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The Horrifying Crimes of Tony Costa - The Cape Cod Killer · Murder Files Unsealed

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to another deep dive. This one takes us to
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  nineteen sixties Cape Cod Beach's artists, that laid back vibe.
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  You picture it and then bam, A shadow falls, actually
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  multiple shadows, because we're talking Tony Costa, seemingly average guy
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  turns out to be anything. But we've got the research
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  right here in this case, man, it still has people talking.
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  Speaker 2: It's that juxtaposition, you know, paradise found but darkness, it
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  finds a way. Costa's crimes weren't just violent. They chipped
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  away at that image of Cape Pod as this crank
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  will escape. You know, I think is really interesting how
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  this case, along with a few others from that time,
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  it really fueled the public's fascination with true crime. Like
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  suddenly everyone realized evil could be lurking next door and
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  they couldn't get enough of trying to understand it.
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  Speaker 1: It's like that saying, we all wear masks, but in
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  Costa's case, the mask hid something truly monstrous. So who
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  was he before the murders. We've got accounts describing him
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  as this spoiled boy, someone used to getting his way.
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  Does that kind of upbringing, that lack of consequences, does
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  that plan in this kind of trajectory, it's.
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  Speaker 2: A question criminologists are always grappling with. You see these patterns,
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  troubled childhood, the escalating violence with Costa. There's this chilling
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  detail about him claiming to see his dead father's ghost
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  as a kid. Was it a genuine paranormal experience or
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  a sign of a mind, you know, already prone to darkness.
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  It adds a whole other layer to the story.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, now that's just creepy, like a horror movie. You know,
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  you just know something bad is coming, and it gets worse.
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  By sixteen, he's breaking into homes. One instant, he's found
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  hovering over a teenage girl as she slept. Thankfully she
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  woke up and screamed, but still the neighbors had to
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  physically intervene. Yeah, this wasn't just petty theft. This was
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  heading into predatory territory exactly.
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  Speaker 2: And this is where that spoiled boy narrative becomes even
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  more significant, like a sense of entitlement, a belief that
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  rules didn't apply to him, like he was operating on
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  a different moral plane, you know, one where his desires,
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  no matter how twisted, were the most important thing.
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  Speaker 1: And Here's where it gets really unsettling. Costa wasn't some
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  reck loose hiding in the shadows. He was part of
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  the community known by many, even rubbing shoulders with notable
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  figures like John Waters, the filmmaker talk about you never
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  know who your neighbors are.
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  Speaker 2: Precisely, Waters described Costa as this spoiled little boy who
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  never faced consequences for his actions. And what's striking is
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  that others who knew him, even just in passing, they
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  say the same thing, almost like there was this collective
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  awareness of his unsettling nature, yet no one grasped the
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  full extent of the danger he posed. Maybe it was
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  easier to dismiss the red flags, to believe that such
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  darkness couldn't possibly exist right there in their backyard.
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  Speaker 1: Like a community blind spot. Right, They saw the mask,
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  not the monster underneath. Get this. He was even bold
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  enough to invite Edith Kurvana, Get's daughter to see his
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  marijuana patch. The audacity, the daughter of a literary icon
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  caught up in this web that would soon unravel in
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  the most horrific way.
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  Speaker 2: And that's the thing about cases like Costa's. They force
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  us to confront this uncomfortable reality that evil doesn't always
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  announce itself with a sinister grin and a menacing laugh.
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  Sometimes it hides in plain sight, disguised as normalcy, blending
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  into the background until it's too late, which.
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  Speaker 1: Leads us to the question at the heart of this
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  deep dive. How did this seemingly ordinary life on Cape
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  Cod's spiral into something so dark? To understand that we
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  need to unpack the details of the crimes themselves.
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  Speaker 2: It all starts, you know, almost ordinary really, with an
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  abandoned Volkswagen on a dirt road in Truro.
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  Speaker 1: You'd think an abandoned car in Cape Cod wouldn't be
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  that unusual, like someone just wandered off enjoying the scenery
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  forgot where they parked, right.
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  Speaker 2: You'd think so, And that's probably why the police didn't
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  think much of it at first. But this car, it
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  becomes this haunting foreshadowing of what's to come. Just a
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  few months later, the bodies of four young women are
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  found buried nearby. Patricia Walsh, Mary Ann Wisaki, Susan Perry
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  and Sidney mons On, all victims in this idyllic summer
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  getaway turned horrific killing ground.
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  Speaker 1: And this is where the case takes that truly gruesome
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  turn fucking mutilation details. It suggests Costa might have even
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  been engaging in necrophilia. It's one thing to take a life,
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  but this goes way beyond rage.
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely, the brutality points is something much darker going on psychologically.
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  Necrophilia especially suggests a real deep detachment from the reality
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  of death, almost like this need to exert control even
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  in the face of it. It's a chilling thought, but
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  important if we're trying to understand the mind behind these acts.
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  Speaker 1: It's like the difference between someone who commits a crime
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  of passion and someone who meticulously plans it out, finding
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  ways to prolong the horror. So with these horrifying discoveries,
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  how do the police finally connect the docs back to Costa.
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  Speaker 2: Remember that detail about his marijuana patch, the one he
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  showed off to Edith Vonnegut. Well turns out that patch
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  was at the very same site where the bodies were found.
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  That bit of bravado, that arrogance of thinking he could
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  get away with it, it ultimately becomes his undoing Wow.
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  Speaker 1: So the very thing he probably thought made him blend in,
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  maybe even seem cool or edgy, becomes his downfall. Talk
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  about iron.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a classic example of how even the most
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  meticulous criminal can overlook the smallest detail, especially when that
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  detail is tied to their own worked sense of ego.
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  But it wasn't just the marijuana. Remember that abandoned Volkswagen.
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  Witnesses place Costa driving it, and there's even a record
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  of him asking about getting it repainted. He was trying
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  to cover his tracks, but the pieces were already falling
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  into place.
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  Speaker 1: So the net closes in the car, the marijuana, the murders,
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  All these seemingly unconnected threads weave a pretty damning tapestry.
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  Did he ever confess when they caught him?
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  Speaker 2: He did go to trial, but even then, that arrogance,
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  that lack of remorse, we talked about it never went away.
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  He was only convicted for two of the murders, but
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  at his sentencing he utters these chilling words, keep digging.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, now that sends chills down my spot. Keep digging.
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  Speaker 2: It's like he wanted people to know there was more
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  to the story, more darkness he'd buried. What do you
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  make of those words? It's a question that's haunted this
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  case for decades. Was it a taunt? A confession, try
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  to exert control even from behind bars. We'll never know
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  for sure, because Costo took his secrets to the grave,
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  died by suicide in his cell in nineteen seventy four.
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  The impact on Kitkod, on that community that thought of
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  itself as a haven that was undeniable.
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  Speaker 1: It's like this wound that never quite heals, you know,
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  even if the beauty of the place remains, there's this
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  knowledge that something awful happened there, that it could maybe
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  even happen again. How does a community even begin to
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  process that.
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  Speaker 2: It's a kind of collective trauma. You have the very
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  real fear for their own safety, but also this shattering
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  of this auction keep cad. For so many it represented
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  this kind of innocence and escape from the real world,
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  you know, and Cossa's crimes just rip that all away,
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  force everyone to confront the fact that evil, well, it
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  doesn't always respect boundaries.
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  Speaker 1: And then there's that phrase keep digging, like he wanted
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  to make sure the fear never really went away, even
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  after he was gone.
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  Speaker 2: It speaks to a level of premeditation, this need to
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  control the narrative even in death. It's really disturbing. Some
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  might see it as a taunt, others as a confession,
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  but we'll never know for sure because Costa took his
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  secrets to the grave, which almost.
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  Speaker 1: Makes it worse right, the not knowing, the possibility that
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  there are more stories out there, buried deeper than anyone.
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  Speaker 2: Dear to dig It reminds us that sometimes real life
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  is stranger and a lot more unsettling than fiction. We
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  want order, we want answers, but sometimes the most unsettling
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  truths are the ones that stay buried in mystery.
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  Speaker 1: So where do we go from here? If we're looking
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  for takeaways for lessons learned from this deep dive into darkness,
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  what should we be carrying with us?
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  Speaker 2: I think Costa's case is a stark reminder that evil
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  often hides behind an ordinary face. It reminds us to
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  trust our gut, to pay attention to those red flags
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  that we sometimes just brush off. We can't live in fear,
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  but we can be vigilant, we can be aware, and
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  maybe most importantly, we have to be willing to acknowledge
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  that darkness well, it can find its way into even
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  the most beautiful corners of the world.
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  Speaker 1: It's a sobering thought, but an important one, because sometimes
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  the most beautiful places hide the darkest secrets, and that's
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  something to think about long after this deep dive is over.