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Crime Scene: The Times Square Killer is Netflix's latest crime documentary, which is a part of the anthology series directed by Joe Berlinger. The three-part series explores murders by the Times Square killer in the 1970s and 1980s in great detail, with dramatization of certain scenes in Netflix's signature style.
The backstory of the killer is only scarcely explored apart from the vivid depiction of the city in the 70s, roaring with sex, perversion and the Times Square killer, Richard Cottingham, who claims to have a victim count in the hundreds.
What does 'Crime Scene: The Times Square Killer' explore?
The show paints a vivid picture of the murders committed by Richard Cottingham while depicting the perverse environment of the city that normalized ownership of the female form. Beginning as a scopohophilic pleasure, this obsession with s*x goes too far for the crowned jewel of New York, the Times Square.
The documentary explores the Times Square killer's environment, which they classified as "the perfect hunting ground." It is made abundantly clear that this serial killer, unlike most known in the history of this business, was not from a difficult background, had no history of abuse as a child, had perfectly normal parents and hardly showed any signs of delinquency.
The show's take on crime almost entirely blames it on the city in an overly dramatic fashion. It is not a lie, but every killer is motivated by something. This is revealed way too late in the third section for a full fledged impact.
The drive for control and the psychology of evil
Richard Cottingham had kept quiet after being found guilty of several charges accumulating to multiple life sentences. It was only much later that he confessed for the first time in front of a journalist. He even claimed that he had committed over 80 perfect murders which no one had linked him to.
Providing context as to why he did it, the Times Square killer simply said that it was a game for him. His psycho-sexually deviant behavior is very evident from his response. His perverseness, as indicated by the lens of Joe Berlinger, may be due to the environment of fast and easy s*x and the concept of ownership of the female form in the city's main hub.
What the audience takes away from this is the role of the city as a sort of a catalyst in the creation of the perverseness that eventually resulted in the Times Square killer. Although the show's take on crime almost entirely blames it on the city, the reasons exclusive to Cottingham are revealed much later.
Cottingham's killings were simply to protect his identity and he assaulted for the sadomasochist pleasure it provided him. His varying killing methods are also explained, and the killer only decapitated bodies to hinder the identification process.
The takeaway, as one of the interviewees suggested, was that such a perverse and deranged environment results in the growth of deranged mentalities like that of Richard Cottingham.
One of the strongest traits of such mentality is the ability to falsely rationalize, to strip the humanity off another and treat them like a prop. His killing method and rationality may differ a little, but the takeaway is that he is still a product of the environment he grew up in.
