script.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: And that frustration turns instantly lethal. Cottingham grabbed an object
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: inside the house, struck her in the head, and then
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: did something that we really need to examine. Yes. After
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: killing her, he intended to make exactly 52 cuts on
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: her body.
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: 52.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: Because it represented a deck of cards. He specifically told
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: investigators years later that he wanted to do this to
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: confuse the police. But in the chaos of the scene,
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: he lost count. And she ultimately suffered 62 cuts.
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: Just brutal.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: He then left a large kitchen knife in her throat
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: and snuck out the back door just as her father, Ross,
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: was arriving home to find her on the living room floor.
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: It is a devastating, nightmarish sequence of events. The timing
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: of the father walking in just as the killer escapes
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: out the back adds a layer of absolute horror to
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: the tragedy.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: I want to focus on that 52 cuts detail, though.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: The deck of cards.
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, let's untack that.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: When I hear that, I don't just see a crime
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: of rage. I see theatricality. I see someone treating a
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: murder scene like a puzzle. But if I'm being honest,
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: it also feels incredibly childish.
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: Well, he was a child, essentially.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: True. But what does it tell us about an 18-year-old
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: killer who is already trying to leave cryptic clues? Was
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: he really trying to confuse the police, or was this
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: just pure ego?
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: It is absolutely about ego and profound narcissism. Even at 18,
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: on his very first known kill, he isn't just focused
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: on the visceral act of violence. He is already entirely
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: consumed by the aftermath.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: The audience.
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: Exactly. He is envisioning the police arriving, counting the wounds,
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: and being completely baffled by his brilliance. He desperately wants
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: to be the smartest person in the room, even a
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: room he has already fled.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: He wanted to be a supervillain.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: He did. The deck of cards motif is highly performative.
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: But the fact that he lost count, that he aimed
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: for 52 and hit 62, is telling. It shows that
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: the chaotic, messy reality of his own violence overrode his
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: intellectual fantasy. He wanted to be a meticulous mastermind, but
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: the frenzy took over.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: It's sickening. He walked away from that house, left a
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: family utterly shattered, and held on to that secret while
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: he got married, had kids, and lived a whole life.
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: For 60 years.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: But the resolution of this case, even decades later, carries
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: so much weight. Alyssa's nephew, Michael Smith, finally received answers
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: during the holidays just recently. He said, and I'm quoting here,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: to receive this news during the holidays and to be
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: able to tell my mother, Alyssa's sister, that we finally
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: have answers, was a moment I never thought would come.
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: That statement encapsulates why this deep dive matters.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: It really does.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: It proves that the trauma of these cold cases is multigenerational.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: The pain doesn't dilute over 60 years. It calcifies. Providing
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: that answer, even half a century later, is a profound
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: act of restorative justice, not just for Les, but for
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: the family that had to survive her loss.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: But getting that answer was not a given. And this
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: leads to the massive question at the center of this story.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: How do you actually get a man like Cunningham to
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: give up a secret he's held for over half a century?
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: It's the ultimate interrogator's dilemma. Right.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: How do you get a man who is already serving
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: multiple life sentences, a man who will die in prison
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: no matter what he does to finally tell the truth?
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: You can't threaten him with more jail time. You can't
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: offer him parole.
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The standard toolkit of law enforcement plea deals, reduced sentences,
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: intimidation is completely useless against investigators. man who has nothing
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: to lose. You have to invent entirely new leverage. You
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: have to deeply understand his specific psychological pathology and learn
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: how to play his game.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: Enter Detective Robert Anzalotti from the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: Back in the year 2000, Anzalotti took on a stack
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: of cold cases and and became intensely determined to solve them.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: One of his primary targets was the 1967 murder of
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: a woman named Nancy Vogel.
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: Nancy Vogel was a young mother of two. She was
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: sexually assaulted, strangled, and her nude body was found positioned
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: between the front and back seats of her car.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: Just awful.
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: It was a horrific crime that had sat unsolved, gathering
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: dust for over 30 years by the time Anzalotti picked
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: up the file.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: So Anzalotti knows Cottingham is a prime suspect for these
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: types of crimes in that specific era. But he also
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: knows he can't just march into the interrogation room, slam
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: the file on the table, and demand a confession. Cottingham
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: would just laugh at him.
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: He'd probably enjoy it.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: Exactly. So starting in 2003, Anzalotti tries something incredibly unconventional.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: He starts visiting Cottingham in prison. But he doesn't badger him.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: He brings him pizza. Pizza. Specifically, pizza from Cottingham's favorite
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: spot on the outside. And he sits down, and they
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: play cards.
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: On its face, it sounds completely absurd, maybe even offensive
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: to some. You are a sworn officer of the law,
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: sitting across a small table from one of the most
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: brutal serial killers in American history, sharing a slice of
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: pepperoni and playing gin rummy.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: It sounds like a movie script.
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: It does. But make no mistake, this is a highly calculated,
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: incredibly disciplined interrogation technique. It requires suppressing every natural instinct
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: a cop has.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: And the patience required is just unfathomable. took about six
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: years of this coaxing.
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: Six years?
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: Six years of pizza, cards and small talk before Cottingham
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: finally confessed to the murder of Nancy Vogel. And that
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: was just the first domino, because by 2021, he had
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: detailed five more murders to Anzalotti.
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: Six years to earn the transactional trust of a psychopath.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: That is an absolute endurance event for a detective.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: But why does it actually work? I mean, forensic psychologist
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: Catherine Ramsland provides some brilliant insight into this in the sources.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: She points out that Cottingham is at his absolute core.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: a game player. She says there is always a price
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: with him. Even sitting behind bars, he drives immense pleasure
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: from this cat and mouse game.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: Dr. Ramsland is hitting on the fundamental concept of control.
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: When a serial killer is apprehended, convicted, and given multiple
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: life sentences, their entire locus of control is violently stripped away.
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: The state tells them when to eat, when to sleep,
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: when they can exercise, when the lights go out. They
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: are rendered powerless.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: They're completely at the mercy of the system.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: Right. But the one thing the prison system cannot forcibly
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: extract from them is their memory. Their secrets become the
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: last remaining currency they possess. By withholding those confessions and
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: then slowly, agonizingly doling them out in exchange for pizza
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: or conversation, Cottingham is asserting the only tiny sliver of
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: control he has left over the outside world.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: There is a psychological quirk that illustrates this perfectly, actually.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: When Detective Anzalotti announced he was finally retiring in 2021,
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: Cottingham was genuinely upset. He didn't want him to leave.
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: Which is so counterintuitive. Right.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: Logically, you'd think a criminal would be thrilled that the
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: cop investigating him is packing up his desk and going home.
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: But without Anzalotti, the game thins. And without the game,
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: Cottingham ceases to be the center of attention. He is
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: relegated back to being just an old, irrelevant man sitting
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: in a cell with his own thoughts. He desperately needs
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: the audience. He needs the adversary to validate his sense
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: of importance.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: Okay, but I have to play devil's advocate here for
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: a second. We are framing this as some high-level psychological
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: chess match. But are we absolutely sure the pizza and
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: cards were a brilliant, calculated strategy on Anzalotti's part? Or
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: was Cottingham just an aging, bored, and lonely inmate who
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: realized he could trade some vague, horrific memories for free
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: food and decent company?
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: It's a fair question.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: I mean, who was really manipulating whom in that interrogation room?
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: That is the perfect question to ask. And the uncomfortable,
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: nuanced truth is that it is a mutual manipulation. Both
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: sides are fully, acutely aware that they are being used.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: So they're both in on the joke.
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: Essentially, yes. Cottingham knows Ancelotti is only bringing him his
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: favorite pizza because he wants to extract confessions. He knows
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: Ancelotti isn't his friend. Conversely, Ancelotti knows Cottingham is only
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: stringing him along to get the food, the attention, and
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: a break from the monotony of prison life. It's a
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: completely transactional relationship built entirely on deceit and utility.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: So they're both playing their roles.
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: Exactly. But the crucial distinction lies in their end goals.
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: Cottingham's goal is entirely self-serving. It's to feed his narcissism
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: in his stomach. Enzalotti's goal is noble. It's justice for
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: families who have waited decades. The detective recognizes that achieving
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: that noble, ultimate goal justifies playing the killer's narcissistic, manipulative game.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: He's willing to get his hands dirty, so to speak.
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: Yes. Enzalotti's willingly allowing himself to be used. to sit
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: there and eat pizza with a monster if it means
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: he can finally close a file and give a family peace.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: It's a dark, symbiotic relationship. But what's incredible is that
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: through this bizarre, years-long dynamic, Cottingham doesn't just confess to
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: the what and the where of his crimes. He actually
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: starts opening up about the why. He starts explaining the
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: mechanics of his own pathology. Yes.
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: The confessions become the bridge to understanding how his mind
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: actually processed the violence. straight from the source itself.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: And that leads to some incredibly chilling insights featured in
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: the A & E documentary, The Torso Killer Confessions, which
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: is one of our key sources today. When discussing his
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: motivations with Anzalotti, Cottingham said, quote, That sentence should send
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: a profound shiver down anyone's spine. It really does. I'd
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: be on the way to work and they just happen
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: to be there. When I hear that, it strips away
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: this comforting illusion we have built up around serial killers.
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: The idea that there's always a grand plan.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: Yes. We like to think victims are always carefully stocked,
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: chosen for some specific symbolic reason, or that the killer
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: was on some grand, twisted mission. But this is just pure,
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: terrifying opportunism.
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: It shatters the myth of predictability.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: He also described his mental state during the murders in
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: a very specific way. He claimed that when he found
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: a victim, it was almost like a different person took over.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: He said he would enter an altered state that he
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: called the zone.
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: The zone.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: Now, when I hear the zone, I think of a
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: flow state in sports. You know, when a basketball player
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: hits five three-pointers in a row and they say they
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: were in the zone, everything just goes quiet and automatic.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: How does that apply to murder?
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: It's a remarkably similar neurobiological concept, but applied to the
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: most horrific violence imaginable. Dr. Ramsland categorizes Cottingham unequivocally as
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: a sexual sadist. And in this context, a sexual sadist
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: isn't just someone who enjoys causing physical pain.
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: What's the distinction?
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: It as someone whose entire psychological and physiological gratification is
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: derived from the process of trolling, capturing, inflicting pain, and
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: most importantly, completely dominating another human being. It res the
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: absolute power differential that is deeply arousing to them.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: So how does the zone facilitate that?
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: When Ramsland talks about the zone and sexual sadists, she
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: is describing a well-documented dissociative state. When the adrenaline of
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: the hunt and the attack spikes to extreme levels, their
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: brain chemistry alters significantly. These individuals can actually feel entirely
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: detached from their own physical bodies. They experience depersonalization.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: Some killers have actually described it as feeling like they
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: are floating above the room, literally watching themselves commit the crime, right?
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: Precisely. In a defense mechanism of the ego. By entering
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: this dissociative zone, they bypass whatever rudimentary moral constraints or
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: societal programming they might possess. It removes the burden of
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: agency in the moment.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: It wasn't me. It was the zone.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: Exactly. They compartmentalize the violence into this altered state, which
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: is exactly the mechanism that allows the normal suburban Richard
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: Cottingham to wake up the next day, go to his
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: computer operator job, and feel entirely disconnected from the monster
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: who was in the zone the night before. His brain
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: files the memory under a different identity.
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: I want you, listening right now, to really reflect on
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: the nature of what we just discussed. The pure, chaotic
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: opportunism of it. It is the idea that so many
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: of these victims, these women with families and futures and
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: entire lives ahead of them, were simply in the wrong
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: place at the exact wrong microsecond while a predator happened
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: to be on his morning commute.
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: Just a terrible, random collision of paths.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: They were caught in the gravitational pull of a monster
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: who just happened to be driving by and entered the zone.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: It shatters the comforting lie we tell ourselves, you know,
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: that if we just make all the right choices, if
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: we walk in well-lit areas and lock our doors, we
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: are safe.
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: It does. It underscores the terrifyingly random nature of predatory violence.
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: There is no logic to it that the victim can
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: control or anticipate.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: And piecing together the chaotic mind of a killer like
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: this isn't just the job of the detective sitting in
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: the interrogation room. It takes historians, researchers, and sociologists to
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: categorize the true scale of the horror, to zoom out
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: and see the whole map of how this was even possible.
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: Because to truly understand Cottingham, you have to move from
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: the micro-analysis of his individual psychology to the macro-analysis of
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: his place in American history. You have to look at
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: the environment that incubated him.
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: Which brings us to the work of Peter Vronsky. He's
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: the author of a fascinating book titled American Serial Killers,
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: The Epidemic Years 1950 to 2000. And Vronsky has secured
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: a level of access to Cottingham that is almost unbelievable
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: for someone who doesn't carry a badge.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: It is unprecedented access for a civilian researcher.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: Vronsky was speaking to Cottingham on a near daily basis.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: He visited him in person at the prison hospital multiple
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: times a year. And crucially, Vronsky wasn't just observing for
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: his book. He was actively assisting the police and the
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: prosecution in securing the last 11 Cottingham confessions between 2021
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: and 2025.
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: So Vronsky essentially became an extension of the Anzalotti strategy.
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: He became another player sitting at the table, offering conversation
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: and attention, keeping the game going, all to extract those
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: hidden truths from the vault.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: Let's look closely at the title of Vronsky's book because
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: it frames this entire discussion perfectly. The epidemic years, 1950
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: to 2000, Cottingham and Moreau's most prolific years are squarely
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: in the middle of this era. Why do sociologists and
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: criminologists characterize this specific half century as an epidemic?
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: If we expand on what we discussed earlier regarding 1970s
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: police work, it all clicks together into a terrifying picture.
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: The period from roughly 1950 to 2000 was, tragically, a
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: golden age for serial predators. And it was caused by
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: a massive friction between societal advancement and stagnant forensic technology.
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: Give us some historical context there.
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: Think about post-World War II America. You had the 1956
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: Federal Aid Highway Act, which created the massive interstate highway system.
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: This allowed for unparalleled human mobility. Suddenly, you have a
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: society that is highly transient. People are moving out of
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: tight-knit rural communities where everyone knows their neighbors and into
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: sprawling suburbs and anonymous urban centers.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: Right. You have the rise of motel culture, truck stops,
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: sprawling parking lots, spaces designed for anonymity.
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: Exactly. These transient spaces became perfect hunting grounds. A predator
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: could pick up a victim in one state, drive three
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: hours down the interstate, and leave the body in another
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: state entirely. But while human mobility and transportation technology were
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: advancing at light speed... The law enforcement apparatus was deeply
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: fragmented and stagnant.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: Like we were saying before, they were stuck in the
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: analog age.
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: Yes. Communication between jurisdictions was practically non-existent. A sheriff in
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: Pennsylvania had no easy way of knowing what a detective
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: in New Jersey was investigating.
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: So you have killers utilizing high-speed interstate highways, while the
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: police are still relying on carbon paper and postal mail
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: to share clues.
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Furthermore, forensic science was in its absolute infancy. DNA
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: profiling wasn't used in criminal convictions until the late 1980s,
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: and national databases took years after that to build. So
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: killers like Cottingham were able to operate so prolifically because
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: the societal infrastructure, the highways, and the anonymity facilitated their movement,
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: while the investigative technology was completely incapable of tracking their patterns.
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: That makes perfect sense.
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: It is termed an epidemic because it was a structural
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: vulnerability in society. The virus was moving far faster than
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: the cure could be developed.
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: That is a brilliant, terrifying way to describe it. They
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: were exploiting the massive gap between human mobility and forensic technology.
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: And while that gap is largely closed today with the
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: advent of cell phone tracking, ubiquitous CCTV, and rapid DNA sequencing,
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: the damage done during those analog epidemic years is still
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: being uncovered.
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: We're still cleaning up the wreckage.
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: We are. Which brings us to Vronsky's ominous final thought
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: on his work. He stated that his relationship with Cottingham
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: and the cold case investigations themselves, quote, have not yet
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: run their course.
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: Meaning a vault isn't empty yet? The game is still
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: being played?
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: Let's circle all the way back to the beginning of
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: this conversation. Cottingham is claimed into 100 victims. He has
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: confessed to 20. If even a fraction of his broader
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: undocumented claims are true, It means there are potentially dozens
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: of families out there right now living with that heavy,
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: unanswered question we asked you to imagine at the start.
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: Still waiting for the phone to ring.
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: Dozens of families still sitting at a dinner table with
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: a ghost, waiting for their Elise Eberhardt moment of closure.
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: It a sobering reality. The grinding work of Detective Anzalotti,
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: of Peter Vronsky, of all the dedicated cold case units
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: across the country. It continues every single day because the
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: violent ripples of that analog epidemic are still crashing onto
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: the shores of our present day.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: So as we wrap up this deep dive, let's reflect
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: on the ground we've covered. We've examined the terrifying psychological
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: compartmentalization of Richard Cottingham, the seemingly normal computer operator who
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: utilized the rigid logic of his day job to maintain
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: a lethal, sadistic double life by night.
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: The ultimate split-screen existence.
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: We've honored the memory of Alice Eberhardt, whose fierce, brave
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: fight for her own life frustrated a narcissistic killer, and
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: whose family finally got answers after 60 years of agonizing silence.
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: And we've seen the incredible, unorthodox dedication of investigators who
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: recognize that sometimes, to catch a monster, you have to
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: be willing to sit down, share a pizza, and play
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: their twisted game.
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: It is a profound testament to the fact that justice,
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: while sometimes agonizingly, unfairly slow, can still be relentlessly pursued
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: if you possess enough patience.
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: I want you to really think about those families today,
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: the ones who have lived entire lifetimes without knowing what
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: happened to their sister, their daughter, their mother. Think about
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: the profound, world-altering weight of a simple truth finally coming
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: to light, a truth that was buried under decades of
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: arrogance finally dug up.
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: And as you think about that era, the epidemic years
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: from 1950 to 2000, where apex predators exploited the vast,
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: unconnected analog world, I want to leave you with this
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: thought to ponder. We live in the digital age now.
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: The gap between mobility and forensics has closed. Our physical
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: locations are constantly tracked by the phones in our pockets.
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: Our faces are captured on doorbell cameras on every suburban street.
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: But at the exact same time, our true identities can
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: be endlessly masked, spoofed, and hidden behind screens. The analog
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: shadows of the highway rest stops are gone, but vast,
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: anonymous digital shadows have replaced them. So how has this
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: new reality changed the way modern chameleons hunt? Are the
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: apex predators of the epidemic years truly gone, or have
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: they just evolved to hide in a completely different kind
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: of plain sight?
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: That is a thought that is going to keep me
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: up tonight. Thank you so much for joining us on
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: this journey today. Keep questioning the world around you, keep
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: digging for the truth, and we will see you on
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: the next Deep Drive.