♪
Richard Cottingham is a control freak,
and a master manipulator.
Since 1980, he's been in jail...
And, every aspect of his life is out of his control
except for what comes out of his mouth.
He wanted to control everything.
He wanted to control the narrative of
how he talked about these murders.
And, of course, you know, that leant itself to
how he committed these murders.
♪
[Cottingham clearing his throat]
These murders were all about that sexual sadist
that was controlling these women, these young girls.
[Detective] Want some more food?
[James] And, he would torture them,
he would control them, and ultimately kill them.
Richard always refused to tell me
when his first homicide occurred.
He never wanted me to know that timeline of
when he started to kill.
[Phone vibrating]
When it comes to interview and interrogation techniques,
you know, when it came down to
someone like Richard Cottingham,
the rules like kind of all went out the window.
Bringing him in and reading the Miranda Rights,
and using investigative techniques that
people have used forever
was clearly not gonna work with him.
Had I thought he was only responsible for one homicide,
ordinarily, I would go after the killer
about every facet of the crime.
In his instance, I felt like that would backfire...
on our long term relationship that
I was trying to cultivate.
We would need to take a different approach with him.
Kind of go off the cuff a little bit.
I think every killer has their own...
kind of moral code that they don't want to get past.
And in his particular...
case...
I think he long buried how brutal he was to women,
in the recesses of his mind,
and he constantly...
downplayed what he did to them.
You know, we all had children.
We had young girls that were
the same age as some of his victims.
And, you know, that makes you sick,
you know, it really...
can make you angry at him and,
you want to just shut the door and you want to
walk out, but the truth of the matter is,
is that we were doing this for a greater good.
So, however much that he would disgust us,
we would go back and continue and
just keep that dialogue going.
You can tell he enjoyed this.
He enjoyed the...
the control over these women.
He also liked the fact that the police
weren't able to catch him.
Following a girl into Sears in Hackensack,
you know, meeting girls on the roadside.
The problem was that with young girls
back in these days...
they were a little bit easier to
engage in conversation than now.
They would be hitchhiking.
They weren't as acutely aware as
what was really out there, as is now.
But he- make no mistake about it-
Richard loved what he was doing.
There is not a chance in hell that Richard Cottingham is
going to come to some epiphany and say,
"I may die soon, so let me cleanse my soul."
It's never going to happen.
The only time Richard confesses is when
there's something in it for Richard.
So, I don't think we're ever going to
learn of all of his crimes...
from his mouth, anyway.
♪