On December 2, 1979, New York City firemen responded to an alarm at a seedy hotel on West 42nd Street, not far from Times Square. They fought their way through smoky corridors to quench a blaze inside one room, discovering two women's bodies there. Stretched out on separate beds, the headless corpses also had their hands removed, legs doused with lighter fluid and set on fire. The missing parts were never found, but X-rays identified one victim as 22-year-old Deedeh Goodarzi, a Kuwaiti immigrant who earned her living as a prostitute. Goodarzi's young companion in death was never identified. The crime reminded homicide detectives of another unsolved case. Teenage hooker Helen Sikes had disappeared from Times Square in January, turning up in Queens, her throat slashed so deeply that she was nearly decapitated. Her severed legs were found a block away, laid side-by-side in ritual fashion, as if still attached to the body.

In May 1981, Cottingham was convicted on fifteen felony counts related to the murder of Jane Doe, drawing a sentence of 173 to 197 years in prison. A year later, conviction on second-degree murder charges in the death of Maryann Carr added another sentence of 20 years to life. In 1984, convicted on three counts of second-degree murder, involving Times Square prostitutes, Cottingham earned a final sentence of 75 years to life.