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In his garden: The anatomy of a murderer
True, horrifying facts about the grisly Cape Cod murders that shocked the nation. 16 pages of photographs, including many never seen outside the courtroom.
680 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1981
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
July 21, 2021
This beat-up paperback still has the receipt from the used bookstore where I bought it for $3.23 in 1994. I know it's out of print, but just saw the cheapest used copy on Amazon is $240.99. I can only attribute that to the notoriety of the author. (See last paragraph)
Readability I only give this book a two star rating. The third star is for the incredible amount of research Damore went through--whether all the research needed to be presented in a book is debatable.
This is the story of Tony Costa who was convicted of killing two women in the Cape Cod area in 1969. Most likely he killed two other women who's bodies were found in the same area, but he didn't go to trial for those killings. He may have killed more. The book is unusual because much of the research conducted and presented in the book was done by Costa's defense. Costa couldn't afford representation, so part of his attorney's deal was the right's to any proceeds from a book written about Costa and his trial. Costa's attorney presented a defense of temporary insanity due to Costa's drug use, and tried to blame Costa's doctor for his drug dependency.
Around this time is when Ted Kennedy had his infamous accident that killed Mary Jo Kopechne at Chappaquiddick--only about 50 miles from where the events in this book took place. In fact the same District Attorney investigated both cases. Damore went on to write 'Senatorial Privilege: The Chappaquiddick Coverup'. Supposedly Damore shot himself in 1995 at the age of 66. According to his son, the manuscript of his latest book about Mary Pinchot Meyer, JFK's mistress disappeared at the time. Mary Pinchot Meyer, the former wife of a CIA official was mysteriously murdered in 1964--and at the time her diary also disappeared. My conclusion: Maybe I read the wrong book!
Readability I only give this book a two star rating. The third star is for the incredible amount of research Damore went through--whether all the research needed to be presented in a book is debatable.
This is the story of Tony Costa who was convicted of killing two women in the Cape Cod area in 1969. Most likely he killed two other women who's bodies were found in the same area, but he didn't go to trial for those killings. He may have killed more. The book is unusual because much of the research conducted and presented in the book was done by Costa's defense. Costa couldn't afford representation, so part of his attorney's deal was the right's to any proceeds from a book written about Costa and his trial. Costa's attorney presented a defense of temporary insanity due to Costa's drug use, and tried to blame Costa's doctor for his drug dependency.
Around this time is when Ted Kennedy had his infamous accident that killed Mary Jo Kopechne at Chappaquiddick--only about 50 miles from where the events in this book took place. In fact the same District Attorney investigated both cases. Damore went on to write 'Senatorial Privilege: The Chappaquiddick Coverup'. Supposedly Damore shot himself in 1995 at the age of 66. According to his son, the manuscript of his latest book about Mary Pinchot Meyer, JFK's mistress disappeared at the time. Mary Pinchot Meyer, the former wife of a CIA official was mysteriously murdered in 1964--and at the time her diary also disappeared. My conclusion: Maybe I read the wrong book!
December 1, 2021
Re-read this after something like 20 years. It was like a totally new book to me. Fascinating to read all the conflicting psychiatric diagnoses of this man and how poorly most of them matched up with the hideous crime-scene evidence. The story dragged at times when we were slogging through legal arguments, but it was all important to the story and all of it contrasted sharply with what the defendant thought was going on. Funny that with at least 5 other people planning to write books about this case, this is the only one that squeaked through. I would have been interested to read them all...
August 23, 2018
I really did not care for this book, and although there are plenty of positive reviews, felt the writing
was overly drawn out. The case itself was certainly interesting, but page after page of verbatim transcripts from psychiatrists, depositions and the trial itself made this book overly long and almost tedious to read, in my humble opinion. Since I started it, I was determined to finish, but wish the author had not included every bit of research he had.
was overly drawn out. The case itself was certainly interesting, but page after page of verbatim transcripts from psychiatrists, depositions and the trial itself made this book overly long and almost tedious to read, in my humble opinion. Since I started it, I was determined to finish, but wish the author had not included every bit of research he had.
June 30, 2016
I read this book in the '80s and was looking it up to remind myself of something. It has stayed with me all these years, some of the details, the crawling skin, the killer's face. A bit clinical and dry, but it is true crime after all.
August 7, 2017
this is the most exhaustingly detailed true crime book I've ever read. Costa is MADDENING with his bs stories
August 19, 2016
I was in high school when this happened, I remember it very well. My father turned on the TV and the news caster said, They found another leg today. I kind of laughed, like nervous laughter, it was so out of context and sounded so weird. My Dad, who has 5 children, me being the oldest, got up walked across the room, and said, do you really think that's funny? Before I could say no, he slapped me across the face. I was in shock then, but I get it now. God, I think of all the stupid things I did when I was young. All the hitch hiking, and just meeting strangers and hanging out, I'm amazed I'm still here. Like with the Boston Strangler, I found there were things in this book that seemed weirdly....I don't know coincidental in relation to me, I suppose. I grew up in West Bridgewater, the next town over from Bridgewater Correctional Institution for the criminally insane...oh joy! DeSalvo broke out of Bridgewater, and I remember I was supposed to babysit down the street that night, but as I was putting on my coat, my mother said where the hell do you think you're going? I said I was babysitting for Auglis' and she said, you're not leaving this house...if anyone comes to the door, this is what I want you to do. I want you to go upstairs and throw the kids out the window, and I'll call the police! I didn't know what the woman was on about, and hopefully when she told me to throw my younger siblings out the window, she meant her bedroom window so they would at least be on the roof of the front porch! DeSalvo had escaped. He did in fact hide in someone's house. I've slept in an apartment in Harvard Square where he murdered one of the woman, and I also had a very dear friend, Brigham, or Robert Auld, who discovered his friends strangled body and was hauled in for questioning repeatedly. If you want to see a real mind fuck, in Sebastian Youngers book, I think it's called A death in Belmont, there is a photo of the author as a baby on his mother's lap with DeSalvo and his boss....they built an addition on the authors house, a studio for his mother who was an artist! Yikes! Enough about DeSalvo. Tony Costa, that guy was some kind of freak show. I lived in Provincetown from 1974 to 1976. Costa died in 74 so it was old news by then. Reading this book though, I almost choked when I read that he lived in Somerville before his mother shipped him off to live with an aunt in P Town. He'd been caught assaulting a 14 year old girl after breaking into her home on Hudson Street. I've lived in Somerville for 35 years now, the first 13 I could look out my window and see Hudson St.! Costa's birthday is the same as my boyfriend and the address of Primitivo Africa, on E. 9th St. in the East Village would have been a few doors away from my apt. on E. 9th when I lived in the E. Village. Africa was involved, in so much as it was his phone number that came up in regards to the telegram Costa allegedly sent from Pat and Maryanne, saying they were in New York and all was fine. It was an effort to make the police believe they were alive, ergo, he didn't kill them. Africa was a friend of Chrissie, who allegedly committed suicide in her bathtub, and it was never established whether Costa was responsible for her death. He was only tried for the deaths of the two Providence girls, and not Sydney, Susan, or the girl in California who he had been with and also disappeared.
Costa was sent to Bridgewater for psychological screening. One thing that I found odd was that just about all the psychologists and doctors, even the police, claimed he was very intelligent, which I feel was book smart. But, you've got to wonder about a man who spends his time hanging with kids many years younger than himself. That would say to me that he needed to feel superior, he definitely had a pumped up image of himself, as a teacher or spiritual guide, that right there, to me, says he had issues. Provincetown is a very hip place. While it's always been a haven for gay people, who could live there without the threat of being hasseled, at that time, it still was more of an intellectual/art colony. So, really, if he was all that smart, there were many people that he could have expounded with, rather than hang with teenagers. Provincetown originally was a Portugese fishing village, and in the 60's the majority of homes were owned by Portugese, who rented rooms or apartments to summer people, not so much tourists as young kids who were there to work the restaurants, and go to the beach. It definitely was somewhere that people went because it was free thinking, and if you wanted to go down the street with bells on your toes and a bone through your nose, nobody looked at you sideways, except the tourists who came because that was what they wanted to see. the kids that Costa hung out with were townie kids, kids who didn't mingle with the summer crowd, although I'd wager there were very few boys who were opposed to blowing some gay guy under the pier for 5 bucks. His letters to people and manner of speaking did show him to have a good vocabulary, but still odd in his phrasing of things, with the understanding that it was the 60's and things were groovy and all that hippy talk.
Goldman's defense. Drugs made him do it. I sincerely doubt it's something anyone would do on barbituates, possibly speed....if anything acid. I went with a friend to visit a friend of his in 1970, I think we were in Vermont, it was like a farm, and Jose was so mild and zen like....after we left, Harry told me Jose had shot and killed this other guy I knew, Brian Burlingame. Brian was a bad ass, and Jose was tripping when it happened. I could see someone freaking on Acid, as far as the actual murder goes. But, the whole sequence of events, with the car and all that? And, what an idiot. The stories he came up with, which changed as frequently as the weather, if I was interrogating him, I'd wind up asking, Tony, do I look like a farmer to you? Really. For all the people who talked to him and found him intelligent, some of the stuff he came up with was beyond juvenile, and that he thought people would believe it, was beyond me. I think he was a twisted fuck head, I think he knew exactly what he was doing when he was doing it, and I think he enjoyed it. It may have stemmed from some kind of rage that would well up in him, but he knew what he was doing, he knew what he did. You so have to be in La La land to think that you could be convicted of that crime, and he was only tried for the two murders, because they could connect him with Pat Walsh's car, and think that after a bit in prison you're reformed and they're going to let you out! He really seemed to think that he would get out of prison! Like, dum de dum, I'm feeling better now, can I go home?
Costa claimed throughout that the girls were there to cop dope. It was all about them giving him the car in lieu of payment for heroin. I kept thinking, right, a school teacher, at that time? One thing I did find interesting though, was something Pat Walsh's mother said when she was sequestered at the court house. She told Sargent James Sharkey of the state police, Patricia had been controlled, had been carefully supervised, and had been brought up right. That gave me pause. Not that I would think she was there to buy tons of heroin, or even pot, but it does remind me of exactly why I lived in P Town, because I was into being cool, and wanted to be free of my very strict upbringing. I think that if you have a strict upbringing, you retain the morals and principles that you are taught, but if you are someone who questions things in life, or you have an elan about you, then you long to get out from under. It's my guess that Pat Walsh was in Provincetown that weekend to let her freak flag fly, and she wanted to engage with people and live it. There's nothing wrong with that, she just met someone who was beyond freaky, and it cost her her life, and the poor other girl....She was just along for the ride.
The book was an easy read the way it was written, although a bit repetitive. The one thing I wondered in the end, was if Maurice Goldman, who defended Costa on spec, assuming there would be a book or film, got anything out of this book. He made Costa sign a contract that turned over any profits from prospective books or films to Goldman, and he did put out a considerable amount of his own money, it was a bone of contention with Costa in the end. I kind of think Goldman was pretty sleazy, and convinced of his clients guilt, it wouldn't bother me if he didn't get a penny one way or the other.
While I was on vacation this summer, we stopped at a flea market in a Grange in Madison Maine. We got to talking to the woman in there, she asked where we were from. We said Boston, she had grown up in Wellfleet. Oddly enough, she asked me if I remembered the Tony Costa case....and when I said I'd just read the book....she was a friend of Sydney Monzon's. She claims that there are bodies all over the place....that the girls were in fact there to cop, and that it all had to do with abortions, that the abortionist, wasn't very good and Tony was disposing of the bodies. That would kind of tally up with his saying that the two Providence girls were going to Canada for an abortion, which was not legal yet. Even if it wasn't true, that one of those girls needed one, it could be that came into his head because that was what was going on in town. I wish I'd been able to talk to her longer and found out more. It doesn't make it any better for sure, but it does make it less like he was a psychopathic killer if he was disposing of poor girls who were not able to obtain a legal abortion. The woman said, Sydney would still be alive if her father could have dealt with her being pregnant. She seemed to get quite a kick out of the kid having a key to Adams Pharmacy and robbing the place too.
Costa was sent to Bridgewater for psychological screening. One thing that I found odd was that just about all the psychologists and doctors, even the police, claimed he was very intelligent, which I feel was book smart. But, you've got to wonder about a man who spends his time hanging with kids many years younger than himself. That would say to me that he needed to feel superior, he definitely had a pumped up image of himself, as a teacher or spiritual guide, that right there, to me, says he had issues. Provincetown is a very hip place. While it's always been a haven for gay people, who could live there without the threat of being hasseled, at that time, it still was more of an intellectual/art colony. So, really, if he was all that smart, there were many people that he could have expounded with, rather than hang with teenagers. Provincetown originally was a Portugese fishing village, and in the 60's the majority of homes were owned by Portugese, who rented rooms or apartments to summer people, not so much tourists as young kids who were there to work the restaurants, and go to the beach. It definitely was somewhere that people went because it was free thinking, and if you wanted to go down the street with bells on your toes and a bone through your nose, nobody looked at you sideways, except the tourists who came because that was what they wanted to see. the kids that Costa hung out with were townie kids, kids who didn't mingle with the summer crowd, although I'd wager there were very few boys who were opposed to blowing some gay guy under the pier for 5 bucks. His letters to people and manner of speaking did show him to have a good vocabulary, but still odd in his phrasing of things, with the understanding that it was the 60's and things were groovy and all that hippy talk.
Goldman's defense. Drugs made him do it. I sincerely doubt it's something anyone would do on barbituates, possibly speed....if anything acid. I went with a friend to visit a friend of his in 1970, I think we were in Vermont, it was like a farm, and Jose was so mild and zen like....after we left, Harry told me Jose had shot and killed this other guy I knew, Brian Burlingame. Brian was a bad ass, and Jose was tripping when it happened. I could see someone freaking on Acid, as far as the actual murder goes. But, the whole sequence of events, with the car and all that? And, what an idiot. The stories he came up with, which changed as frequently as the weather, if I was interrogating him, I'd wind up asking, Tony, do I look like a farmer to you? Really. For all the people who talked to him and found him intelligent, some of the stuff he came up with was beyond juvenile, and that he thought people would believe it, was beyond me. I think he was a twisted fuck head, I think he knew exactly what he was doing when he was doing it, and I think he enjoyed it. It may have stemmed from some kind of rage that would well up in him, but he knew what he was doing, he knew what he did. You so have to be in La La land to think that you could be convicted of that crime, and he was only tried for the two murders, because they could connect him with Pat Walsh's car, and think that after a bit in prison you're reformed and they're going to let you out! He really seemed to think that he would get out of prison! Like, dum de dum, I'm feeling better now, can I go home?
Costa claimed throughout that the girls were there to cop dope. It was all about them giving him the car in lieu of payment for heroin. I kept thinking, right, a school teacher, at that time? One thing I did find interesting though, was something Pat Walsh's mother said when she was sequestered at the court house. She told Sargent James Sharkey of the state police, Patricia had been controlled, had been carefully supervised, and had been brought up right. That gave me pause. Not that I would think she was there to buy tons of heroin, or even pot, but it does remind me of exactly why I lived in P Town, because I was into being cool, and wanted to be free of my very strict upbringing. I think that if you have a strict upbringing, you retain the morals and principles that you are taught, but if you are someone who questions things in life, or you have an elan about you, then you long to get out from under. It's my guess that Pat Walsh was in Provincetown that weekend to let her freak flag fly, and she wanted to engage with people and live it. There's nothing wrong with that, she just met someone who was beyond freaky, and it cost her her life, and the poor other girl....She was just along for the ride.
The book was an easy read the way it was written, although a bit repetitive. The one thing I wondered in the end, was if Maurice Goldman, who defended Costa on spec, assuming there would be a book or film, got anything out of this book. He made Costa sign a contract that turned over any profits from prospective books or films to Goldman, and he did put out a considerable amount of his own money, it was a bone of contention with Costa in the end. I kind of think Goldman was pretty sleazy, and convinced of his clients guilt, it wouldn't bother me if he didn't get a penny one way or the other.
While I was on vacation this summer, we stopped at a flea market in a Grange in Madison Maine. We got to talking to the woman in there, she asked where we were from. We said Boston, she had grown up in Wellfleet. Oddly enough, she asked me if I remembered the Tony Costa case....and when I said I'd just read the book....she was a friend of Sydney Monzon's. She claims that there are bodies all over the place....that the girls were in fact there to cop, and that it all had to do with abortions, that the abortionist, wasn't very good and Tony was disposing of the bodies. That would kind of tally up with his saying that the two Providence girls were going to Canada for an abortion, which was not legal yet. Even if it wasn't true, that one of those girls needed one, it could be that came into his head because that was what was going on in town. I wish I'd been able to talk to her longer and found out more. It doesn't make it any better for sure, but it does make it less like he was a psychopathic killer if he was disposing of poor girls who were not able to obtain a legal abortion. The woman said, Sydney would still be alive if her father could have dealt with her being pregnant. She seemed to get quite a kick out of the kid having a key to Adams Pharmacy and robbing the place too.
August 16, 2025
Great for people who love murder stories. I loved it and found myself surprised at how fascinated I was every time I returned to the book, even as I felt it was droning on. But that is a testament to Leo Damore investigative writing, which gives you the whole picture from every point of view in the book. He is more well-known for his book about Chappaquiddick, but this was a fascinating read. I only knocled it down 1 star for the length. It was a tome.
July 19, 2021
3.5 stars. This book was particularly interesting to me because my mother-in-law knew the murderer. She was one of the young teenagers who hung out with Tony and his wife. She thinks he killed one of her friends who disappeared and considers herself lucky to have survived knowing him.
I’m not really that into true crime per se but the book seemed to be well done.
I’m not really that into true crime per se but the book seemed to be well done.
March 31, 2023
If you plan to read a book about an American serial killer I would suggest that you avoid this long winded epic. It's a long, long book that covers a story which might well have been enjoyable at half the length. By around page 400 I was beginning to lose the will to live. The author has to be applauded for his meticulous research, but unputdownable it ain't.
November 9, 2018
I read this book back in the late 80's when everyone was talking about the murders. I picked it up again when Christina Worthington was murdered down in Truro in 2002. Was a pretty good read.
March 11, 2019
This is a well written, well researched book. It stands the test of time.
April 14, 2023
A disturbing true crime book I read it while camping on a summer vacation on Martha's Vineyard.
February 24, 2024
This was a pretty good book. Tony Costa was so delusional and didn’t even know it. This book was recommended to me by the girls on the Morbid podcast. It was definitely worth reading.
June 18, 2024
Harrowing story. My feeling is the book was way too long. The events could have been adequately told in about 300-400 pages.
December 18, 2022
This 700 page behemoth depicts the 1969 case in chronological order from when the girls went missing to the bitter end of the case and the defendant. Reads a lot like a report with full accounts of interviews from the police, psychiatrists, and the trial that took place. And I mean every interview. Making the book repetitive at times when Costa would be interviewed again and again by police. Well I did enjoy the book the author put in any miniscule detail he could get his hands on. Even a fully typed out social security for one of the victims and full addresses on numerous occasions throughout the book. More prolific killers didn't even get a book this long… But in hindsight it does give you a good account of the murders that took place along with the psyche of Costa himself. The book does include non graphic photos of the victims and the killer. Well I do recommend the book, just be warned that it's a bit of a chew.
March 18, 2015
As some previous reviews have said, there is a lot of repetition in this book. I wasn't bothered by it though. Sometimes I think the information is repeated just to add to the length of the novel. In this case, it seemed it was done because it was another perspective.
I was an infant when this trial was taking place, but my grandparents lived in Provincetown. I know the places spoken of. I know some of the players, at least by name. My grandfather worked for the town for some period when I was young.
This was a horrendous case and I really wonder how many women he killed.
I was an infant when this trial was taking place, but my grandparents lived in Provincetown. I know the places spoken of. I know some of the players, at least by name. My grandfather worked for the town for some period when I was young.
This was a horrendous case and I really wonder how many women he killed.
July 18, 2013
Very detailed account of this strange man. Usually I dont enjoy the true crime with many extraneous details. I dont need times and weather reports to understand a crime. But the details, and there are a lot, all seem to make this book better.
August 5, 2014
i didn't finish this. Too detailed and repetitive.
May 22, 2016
Excellent true crime book.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews