Upon returning to Massachusetts, Costa stole $5,000 worth of surgical and medical equipment. A week later, Sydney Monzon disappeared—and shortly after that, 17-year-old Susan Perry vanished.

After the bodies were discovered, media outlets descended on the small Massachusetts hamlet. Novelist Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., whose daughter Edith met Costa, compared him to Charles Manson in his collection of essays. Vonnegut said of his correspondence with Costa: “The message of his letters to me was that a person as intent on being virtuous as he could not possibly have hurt a fly.” Although Vonnegut did not believe Costa, the killer certainly believed his own words.

Costa wrote an unpublished novel while in prison that described the murders of Walsh and Wysocki. In it, he claimed that he and a friend named Carl were out with the two women consuming a variety of drugs, including LSD, when Carl shot Walsh and Wysocki.

Costa then claimed that after realizing that Wysocki was still alive, he decided to “end her suffering” with a knife—and that he and Carl buried the bodies. Costa claimed that Susan Perry and Sydney Monzon died due to drug overdoses, and Carl dismembered and buried their bodies.

In May of 1970, Costa was arraigned for three of the murders and convicted for the murder of Wysocki and Walsh. He was sentenced to life in prison at Massachusetts’ Walpole Correctional Institution. Four years into his sentence, Costa committed suicide by hanging himself in his cell. Some experts believe that Costa could be responsible for as many as seven or eight murders.

Costa’s “garden” in the Truro woods has become a morbid tourist attraction. To this day, nearly 50 years later, it continues to attract visitors in search of spooky sites.

The Creepy Case of Serial Killer Tony Costa and His Garden of Horrors

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