Wait, the Lucky land Slots. You can get lucky just about anywhere.
It's your captain speaking. We've got clear runway and the weather's fine, but we're just gonna circle up here a while and get lucky. No, no, nothing like that. It's just these cash prizes add up quick, so I suggest you sit back, keep your trade table up right, and start getting lucky.
Play for free at Lucky Landslots dot com. Are you feeling lucky? No purchase necessary void We're prohibited by Law eighteen plus. Terms and conditions apply. See website for details.
Hey guys, it is Ryan. I'm not sure if you know this about me, but I'm a bit of a fun fanatic when I can. I like to work, but I like fun too. It's a thing. And now the truth is out there, I can tell you about my favorite place to have fun, Chumba Casino. They have hundreds of social casino style games to choose from, with new games released each week. You can play for free, anytime, anywhere, and each day brings a new chance to collect daily bonuses. So join me and the fun. Sign up now at
Chumba Casino dot com. No, we're just necessary daoidhever everyboy loss comes conditions beating pluss.
You are now listening to True Murder, The most shocking killers in true crime history and the authors that have written about them Gasey, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker DTK. Every week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host, journalist and author Dan Zupanski, Good Evening.
Before Charles Manson, there was Tony Costa, the serial killer of Cape Cod nineteen sixty nine. The hippie scene is vibrant in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Long haired teenagers roam the streets, strumming guitars and preaching about peace and love, and Tony
Costa is at the center of it all. To a certain group of smitt and young women, he is known as Sire, the leader of their counterculture movement, the charming man who speaks eloquently and hands out hallucinogenic drugs like candy, but beneath his benign persona laza twisted and uncontrollable rage that threatens to break loose at any moment. Tony causes the most dangerous man on Cape Cod, and no one who crosses his path is safe when young women begin
to disappear. Costs, natural charisma, and good looks initially protect him from suspicion, but as the bodies are discovered, the
police close in on him as their key suspect. Meanwhile, local writers Kurt Vonnegut and Norman Mahler are locked in a desperate race to secure their legacies as great literary icons, and they both set their sights on Tony Costa and the drug soaked tippie culture that he embodies as their next promising subject, launching independent investigations that stoke the competitive
fires between two of the greatest American writers. Immersive, unflinching, and shocking, Helltown is a landmark true crime narrative that transports us back to the turbulent late nineteen sixties, reveals the secrets of a notorious serial killer, and unspools the threads connecting Costa, Vonnegut, and Mailer in the seaside city that played host to horrors unlike any ever seen before the book they were featuring. This s evening is hell Town, the untold story of a serial killer on Cape cod
with my special guest journalist and author Casey Sherman. Welcome to the program, and thank you very much for this interview. Casey Sherman.
Thank you for having me. Dan appreciate it.
Thank you so much. This is an incredible book. Let's get right to it. You talk about Kurt Vonnegut, Edie Vonnegut, and you open the book with talking about the hippies were taking over the tip of Cape cod tell us what was happening in nineteen seventy four, and you talk about his parole hearing and the book that Tony Costa completed Resurrection, and then we get into Kurt Vonnegut and what he was doing at that time, and his daughter Edie Vonnegutt tell us about that.
Sure.
So, Dan, the prologue you're talking about is Tony Costa, the serial killer, behind bars in nineteen seventy four at Walpole State Prison in Massachusetts, and he is working on his unpublished manuscript. It was a manuscript that I got access to as part of my research for this book, and in nineteen seventy four, Tony cost that takes his fate in his own hands and Alan spoil it for
the reader. But we propel the story from there and then we go back to you mentioned the setting which is nineteen sixty nine, and it's really a year of reckoning in America. The Summer of Love is a distant memory and overshadowed by the assassination of Martin Luther King Robert F.
Kennedy. We've got a raging war in Vietnam.
And the bloody violence of the nineteen sixty eight Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Now woven into the historical landscape of Helltown, we have Richard Nixon's inauguration chap Equitic, the moon landing, and finally the Manson murders. Now the characters in my book hell Town have both direct and Kean's gentle connections with all of these major events. I look at twenty twenty two the same way that I look at nineteen sixty nine, because there's been a huge cultural
and political shift in our country. We're living in a very dangerous time right now, where darkness is overshadowing light.
Let's talk about Sydney Monson and say, very much like Edie Vonnegut, she was a young woman and she's from eastam tell us what happened with Sidney Monsen?
Sure, you know, let me go back a little bit and talk a little bit about my career as an investigative journalist. I've been working in that space for twenty five years and I've covered more than fifty homfidtes and with this case Dan, I had access to more than two thousand documents, crime scene photos, and autopsy reports of the case. In my opinion, this is the worst serial killer case since Jack the Ripper was stalking women in
East London back in eighteen eighty eight. As a crime reporter, you know, looking at this, looking at these young victims. You mentioned the killer himself, a charismatic serial killer named Tony Costa, who was handsome, well read, very articulate and could lure these beautiful young women into very troubling and
often deadly situations. Sidney Mansen was a young woman recently graduated the local high school at the you know, the tip of Cape Cod, East Ham is on the arm of Cape Cod leading up to the Fist which is ultimately provincedown and Sidney becomes captivating by this, you know, young hippie like Messiah and falls under his spell and puts her defenses down and it ultimately leads to her death.
What Tony Costa was doing with his victims was.
He was luring them into you know, dark areas, wooded areas in Truro and Provincetown, getting their guards down over over the drugs he was supplying them, or the hallucinogenetics that he had given them previously, and he was shooting them. He was stabbing them, he was dismembering their bodies and burying them in shallow graves. Now, dan in nineteen sixty nine, when these women start to go missing in Provincetown, you know, the police don't take it seriously because Provincetown at that
time was kind of a transient community. People came and went, especially those you know, adhering to the hippie culture, and the police just thought Sidney Monsen and these other women had just you know, pulled up stakes and followed a caravan, whether it was to hate Ashbury in San Francisco or to Greenwich Village in New York City. They didn't know that these women were buried in shallow graves a few feet away from the police station.
Basically, the police had a relationship with Tony Costa.
What was that Tony Costa was a drug informant and it allowed Tony Costa to embed himself with the Provincetown Police Department, which was not that big, you know. I mean it had a handful of police officers covering only about a mile and a half in terms of territory. But in the summertime, that community balloons to you know, well over five to ten thousand residents, and that's a
lot of ground to cover. And they used Tony Costa to gain information about Tony Costa's rivals in the drug trade, which had allowed Tony Costa, the serial killer, to kind of pick off his competition. But when he begins to evolve and starts to murder these women, it also allows him to keep cabs on the investigators themselves, because he always thought then that he was smarter than the police that were committed to catching him.
Ultimately, he was not well.
Police are looking and Sidney Monsen's sister Linda is looking for her along with her boyfriend Roland. Susan Perry goes missing. Tell us how police proceed with these disappearances.
Well, again, they they didn't realize at the time that these young women were missing, and it took it well over a year before the police finally took these disappearances seriously. Susan Perry had fallen in love with the serial killer, much like Sidney Monson had, and it ended with her with her death, once again dismembering the body and burying
her in a shallow grave. One of the investigators that I interviewed for this book was a former state trooper named Tom Gunnery, and Tom is convinced that he pulled over Tony Costa on a route leading to Provincetown just after Susan Perry had gone missing. And he believes that Susan Perry was probably dismembered and in the back of
Tony Costa's car. Had he opened the trunk and realized that hor or discovered it at the time, You know, other young women wouldn't have been killed, but unfortunately they were.
Now tell us about his appearance at this guest house of Patricia Morton, how he gets there, and the interaction with her.
Sure, you know Tony Costa was a handyman in Provincetown, but again, you know, you look at him, his his psychology is pretty unique. He is the living epitome of Norman Bates. Tony Costa was an amateur taxidermist who had basically been forced to move to Provincetown to live with relatives because he had tied up and sexually assaulted a young woman in his hometown, a town of Somerville, Massachusetts.
While he was a teenager. He was also disappearing local pets, killing them and performing his taxidermy you know, understanding the the you know, the human body in a way that would ultimately help him perform his duties as a serial killer much later in his life. He also had tremendous mother issues as well then, which may be one of his motivations hit a love hate relationship with his mother that ultimately I think he projected onto his victims, primarily
Mariann Waisaki and Patricia Walsh, two professionals. One was a teacher, one was a college student who had decided to leave their home in Providence, Rhode Island, just for a brief getaway in Provincetown, Massachusetts in the cold winter of nineteen sixty nine, and they find lodging at a rooming house at five Standish Street in Provincetown, and suddenly they meet again a very charismatic lodger named Tony Costa, who offers to show them around town and provides them some advice
on where to go on a cold, desolate night in Provincetown, and they quickly fall under his spell, and over the course of twenty four hours he lures them into their web, into his web, I should say, and it's the last time either of them are ever seen alive.
Now with the landlady, she discover something the next day, specifically a note. Tell us about that note, and it's contrast.
Well, the note was written by the serial killer Tony Costa, to the two young women I just mentioned, and he was asking them for a ride at Chatruro, which is the next town over, because Tony Costa didn't have a vehicle.
And again, you know, he was a pleasant young man, very unassuming, very charismatic, certainly somebody that wasn't threatening, and these women provided him assistance and ultimately they let their guards down and he took them on the last ride of their lives to an ancient cemetery in Treuro and ultimately to his killing field where he shot them, dismembered their bodies and buried them in shallow graves.
Now people that are looking for the two people. The teacher was Mary Anne Wsaki and Pat Pat Walsh. There was a stolen or there was a missing Vita, a blue Volkswagen. So what happens with this Volkswagen? It spotted, but it spotted again? Tell us about this well.
I mean, it's basically the death car.
So Pat Walsh owned a nineteen sixty eight blue BW Beetle and she drove Tony Costa and her friend Marian Waisaki to Truro, and Tony Costa murdered these women, as I said, in very heinous ways. Now going back to this stand again, I can't I can't stress this enough. You know, viewing the crime scene and the autopsy photos of these women, these women weren't just stabbed. It looked like they had been mauled by a great white shark.
They were frenzied, cuts to their bodies, and there were organs taken out of all of the victims, whether it was their breasts or their uteruses.
You know.
Basically, Tony Costa was consuming their womanhood, if you will, while he.
Was murdering them.
So he commits these heinous atrocities, buries these women, and then he's got to get rid of the evidence, meaning the Volkswagen Beetle. He leaves it deserted, in Truro. Ultimately, it's spotted by a passer by and when the passer by alerts local law enforcement because it was in an area that was unusual, and it sparked, you know, suspicion right away. But when the local authorities went back to
retreat of the vehicle, the vehicle was gone. And that's because the serial killer had taken the car and drove it out of town, actually drove it out of state. And this begins dan a very interesting cat and mouse game that's a serial killer plays with investigators. Oftentimes, serial killers like this will shy away from the spotlight, will hide in the shadows. We've seen that time and time again.
Tony cost was much different. Again, he thought he could outwit the investigators, so he took them off and led these investigators on a bit of a wild goosebase over several weeks.
There was a person named Steve Grund and another person named Weed, nicknamed Weed, and they accompany him to Boston and to and to his brother in law Vinnie Bornaveri. So, but Steve Grunt is asking questions about this VW What does the Costa have to say to him?
Well, you know, Costa basically orders him.
You know, don't ask too many questions because you're not going to like what the answer is. Ultimately, Tony cost has two hippie friends believe that the vehicle of stolen, and they were absolutely great. Now they have no idea that the owner of that vehicle, you know, was buried in under you know, three feet of frozen earth a few miles away. That was something they could not comprehend.
They just thought Tony Costa may have hotwired the car, stolen the car, and that's really where their suspicions lie because you know, going back to you know, Costa's ability to be so charismatic, not only you know, amongst women, but amongst men. You mentioned that he had a nickname named sim You know, he was very Manson esque in that way where he had disciples that were willing to
basically do anything in his name. And you mentioned these two friends that were basically in the stolen vehicle, a vehicle that was used for murder and naming, you know, basically you know, helping Tony Costa hide the evidence unbeknownst to themselves.
Now, how does Gunnery and Bernie Flynn, how do these police officers, how do they proceed with their search. And where do they search first?
Well, I mean, obviously, you know, you create concentric circles around the area in which these women have gone missing, So you start with the boarding house. And again they're looking for two missing women in Provincetown. They have not made the connection between these disappearances and the disappearances of Susan Perry, the disappearance of Sidney Monsen. There was another victim in New York City, Christine Gallant. They have not
made any of these connections yet. He was looking for these two missing women, and quite frankly, they believe that they are alive until they start to find unique pieces of evidence inside the boarding house that ultimately leads them.
To believe that these women have been murdered.
And you know, the biggest reveal is the Volkswagen Beetle that turns up in Burlington, Vermont. And they are connecting Tony Costa to this case step by step, and Costa is confronting them at every step, denying his culpability in these disappearances and ultimately these murders.
And it becomes a.
Game of catch me if you can, you know, And I got to really spend a lot of time with Tom Gunnery working on this book. Bernie Flynn had passed on, you know, a long time before I decided to take this case on. But you know, I've had the great opportunity of reviewing all of his case notes, his police reports, interviewing is his wife who had gone through a lot of this with him. Because you know, Tom Gunnery and Bernie Flynn, they were both you know, fathers, they both
had dogs. They couldn't imagine their our own children, you know, being put into situations like this, and it was a race against time for them because they didn't know when Tony Costa would kill again, because he certainly was capable of it, and he was evolving as a serial killer.
They found out about Avis Costa, and so they spoke to her. What did they find out.
Well, AVOs Costa was Tony Costa's wife who was going through a divorce with Tony Costa at the time that this investigation really started to begin. Now it's a really
unique relationship. Tony Costa married her or you know, impregnated her when she was thirteen, married her when she was fourteen years old, you know, committed a lot of very sadistic, masochistic sex acts against Avis as he was evolving as a serial killer, and he was also coming under the cloud a major drug addit that he had acquired while
he was going through marital troubles with Avis. So here you have person who is breaking dead and very dangerous and then you know, is overcome by hallucinogenic drugs and begins to create an alter ego for himself. Now in psychology they call that ego splitting. Tony Coster had created this alter ego to commit these these heinous mergents, and that way he could compartmentalize his own personality of a kind of a fun loving, caring hippie like Messiah who
is all into peace and love. And this Jack the Ripper who was buried deep in his soul.
You talk about that. At this time, he is being harassed by police, even though you say this cat and mouse game with police. So he speaks to somebody that's related to Avis, actually her uncle, Morris Goldman, or it ends up he speaks to Marris Goldman tell us about that.
Well, he needs a legal representation, and it's interesting he feels like he's being harassed by police because they told him need to get a good defense attorney because your story just doesn't add up. Meanwhile, you know, the police are being harassed by you know, members of Tony Costa's fan club, these acolytes, these disciples, these you know, I mean Manson had his family, Tony Costa really at his as well. So they were trying to stemy the investigation anyway they could.
Now they find a young woman that has a very very interesting story about going out with Tony Costa and bow and arrow. Tell us about this story and what police learn from this.
Well, she was the only victim attacked by Tony Costa who lived to tell the tale again. A young you know, beautiful teenager in Provincetown, lord to Tony Costa's marijuana garden, if you will, in Wealthy and Truro, and she is a shot with a bone and arrow, shot by an arrow by Tony Costa, and she thinks it's an accident. He wanted he took his bow and arrow out to you know, fire it off in the woods, but targeted her,
you know, shot her in the back. And she revealed this information to investigators, which ultimately led them, you know, to that area in Truro where over time they were able to discover more evidence that would you know, turn a missing person's case into a murder case, a murder case.
Unlike anything that they've ever ever seen.
Tell us what they did find at this site.
Well, I mean they started to find bits and pieces of identification from Patricia Walsh and Mary and Wasisaki, driver's licenses, car registrations, Mary and Wisaki's handbag with.
Movie tickets in it.
So they know these women had gone missing in that general area, and it didn't look like they had just left the area like Tony Costa had basically told investigators that these women took off and moved elsewhere. No, there, they were close by, and they were dead. So it
became aim a recovery mission at that point. And over time, these investigators, Bernie Flynn and Tom Gunnery primarily were able to identify the very spots where these women were buried, and they were pulling out body parts from from you know, shallow graves, encrusted dirt, and that's when they understood that there were more victims here because the bodies of Susan Perry and the bodies of Sidney Mansen were also buried
in that area. In fact, Sydney's body was buried alongside Mary and Wassakis.
Now they arrest him for larceny for car theft, and how do they proceed from there? And when does he told that there are warrants for his murder, for murder, for for murder.
Sure, when the bodies of Walsh and Wasaki are revealed, that's when he is arrested for murder. And he still has this incredible and this narcissism that allows him to think that he's going to get out of this, and he continues to baffle his defense attorneys, giving them, you know, all these crazy stories of other killers, including his is Altrigo, who happened to have the same name of a living a teenager in Provincetown, and Tony Costa is blaming these
murders on this young man. So it compounds the investigation for quite some time until state Trooper Gunnery finds the murder weapons, which are a gun and a sharing knife. And then you know, Tony Costa's goose is proverbially cooked, if you will.
And again, I don't want to lose sight on.
You know, the two writers that are piecing together this information, along with the investigators you mentioned earlier, Dan Norman Mailer and Kurt Vonnegut, and that was really my way into the story. You know, my background again, investigative journalism. I've gone down those dark road investigated serial killers.
The first book I ever wrote.
It was a personal memoir about the Boston strangler case. And that's because my aunt, nineteen year old Mary Sullivan, who was the youngest and final victim of that notorious nineteen sixties murder spree.
So Dan I grew up on Ticcok.
I'd heard about the Tony cost of murders, and I never gave them too much attention because I had my own family trauma to be dealing with, and the cost and murders were discussed in the community almost as a joke.
You know.
Tony Costa was the boogeyman, if you will. They nick named him Tony Chop Chow. And during the height of.
The pandemic, just to get out of the house, I.
Took my brother on a ride through Provincetown and Commercial Street, which is normally pretty busy, is just deserted and we're talking about the ghosts real and imagining in Provenstown, which ultimately led us to discussing Tony Costa and When I went back to my writing office, I did a little research, and I didn't you know, I realized for the first
time just how brutal these crimes were. And it was a story I wanted to tell, but I had to tell it in a different way, and I chose that literary way of telling it through the eyes of these two competing journalists and floodgoing authors at the time.
Now you talk about these two incredible American writers, but they were at different positions in their literary careers in terms of success. Where was Wonnagut and where was Norman Mailer in terms of the books that they were writing, and where their careers were at this time.
Sure, and that is a part of the story I found very fascinating. Norman Mahler had been a household name since publishing The Naked and the Dead in the late forties. He was living in Provincetown. He had just run for mayor of New York. He was basically the keeper of Ernest Hemingway's claim in terms of being this very outgoing personality who just happened to be a very brilliant writer. Now,
Kurt Vonnegut was the opposite spectrum. He was living just down the road in Barnstable, Massachusetts, where I grew up, a few miles away from Provincetown. And he'd been working as a writer for about twenty years, writing science fiction novels that he really couldn't sell. He was out of money, all of his books were out of print. He was not only caring for his own children, but the children
of his deceased sister, who adopted after she died. So he's struggling financially and creatively, and he's working on a novel that will ultimately be Slaughterhouse by you know, what he called the big Kaboom of his career. But in early nineteen sixty nine and especially nineteen sixty eight, he's not there yet. So you have this rivalry between two authors.
It's actually a one sided rivalry because Vonnegut wanted everything that Norman Mailer had, and both of them were nibbling around the edges of this very terrifying serial murder case that was unfolding in their backyards.
At the same time you say that, you write that Vonnegut realized that Mailer had been very, very successful telling his war story, and they were both in the infantry and in similar positions, and so Vonnegut had this moment where he realized he needed, he very desperately needed to write about his own experience in Dresden, Germany and Slaughterhouse five.
Yeah, and it becomes the anti war book of for a generation. You know, Vonnegut eclipses everything that Norman Mailer had done. Norman Mailer had served in the Pacific Theater. Vonnegut was a prisoner of war during the worst fire bombing in the European Theater in Dresden, Germany, you know, by Allied bombs, and he had to clean up much of that city. We're talking about, you know, scorched bodies.
You know, there was a zoo in Dresden that all of the you know, animals that survived the bombing and now were roaming the streets, including you know, a lion that was you know, eating the charred.
Flesh of victims.
Never realized that Kurt Vonnegut, seeing that horror, would be facing something equally as horrific, at least in his mind. You know, when he came back in the in the you know, dunes in the woods of Cape Cott.
You said, with the arrest, there was the Bristol County District Attorney Edmund Denise. Yeah, sure, if that's the pronunciation.
You have the pronunciation right exactly.
You right, that he felt his political ship had come in with this case. And he'd also seen the Attorney General Ed Brooke manipulating the media and all the way to the US Senate only three years before. So he really thought that this was his ticket to fame and fortune.
Yeah, he really did. You know.
Ed Brooke rode the Boston strangler case all the way to the US Senate. He was the Attorney General of Massachusetts at the time, took over the case, you know, blamed all eleve in Boston Strangler murders on one person, never even brought that person, Albert to Salvo, to trial for it, but basically convicted to Salvo and the port of public opinions. So Ed Denise is watching Ed Brooke
and learning from him. And here is a case similar to the Boston strangler case that Ed Denise can take, really take and run with.
So Ed Denise.
Exaggerates some of the instances in these murders, and he didn't have to. These murders were ultimately barbaric on their own front. But Ed Denise begins to call Tony Costa the cape cod vampire that you know. He starts to talk about Costa cannibalizing his victim, which he didn't do. It was about the only thing cost that did not do to his victims. But ed Denise looks at this, he loves the attention that the case is providing him.
And then all of a sudden, you know.
Senator Edward Kennedy goes off a bridge and chap Equittic with a young woman named Mary Joe Kopecne, and that diverts ed Denise's attention to this case and really kind of shakes up and ruins his career, because how do you prosecute a canon in Kennedy country. In nineteen sixty nine, Ted Kennedy was probably the most powerful politician, if not in the country or if not in the world, I should say definitely in the country. You know, the keeper of the flame for the Kennedy legacy.
And I dove into.
The grand jury testimony in chap Equitic and it was horrifying to know that Senator Kennedy allowed a woman who was alive to suffocate in the backseat of his vehicle while while he escaped, and Ed Denise was put in a very difficult position, as I said, because how do you how do you prosecute somebody like that? And ultimately the case blows up in his face. So Costa eventually becomes his redemption story. He's going to put Costa to trial, and he does.
Let's use this as an opportunity to stop for a second to hear from our sponsor, which is zip recruiter. I'm excited to travel this summer. Have you ever thought about all of the people that make a vacation truly great? Like the hotel cangiers who knows the best places to go, or the tour gride with great stories and great suggestions
while you're on vacation. You know, outstanding talent is crucial for a successful business, and if you're hiring, you can find talent for roles like these and more at ZipRecruiter when you try it for free at ZipRecruiter dot com slash murder. ZipRecruiter uses its powerful technology to find and match the right candidates up with your job. You can easily review these recommended candidates and invite your top choices
to apply. Additionally, ZipRecruiter has a complete suite of tools that makes it easier to filter, review and rate your candidates. Four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. So travel to this easy to remember web destination, ZipRecruiter dot com slash murder. That's where you can try ZipRecruiter for free. Again, that's zip recruiter dot com slash m u r d er.
Zip recruiter the smartest way to hire. Now, Casey, we were talking about Edmund Denis and his incredible problem with the Chapaquidic case that he had to be prosecuting. At the same time, his new best friend is Kurt Vonnegut. What does he tell Kurt Vonnegut and tell us a little bit about the relationship that develops between them.
Sure, Vonnagut is writing an article for Life.
Magazine about the case.
So there's a relationship, you know, that builds between Vonnegut and Denise because Vonnagut is trying to get access for information and access to the killer himself, and Denise is
dangling that carrot. And Denise is very excited because you know, at this time Slaughterhouse five has now been published, and Kurt Vonnegut is a rising literary stock, and ed Denise uses Vonnegut as well as Vonnegut using Denise for information, and Ed Denise is convinced that, you know, there are possibly hundreds of bodies in the Truer Woods, you know, from this serial killer. Now they were never able to find, you know any more you know cost of victims if
you will. But there's a relationship that's you know, exploited in a way. Each is taking advantage of another to write about this case and prosecute this case.
Now, Norman Mailer, like you mentioned, is very very interested in as well, but he doesn't have this connection. But what he does have is some interaction with some of the disciples of Tony Costa. Tell us about this interaction.
Sure well, I mean as young women were incredibly frightening, much like you know Susan Atkins and Squeaky from in the Manson family. You had young women in Provincetown that were harassing, intimidating people, and they certainly, you know, scared Norman Mailer. And Mailer is interesting because he's also walking
the fire between sanity and an ultimate evil. Now, Norman Mailer stabbed his second wife, a Dell, with a pen knife during a party in nineteen sixty probably should have gone to prison for at least thirty years because she almost died, but she did not testify against him because they had two children together.
Years later, Norman Mailer.
Is an experimental filmmaker and gets into a fistfight with the actor Ripped Torn on film and anybody that goes onto YouTube can watch it, and it's a very vicious fist fight where Mailer is attacked by Torn and the cameras are rolling and this is not, you.
Know, stage play, this is real.
So Mailer, you know, we called Miller always called writing the spooky arc, and he was certainly interested in exploring the darkness within himself, and he does so through Tony
Costa's disciples. He has a relationship with a crime reporter on Cape cod Her name was Evelyn Lawson, and Evelyn was a theater critic term crime reporter which is completely and usual, and she was the one to kind of bring in the possibility that this was not just a lone killer at work, but could have been the work of the occult, especially at that time.
You also talk about that Deny finds out about potentially more victims. Bonnie Williams and Diane Federoff, and but also finds out about Christine Gallant and the bathtub suicide.
Tell us love that, yeah, about the I mean that was that was written off as an overdose, and you know they were this Christine Gallant was like the other women, very lowered to Tony Costa. Tony Costa was with Christine Gallant the night before her body ends up in the bathtub as an overdose. But the medical examiner, doctor Michael Botten, was now a very prominent forensic psychologist and a friend
of mine. He overlooked, you know, some of the bruising on her body that was the ultimate result of violence against her committed by Tony Costa. You've got these other two women who turned missing in California. You know, it's interesting that Tony Costa and Charles Manson are living in San Francisco at about the same time, yes, you know, and living within that hippie culture.
So there's a likelihood that they may.
Have crossed paths as both were evolving into you know, these murderous messiahs.
Now, in terms of the defense of Tony Costa, what does he say to Maurice Goldman, in terms of who is responsible? What what do his claim?
Well, it goes back to.
His alter ego, but he claims that, you know, it's a real person in Provencetown, a young man gives the name of and claims that the murders were committed by by this man. Now, you know, the defense attorneys want to obviously offer the insanity defense, because how could anybody of sane mind commit these types of atrocities. But Tony Costo does not want to pursue the insanity defense. He
wants a straight defense. And you know, there are many times during the investigation where you know, the lawyers were almost going to quit the case because they knew that they could not legitimately represent Costa and claim that these weren't the work of Tony Costa but the work of somebody else. Tony Costa was at the scene of these crimes, he committed these murders. He tried to blame these murders on other people because he thought he was smarter than
everybody else. But you know, not only did the prosecution see through it, but the defense attorneys did as well,
and ultimately the jurors did. Now imagine Cape cod nineteen sixty nine, Dan, you know, these jurors are from a very idyllic place in the United States, Cape cod You know, the rate of crime there is very low compared to other places, and they're confronted with the most atrocious, you know, serial murders that I think have ever been committed in the United States, and they're committed in this idyllic town that you know, brings in people from all over the world every year.
Now, this story has gained national and international prominence. But August ninth, nineteen sixty nine, Linda Kassebian and others, what happens to put this story on the back burner incredibly.
Well, you know, Charles Manson and his family commit in a two strings of homicides, the first against Sharon Tate, the actress Roman Polanski's wife by the way, and her house guests, which included Jay Sebring, who is a celebrity hairstylist, and Abigail Folger, the heiress of the Folgier copy fortune
and victims were bertilized, shot stabbed. They were famous, which ultimately led to the Manson murders being splashed on the front pages of every newspaper and magazine in the country of not the world, and taking the cost of murders off the front page and Tony cost of a serial killer on cap God recognized this and wrote about it to his attorneys, and you know, in one missive says, maybe we should have killed somebody famous, because the murders
ultimately get lost to history, and the Mansons are the epitome of spree killing in American if not world history, and continue to be talked about and discussed and filmed. You know, fifty years after the crime, you know that the costume murders weren't that at all. They were lost to history until you know, really the publication of my book, health him tell.
Us what happens at trial. Corey Devereux, the person that he points to is also his alter ego, testifies at trial. I'll tell us some of the goings on atch just trial.
I mean, the trial is basically a farce where you have you know, a lot of the cost of disciples on the stand, drugged out on the stand.
By the way. I don't want to get too much because I want people to read it in the book, but it's quite a circus.
And obviously, going over the materials, you know that that had to be included as exhibits in this murder were just outrageous, and you know, you had the families of these young women in the courtroom, which is always just my heart.
Goes out to the families of these young women.
And when I wrote Helltown, I wanted to really talk about them as people, not just as statistics, not as you know, victim number one or victim number four. You know, they had names, they had families, they had hopes, they had dreams, and they were all all of that was stolen from them by one of the worst killers in world history.
You say that they tried to amount a defense of some kind of diminished capacity based on LSD drug use.
Of course you said, definitely became the defense used, and Costa got behind it, and you know, makes a very eloquent speech, you know, to the judge upon sentencing. And I'm not going to get into that because I want people to read the book, but that was you know, their last stab, if you will, at at least, you know, getting some type of reduced sentence or allowing Costa to be put into a mental facility as opposed to Walpole
State Prison. And Costa, you know, amazingly believed that he would have the opportunity to walk the streets again and go back to Provincetown, which was absolutely insane, because you know, you don't commit these types of murders and get put back on the streets.
You know, you either get buried.
Into the mental health system or you get buried into the penal system and ultimately cost that was put into the worst person in Massachusetts where he committed suicide in nineteen seventy four.
Let's use this as an opportunity to stop for a second for these messages.
Wait the Lucky Landslots. You can get lucky just about anywhere.
It's your captain speaking. We've got clear runway and the weather's five. But we're just going to circle up here a while and get lucky. No, no, nothing like that. It's just these cash prizes add up quick. So I suggest you sit back, keep your trade table up right, and start getting.
Lucky sy for free at Lucky Landslopes dot com. Are you feeling lucky? No purchase necessary void. We're prohibited by Law eighteen plus. Terms and conditions apply. See website for details.
Now, you talked about his suicide, but we also didn't mention that Vonnegut's story in life magazine is not well received at all. So what about his idea to further write a book about this case.
Yeah, well, I think, you know, Vonnagult, because Vonnegut is a satirist, you know, incorporated a lot of you know, macarb humor in his Life magazine article, and it wasn't well received, you know on Cape cod again, it's you know, especially in Provinstound people circle of wagons around Tony Costa. I think Vonnagut's article was fine, but they certainly didn't think so. So you know, Vonnagut wants to continue to correspond and get a face to face with the killer, which he ultimately does.
Now back to these disciples are very very interesting. Can you tell us about Strawberry Blonde?
Sure?
These you know, I had to create composite characters in the book just because you know, I couldn't really put their names out there.
But these were women. As I said that, we're.
Committing crimes and intimidating people, you know, in the name of Tony Costa. And after Tony Costa commits suicide in nineteen seventy four, a month later, a young woman's body is discovered in Provincetown and the dunes, and she is dismembered, and the murder has all the earmarks of a Tony Costa murder. Now, Costa couldn't have committed that crime. He was in Walpole at the time where he already committed suicide.
But you mentioned Strawberry Blonde, who was the disciple and follower of Costa's who I believe lord this nameless woman because her identity has never been determined, into the dunes of Provincetown to commit murder to appease Tony Costa's restless spirit. And that's my theory as to what had happened in that case. They call that case the Lady and the Dunes, and it's an ongoing mystery on Cape Cod.
You talk about hell Town in your author's note, what this book represents to you and what you discovered in the writing of this tell us about that.
Sure, you know, I think I've written true crime as well, if not better, than anybody that's ever done. I have that experience, and after fifteen books that have all been widely acclaimed, I was looking at this case and I wanted I was inspired by you know, the writing of Norman Mailer, the writing of Kurt Vonnegan. Even my collaboration
with James Patterson. My last book was called The Last Days of John Lennon with Patterson and Patterson and these other incredible office including Ernest Hemingway.
By the way, you know, they.
Wrote about real situations and you know, lace their stories with factual scenarios, but they also sprinkle in fictionalized moments to provide the connective tissue with the story. And that's what I did here with Helltown. All of the facts of this case are all too real, and they're all in the book. Everything you read about Tony cost really happened.
I had to create storytelling elements again to provide a breather for the reader because the material is incredibly disturbing at times, and I wanted the reader to go on a journey and read an incredible tale, but ultimately know that this really happened.
You talk about that you were hesitant to do this book because it took so much out of you writing about your aunt Mary Sullivan arose from Mary.
That's right.
You know I've been down those you know, I've been into those dark corners and down those dark alleys. I wasn't looking to revisit a serial killer case. But you know when people like Tom Gunnery had been reaching out to me for several years asking me to take a look at this case, and I never would, And then I did, and I realized this story has to be told the courage of people like Tom Gunnery, the end of that.
It has to be revealed to the world.
These women have to be talked about, and their memories have to be cherished and sustained, and the ultimate evil of Tony Costa has to be also written about and explained in any way possible.
What was Norman Mahler's idea about writing a book? How did that work out for him? What did he do well?
He cherry picked all of the most gruesome elements of Alacosta case and transformed them into a novel called Tough Guys Don't Dance, which he published in the early nineteen eighties, about a young struggling writer who was going through hallucinations and doesn't know whether or not he killed the young woman and then dismembered her and buried her in his
marijuana patch in Tura. It's pretty interesting, kind of a pulp book of Noura's book, if you will, pulp fiction book and He ultimately put that book on the big screen in a film which he wrote and directed, starring at Ryan O'Neill, and that was that movie was filmed
on location in Provincetown in the mid nineteen eighties. And you know, Mailer had always said this was the case that terrified him and horrified him more so than any other case that he had read about or been a part of during his very illustrious writing career.
You talk about a write about confrontation he has too with one of the disciples and basically saying that it strengthened his resolve with that confrontation.
Yeah, you know, and that's that's a that's a moment of the book. I just want to breathe and let the reader discover. But you know, Mailer was always trying to test himself, you know, test his masculinity, test his manhood, and this was a way for him to do that.
You include a letter, a personal letter from Kurt Vonnegut Junior to your father. Tell us about this and why you chose to include it. What does it say?
Was it interesting? I mean, you know, as I said, I grew up on tip Cod. You know, my uncle dated Edie Vonnegut knew the family quite well. My father was a struggling graphic artist in the nineteen seventies and he was living in Hyennas, raising two kids, and he wrote Kurt Vonnegut a letter asking him to take a look at some of his work, whether or not it was good enough to illustrate or you know, one of
Vonnagut's covers. And so Vonnagut wrote him back a very tough letter critiquing my father's approach, saying, you cannot me a success, you know, working out of your mail boss on C Street in Hyennas. You need to go to New York and you know, and that was a letter that my father obviously didn't take very well. My family didn't take it well.
You know.
It was kept in a drawer in my home for decades.
And when I began to explore Vonnegut, you know, in this project, I reread that letter with fresh eyes. I think it's a great letter because I think Vonnagut was writing to his younger self. Wonnaguet had spent twenty years as a commercial failure on Cape Cod and he was, you know, telling my father in his own way, not to repeat Wonnagut's mistakes, So I think it's a beautiful letter. I've got the letter now framed and hanging, you know,
on the wall of my home. You know, Vonnagut didn't have to take the time, you know, to reach out to this young artist, but he did absolutely.
When we first mentioned, when we first talked about this your book, there was the book, the book planned by Tony Costa Resurrection. Did you get a chance to read any of that?
I read it all, and you know, it's interesting because it puts the killer at the sea into the crime, you know, in his own way that he writes about it.
So you know, I took a lot.
Of that information and harvested it and used it in Helltown. You know, the way that these murders happened were described by the killer himself. So really, for the first time, the reader really gets to understand and see these murders through the eyes of the serial killer himself.
I want to thank you so much for coming on and talking about Helltown, the Untold story of a serial Killer on Cape cod For people that might want to check out more about this, tell us about your Twitter and Facebook.
Anybody can follow me on Instagram at Casey Sherman writs on Twitter at Casey Sherman one two three. You can find Helltown at any bookstore anywhere in the United States. You can order it online at Amazon or Barnes and Noble or Target or anywhere books are sold. I'm currently adapting the material or a limited series, and my producing
partner is Robert Downey Junior and his company Downey. So we're, you know, working with networks right now to find our select partner for this project and we hope to be shooting hopefully on location in Provincetown sometime in twenty twenty three.
It's impressive and very exciting. Also, could you tell us about your Saints and Center podcast?
Please? Sure, thank you.
I co host a podcast called Saints, Sinners and Serial Killers with my oftentimes writing partner, Dave Wedge, and we take readers through all of our investigations over the past twenty years, including the Boston Strangler, including the hunt for Whitey Bulger, the Elusive Mobster, including the Boston Marathon bombs which we wrote about, and ultimately our book became the hit film Patriots State with Mark Wahlberg. So but to
ask anybody to you know, look for that podcast. We're heading into our third season in September.
Thank you so much, Casey Sherman, Helltown, the ontold story of a serial killer on Cape cod Thank you so much for this interview. You have a great evening, Casey Sherman. Thank you, Dan, Thank you