Sadistic Killers: Profiles of Pathological Predators (21 page)

Cummings’ sadism towards his wives also increased. He tied Sherry to the bed and punched her repeatedly in the ribs whilst having sex with her. On other occasions he would handcuff Anita and pinch her nipples until she screamed. He also bought a stun gun and used it on them, once applying it to Anita’s genitals and causing serious burns.

Cruelty to animals

Jesse Cummings had enjoyed hurting animals when he was a teenager, but now his cruelty reached new depths and he began to capture heavily pregnant dogs and cut them open to remove the puppies. Sherry and Anita held the struggling animals down. Most died from shock and subsequent infection, and those which lived were hugely traumatised. He also enjoyed tying up nearby woodland ponies so that they couldn’t bend their necks to graze and slowly starved to death.

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Paedophilia

Jesse’s parents had had several children with other people, and Jesse kept in touch with one of his half-sisters, Judy Moody.

He often taunted her about the fact that she weighed 26 stone.

Judy’s eight children had been taken into care by social services because they were being sexually and physically abused by their father, but Judy had moved to Arkansas then given birth to a ninth baby, Melissa. The latter had been spared from molestation because her father had contracted TB and died.

Melissa was now 11 years old, and, to a psychopath like Jesse Cummings she was infinitely desirable. It’s likely that he began to molest her as she kept telling her best friend and her mother that she didn’t want to be left at Jesse’s house. She also complained of stomach pains – one of the many symptoms of child abuse – every time she had to go to her uncle Jesse’s. But Judy found him a convenient babysitter and said that Melissa had to go.

Judy’s murder

Jesse wanted Judy permanently out of the way so that he could enjoy Melissa – and he may also have wanted to see how much control he could exert over his remaining two wives. As a test, he allegedly told Sherry to kill Judy but the shocked woman refused. So he allegedly asked Anita, then left the house at 7

a.m. to drive his father all the way to Oklahoma City where the older man was seeing an oncologist.

Later that day – 16 October 1991 – Anita fetched the family gun and crept up behind Judy as she sat on the settee in Jesse’s house, shooting her until there were no more bullets left in the .38.

She told Sherry what she’d done, and the two women dragged Judy’s corpse to the cellar. That evening Sherry spoke to Jesse on the phone and he told her he’d be home soon and 175

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to handcuff 11-year-old Melissa to the bed. Appallingly, the woman did so. Later, Anita glanced into the bedroom and saw the child handcuffed, but did nothing to help her escape.

Jesse came home and disposed of his half-sister’s body in a nearby lake, pulling her bra and underwear off so that it would look as though she’d been sexually assaulted. When he returned to the house, Anita and Sherry stripped Melissa and watched as he raped the child and ordered her to give him a blow job, an order she didn’t understand.

Jesse and Sherry then drove the sobbing child to the woods north of Boswell. Exactly what happened next may never be known. Sherry later claimed that she remained in the car and that Jesse led the trembling girl into the woods where he raped her, knifed her several times in the body and slit her throat.

Jesse’s later take on events was that Sherry and Anita had murdered Melissa whilst he was still in Oklahoma City with his father.

The following day one of Judy’s friends asked where she was and Jesse said that he didn’t know and reported her and Melissa missing. When her body and Melissa’s skeleton were eventually found, the police strongly suspected him as he and his father had once being arrested on suspicion of murder, the case eventually being dropped due to lack of evidence.

Meanwhile, according to Anita, he liked handcuffing her to the bed and telling her what he’d done to Melissa, allegedly climaxing when he talked about slitting the 11-year-old’s throat.

Further victims

Horrifyingly, Anita allowed herself to get pregnant by her sadistic husband and in July 1993 she gave birth to a baby girl.

By now her son was so traumatised by the cruelty he’d suffered that he wet the bed, had an increasingly blank expression and had been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder. Yet social 176

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services failed to remove the child, and the new baby, from this dangerous environment.

Jesse Cummings was being given the message by the authorities that he could do what he liked and get away with it.

In autumn 1993 he spanked and fingered a three-year-old girl

– a distant relative – leaving her hurt and bewildered. On one occasion Sherry walked in on him molesting the naked child in the barn, but her response was to warn the child not to tell anyone.

Self-defence

Eventually, Anita began to crack up and she feared that her husband was about to kill her. Only then did she alert the authorities that he’d killed Melissa three years before, admitting that she feared he’d kill her children that very day if she didn’t get them out of the house. In telling her story she had to admit to Judy’s homicide and was immediately arrested. Sherry was also arrested as she’d helped move Judy’s body, covered up her murder and handcuffed Melissa to the bed for her husband to sexually assault her. She’d also gone on that last car journey with the child, knowing that Melissa wasn’t going to return.

Dividing the blame

The authorities now took Jesse Cummings into custody, where he passed the part of the polygraph test where he was asked if he’d killed Judy. But he failed it when asked if he had
caused
her death. He also failed, according to the police, when he said he hadn’t killed Melissa. Somewhat surprisingly, he was charged with his half-sister’s murder as well as that of her child.

Meanwhile, Sherry was given 35 years for her part in the various atrocities and Anita was given life. Women’s groups immediately said that the sentences should have been more lenient – but an innocent woman and an 11-year-old child had 177

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died because of their failure to act appropriately and they’d also done nothing when a three-year-old girl was sexually abused.

Both said that Jesse Cummings constantly threatened their children – but on the day that Anita killed Judy and Sherry handcuffed Melissa to the bed, he was in another state. They could have taken their children from the house just after 7

a.m. and been many miles away by the time he returned at midnight, an escape window of 17 hours. Child Protection Services, already deeply concerned at the physical abuse the youngsters were subjected to, would have helped, as would have battered women’s groups, the court heard.

Trial

Jesse James Cummings’ trial began on 6 May 1996 in Coalgate, Oklahoma. Sherry testified to hearing Judy being shot and to helping dispose of her body. She also talked about Melissa’s rape and the final car journey which had culminated in her death.

Anita took the stand and talked of her lifelong abuse at Jesse Cummings’ hands, but the defence produced a love letter she’d written to her husband shortly after their marriage which expressed her devotion to him.

The prosecution noted that Anita could have left Jesse if she hated everything that he did – she had parents she could have returned to. Or why didn’t she shoot Jesse rather than Judy if she felt that her only option was to take a life? They also noted that Jesse must have ordered Judy’s murder. After all, he beat his wives for tiny so-called misdemeanours so would surely have battered them mercilessly if they’d killed his half-sister of their own volition.

Sherry’s teenage sister Sarah also took the stand and recounted being raped by Jesse Cummings when she was only 14 whilst Sherry watched.

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Jesse Cummings

Cummings’ minister testified in his defence and said that he’d never seen Jesse hit his children. The minister said that Jesse was worth saving, but, when questioned further, he admitted believing that
everyone
was worth saving.

On 9 May, after several hours of deliberation, the jury returned two death sentences. Cummings blanched. He paled further when the judge told him that he was to die by lethal injection, though the effects of this drug cocktail are much less painful than the tortures he put his many human and animal victims through.

Appeals

Jesse Cummings continued to appeal and in 1998 his conviction and death sentence for the murder of his half-sister Judy (who Anita shot dead) was overturned. Anita turned to religion and started studying theology in prison and Sherry took a general certificate in education.

Death Row

Jesse Cummings is currently on Death Row at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary for the murder of his niece Melissa Moody.

There, he continues to protest his innocence, stating that he was convicted solely on the uncorroborated evidence of two of his wives. He states on a website dedicated to Death Row inmates that ‘There is biological evidence in my case that could be tested for DNA and yet no one will test it or allow it to be tested.’

It’s a case where there are many shades of grey. On the one hand, Cummings wanted to be like Charles Manson – and Manson didn’t commit a single murder, getting his girlfriends to do it. So Jesse persuaded Anita to kill Judy, but did he persuade someone else to murder Melissa? Both wives said that he’d raped the child twice but when she was found her body was 179

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skeletonised and all that could be determined was that she’d been stabbed in the ribs. On the other hand, Cummings had an insatiable appetite for sexual cruelty – and, according to the authorities, his polygraph suggested that he’d played a part in Melissa’s death.

His incarceration assures that he will no longer be a danger to women, children and animals. His offspring have all been taken into care or fostered, but Anita’s son, who he abused relentlessly, remains deeply distraught.

This sexual sadist now has a web page, courtesy of the Canadian Coalition Against The Death Penalty, on which he protests his innocence. He is currently held in an Oklahoma jail.

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CHAPTER THIRTEEN

RICHARD FRANCIS

COTTINGHAM

Cottingham abused several teenage girls before
committing five horrific murders in the late 1970s
and in 1980. Because two of his dismembered victims
were found near Times Square, he became known
as the Times Square Torso Ripper but he was much
more sustainedly cruel than Jack the Ripper or the
Yorkshire Ripper ever were.

Formative years

Richard was born on 25 November 1946 to Anna and William Cottingham. His father was an executive in an insurance firm, his mother a housewife. The couple also had two daughters and the family lived in the Bronx. Very little is known about the family – Richard Cottingham’s biographer would later describe William Cottingham as ‘a quiet almost brooding career man’

and Anna as ‘taciturn’ and ‘prim’. But young Richard spent most of his time in her company as he found it difficult to make friends.

He was desperately shy, a shyness which increased when he was sent to a school run by nuns who were strict disciplinarians.

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He soon began to fantasise about hurting girls and would later admit that he’d ‘always had a problem with women’.

Because the school was a long journey from his home, he couldn’t play with the other schoolchildren after class so had endless hours to hone his cruel fantasies.

Richard had such poor eyesight that he had to wear glasses from the age of nine. He hated his glasses, hated his name and was generally seen as a slightly unhappy underachiever by his contemporaries.

Work

The boy with the bad eyesight and equally bad haircut left school at the earliest opportunity, uncertain what he wanted to do next. But his father found him a job in an insurance firm and he took courses to become a computer operator, a job which he was more than competent at. In 1966 he transferred to another firm which offered slightly more money: he would stay there for the next 13 years.

Originally he worked during the day, but he proved to be such a valuable employee that he was given the option of three shifts to choose from. He chose the shift which ended at 11pm, knowing he could go on to the bars and clubs and pick up women for casual sex before going home.

Endangering lives

His religion had taught him that sex outside of marriage was wrong, yet he craved release and excitement. The dichotomy apparently took its toll and, shortly before his twenty-third birthday, he got behind the wheel of his car whilst heavily inebriated. Driving through Manhattan he mounted the pavement, narrowly missing several pedestrians. The police hastily arrested him but, because he had no previous criminal record, he was merely given a ten day jail sentence and a $50 fine.

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Richard Cottingham

Marriage and masturbatory aids

On 2 May 1970, he married his quiet girlfriend Janet at Our Lady of Lourdes Church in New York. At first he was able to satisfy himself with vanilla sex, but his main sex drive was focused on sadomasochism and obviously that urge would never go away. Richard now did what most recreational sadists do and built himself a vast library of domination and bondage novels. His wife seems to have been aware of his interest, yet he kept his books in a locked room to which only he had the key.