Casey Sherman - Helltown: The Untold Story of a Serial Killer on Cape Cod

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Books . Change . Lives .

Copyright 2022 by Casey Sherman

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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systemsexcept in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviewswithout permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks.

This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional service. If legal advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought. From a Declaration of Principles Jointly Adopted by a Committee of the American Bar Association and a Committee of Publishers and Associations

Published by Sourcebooks

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Sherman, Casey, author.

Title: Helltown : the untold story of a serial killer on Cape Cod / Casey Sherman.

Description: Naperville, Illinois : Sourcebooks, [2022] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2022002268 (print) | LCCN 2022002269 (ebook) | (hardcover) | (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Costa, Antone Charles, 1944-1974. | Serial murderers--Massachusetts--Cape Cod--Biography. | Serial murders--Massachusetts--Cape Cod.

Classification: LCC HV6248.C669 S54 2022 (print) | LCC HV6248.C669 (ebook) | DDC 364.152/32092 [B]--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022002268

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022002269

In Memory of the DeadChristine Gallant, Sydney Monzon, Susan Perry, Patricia Walsh, Mary Anne Wysocki, and so on.

WALPOLE STATE PRISON, MASSACHUSETTS

MAY 12, 1974

The prisoner closed his dark eyes and inhaled, taking the warm air of midspring deep into his lungs. He blocked out all the noises around him and, for a brief moment, imagined himself back in Provincetown, sitting at the far edge of MacMillan Pier, staring out at the seemingly endless horizon of Cape Cod Bay where the Pilgrims had first set foot in the New World in 1620. He could almost hear the squawk of seagulls dive-bombing for squid and the echo of waves slapping against the old wooden pylons while his bare feet dangled carefree over the side. For the past four years, he had held on to the belief that he would return there one day.

Along with that belief had come a promise, a wager he had made with himself. He would try desperately to swallow any sudden urges to kill again.

Tony Costa opened his eyes and rubbed his spectacles with his denim shirtsleeve. Before him stood not the shifting sands and rolling dunes of Race Point. Instead, he gazed wearily at the twenty-foot-high walls of concrete that surrounded him and the prison guards with cocked, loaded rifles perched atop eight observation towers that offered them a clear view of the crowded yard below.

The bell sounded, and the prisoner soon fell into a long line with his fellow inmates. The new guys, those freshly convicted of serious offenses such as armed robbery, rape, and murder, stared at him and whispered among themselves. All were hardened criminals, but none were like him. They had not done what he had done.

Since the killing of self-professed Boston Strangler Albert DeSalvo, who was stabbed nineteen times in the prison infirmary six months earlier, the prisoner had become the most notorious resident at the Massachusetts state penitentiary at Walpole. Much had been written about all the gruesome crimes that had been attributed to him, but in his mind, no one had told the story the right wayfrom his point of view, from the killers perspective.

Costa dawdled for a moment, allowing himself to get pushed to the back of the line. One by one, the inmates escaped the light of late afternoon and disappeared into the catacombs inside the prison that eventually led them back to their narrow, steel-encrusted cells. Costa craned his neck to allow the sun to touch his nose one last time before the natural light was replaced by the flickering fluorescent bulbs inside the jail that had plagued him with constant headaches since the moment he had arrived there four years earlier.

He returned to his cramped first-floor cell with its double bunk, exposed metal toilet, and small writing desk and sat himself in front of an old, borrowed typewriter, the machine he had used to write nearly four hundred pages over the past several months. Finally satisfied with the narrative structure of his uniquely twisted story, Costa landed on a title for his manuscript.

He struck the keys with his fingers, typing the word Resurrection in bold letters. On the next page, he wrote, Truth demands courage, and rather than live a life of illusion, together we persistently sought the spiritual truth of life. And our search is only beginning.

He stared down at the thin piece of white writing paper with a grin of satisfaction. He was sure that the book would become a runaway bestseller. He wanted to be remembered not as a killer of young women but as a writer and a thinker who had helped to define the Age of Aquarius for a whole generation of readers. In his mind, this book would also cement his legacy as one of Cape Cods great novelists, mentioned in the same breath as Kurt Vonnegut Jr. and Norman Mailer. Tony Costa then typed his name on the title page, yanked the leather belt from his prison-issued denims, and contemplated his next move.

WEST BARNSTABLE, MASSACHUSETTS

1968

Edie Vonnegut was nervous about bringing the boy home to meet her father, who was holed up in his writers shed off the back of their Cape Cod farmhouse on Scudder Lane. Seventeen-year-old Edie had learned to traipse lightly around her father, Kurt, especially when he was working.