Kirsten Marina Costas (July 23, 1968 - June 23, 1984) was an American high school student killed by his classmate Bernadette Protti in June 1984.
Video Murder of Kirsten Costas
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The daughter of a wealthy parent, Arthur and Berit Costas, she and her brother, Peter, grew up in a small town on the outskirts of Orinda, California. Costas attended Miramonte High School, and became a member of the university swim team and cheerleading team.
Maps Murder of Kirsten Costas
Casing
On June 23, 1984, Costas was lured with a fake invitation to dinner for Bob-o-Links, a group of college students at school. According to Protti's later testimony, he planned to take Costas to a party to befriend him, but Costas was angry when he was told there was no dinner for the new "Bobbies". The girls quarreled, and Costas fled to Alex's house and Mary Jane Arnold, who lived nearby, told them that her friend was "weird". When Costas was unable to contact his parents over the phone, Alex Arnold drove home, noting that the Pinto-the Protti family car-followed them. At the house of Costas, Arnold, who sits in his car, sees the Protti attack Costas. He thinks that he sees a boxing fight, but in reality Protti stabs Costas five times with a butcher knife and runs away. Costas's neighbor called an ambulance, but Kirsten was badly injured and died at a nearby hospital.
It took the police almost six months to find the killer Costas. The protot passed a lie detector test, but his alibi was not verified. After trying to confirm the Protudi alibi, the police suspect that the girl had lied. After talking to an FBI officer who told him that his arrest was near and that they knew he killed Kirsten, Protti wrote his mother a letter in which he made a full confession.
Protti claimed to have found a kitchen knife by chance, and his sister Virginia Varela testified in court that she kept the knife in her car to cut vegetables. The Costases do not believe the story of the Protti - they insist that no one will use a meat knife to cut the tomatoes and Protti, dressed casually that night, never intended to bring Kirsten to the party but had planned to kill him. Protti was sentenced to a maximum of nine years, but was released seven years later on parole.
Aftermath
The Costas family left Orinda and moved to Hawaii. Bernadette Protti was released from prison in 1992 at the age of 23 and reportedly left California and changed his name.
Adaptations
American filmmaker James Benning covered after the murder in his 1987 documentary Landscape Suicide .
In 1994, the story was made into a television movie titled A Friend to Die For (also known as Death of a Cheerleader), with Tori Spelling as Stacy Lockwood, a character based on Kirsten Costas and Kellie Martin as Angela Delvecchio, a character based on Bernadette Protti.
The Costas murder is featured in Season 5 of Deadly Women . The murder of Kirsten Costas is the subject of Season 1, Episode 3 of Investigation Discovery's 1980s: The Deadlyest Decade .
Costas murder is featured in an episode of Killer Kids titled Rumor & amp; List of Things to Do .
References
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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