Times Square, one of the biggest tourist attractions of the United States, was not always bustling with tourists and shining blinding lights. From 1979 to 1980, it was the playground of a sadistic killer. Times New Square was a flourishing sex market, especially 42nd Street. In Joe Berlinger's latest installment of Crime Scene, the killer we meet is Richard Cottingham. He targeted prostitutes and mercilessly murdered them. The major part of this 3-part documentary fleets back and forth from the old Times Square and what we see now. There is a voice-over about how time has changed Times Square and what is Times Square gave birth to this sadistic killer. The series begins when the NYPD answers a call for a fire in a burning hotel. They find corpses of two women in the room. Beheaded, with limbs cut and body so charred that there is no way of obtaining any DNA. With no clues, evidence to lead them anywhere, the police department is stumped. During the time, Times Square was a bustling center for everything sex. Prostitutes, movie theatres running explicit movies all the time, the porn industry flourishing, everything played an important role in molding the mindset of Cottingham. As his perversion intensifies, the number of dead bodies piles up. In a pre-DNA era, the NYPD is left clucking like headless ducks. But soon they hit jackpot and somehow nab the victim. The interviews, reenactments from investigating officers, police departments, relatives of the victims, as close as even daughters of the victim, Crime Scene is harrowing and troubling. The third and last episode of the documentary is the confession. The way his mind worked, and the police finding that there are more than they discovered, disgusts you right to the core. Which is nothing new for those of us who regularly watch this genre. But due to the lack of back-story about Cottingham, a lot of the portion of the series is jumping between timelines and somehow it seems the plot has been lost and digressed. But if you have too much of the sweetness surrounding Christmas and want to sink your teeth in some true-crime docu-series, put this one on your watchlist for the weekend. By SB
