From the football field to the courtroom, determination and perseverance
were what Richard A. Cotter believed was all that was needed to succeed.
"That was just kind of his way of looking at things," said his younger
brother Michael Cotter. "If you keep it up, you will prevail."
On Thursday, 73-year-old Cotter, a retired Austin attorney, and longtime
friend Mary F. McIntyre, 68, of Baltimore, Md., died from what investigators
are calling "homicidal violence." Firefighters found the bodies of the two
while fighting a fire investigators believe was set to cover up evidence
of the homicide. The fire destroyed the two-story house Cotter owned
southwest of Austin.
Richard and Michael Cotter grew up with six older sisters. Michael Cotter
said he and his brother worked and played together on the Mower County farm
that has been in their Irish-American family for 125 years. "He was my hero,"
Michael Cotter said of his brother, who was 3 1/2 years older. Michael
Cotter, who lives in Austin, is a storyteller who performs at local and
national festivals.
After graduating from high school, Cotter attended the University of
Notre Dame on a football scholarship. Michael Cotter said since his brother
hadn't come from a school with a good football reputation, he felt he had
to work harder to prove himself.
Rep. Rob Leighton, who is Cotter's godson, described him as a modest man
who rarely talked of his accomplishments, including being captain of Notre
Dame's championship football team. "It was like pulling teeth to get him to
tell stories," Leighton said. "That was part of his charm."
Michael Cotter's son, Tom, said he thinks some of his uncle's athletic
prowess came from years of hard work as a boy on the farm, getting up at
4 a.m. and doing chores before running a mile and a half to catch the bus
to school.
On Friday, Tom Cotter said firefighters helped him salvage some
photographs, newspaper clippings and other memorabilia from the basement,
including a copy of Life magazine featuring Cotter's photo after a Notre
Dame-Purdue football game when Cotter had been a team captain for the
Fighting Irish.
After Cotter graduated from law school, he formed a law firm in Austin
with the late Robert Leighton Sr. and Terry Meany.
On Thursday, law firm partner Terry Meany said he, Cotter, and the elder
Leighton all attended school together, starting in first grade. Leighton said
Cotter loved his family and had 10 children. Michael Cotter said although
his brother and his former sister-in-law, Beverly Cotter, had divorced about
a decade ago, they still cared about each other. Michael Cotter said his
brother met McIntyre around the time Cotter had entered the Air Force.
Although they dated, Michael Cotter said the two lost touch for several
decades until one of McIntyre's relatives helped her locate him using the
Internet a few years ago and renewed their friendship. "She was a beautiful
woman," Michael Cotter said.
McIntyre, who recently retired from the Jesuit Seminary and Mission Board
in Baltimore, never married and took care of her brother Robert, who is
disabled.
Kevin O'Brien, director of the Ignatian Apostolic Partnerships Office of
the Maryland Province of the Society of Jesuits, said his former development
assistant was a wonderful woman who loved Irish music and enjoyed working
for the church. O'Brien described McIntyre as having a "youngness of spirit,
a lot of energy and a fire in her eye." "She talked a lot about Dick,"
O'Brien said. "She was looking forward to retiring to spend more time with
him."
O'Brien said workers were talking about the irony of McIntyre leaving a
city known for its murders only to be murdered in rural Minnesota.
Although the horrible realization was just setting in Friday night, that
his brother had been killed, Michael Cotter said he knew that if there had
been a way for his brother to escape the burning home, he would have. As
young boys, both escaped a fire that burned their home, only to go back
into the house to reclaim family possessions. "This twist is a blow,"
Michael Cotter said, adding that he cannot imagine anyone who would want
to hurt his brother or McIntyre.
"If someone killed him, that's different. I don't know how one heals,"
Michael Cotter said, adding that he isn't certain he wants to know who did
it. He said hoped some of his brother's perseverance and determination have
rubbed off on him. "I'd like to think there's some of that in me too," he
said.