‘Torso Killer’ pleads guilty in 1974 cold-case murders

The episode details the 2021 guilty plea of Richard Francis Cottingham, a notorious serial killer known as the “Torso Killer,” for the 1974 murders of two teenage girls in New Jersey. After nearly five decades, Cottingham admitted to the kidnapping, assault, and drowning of Mary Ann Pryor and Lorraine Marie Kelly, resolving one of the state's most enduring cold cases. This breakthrough was the result of seventeen years of psychological maneuvering and persistent interviewing by Detective Robert Anzilotti, who secured the confession just before his retirement. While Cottingham was already serving multiple life sentences for other gruesome crimes, this legal resolution offered long...