Killer in the Crypt

This is the Grimm's 50th episode and , whether you've been here since the first haunting or just crossed the gate , thank you for joining me among the headstones and histories buried beneath them . But today we're leaving the well-trodden path behind . We're stepping into Pine Grove Cemetery , a quiet patch of Cape Cod earth with stories far louder than they seem .

And that , dear listeners , is why you're really here . I have a soft spot for cemeteries like Pine Grove . They're modest , overlooked , quiet places , tucked away from tourist brochures and weekend hikers . But don't let its size fool you . These grounds are steeped in murder , mystery and legend .

Locals might argue Pinegrove's name carries more weight than I give it credit for , but for most , I'd wager , you haven't heard of it until now . Located in Tororo , massachusetts , a town we've brushed past before , on the Grimm , the seaside , cape Cod Sanctuary might seem like the furthest thing from Grimm Sun-soaked beaches , family vacations .

But dig a little deeper and the shadows are waiting . Established in 1799 , pine Grove began as a burial ground besides Tororo's Methodist Church , which has long

since vanished . Today , it spans two acres enclosed by granite posts and iron rails that feel more symbolic than secure neither keeping visitors out or anything else in Surrounded by forests , in the distant home of the sea , a gravel path splits the cemetery from east to west , a reminder that you're no longer on the beaten path .

Burials began here in 1799 and continue to this day , and while the cemetery was only just added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2013 , don't be deceived by its late recognition . This place is layered in time , from weathered Puritan slate to polished modern granite .

The gravestones here form an eclectic gallery of funeral art , each marker a quiet monument to lives lived , secrets kept and stories waiting to be unearthed . Truro is a town steeped in seafaring history , but , as any coastal community knows , such a legacy comes with a price .

In 1841 , a fierce gale claimed seven vessels and 57 men , delivering a devastating blow to the heart of the town . Truro would recover , as coastal towns do , but just a few years later the sea came to collect again .

The story of the commerce is a strange and sorrowful one because , unlike other maritime tragedies , the ship did return to the harbor , but her crew did not . There were no dramatic disappearances over the horizon , no vessels . Swallowed whole by a storm , the Comras drifted , sat silent , abandoned and bearing no answers .

Of her ten crew members , eight were born in Truro . Seven now rest within the bounds of Pine Grove Cemetery . What happened in those final hours remains one of the Cape's most enduring mysteries . The ship came home . Her men did not . The commerce was no stranger to the waters off of Truro .

Commanded by the well-regarded Solomon Hopkins Lombard , the vessel had long been a part of the town's coastal lifeblood , sharing both its prosperity and its perils . But a year before its final fateful voyage , the Comras found itself entangled in international suspicion .

The ship was seized by Her Majesty's Revenue Cotter's sisters at Port Hood , cape Breton , under suspicion of violating a treaty between the United States and Great Britain . The crew was detained for three tense weeks . They remained in custody until it was determined that the commerce had entered the harbor in distress , having lost both a dory and a sail .

Only then did Halifax authorities release the vessel . The ship returned home from Arachat , weathered but intact . Then came that quiet Sunday in September 1844 , the kind of day where the Atlantic takes on a deeper hue and the golden rod along the cape glows like fire . Captain Lobbard , 29 at the time , prepared his crew launching the longboat to come ashore .

Eight of the ten crew members aboard the commerce were sons of Truro . So when the ship was spotted floating in the bay that Sunday , townsfolk assumed the men had returned safely from sea . But by Monday morning unease crept in . None of the crew had appeared at Sunday service , a ritual they rarely missed after a voyage Concert .

Friends and family rode out to meet the vessel . What they found was chilling . The commerce was properly secured , sails flared and gears stowed , but the deck was empty . No signs of struggle , no cries for help . The crew had vanished . It was a ghost ship . Over the next three weeks the sea gave up the dead , one by one .

The bodies of all ten men washed ashore along a 30-mile stretch of coastline . Each had drowned . But here's what haunts the town to this day . The waters on that day were calm , serene even . How could ten experienced fishermen , strong swimmers even , have drowned in a longboat so close to shore ?

The commerce's longboat was later discovered on a beach in Brewster , one of its planks torn loose .

Had it taken on water , capsized or something else ? Something darker driven the crew into panic and peril . Newspapers across New England carried the story under solemn headlines . Another melancholy loss of life of Toruro fishermen , the lost crew , the lake disaster at Toruro . What really happened that quiet September day remains a mystery .

What really happened that quiet September day remains a mystery . Only the sea and the men it claimed will ever truly know . Sadly , time has not been kind to the many headstones . In Pine Grove , the marker for Captain Solomon H Lombard now lies shattered .

His brother's stone , james H Lombard , rests in fragments , propped against the headstone of Reverend Benjamin Keith and his wife , deliverance Atwood . According to the old cemetery map , this spot is known as the parish lot , just off of Central Drive .

Reverend Keith , a circuit minister from Vermont , played a vital role in bringing Methodism to Truro , settling as pasture in 1831 . Nine years later his daughter , amanda , married James H Lombard . Their names now rest side by side in broken stone and if the light hits James' headstone , just right , you can still make out the words drowned . In Cape Cod Bay .

Nearby , the headstones of Solomon P Rich and his son Charles , father and child lost together , stand in quiet testament to how the sea's reach extended beyond the shoreline , cutting deep into families and leaving generations marked by grief . Years after the loss of commerce , pine Grove made headlines once again . But this time the tragedy didn't come from the sea .

It came from something far more human , something far more

horrifying . Many cemeteries , unsettled visitors , instilling that eerie sense of being watched , of starring in the opening scene of a horror film . A chill in the air , a shadow that lingers too long , mostly with nothing more than goosebumps . But for four young women , pine Grove wasn't a setting for dread . It became the scene of their final moments .

In the summer of 1969 , patricia Walsh and Marianne Wasaki , both 23 , from Rhode Island , checked into a Providence Town rooming house to escape their everyday routines . Their landlady introduced them to another boarder , 24-year-old Anton or Tony Costa , clean-cut , well-mannered and eager to help . He even carried their bags inside .

And then suddenly , just as they had arrived , patricia and Marianne vanished . Their families raised alarm . The first clue surfaced when their car was spotted near a marijuana patch behind Pine Grove Cemetery . Strangely , before the police could investigate , the car disappeared .

But when officers began searching the wooded area behind the burial ground , they didn't just find evidence or clues , they found bodies . Patricia and Marianne were there , buried beneath the soil . But they weren't alone . Four and Susan Perry , just 17 , from Providence Town , who had vanished only months after Sydney .

At the time , their families had feared the girls had simply run off , swept up in the counterculture of the era . No one had expected to find the girls buried behind the quiet headstones of Pine Grove , but it was their missing car that ultimately cracked the case . The vehicle resurfaced in Burlington , vermont , stored away in a rental facility under a false name .

The man who had paid for the storage was Anton Tony Costa . That connection gave the police exactly what they needed . He was arrested immediately . Costa's arrest sent shockwaves across Cape Cod . In the days that followed , several local women stepped forward with chilling recollections .

Each had been invited , often alone , to Costa's marijuana patch behind Pine Grove Cemetery . Most declined and in doing so unknowingly stepped away from a fate that had already claimed others . One of those women was the daughter of famed author Kurt Vonnegut Jr . She too had been approached by Costa and narrowly escaped by saying no .

Her father later drew a grim comparison in his essay collection , while Peters , fama and Granfalunes placing Costa alongside Charles Manson in the pantheon of charismatic predators who masked evil with charm . It was a brush with death . She survived , but for others the invitation was a one-way trip into the shadows .

What followed was an unraveling of a truly horrific story . Listener , is a word of caution If you're squeamish or sensitive to graphic content , you may want to skip ahead . The next few minutes delve into details that are unsettling and not for the faint of heart . The murders weren't just tragic , they were grotesque .

Victims were dismembered , their remains scattered and buried in pieces . The crime scenes were so disturbing . Investigators initially believed Costa had engaged in cannibalism , though that theory was later recanted . As the investigation widened , more disturbing threads began to unravel . Tony Costa had driven to Pennsylvania with two young women who were never seen again .

A woman he once lived with in San Francisco vanished without a trace . Another former girlfriend was found around in her bathtub . Beneath the clean-cut appearance and polite demeanor , costa had been something far more darker a predator cloaked in charm . In 1969 , evelyn Lawson wrote a chilling reflection in the Providence Town Register .

As the DAs , or district attorneys , talked , I felt my skin prickle in dread and disgust . The place where the bodies had been found near an old cemetery not far back from a dirt crossroad , the typical traditional site for the witch's sabbath . It wasn't just the brutality of the murders that disturbed the community .

It was the setting the bodies buried near Pine Grove . The isolation of folklore . Rumors spread quickly . Costa had shown interest in the occult . After his arrest , books on ritual magic and dirt practices were found among his possessions at Walpole State Prison .

Whether this was a true obsession or twisted curiosity , it added a sinister layer to an already horrifying legacy , and with that , whispers of satanic activity in the woods behind Pine Grove began to grow . Whether born from fact or fear , these stories still linger like smoke , refusing to fade .

Costa was ultimately suspected of murdering eight women , but he was only convicted of killing Patricia Walsh and Marianne Wysocki . Two women were rumored to have been found eventually , decades later , but facts are vague about their reappearances , if they did indeed happen . He received a life sentence for his trial , fitting for the horrors he had committed in the Cape .

In 1974 , at just 30 years old , tony Costa took his own life inside his cell at Walpole State Prison , hunting the terror he had caused so many families .

The legend of the murders made the receiving crypt within Pine Grove infamous . As it's told , costa used the building to dismember the bodies of the girls , so he was undisturbed . Whether this was true or not , the legend gives visitors pause at the crypt and wondering if it was the scene of the girls' last moments .

In 2007 , the New England Society of Paranormal Investigators conducted research at Pine Grove Cemetery , armed with a K2 meter . They reported responses to several questions , captured not in whispers but through the disembodied replies of electronic voice phenomenon , or EVP . Their equipment didn't behave normally either .

A sudden or unexplained power drain affected both their camera , batteries and microphone , coinciding with a sharp drop in temperature and what they described as a cold spot drifting silently through the area . It was as if something unseen had passed through , brief , chilling and impossible to ignore , leaving many to say .

The grounds of Pine Grove are indeed haunted , possibly by the girls whose lives ended tragically so long ago . Pine Grove may appear to be quiet , just another small cemetery tucked along the cape , but beneath its windswept grass and leaning stones lies a legacy of sorrow , shipwreck , sickness and souls taken far too soon .

From the mystery of the commerce to the horrors of Tony Costa , this ground has known tragedy in many forms . The woods beyond leave a lasting impression , void of sound , heavy and stillness . There's something unsettling about the roughed , makeshift roads and the crossroads just past the headstones , where the real horrors once unfolded . And whether

it's the weight of history or something far older that refuses to rest . Something lingers in Pine Grove Cemetery . The grave grind for Pine Grove Cemetery was an iced mocha from snowy owl coffee roasters . For more honorary grinds in the area , please visit the-grimcom . For now we're closing the gate on Pine Grove Cemetery . We hope you enjoyed our dig into history .

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