Dark Downeast - The Murders of Patricia Walsh and Mary Anne Wysocki (Massachusetts)

Episode Date: August 30, 2021

CAPE COD, 1969: It was supposed to be a fun and relaxing girl's weekend in Provincetown for Patricia Walsh and Mary Anne Wysocki. They couldn't have known that helping a friendly stranger in their boarding house would put them into the orbit of a killer.These are the stories of Pat Walsh, Mary Anne Wysocki, Sydney Monzon, and Susan Perry.The Babysitter by Liza Rodman and Jennifer Jordan View source material and photos for this episode at darkdowneast.com/patriciamaryanneFollow @darkdowneast on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTokTo suggest a case visit darkdowneast.com/submit-caseDark Downeast is an audiochuck and Kylie Media production hosted by Kylie Low.

Robert Turbidie kept his eyes trained on the side of the remote, middle-of-nowhere town road, hoping another payphone would crop up sooner rather than later. It had only been an hour since he last dialed her number, but Bob was eager to check in on his girlfriend back in Providence, Rhode Island. Another stop, another handful of tarnished coins dropping into the till, and yet another call gone unanswered. He looked down at the fresh ink on his shoulder. Her name was forever imprinted on his skin.

Where was Pat? 23-year-old Patricia Walsh had left for a girls' weekend in Cape Cod, the weekend of January 24, 1969. Her best friend, 23-year-old Marianne Wysocki, went with her. But the pair never returned home. I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is the story of Marianne Wysocki and Patricia Walsh on Dark Down East. Patricia Walsh grew up in Rhode Island and attended classical high school in Providence. She was quiet, a hard worker, but she preferred to stay in the background, never demanding or even claiming an ounce of attention for herself. Even when she joined the theater department in high school,

it wasn't to act or take the spotlight. Pat preferred to work backstage. Pat made friends with Marianne Wysocki at classical high school. Marianne was the only child of Walter and Martha Wysocki. Her yearbook photo in black and white pictures Marianne with short dark hair looking off camera with the William Blake quote, formed of joy and mirth, printed below. She was a bowler and a swimmer, and she skated competitively all four years of high school.

She also made delicious lavender cookies. Pat and Marianne went to Rhode Island College together, though Marianne dropped out after her first semester and was working to save enough money to go back. Pat graduated and became a teacher. She loved her second grade students, but in January of 1969, she decided to call in sick on a Friday morning, giving herself a long weekend. She told her boyfriend Bob Turbidie that they'd be back in town in time for work on Monday morning, January 27th. Bob wished the women a great weekend, but he also had a bit of an adventure ahead of him, driving back east from California in his Volkswagen bus. By the time he made it back to Rhode Island,

Pat would be home too. At least, that was the plan. I've been to Cape Cod just a few times in my life, mostly when I was a kid to visit family friends who moved away from my childhood hometown to Mashpee and then Sandwich, Massachusetts. I remember being just absolutely tickled by the names of those towns as a kid, Mashpee and Sandwich. I'm sure I couldn't resist the puns when it came to lunchtime. But as an adult, my strongest memory of the Cape is going to a

concert at the Cape Cod Melody Tent and sitting in that bottleneck traffic of beachgoers and tourists and summer people commuting from nearby cities after work trying to make their way to the saltwater-soaked motels just in time for sunset on Friday night. Cape Cod is like coastal Maine in many ways. It comes alive in the summer. The street-side novelty shops and cafes swing open their doors. The no-vacancy signs are up steady through Labor Day and even a few weekends beyond. And the economy thrives on those from away who come to eat the seafood and dip their toes in our waters.

For me, the real magic of these otherwise crowded and bustling tourist destinations comes out in the winter, the off-season. A few restaurants and bars stay open for the locals and there's always an open beach for long walks at the Tideline. And it's sleepy in the best way. A sleepy, low-key weekend away in Provincetown was the exact getaway Pat and Marianne were seeking when they loaded up Pat's light blue Volkswagen and set off towards Cape Cod. It's about a two and a half hour drive from Providence, Rhode Island to the farthest

reaches of Provincetown. When the two women arrived, the first order of business was securing their lodging for the night. The options were scarce, with it being the off-season, but the five-standish street guest house run by a Mrs. Patricia Morton looked promising. Mrs. Morton later told reporters that she was quite pleasantly impressed with the two girls, and they paid for two nights in advance for a room on the second floor. With a guest house like Standish Street, several tenants shared a common bathroom. That weekend, the bathroom on the second floor, nearest Pat and Marianne's room, was expected to be a little crowded,

so Mrs. Morton suggested they use a downstairs bathroom for their convenience. Mrs. Morton made quick work of introducing them to the other boarders in the house, including a permanent resident, a man named Antone Costa, Tony for short. In 1969, 24-year-old Tony Costa was a known element, we'll call him, around the Cape Cod region. The longer, much more in-depth biography of one Tony Costa is detailed on the pages of The Babysitter, written by Liza Rodman and Jennifer Jordan. But the short version is this. Tony was a local, and he often picked up odd jobs and handyman work to make ends meet, though he just as often didn't show up to actually do the work. When he was 19, Tony married a 14-year-old girl, and she had his children, though he was not an altogether present father. Tony stole and sold drugs, a lot of them, and he had no qualms about getting high on his own supply.

Tony, despite it all, seemed to also be well-liked. He was charismatic and intelligent and attracted a devout following of young teenagers who hung on his words as much as they did the drugs he placed in their outstretched palms. Tony Costa moved into a room at the 5 Standish Street guest house in Provincetown on January 18th, 1969. And less than a week later, Pat and Marianne were standing at the door of Tony's room, introduced by Mrs. Morton. She left the trio to socialize, and Pat and Marianne asked if it was an okay time for them to use the common shower located just off his room.

He'd be leaving for the evening anyway, so he didn't mind. From what I've learned about Antone Costa, a lot of it, reading The Babysitter, he moved through the world both believing it was against him and that it also owed him something. That minor infractions or slights against him by others meant reparations were due, and he got to decide what those would be. The authors of The Babysitter learned that Tony returned to his room that night to find a wet towel on his floor, and that must have been enough of a reason to expect a favor out of Pat and Marianne. As detailed in court documents, he tore a scrap of paper from a brown paper bag and scribbled a note to the girls. It read in part,

Pat and Marianne found the note early that next morning and woke Tony to say that they'd be happy to drive him a few miles to Truro, so long as they'd be back in time for a standing appointment with a friend named Russell back in P-Town. They arrived in Truro by noon that Saturday, and Tony, Pat, and Marianne were all seen together as late as 2 p.m. on January 25th by one of Tony's friends, Zacharias. A summary of evidence in court documents notes that when Zacharias waved goodbye to Tony and his two female friends in that light blue Volkswagen, they were headed further into Truro, not back to Provincetown. Later that afternoon, Russell Norton waited for his friends Pat and Marianne at the Foaxel. It was a local bar that stayed open through the slow season in the winter months. Russell was sure he had the place and time correct, but his friends never showed. On Sunday morning, Mrs. Morton was making her rounds of the guesthouse, tending to the open rooms, and checking in on her long-term tenants. According to reporting

by the Albuquerque Journal, Mrs. Morton found Pat and Marianne's room empty. It wasn't odd by any means, they'd only paid for two nights and she expected them to check out that day anyway. She assumed they just got an early start. She found a note scrawled on a scrap of brown paper bag. It read, We are checking out. Thank you for your many kindnesses. Signed, Marianne and Pat On Monday, January 27, 1969, Pat Walsh's parents were trying to make sense of their daughter's absence from work. It was unusual for the dedicated elementary school teacher to blow off her responsibilities and leave the children without a teacher for a whole day without a good excuse. They tried to calm their own concerns. Pat had been away with Marianne that weekend.

Perhaps the trip spilled over into the work week. But when Tuesday came without a word from his daughter, and her boyfriend hadn't heard from her either, Pat's father took action. At least, he tried to take action. But like so many worried parents of missing young women in this era, Leonard Walsh's concerns were dismissed. Pat and Marianne were probably fine, probably partying, or probably just forgot to call with an update in their schedule. They were grown women, after all. They didn't need to relay their business to their parents, right? But the police could only placate Mr. Walsh for so long. He ultimately insisted and filed a missing persons report on Tuesday, January 28, 1969.

About two weeks would pass before any confirmed sign of Pat and Mary Ann turned up. About 30 feet into the woods, off an old cart path near a cemetery in Truro, Massachusetts, a light blue Volkswagen with Rhode Island plates sat unmoving. According to a later court decision summarizing the evidence, the abandoned car was reported to Truro police on February 2, 1969. And they did, well, nothing. They checked on the car with the man who reported it, but they resolved to let it be. A note on the windshield indicated they had some sort of car trouble, so perhaps the owner would come back for it. The next day, a police sergeant from Providence, Rhode Island contacted the Provincetown police to see if they'd learned anything about the missing women last known to be in their town.

He was growing irritated with the apparent lack of urgency and effort. He issued a regional try-to-locate alert for the car, and law enforcement in both Cape Cod and Boston were soon on the lookout for a car of that description. Though the alert didn't include any context, according to the babysitter, it wasn't reported that the car was connected to two missing women from Rhode Island. It was very apparent to me reading the timeline of events of this investigation into the missing Rhode Island women that the case was plagued by a lack of communication and collaboration between police jurisdictions. Concerns were dismissed, the missing women were assumed missing on their own accord,

and I was just again frustrated that it was easier for some of the law enforcement to conclude that the women just up and left their lives for one reason or another. Why is that always the easiest assumption when someone goes missing? How often does that actually happen? In any case, when there was finally some concerted effort to locate Pat and Marianne, police went to check on that car found in the woods a week earlier. It was gone. But the scene commanded the attention of the two officers anyway. Something wasn't right out there in the thick scrub pine and brush, tucked behind a several hundred year old Truro Cemetery. One writer for the Boston Globe, Robert J. Anglin, said of the location, quote, If one considers Cape Cod as an arm flexed, with the forefinger extended in a curve,

this area is where the finger crooks. Seen from above through the low-hanging mist of an impending storm, there is nothing but ridges and gullies and sand. Always the sand. End quote. The foliage was thick, and the road traveled by the Volkswagen was not a common throughway by any means. Branches would have scraped the sides and the low chassis risked injury on the uneven terrain. It was hidden, quiet, often described in newspaper articles as a lover's lane, but for one Keep Cod resident,

the purpose proved darker. As reported by the Burlington Free Press, the officers surveyed the area where the car once sat. Scattered amongst the brush was torn paper, registration documents, and other items you might find in the glove compartment of a car. There was also another torn piece of paper just ripped to shreds, but with a few complete words, enough for the officers to learn that it belonged to Patricia Walsh. It was the first time they really started to believe that Pat and Marianne were not just missing on their own accord. They had the feeling Pat and Marianne were missing and endangered. Finally, a search party was assembled, and soon the Truro landscape was covered with local and state police.

William Davis reported for the Boston Globe that on February 8, 1969, nearly 100 searchers, including police, firemen, airmen, and volunteers, combed the brush for any other signs that the two missing women from Providence, Rhode Island, were still in the lonely Truro Woods. Special Police Officer Frederick Sylvia and a volunteer Donald Silva walked together with their eyes trained on the ground. They'd been out there for hours. But ahead, almost camouflaged amongst the fallen boughs and branches, they spotted what appeared to be an animal burrow. Getting closer, the men realized it wasn't what they first assumed.

Instead, it was something that you don't expect to find in the woods. Sticking up out of the earth was the corner of a partially buried duffel bag. They kneeled around it and using their hands, pushed the frozen dirt from the top of the bag. That's when they found her. I will not describe in detail what this victim faced at the end of her life and after her death, but the news media at the time did not spare a single graphic description. The medical examiner determined that the woman was about 20 to 30 years old, weighing 135 pounds,

and it was possible the unidentified woman had been buried in the shallow grave for a year to 18 months. With that timeline, it couldn't have been Patricia Walsh or Marianne Wysocki, and her face did not match the faces of the missing Rhode Island women. And so, the search continued, both in the woods and across New England, and Provincetown and state police now had a homicide investigation on their hands.

Bob Turbidie, Pat's boyfriend, was in the area at this point, having changed his final destination on his trip back to the east coast to Provincetown when he couldn't get a hold of Pat for days. Bob was key in furthering the search for his girlfriend, Pat, and her friend, Marianne. Bob, along with law enforcement, went to the boarding house and asked Mrs. Morton if they could see the rooms where the girls were staying. She waved them into the room near the bathroom, the one belonging to Tony Costa. Bob recognized some of the items in the closet as belonging to Pat and her friend. Meanwhile, Tony Costa was the proud new owner of a light blue Volkswagen. He'd told some friends that two women he met in Provincetown were headed to Canada, and they didn't need the car anymore, so they sold it to him.

He had a few things he needed to do, though. He asked a gas station owner what it would cost to paint the car some exotic color, and then he needed to register it in his own name, or at least register it in a name. Tony was asking around about a fake ID. Apparently, Tony Costa had employment opportunities in Vermont, and so after a few days in Boston with some friends, Tony continued on to Burlington, where he rented a parking spot at a gas station for his new car.

He wouldn't be needing the Rhode Island license plates anymore, so he tucked them under the floor mats. The discovery of Pat and Marianne's personal effects in Tony's room at the Standish Street boarding house put Tony Costa at the top of investigators' list. They needed to have a conversation with Tony and see what information he might offer in their search for the missing women. They were surprised when Tony called them and informed the officers that he had their car. As soon as Tony connected himself to Pat and Marianne,

he couldn't pick one version of events and maintain it through every interview and interrogation. First, it was that the girls sold him the car and headed for Canada, and then they left him the car and were on their way to the West Coast, and then that they gave him the car for debts owed on drugs. Although compelling and certainly concerning, Tony's inconsistent versions of events weren't grounds for an arrest. Police still didn't have Mary Ann and Pat either way, so they couldn't say for sure if Tony was lying or trying to steer them off in the wrong direction. On March 3rd, a telegram arrived at Tony Costa's mother's house from New York City. It was from Pat and Mary Ann. Tony's mom brought it down to the police station, waving it as evidence that the two women were alive and well, and her son was in the clear. That telegram fooled no one but Tony's mother. On March 6th, 1969, all the circumstantial evidence against Antone Costa was finally bolstered by undeniable physical evidence uncovered in the Truro Woods.

In multiple graves dug into the earth, searchers recovered the bodies of three women, about 300 feet away from the initial discovery of a young woman a month earlier. Four young women, buried in the woods, all who met horrific ends at the hands of a monster. The Attorney General's office confirmed in the press two of the women found were Patricia Walsh and Marianne Wysocki. The other women, along with the very first woman they discovered, remained unidentified at the time. Within an hour, Antone C. Costa was in custody and charged with the murders of Patricia Walsh and Marianne Wysocki. He later entered a plea of innocent. If found guilty, he could face the death penalty. The wait for Tony Costa to finally face a judge and jury for the crimes he was suspected of committing was long.

Delays for psychological evaluation, forensic testing, and then with the abundance of media coverage of the case, his defense team argued for a change in venue, which further delayed the start date. But finally, in May of 1970, a smiling Tony Costa entered the courtroom. Kermit Jadiker wrote for the Scranton Times Tribune, quote, Into a packed courtroom in Barnstable, Massachusetts, strode Antone Costa, a spanking Cleaning up for the court was the beginning of the defense strategy. The prosecution presented a nearly rock-solid case. From the witnesses who could speak to Tony's introduction to Pat and Marianne, the friend who saw the three together in Pat's car in Truro, their belongings in Tony's room and his possession

of their car, there was little the defense could contradict, and they didn't. Forensic evidence showed that both women died by gunshot wounds from a gun belonging to Tony. There was blood on his boots and a piece of rope in his closet. Not to mention, that area of the North Truro Woods between Route 6 and Old County Road was known to be Tony's their client, Tony's defense team argued that his drug issues paired with psychiatric disorders made him unaware of his wrongdoing. But Anton himself made a 12-minute long statement in his own defense without cross-examination, as was permissible in death penalty cases. He talked about his life of drug dependency, of seeking help but failing to follow through, his message for the youth of America and the destruction drugs can cause. He begged for the opportunity to seek help for the vices that held him. He attempted to appeal to the emotions of the jury.

He'd lost everything to drugs, he said. Ultimately, and especially after his indulgent display of his own believed intellect, the defense was unable to convince anyone that Tony was, by legal standards, insane. As both sides arrested their cases and the jury began their deliberations, the first sign of an impending verdict was a juror with an important question. According to reporting by the Associated Press, the juror asked that if Anton Costa received a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity, would he be, quote, set free in the streets, end quote.

The judge answered that, with that verdict, Tony would be committed to an institution for life. 30 minutes later, six and a half hours in total, the jury handed down their verdict. Anton Costa, guilty on two counts of first-degree murder. District Attorney Edmund Dennis had asked the jury for this verdict earlier and also requested that the death penalty not be imposed. To quote, let him live and let him think of his butchery, unquote. Anton Costa was sentenced to life in prison. The verdict and sentence was later upheld on appeal. In May of 1974, Tony Costa was found dead in his cell at Walpole Correctional Institution. It was ruled that Tony died by suicide. However, that fact is debated to this day. The other women found in the Truro Woods were identified as 19-year-old Sydney Lee Monzen

and 17-year-old Susan Perry. Anton Costa was not charged in their deaths, though he is assumed to have stolen their young lives. Sydney's headstone reads, lived each second to its fullest. The intricacies of their lives, the challenges they encountered in their less than two decades on this earth, how they came to cross paths with Tony Costa, it's all explored within the pages of The Babysitter, written by Liza Rodman and Jennifer Jordan. I received an email back in June of this year, 2021, from a writer wondering if I'd

encountered any unsolved homicides or questionable cases in Maine and New Hampshire between the fall of 1968 and March of 1969. She had written a book covering the crimes of Tony Costa, and he was suspected of having other victims in other parts of New England. I did a double-take at the name at the bottom of the email. Liza Rodman, co-author of The Babysitter. As I combed my past research and sources for cases that may fit that timeline, I also asked Liza if she'd be interested in joining me on Dark Down East to talk about what she learned alongside her co-writer, Jennifer Jordan.

You see, there's a very specific reason they named it the babysitter. It's because Liza Rodman lived on Cape Cod in the 1960s. Her mother owned and operated a motel in Provincetown when she was a kid. And the motel had an occasional handyman who also doubled as the babysitter for Liza and her sister. That babysitter was Tony Costa. In a special companion episode coming soon to Dark Down East, Liza explains how she found out in adulthood that her babysitter was a serial killer. And together, Liza and Jennifer detail what they learned about the women whose lives Tony claimed

and why they believe Liza was spared a similar fate. Thank you for listening to Dark Down East. Source material for this case and others is listed at darkdowneast.com, including links so you can pick up a copy of The Babysitter for yourself. The best way to support this show is following, subscribing, and leaving a review or a simple star rating. Thank you for supporting this show and allowing me to do what I do. I'm honored to use this platform for the families and friends who have lost their loved ones, and for those who are still searching for answers in cold missing persons and murder cases. I am not about to let those names or their stories get lost with time.

I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is Dark Down East.