Kirsten Costas

Kirsten Marina Costas (July 23, 1968 – June 23, 1984) was an American high school student who was murdered by her classmate, Bernadette Protti, in June 1984.^[1][2]

Background

The daughter of affluent parents, Arthur and Berit Costas, Kirsten and her brother, Peter, grew up in the small suburban town of Orinda, California. Costas went to Miramonte High School, and was a member of the school's varsity swim team and the cheerleading squad.

The case

On June 23, 1984, Costas was lured with a phony invitation to a dinner for the Bob-o-Links, a sorority-like group at school.^[3] According to Protti's later testimony, she had planned to take Costas to the party to befriend her, but Costas got angry when she was told that there was no dinner for the new "Bobbies". The girls quarreled, and Costas fled to the home of Alex and Mary Jane Arnold, living nearby, telling them that her friend had gone "weird". When Costas could not reach her parents by telephone, Alex Arnold drove her home, noticing that a Pinto–the Protti's family car–was following them. At the Costas home, Arnold, sitting in his car, saw Protti attack Costas. He thought that he was seeing a fist-fight but, in fact, Protti stabbed Costas five times with an 18 inch Butcher knife and fled. The Costas' neighbors called an ambulance, but Kirsten was mortally wounded and died at a nearby hospital.

It took the police almost six months to find Costas' killer. After Protti passed a lie detector test, her alibi went unverified. After attempting to confirm Protti's alibi and rereading her lie detector test, the police knew that the girl had lied. After speaking with an FBI officer, who informed her that her arrest was imminent, and that they knew she killed Kirsten, Protti wrote her mother a letter in which she made a full confession.

Protti claimed to have found the kitchen knife by chance, and her elder sister, Virginia Varela, testified in court that she used to have that knife in her car to cut vegetables. The Costas did not believe Protti's story – they claimed that nobody would use an 18-inch-long (460 mm) knife to slice tomatoes and that Protti, casually dressed on that evening, never intended to take Kirsten to a party, but had planned to murder her. 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.^[4]

In popular culture

In 1994, the story was made into a television movie entitled 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.^[4]

References