In a Deadly Explosion of Teenage Unhappiness, One Life Is Cut Short, Another Blighted by Murder
In comfortable, suburban Orinda, Calif., where the American dream is sometimes taken for granted, Kirsten Costas made adolescence look easy. A 15-year-old sophomore, she swam for the high school team. She belonged to the Bob-o-links, an exclusive volunteer group with sorority overtones. She won a place as a varsity cheerleader. "Kirsten had a good personality," says Jessica Grant, 16, her classmate at Miramonte High School. "She was pretty and vibrant." And she was one of Miramonte's elite.For Bernadette Protti, life was more of a struggle. An ordinary-looking girl, Bernadette, 15, also belonged to the Bob-o-links. She had good grades and a circle of friends. Yet in the glaring light of her merciless self-scrutiny, Bernadette was a failure. Surrounded by the sons and daughters of highly paid executives, she was embarrassed by the more modest means of her father, a retired public utilities supervisor for the city of San Francisco. She desperately wanted a place on the cheerleading squad. "She worked hard for cheerleader," recalls Jessica Grant. "She came up to me afterward and said, 'I didn't make it and I can't believe it.' She was really disappointed."
About that time Bernadette was also rejected by the selective Atlantis club and denied a place on the yearbook staff—standard teenage setbacks, but to Bernadette they were something more. "Bernadette was accepted and popular in her own way," says classmate Kris Johnson, 16. "But she had this obsession with being liked. I could never understand why she thought she wasn't."
Kirsten Costas probably never thought much about Bernadette. She had no way of knowing that Bernadette was thinking a great deal about her. To Bernadette, the pretty daughter of 3M executive Arthur Costas had become a painful reminder of feelings of failure. "She never liked me...," Bernadette explained later. "The thing that got me mad was it hurt." Not that Kirsten ever insulted her. "I mean she didn't really say, 'You're ugly' or something," Bernadette remembered. "She just said stuff that made me feel bad." Once, she recalled, she had been on a school ski trip with Kirsten: "I mean, we don't have a lot of money and stuff...and I just had this really crummy pair of skis and some boots, but...I was having fun anyway, and she made some comment about them.... It just seemed like everybody else was thinking that, but she was the only one who would ever come out and say that...."
Last June 21, a Thursday, while Kirsten was away at a cheerleader training camp, her mother, Berit, answered a 10 p.m. phone call. The girl on the line knew Kirsten wasn't home but said she wanted to tell her of a secret Bob-o-links initiation dinner that Saturday night. Kirsten returned home the next day, and on Saturday night her parents and her brother, Peter, 12, attended a potluck dinner for Peter's baseball team. Berit called home at 8:20 p.m. to wish Kirsten a good time with the Bob-o-links and to remind her to turn on the porch light. It was the last time she would speak to her daughter.
A little more than an hour later, a few miles away, Kirsten rang the doorbell of Alex and Mary Jane Arnold, who had just finished playing cribbage with neighbors. She said she had been with a friend at the church up the road and the friend had "gone weird." As Kirsten entered the house, Mary Jane noticed someone behind her on the front path—"a gal about 15 with a roundish face and light-brown hair." Kirsten seemed upset, but not terrified. Unable to reach her parents by telephone, she accepted Alex's offer of a ride to one of her family's neighbors. As they left, Mary Jane noticed a small car at the end of the driveway.
When Alex drove off, the car, a mustard-colored Pinto, seemed to be following. He asked Kirsten what was going on. "It's okay," she replied. Pulling into Kirsten's neighbor's driveway, Alex said he would wait until Kirsten got inside. He watched as she walked to the door, then saw a female figure swoop out of the darkness. He thought he was seeing a fist fight. Then the assailant disappeared in the shadows.
Attorney Arthur Hillman, another of the Costas' neighbors, was standing at his kitchen sink that night when he heard "a bloodcurdling yell." Rushing to his front door, he saw Kirsten staggering toward his house crying, "Help me, help me, I've been stabbed." She collapsed into his arms, blood gushing from five stab wounds in her upper body. "She was in shock," Hillman later testified. "I tried to hold her hand and pray a little on the side." Returning home a short time later, the Costas family found their normally quiet street clogged with police cars and fire trucks. Then Arthur Costas saw his daughter lying in an ambulance. She was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital at 11:02 p.m.
An hour earlier on that peaceful summer evening, Elaine Protti had suggested a walk when her daughter, Bernadette, returned home in the family Pinto. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. That summer Bernadette attended classes to prepare for confirmation in the Roman Catholic Church. She swam and saw friends. And she attended Kirsten's funeral. "I was really good at blocking [what had happened] out of my mind, and I still am," she said later. "That's why I can live through every day, because it doesn't seem real."
Surprisingly, it took authorities almost six months to find Kirsten's killer. Local sheriffs conducted more than 300 interviews, investigated more than 1,000 leads and examined 750 Pintos. Many Miramonte High School students were questioned. In the eyes of her classmates, Bernadette was an unlikely suspect. "I knew she had the Pinto, but she was the last person you'd think of," says her friend Jessica Grant. "She seemed as upset about the murder as everybody else."
Yet Bernadette's account of her activities on the night of the murder puzzled investigators. In December she was called back for questioning by FBI agent Ronald Hilley. Hilley reviewed for Bernadette the psychological profile that had been drawn of the murderer. After his description, Bernadette said quietly, "It sounds just like me." She asked what would happen to Kirsten's killer. The public humiliation, she said, might be worse even than prison. Then she asked to go home.
Over the next few days, Bernadette committed some of her thoughts to paper. This is what she wrote:
"1. I have caused a lot of hurt and pain to a lot of people....
2. I don't want to hurt people anymore.
3. I want to go to heaven when I die.
4. I regret what I did.
5. I can't bring Kirsten back or change time.
6. If I kill myself I will hurt people even more (my family). I think I could kill myself. I would go to hell if I killed myself. I would rather kill myself than go on living if people knew.... Although it's incredible, my parents are saints who would forgive and love me."
On the evening of December 10, Bernadette asked her mother, Elaine, if they could have a talk. "I'll take a nap, but wake me up later," Mrs. Protti replied. She slept through the night unintentionally and apologized to her daughter the next morning. "That's okay," Bernadette said. "I've written you a note. I put it on the kitchen counter." She asked her mother to wait half an hour before reading it. Elaine studied the Bible until the ticking kitchen timer went off. Then she read.
"Dear Mom and Dad:
I have been trying to tell you this all day but I love you so much it's too hard so I'm taking the easy way out.... The FBI man...thinks I did it. And he is right.... I've been able to live with it [for a while], but I can't ignore it, it's too much for me and I can't be that deceiving.... Please still love me. I can't live unless you love me. I've ruined my life and yours and I don't know what to do and I'm ashamed and scared."
She added a postscript: "Please don't say how could you or why because I don't understand this and I don't know why."
Elaine telephoned Bernadette at school and picked her up. "I wanted a last chance with my daughter," she said later. "I wanted not so much to talk to her but to be with her." With her husband, Raymond, Elaine drove Bernadette to the sheriff's office in nearby Martinez where the girl broke down and made a full confession to Hilley. She said that on the night of the murder she had driven to the Costas house and told Kirsten that the Bob-o-links dinner was just a cover story for Kirsten's parents. What was really happening was a party. According to Bernadette, Kirsten agreed to go but first suggested they smoke some marijuana outside a nearby church. (When the taped confession was played back in court during a three-day hearing in March, Kirsten's parents gasped in disbelief at the allegation.)
Bernadette said she balked at the marijuana. "We just talked, you know, argued, not argued really, but she didn't think it was any big deal, and I just didn't want to, and she made me feel dumb...," Bernadette told police. "She thought I was being weird." When Kirsten rushed from the Pinto in the church parking lot, she left behind some marijuana in a plastic bag, said Bernadette, who claimed she flushed it down the toilet when she got home. Bernadette also said she had found the murder knife just by chance—that she had never intended to kill. (Bernadette's sister, Gina, 25, testified that she often ate lunch in the car while at work, using the knife to cut vegetables.)
After the hearing, Judge Edward Merrill found Bernadette guilty of second-degree murder. She was sentenced last month to a maximum of nine years in the custody of the California Youth Authority and sent to a maximum-security facility near Camarillo. The Costas family, understandably, was hardly in a mood for forgiveness. During the testimony, Kirsten's mother glared at Bernadette, who sat slumped in a chair while her mother daubed at her daughter's eyes with a handkerchief, as four of the girl's sisters stroked Bernadette's hair and held her hands. "My heart is empty. I ache. I'm half a person," Berit Costas told the judge before Bernadette's sentencing. "[She] will probably be given her freedom in a few years.... I ask the people of California, is this justice?"
Some of Kirsten's classmates agreed it was not. "Whatever happens to Bernadette isn't going to be enough," said one. "I'm sorry for her," said another, "but I still want her to get everything she deserves. She shouldn't be allowed to forget what she did." There seems to be small chance of that. "I had dreams about [Kirsten]," Bernadette told Hilley. "I sort of apologized to her in my mind. You know, like I think she's in heaven now.... I sort of said that I'd still like to talk to her...." For Bernadette, it seems, Kirsten still represents a world from which she herself for so long felt excluded. What has changed is that now Bernadette truly is cut off from that world. And the one person whose acceptance meant so much, the one she so desperately wanted to talk to, has tragically been silenced forever.
Jeannette said that she thought she could kill herself. What a shame she didn't.....the murdering scumbucket.
ReplyDelete"I want to go to heaven when I die." Doesn't murder rule that out in Catholicism?
ReplyDelete"Not that Kirsten ever insulted her. "I mean she didn't really say, 'You're ugly' or something"
The only incident that Bernadette mentions is the ski trip. Surely a "bully victim" would be able to recount more than one incident? Bernadette, if the ski incident and the fact that Kirsten simply didn't like you is what you believe constitutes as "bullying", you are fortunate you didn't go to my Catholic school where disputes and other problems were not dealt with by using words, but dealt with by using fists.
Anyway, that's a good article. I feel tremendous pity for Kirsten's family. God bless them.
I'm surprised Virginia Protti Varela hasn't commented on this article. She has commented on everything else.
ReplyDelete'One of the three parole examiners, Victor Wisehart ,did not agree with the decision to release Protti. The parole examiner described Protti this way:
ReplyDeleteShe remains a danger to the public and is in need of further treatment to address her inability to control her anger and impulses. (During a confrontation with her boyfriend at the Youth Authority School) she demonstrated ”anger and a lack of impulse control. ‘I hate to think how she would have handled the incident had she been on parole and able to arm herself and stalk again another victim. She has a hidden trigger that anyone can pull just by not giving her what she thinks she should get in a relationship.”
The parole board examiners was made up of 3: Victor Wisehart, Jamie Bailey, and Sergio Gomez'
Virginia Protti Varela's reply under a pseudonym:
'Mr “Wise”hart, as a representative of the juridical process and the People of California, had revenge in mind rather than the feigned pretense to correct the inmate Protti. To deny an early release (by 11 months) into an 8-year sentence had nothing to do with true concern of rehabilitation of the inmate: 11 more months in prison would have left Protti exactly at the same mental state as it did when she was actually released. Mr “Wise”hart’s feigned argument was primitive, tribal and idiotic. It is regretful that individuals like him are even involved in the parole process, as his intellect clearly had been pushed beyond his abilities. I only regret that I cannot be in contact with him to debate his ludicrous statement at the parole hearing, check his questionable credentials and refer him to counselling'
'Revenge', huh? Such a classy mentally stable family.
IT WAS TWENTY TO TEN at the end of one of the year’s longest days, and the Berkeley Hills were still fading to black when the doorbell rang at the Arnold house on Idlewood Court. A dinner guest named Pat Flaherty answered the door and called to Mary Jane Arnold, “Do you want to let this girl into your house?” Mrs. Arnold walked from her kitchen to the open door and saw a teenage girl under the porch light. The girl was strikingly pretty, a petite, big-eyed brunette dressed in a blue-plaid skirt, white tights and brand-new shoes. Behind, her at the edge of a wall of shrubbery that divided their property from the driveway of the Moraga Valley Presbyterian Church, Mrs. Arnold saw another teenager, in sweat pants, she said, “lurking on the path.” Beyond the circle of light on her front lawn, Mrs. Arnold could make out only “a roundish face and light-brown hair.”
ReplyDelete”The girl on the porch said she had been waiting in the church parking lot for “some people who never showed up,” and then “my friend went weird on me.” She asked to come in and use the telephone to call home. The girl “seemed somewhat upset but not terrified,” Mrs. Arnold recalled.
Alex Arnold, prematurely bald and neatly bearded, came out of the family room “to see what was happening.” The pretty girl in the plaid skirt was dialing the telephone in the dining room. After a long wait she hung up without getting an answer. “There was an uncomfortable pause,” Arnold recalled, “and I offered to take her home.” While her husband started his four-door Volvo and opened the garage door, Mrs. Arnold looked out the kitchen window. The second girl was gone, but now there was a compact car idling in front of the house: a dented, gold Pinto. Alex Arnold asked the girl in the plaid skirt “if she didn’t want to go home with her friend, and she said no.”
As Arnold backed into the street, the headlights of his Volvo flared on the Pinto’s windshield. He could see the halo of an “almost white” female face. Pat Flaherty walked down the driveway. “It’s okay,” the girl behind the wheel called to him as the Pinto lurched away. Alex Arnold asked the girl in the plaid skirt where she lived. “Do you know the nursery?” she asked. Arnold nodded and steered north on Moraga Way, toward Orinda. The curving, two-lane road followed a creek bed past wooden-bridge driveways leading through steel gates to houses set in oak groves. Above these were forested hills hung with redwood decksand three-car garages, where land-grant rancheros had been subdivided so skillfully that “four bedrooms on wooded lot with serene view” was “a rare bargain” at $495,000.
The girl beside him told Arnold her name was Kirsten Costas. She was fifteen, and a couple of weeks earlier she had finished her sophomore year at Miramonte High School, where she was a star swimmer and had just been voted varsity cheerleader.Arnold was thinking that Kirsten seemed very self-assured for a girl her age when he was startled by the sound of an over-revving engine. In his rearview mirror, Arnold saw the gold Pinto —“right on my rear end. Kirsten turned to look between the Volvo’s high headrests, Arnold recalled, and “told me it was all right.” No one was home at the Costas house n Orchard Road. Arnold pulled into the driveway next door. “I said I would wait until she got inside,” he recalled. As Kirsten stepped onto the porch,
Arnold saw “a female person come swooping” out of thetall hedge. I ran up, and I said, “Kirsten.” I said to her, like, “I was going to drive you home ...”And she said, “Just go away. Just go away.”And she was banging on the door and, and, I don’t know. “At first, I thought I observed a fistfight,” Arnold said. Both girls were screaming. Arnold saw the second girl, a blonde in maroon sweat pants, raise her arm, and then Kirsten fell.
'She was talking to that man or something...I think he was starting to drive away, and she was telling me to go away, and I just, you know, she was like, you’re like that, you know, and she was turning in towards the door, and I just got angry, and I did it'.
continued...
ReplyDeleteKirsten dropped to the ground and bounced up in one motion—“sort of a frog leap,”Arnold said. He saw flailing arms and heard piercing screams, then the girls ran off the porch together. “For a moment,” Arnold recalled, “I saw both faces coming at me.”
The gold Pinto peeled south on Orchard Road. Arnold backed his Volvo out of the driveway and gave chase. He followed for maybe a quarter of a mile, Arnold said, before “all this stuff jelled.” There had been a flash, he realized, when the blonde girl raised her arm. Arnold “saw the picture”: an object in the blonde girl’s hand, extending from her wrist all the way to the elbow. “Then I realize something really wrong had happened back there,” Arnold said, and he swung his Volvo around in the middle of the road.
Arthur Hillman, an attorney who lived across the street from the Costases, was at his kitchen sink when he heard a scream “that I will never forget.” His sons John and Tom, home for the summer from Stanford, were in the family room watching television with their mother, but Hillman beat everyone to the front door
He stepped out onto the porch and saw Kirsten “running in a sort of staggering way toward our house.” As she came up the walkway, Hillman said, closing his eyes to remember, the girl called, “Help me. Help me. I’ve been stabbed.” She collapsed in the attorney’s arms, on his front porch, with blood soaking her neck and shoulders. Hillman tore off the girl’s blouse and inserted his fingers into a gushing wound under her left arm. He asked Kirsten who had done it, but there was no answer.
"There wasn't any blood on the seat or anything. It was weird. And there wasn’t any on my hands. I don’t know why“ (Bernadette's thoughts after murder)
I can’t feel my legs,” Kirsten told Hillman. He looked at the girl’s legs and told her they were all right. Kirsten’s eyes stayed open, he remembered, even after she said it was hard to breathe. Tom Hillman told his father the girl was bleeding from underneath. Hillman turned Kirsten in his arms and saw a second “spurting” wound in her back. “You can’t keep your hands in more than one place at once,” the attorney recalled, moving his open palms in front of his chest, as if trying to juggle several sharp objects. Hillman tried to give the girl mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, but “there was only a gurgling sound.”
It was only a few minutes after ten when Art Costas, regional manager for the 3M Company’s San Francisco office, and his wife, Berit, returned home from the potluck dinner where the couple had spent Saturday night celebrating the Little League season with their son, Peter. Art’s company car came over the last rise on Orchard Road and dropped into a riot of blue police flashers, red ambulance lights, fire trucks, sirens and several dozen shivering spectators, Berit Costas would remember, “all parked in front of our house.” Her husband jumped out of the car in the middle of the Street. Mrs. Costas tried to restrain her son, but the boy broke loose and followed his father. Berit Costas was afraid to move. A neighbor came to the side of the car and said Kirsten had been stabbed
Art Costas pushed his way to the back of the ambulance just in time to get a glimpse of his only daughter—on a stretcher, swaddled in blood-soaked bandages, no longer breathing—before they shut the doors. The parents followed the ambulance to the Kaiser Medical Center in Walnut Creek, where Kirsten was dead on arrival.
What a gruesome read, Anonymous. Thanks for posting. People ought to realize how sick Kirsten's murder really was.
ReplyDeleteHey, Anonymous, where did you get all the details? Are they from the trial or is this story a semi fiction based on facts?
ReplyDeleteThanks Frankie.
ReplyDeleteThe following is a quote from the son of the neigbor mentioned above that held Kirsten in his arms as she was dying:
a murder this heinous is not something anyone just "forgives and forgets", least of all my family. I was there that night. I saw Kirsten's blood squirting all over my father as she struggled to breathe. She knew she was dying and the horror on her face as she bled out before us was something none of us will ever forget.
You may have served your time under the law but it will NOT be forgotten. The grotesque, premeditated nature of the savage murder you perpetrated demand that this follow you for the rest of your life.
Anon......the above was taken from REAL interviews.
ReplyDeleteSix months after the Costas slaying, Protti admitted she had killed her schoolmate, police said.
ReplyDelete'She was very cool,' recalled a police investigator. 'There was no sense of remorse. She seemed to think she was justified in doing what she did.'
I wonder what, exactly, is wrong with Jeannette. To have no remorse, to feel justified in killing Kirsten, indicates something is seriously wrong with her. It'd be interesting to know a diagnosis.
ReplyDeleteI think she had a psychotic break & disassociated when she killed her
DeleteHi Frankie. We are never going to find out whatever is wrong with her.
ReplyDeleteAT KIRSTEN’s funeral, Presbyterian minister Dr. James S. Little posed the question “Where was God when it happened?” “He gives us the freedom to do and be, and in freedom we are vulnerable,” Dr. Little explained from the pulpit, where he stoodabove several hundred sobbing teenage girls. CN and SB GK looked at the closed gray casket buried under heaps of flowers and began to understand that the minister’s good god kept secrets. S hadn’t slept since it happened. Only a few weeks earlier she and Kirsten had been initiated into the Bobbies together. A carload of senior girls had come by their houses to drag them from their beds while it was till dark out. “They dressed us in weird clothes and made us do totally embarrassing things,” S recalled, like beg for spare change at a BART station. Kirsten had to tap-dance outside a boy’s bedroom window until he woke up, and then she had to sing a song about a senior basketball player she had a secret crush on, GG. S remembered talking on the telephone to Kirsten that afternoon, only a few hours before the killing. S said she was going to a couples party at MN's house, and Kirsten asked, “What about the Bobbies dinner?” She didn’t think there was one, Stacy said—“unless it’s just for you.
ReplyDeleteJeannette/Bernadette said she could live with Kirsten's murder because 'It all seemed like a dream'
ReplyDelete“A very straight, popular, attractive little girl(Kirsten),” Principal Yaich told the newspapers. “I used to call her (Kirsten) a social butterfly,” said her friend CN, “she would flit around from group to group during lunch, joking constantly.” “She made people laugh,”.
ReplyDeleteThat's your opinion
ReplyDeleteBrittney, dear, would you mind answering a question? I read and saw on documentaries that Kirsten was considered to be the 'alpha dog' of her group. Any truth to that? I found that amusing considering she was described as a petite girl and she looks like a cute little sweetie pie in her pictures.
ReplyDeletePerson who knew Kirsten:
ReplyDeleteI don't believe that Kirsten was a bully- none of those popular girls were- it was more complex than that. They were sweet and kind too, and smart and funny.
If Kirsten misunderstood Bernadette's intentions in the car, it's possible that Kirsten also thought Bernadette viewed the time alone with her as a sort of date, because she told Kirsten's mother Kirsten should wear something nice for the fake Bobbies dinner.
ReplyDeleteSomeone who knew Kirsten and Bernadette/Jeannette:
ReplyDeleteI knew both Kirsten Costas and Bernadette Protti. I was not close to either girl. I got along with both of them okay. I was a member of the artsy crowd, yet borderline popular, kind of hard to explain in today’s terms. I looked mainstream compared to the crowd I found most engaging. The extremely wealthy kids who lived over in the country club area (country club, better end of sleepy hollow) had their own cliques. I socialized with cheerleaders and dated athletes, but also had many close friends who were outsiders and dressed very differently. In 1984 Orinda, this was kind of a unique position to be in. Thus, I had friends from all groups, and thus, I got to know both Kirsten and Bernadette casually, and was very close friends with girls from very different groups who had gotten to know both of them over the years.
The wrongly accused girl and her family were tortured by the community. I myself was questioned in detail during the investigation by officials regarding my friend, was asked for my own alibi, and questioned at length about cliques, etc.
I remember a few years later – I was working at the Lafayette Park Hotel and my wrongly accused friend and her father walked in. I had not seen her since the investigation – her family had gone to London due to the fallout of the case. That family is one example of the dozens of families that are hurt in so many ways when just one beautiful life is extinguished – the Costas have suffered the most, and lots of other families suffer too. Every person who Kirsten interacted with in life is robbed – but so are all the future ties destroyed that might have been. … the damage goes on and on and on….
Bernadette Protti was indeed bullied. So were most kids, in one way or another. Kirsten was popular – which was important to her – and she was not a perfect angel. But I am willing to bet Kirsten never considered murdering anyone…. The movie story did not seem similar to my memories of our reality in 1984-85 Orinda. Kirsten was NOTHING like the Tori Spelling character. Shameful to portray her that way.
It took planning to create the Bobbies party story, it took a lot of nerve to call and con Kirsten’s Mom. Once Kirsten went out to the pinto and told Bernadette she knew the Bobbie’s party was a lie, Bernadette still had another lie ready to go… and if the party were real, would Bernadette be wearing old sweats ? No. The knife was ready and waiting. After leaving Kirsten to bleed to death, Bernadette went home and walked the dog with her Mom. She feigned shock when news of the murder came, and attended the funeral in tears. She is a very dangerous psychopath and does not deserve to live the american dream in anonymity.
Several of our classmates died early untimely deaths at Miramonte High School throughout the 1980’s. We lost dear friends to auto accidents, falls from local cliffs, ski accidents, and many other tragedies. Kirsten Costa’s horrible murder will always be the worst – because it wasn’t an accident… She should be here, living a full life.
I disagree with those who feel Bernadette has done her time. The sentence was a joke. I say this as someone who was not close to either family – just someone who feels a sense that justice hasn’t been served – and that just makes it worse for Bernadette’s victims – all those who knew EITHER girl involved are victims. Now Bernadette’s new family is most likely aware of her past, as the news has broken on her new identity and location. Bernadette has a new nose, children of her own and was on the board of directors at one of her jobs – Kirsten is gone forever.
You went to school with them? Was there really a party that night? I mean, it's hard to keep track of every get together, gathering, and party but was there ever any proof of a party?
DeletePerson who knew Kirsten and Bernadette:
ReplyDeleteI knew both girls in high school. Kirsten was indeed a lovely girl. By no angel I mean she was human. Yes, popularity was a priority for her, and I in no way intend to infer that there was anything negative or wicked about desiring popularity for a young girl at Miramonte in 1984. She was a good kid who wanted to do the best she could like any good kid.
Yes, I can recall witnessing unkind and unfair behavior meted out daily at Miramonte – by all kinds of kids, popular or not, and young kids and teens can be very cruel. My point was that Kirsten was a person, and as an imperfect person – with a human being’s faults – no matter what those faults may have been – she likely never thought about killing or wounding those she did not particularly care for or who may have treated her unfairly herself. It would never have crossed Kirsten’s mind to physically harm anybody. She really was a nice person, but a person – a young teen who was learning as she went like everybody has to. I have to tell the truth – I witnessed Kirsten being rather unkind – but not cruel – and nothing another young teen shouldn't have been able to shake off good-naturedly. Or at least shake off…..
In other words, even IF Kirsten was as ridiculously unpleasant as the Tori Spelling character portrayed her to have been – (which in my opinion Kirsten most definitely was not) – there STILL would be no way – in my opinion – to see this as a second degree type of charge. Thus my disgust with the light sentence and my disgust at the ability of the perpetrator to change her name and share our free citizenry.
Bernadette seemed a quieter type of person, shyer but still popular in her own way. She seemed kind and friendly – – I know – other people who knew them both keep saying that same exact thing- but that really is the best way to describe it. I suspect that Bernadette internalized a lot of small slights and saved them up rather than learning to shake them off. This allowed her to begin to irrationally focus all of her frustrations onto one person. From there, I do not know what went down between the two girls. The only one who knows is Bernadette. I know that Kirsten’s parents still had not had their questions answered as of 1992 and opposed Bernadette’s release.
Kirsten was in the bloom of her young life, and she was popular with lots of her peers for a reason. She was funny, bright and outgoing – an engaging type of personality
How tall was Kirsten & how tall was Bernadette?
DeleteWas there really a party that night?
Delete” SB remembered seeing Bernadette in summer school three days after the murder: “I started crying in class, and she put her arm around me and said, ‘We have to go on. We can’t let this thing stop us.
ReplyDelete” Both Elaine and Raymond Protti would say later they noticed “nothing different” about their daughter between June and December of 1984, and the girls at school said the same. “For six months nothing changed,” said Bernadette’s friend JG. “She kept quiet, and her personality was exactly like it always was.”
ReplyDeleteGK was the only one who had been really close friends with both girls. She thought Bernadette “sort of idolized Kirsten.”
ReplyDeleteShe wanted to be friends with Kirsten, Bernadette had told Hilley and Weckel. Her plan was to talk to Kirsten in private, “to get to know her.” The two of them talked in the Pinto for at least twenty minutes, Bernadette said, before Kirsten told her “you”re weird,” got out of the car and ran down the hill to the Arnold house. She followed on foot, to tell Kirsten she would take her home, Bernadette said, then ran back to the Pinto. As she tailed the Volvo to Kirsten’s house, Bernadette told Hilley and Weckel, she grew frightened, imagining the things Kirsten would say to the other girls. By the time they made the turn at the nursery, her fear had become anger. She found the knife between the Pinto’s bucket seats, Bernadette said. Her sister Virginia, a bank examiner and a vegetarian, carried kitchen knives in the car to cut the tomatoes and cucumbers she ate for lunch. She meant to hurt Kirsten, Bernadette told Hilley and Weckel, not to kill her. When she got home, she flushed the marijuana down the toilet, washed the knife and returned it to her mother’s kitchen drawer, Bernadette said. She did not know for sure that Kirsten was dead until the next morning, when GK called.
ReplyDeleteShe found the knife between the seats. Was she looking for it?
DeleteBernadette was one of the Wanna-Be’s, and what she wanted to be was part of the Popular Group. Her feeling she would never make it deepened after the cheerleader tryouts, when her attempts to join the Atlantis Club and the yearbook staff were not successful. “And she was a really good writer, too,” KJ said. “She said, ‘Nothing is working,’” GK recalled. “‘I don’t have anything and some people have everything.’” Bernadette lived out on La Espiral, in a brown wood-frame house with an unplanted front yard —amore comfortable home than most girls grow up in but decidedly modest measured against most houses in Orinda. She was the youngest of six children. Her father, Raymond Protti, a retired engineer for the city of San Francisco, was a little bald man with an air of diffidence and distraction, who wore horn-rimmed glasses and cheap suits. Mr. Protti spent many afternoons tinkering with an assortment of used cars that sat with their hoods shrouded under black-plastic tarps in the driveway. Bernadette’s mother, Elaine, was a devout Catholic who studied the Bible at the dining-room table and gave heavily to the church.
ReplyDeleteNah.... ..she knew where it was. After the murder she returned it to the kitchen...... where she got it!
ReplyDeleteThat's the way it reads, I've always been a little troubled by that.
DeleteK
I don't know how tall either girl was. Bernadette/Jeannette looked to be on the tall side. Kirsten looked a little on the short side.
ReplyDelete'Several afternoons that fall, KJ remembered, Bernadette called me in this hysterical voice and said she had to tell me something, we had to talk. Then, when she got there, she was like another person, completely calm. Once I actually said, “It sounded like you killed somebody. And she said, Oh, really? I let it go'
ReplyDeleteWhere did you get that?
Delete'Only a few girls really wanted to the Bobbies going.” One was Bernadette Protti, who stood up to say, 'We can’t let something like this ruin the reputation of the Bobbies.' The girls were moved and voted to hold the group together. They elected Bernadette secretary even though she was only a junior. 'We all knew we had to go on,' CN said. JUST A FEW days before fall classes were scheduled to begin at Miramonte, and more than two months after their daughter’s death, Art and Berit Costas held their first press conference. They began with a personal appeal to the killer. 'It’s time to come forward, darn it,' Art Costas said, 'and fess up to what you’ve done.' In the space of several sentences, Kirsten’s father described the blonde girl, sixteen to twenty-five,as 'a psychopath who must be suffering very heavily' and as 'an animal' to be 'hunted down.
ReplyDelete>I think I’m a pretty normal teenager>(Bernadette's thoughts)
'Capturing the killer 'is all we focus on right now,' Art Costas told the reporters crowded onto his redwood deck. 'We can’t seem to focus on Kirsten'
McDonnell Nursery, the one near the Costas home, planted a tree for Kirsten in a special ceremony after the rally; CN and the other Bobbies stood together and cried beside the hole in Miramonte’s new-mowed lawn. A few weeks later the administration had Kirsten’s name engraved on a plaque by the library, the school’s memorial for students who had passed away. 'I hadn’t known any of the people up there,' CN said, 'and then suddenly my friend was up there with them, with those strangers'
'She never liked me...," Bernadette explained later. 'The thing that got me mad was it hurt.' Not that Kirsten ever insulted her. 'I mean she didn't say 'You're ugly' or something," Bernadette remembered.'
ReplyDelete'The party never happened. That was all fabricated by Bernadette and a ruse to get kirsten out of the house. Kirsten would not have gone with Bernadette otherwise' (a comment from a friend of Kirsten)
ReplyDeleteIt was actually confirmed that there was no party? Did they question the friend whose brother was supposedly throwing the party?
Delete'Kirsten was a sweet girl. They portrayed her horribly. Many people will tell you that much of how they portrayed kirsten was BS. They didn’t show who she really was. A beautiful person with a very generous heart. She was so young and sweet. She was 15 with a lot of growing up still do. The person who wrote the script should be punished for lying and completely abstracting the truth' (a comment from a friend of Kirsten)
ReplyDeleteThat was invented for the film. There was NO party.
ReplyDelete'After the murder, investigators had placed Bernadette high on their list of suspects: she was blonde, chunky, a Bobbie, and her parents owned a gold Pinto. When she passed a polygraph, though, the police virtually ignored her. Not until the FBI composite came back did they take another hard look. On Friday, December 8th, Bernadette was summoned to the sheriff’s office for an interview that lasted four and a half hours. The man who asked most of the questions was FBI agent Ron Hilley. A bland-faced and soft-spoken man with a strawberry-blond beard and pale eyes, Hilley was considered, as prosecutor John Oda would put it later, 'the best there is at getting confessions. That’s his job. He makes them want to confess. He doesn’t even look like a police officer, does he? More like a priest or something.' Bernadette stuck to her story during the Friday interview, Hilley recalled, but at one point she asked if he could understand how a sixteen-year-old girl might be more afraid of seeing her name in the newspapers than of any sentence a judge could give her. Hilley said he could understand. 'Does it have to be settled today?' Bernadette asked, and Hilley told her there was time. On Monday night she asked her mother if they could talk. 'I came to her later in the night,' Elaine Protti recalled, and said, '‘I’m very tired. I’ll take a rest, and you wake me up, and we’ll talk then.' Bernadette let her mother sleep through the night. In the morning Mrs. Protti apologized. 'I know you wanted to talk,' she said. It was all right, Bernadette told her, 'I’ve written you a note.' The girl placed a folded sheet of college-ruled notebook paper on the kitchen counter and asked her mother not to read it for half an hour'.
ReplyDeleteI think some of this info on this blog comes from Randall Sullivan's "Death of a Cheerleader" article.
ReplyDeleteMaybe.
ReplyDeleteHave looked everywhere for the infamous "Death of a Cheerleader" article from Rolling
ReplyDeleteStone.!! Does anyone know where it can be found on the internet?
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHi Unknown. It can't be found on the Internet, as far as I know. I've recently ordered the book "The Best of Rolling Stone" because I read that the article is included. I got my copy for a penny plus shipping on Amazon.
ReplyDeleteI would take the article with a grain of salt, Frankie. I'm sure you're aware that Randall Sullivan felt pity for Bernadette and was scathingly critical of Kirsten - the victim -
ReplyDeleteOh, I know. I just like to have read all the literature regarding this case. I read the article years ago and I just want to read it again.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Frankie for the info about the Rolling Stone book. I had heard that Sullivan was sympathetic to Bernadette, but it is a well written article with information that other articles do not have.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't call a one-sided inaccurate article attempting to elicit sympathy for a mentally deranged murderer by purposely damaging the reputation of a murdered child "well written". Randall Sullivan has the morals of a malignant carbuncle of oozing pus.
ReplyDeleteIt put out information that hasn't been available in any other article, and it provided thorough info about the crime. It was interesting to get eyewitness accounts from the neighbors and people who were there. One doesn't have to sympathize with Bernadette to view it as a good article.
ReplyDeleteJust wish we could read it!
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome, Texan. I'm from Texas, too!
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteTexan",
ReplyDeleteAlthough it does have information other articles may not have, it does attempt to evoke sympathy for and justify Bernadette's crime by painting Kirsten as an unsympathetic, insensitive, insufferable, superbitch, and Bernadette as the sweet little self conscious lamb that just wanted to fit in.
I wasn't suggesting that you were necessarily going to sympathize with Bernadette, and whether you do or not is of no consequence to me. My point is whatever good information may be in the article, it is overshadowed by a one-sided and nauseatingly over sympathetic tone towards Bernadette - the killer-. Anyway, you have your opinion and I have mine.
Bernadette Protti: ‘In English class we read this story...about this man who killed twenty other people in the war by cutting out bad parts, and he made a lot of money by it ...but he couldn't live with what he'd done ...and then he killed himself ...Everyone came to the conclusion that you can't really make amends, all you can do is never make a mistake like that, and so you're sort of stuck, because if you have, it's too late ...because then you can't ever make a mistake like that, and the easiest way out is to kill yourself, but that's also, like, the chicken way out’.
ReplyDeleteThere is an in depth article by Michael Covino about this murder. It's available through World Cat (ask your local librarian and they'll email it to you). Several graduate students wrote their thesis on this when they were doing an internship at the Ventura School when Jeanette/Bernadette was there. The article is available through the Institute of Government Studies through the University of California at Berkeley.
ReplyDeleteI also wasn't aware that Jeannette/Bernadette's parents had to pay for her boarding at Ventura School (about $5,000)--that would have bought a lot of new ski equipment.
Anonymous, what's the name of the Michael Covino article? I'd love to get it through my library.
ReplyDeleteGo to World Cat and type in Bernadette Protti. The article will come up--no title just Institute of Government Studies. There's also a picture of the killer.
ReplyDeleteThere is a title. It's called Borderline: The Murder Trial of Bernadette Protti.
ReplyDeleteThat's very interesting, Anonymous. Thank you.
ReplyDeletePurple Haze-Correct, we all have the right to our opinions. Frankie, always nice to know where the Texans are. Waiting for my copy of the book you mentioned. I think we all know that the worst thing that Kirsten probably did was not want to be Bernadette's friend. Possibly she was unkind, but then again, quite a few young teenagers can be that. It wasn't worth being killed for.
ReplyDeleteTexan,
ReplyDeleteThere is nothing wrong with a difference in opinions. Kirsten’s “unkind” comments are really a matter of perspective. I think they were very tame. The only thing Bernadette mentioned was Kirsten saying something about ski equipment. Nothing that Kirsten supposedly said justifies her murder. There is nothing wrong with being sensitive, but Bernadette appears to have been so sensitive that I don’t think it would have taken much to hurt her feelings.
Purple Haze, You are right, there is nothing wrong with a difference in opinions. I agree that Kirsten's comments were rather tame. I'm sure we all heard a lot of the same in high school, and didn't take it anywhere near as hard. I think Bernadette tried desperately to get into what she perceived as the "in crowd," and when she said or did something she thought would make her look absolutely ridiculous, she snapped. I believe Bernadette herself said that Kirsten hadn't really done anything that bad. I did read Mr. Sullivan's article, and despite his sympathy toward Bernadette, I finished reading the article with sympathy for Kirsten and the Costas family.
ReplyDeleteHi Texan,
ReplyDeleteI understand your point, but there was a lot more going on with Bernadette than the fear of rejection for her behavior to descend into murder.
I too have sympathy for the Costas'. Tremendous sympathy. The heartbreak of losing your child to murder would be painful beyond comprehension.
Purple Haze--Yes, there was certainly more going on with Bernadette. Most of us can take "unkind" remarks like having ski equipment or clothes made fun of with a grain of salt. Someone who has issues mentally may not be so willing or able to do so, especially if she thought she was going to be the butt of a lot of high school jokes. Unfortunately, we only have one side of the story. Wonder if any of Bernadette's classmates heard Kirsten make fun of the ski equipment. Of course, that is still no reason for murder.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHi Texan,
ReplyDelete"Someone who has issues mentally may not be so willing or able to do so"
I understand that. I don't mean to undermine or patronize others who may be over-sensitive.
"Wonder if any of Bernadette's classmates heard Kirsten make fun of the ski equipment"
I don't know. She appears to have been very self conscious about what she was wearing. Self consciousness attracts negative attention. If she was so self conscious about what she was wearing, it's unfortunate she didn't have a couple of retorts ready to use if provoked.
I think Bernadette was a ticking time-bomb.
No, it isn't. Nothing Kirsten supposedly said or did justifies her murder.
Purple Haze--I agree. The sad thing is, even people who are overly sensitive know that murdering someone is not the answer. I have followed this case since it hit the news, as I am a little older than Bernadette. What I find interesting is the obvious defenses from family and/or friends. Most of the time when this happens to someone's family member, they apologize for their family member's crime. Not that they have to; they just generally do. Unless I have missed something, I don't recall any such apologies from Bernadette's family, or even Bernadette herself. The Costas, who are certainly the wronged party here, have kept impressively silent. I'm sure that they try not to dwell on it, but they could have said plenty if they chose to.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteYeah well i dont think an apology means jack in a situation like this? Lol what différence would Bernadette's family's apology make to the costas! nothing not jack because the costas went through alot of grief without their babygirl and its not right that Bernadette/ jeannette only got 7 years! What à crooked judge? Wish i had à way to get in touch with berit so i can let her know WHO exactly Bernadette is know and do they can track this cunt down and get à law suit for the murder of their precious, sweet daughter!!!! Kirsten didn't bullly Bernadette!!! She was mentally unhinged in the beginning!!!! No one will ever Forget all the pain she has caused and the horror she put the community through!!!. Bernadette/jeannete is sick to kill à innocent young girl and have no remorse! She must have no conscience!!!! Sick individuals!!!!
DeleteHi Texan,
ReplyDeleteI don't mean to be intrusive, but are you from Texas? Was Kirsten's tragic murder national news?
“What I find interesting is the obvious defenses
from family and/or friends”
Are you referring to the individual defending her on this blog?
On the first post on this blog, a helpful individual, “Leslie C”, posted a link to a bunch of newspaper clippings from the time of Bernadette's trial. The only thing I can recall about Bernadette's family expressing remorse was the following from the newspaper clippings:
“They seem to want to do whatever is appropriate to try to get their daughter’s life e going again," said Garvin. "They have expressed a high degree of sorrow for the victim’s family and a willingness to do anything they can to help”
Yes, their dignified silence is admirable. Even if they did say something, it's likely it would have been twisted by the media for the purpose of sensationalism. The fact that they haven't lashed out at Bernadette when they would have been justified in doing so speaks volumes about the integrity and dignity of their character.
I haven't seen one person on here so far WHO is protecting this b**** so why do keep trying to talk trash about others?
DeleteI am referring to Kirsten's parents in my last paragraph. I know it's obvious, but I wanted to mention it anyway.
ReplyDeleteMurder is never acceptable ! Killing someone for self-defense is. I guess it depends on the circumstance. We all know (or should know) this was not a self-defense case. Kirsten was murdered, plain and simple. Helping your family member adjust to life after prison is one thing. But, to condone someone's behavior when they continue on this destructive path is another. The thing that keeps popping up in my head is the knife. Bernadette's sister testified she had the knife in the car. Maybe her sister is afraid Bernadette may spill the beans. Who knows!
ReplyDeleteNo one keeps a 18" butcher knife in the car to cut vegetables! Think about this an object from like your wrist to your elbow! Whatever virginia protti varela is à liar. She triés to défend that murderer of à sister of Hers.
ReplyDeleteMystical delusion,
ReplyDeleteI think you would be better off writing your thoughts about Bernadette elsewhere.
I implore you to leave Kirsten's family alone. I know who you are "SD". Get off this blog and get some help for your mental instability. Please, go away.
Girl, its best if you keep ur mouth off of me! I know much about this case and WHO do you think you are? I can place my comments anywhere i want!!!!! Mental instability? Girl grow up lol that's all Im saying
DeleteSD!!!! Is that WHO you always assume someone is?
DeleteFrankie del Toro, did you manage to get the article by Michael Covino sent to your library?
ReplyDeleteHi Kmaham,
ReplyDeleteI was discussing this case with another individual and she brought up some points that I never considered.
Bernadette said that there was no blood on her hands or in the car after she killed Kirsten, which is ludicrous after such a brutal stabbing. Why would she discard her clothing if there was no blood on them? The individual mentioned that there would not only have been a lot more clean up than Bernadette admitted to, but also that it would have been difficult to clean the interior of the car in the dark in such a hurry. If the car was used the next day by someone else (Bernadette didn't use the car as she didn't have a licence), the blood stains would have been seen and it's possible that someone knew about the murder before she confessed.
Interesting!!!!! Wasn't the car suppose to belong to virginia? So Maybe she knew of it and them again Bernadette could have made up an excuse for why the blood stains were there!!!!!
ReplyDeleteirl, its best if you keep ur mouth off of me! I know much about this case and WHO do you think you are? I can place my comments anywhere i want!!!!! Mental instability? Girl grow up lol that's all Im saying
ReplyDeleteMy mouth "isn't on you". Yes, mental instability. Someone who has many accounts and pretends to be Bernadette, or pretends to support Bernadette and insults people who support Kirsten, or pretends to support Kirsten and insults Bernadette, or insults Kirsten, or pretends to have known Kirsten, or pretends to know Bernadette, or considers contacting Kirsten's family is an unstable person.
"SD!!!! Is that WHO you always assume someone is?"
No. However, I recognise your incoherent ramblings.
Wow, you really must take time out of your day to find every single fact people say and then try to put it together as someone is trying to do this Or that! You must not have anything better to do with your time! I do support the costas!
DeleteNo, I don't take time out of my day to find every fact. I remember your posts with the accents, poor grammar, poor punctuation and erratic incoherent content, so I recognise it in your comments. I get email notifications of comments.
ReplyDelete"You must not have anything better to do with your time!"
Not at the moment I don't as I'm suffering with a cold. It's after 3 in the morning in our time zone, so what's your excuse?
You don't support the costas'. I've read your disgusting comments about Kirsten.
Really? I haven't never said anything out of the way about kirsten!!!! I take.it as you want to get technical about this so i can prove i haven't said anything about her.... Ever!!!!
DeleteI can prove i have made only One account too!!!! I live in Arkansas so Yeah my time zone is differently!!! Punctuation has nothing to do with it, I have kids Who play on my phone often...so before you start trying to point fingers at me and making accusations that you have no proof of then I suggest knowing before speaking
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing that you have proven is that you are mentally unstable.
ReplyDeleteAs I wrote elsewhere: getoverthepast/sweetie/recent Anonymous comments/El caballero/mystic delusion, all have similar punctuation mistakes, similar grammar mistakes, have accents (eg:(`)) above letters, similar rambling content, lots of comments and lots of deleted posts. The similar mistakes and posting habits are too similar to be disregarded.
You have written nasty comments about Kirsten elsewhere.
Your initials are "SD", you are English and you live in Britain. I don't live in Britain, but we both live in the same time zone.
I haven't written nothing about her elsewhere. You dont know what the hell your talking about. I can tell its obvious you must have me mixed up with someone else! Ha I didn't know there where even other sites bout it. So, now its Best if you stop accusing me because i haven't did any of this shit your talking about
ReplyDeleteLOL you just want to argue!!!! I don't live in britain I live in the u.s
ReplyDeleteLike I said before and I am done with this conversation after this: I have kids that play games on my phone and they play around on it so Yeah they could have changed it to some other language. I am not this "SD" person! And I am tired of trying to tell you something when you seen to think you know it all when I know WHO I am and I know what o haven't done. So instead of stooping to your level I am just going to quit trying to explain myself because it is obvious your a miserable person and just want to start something with total strangers!!!! Thank you have a nice day!!!!
ReplyDeleteMiranda Carlock First of all, just to tell you if someone made mistakes that insulted in the death of someone then they definitely aren't in their right mind! That tells me they intended to kill and that they knew what they were going to do in the beginning. Thats called premeditated murder! À mistake would be like dialing the wrong phone number but murder isn't à mistake in my opinion! What did you mean by that? Drunk driving is wrong but of someone say did go out and drink and drive and kill an innocent person then they already knew that you aren't to drive when intoxicated?Because your vision is impaires and anyone in their right state of mins knows that its wrong! I don't care if they did do that they deserve jail time and à long sentence at that! You do the crime you pay the time! I don't protect murderers! I don't see anything or define anything as murdering someone as à mistake. Please don't justify murder!
ReplyDeleteI said this to her as a comment on one of her post!!!! I don't find that as supportive. I was referring to her ridiculous blog the jeannettetomanka.com I seen where around new years she posted about don't bring up people's mistakes!!!!
DeleteStephan Durney who writes under get over the past/sweetie/elcaballero/mystical delusion,
ReplyDeleteHaven't you been quite the busy bee today writing nine comments under one article and five comments here.
No, I'm not interested in arguing with you. I do know what I'm talking about. I can detect your insipid gibberish a mile away.
" I have kids that play games on my phone and they play around on it so Yeah they could have changed it to some other language"
That doesn't make any sense, Stephanie.
"So instead of stooping to your level I am just going to quit trying to explain myself because it is obvious your a miserable person and just want to start something with total strangers!!!! Thank you have a nice day!!!"
"I'm not "miserable". You have been caught out so it's best to just stop with this ruse and go away. I will have a nice day, thank you.
"Miranda Carlock First of all, just to tell you if someone made mistakes that insulted in the death of someone then they definitely aren't in their right mind"
You wrote on a different comment section that you, "Mystical delusion" are Miranda Carlock and now you are writing to yourself by addressing Miranda Carlock in a comment?? Interesting....
Your supportive comments can be seen on Bernadette's FB page. I don't care if you support her.
You said above that you are done with this conversation. Please be true to your word. Goodbye.
Really? Why don't you go look at her Facebook you moron
DeletePurple haze- I know i sent it to her. So why don't you go look at her Facebook and you will be able to see for Yourself!!!! I have one account and i know what the fuck Im talking ahout
ReplyDeleteGoodbye, Stephanie. Off you go.
ReplyDeletePurple. Haze yku snoulg havr uour own talkshod you just seem to know enerhtbing and know so much. T
DeletePurple haze--I think I saw the comments from friends and family members on a different blog. I do know that I have seen defenses in the past; don't remember where they came from. And yes, I am a Texan; when Kirsten was murdered, I was actually living in Connecticut. I wouldn't say it was a national news story; I heard nothing on TV and didn't see in the papers. I learned of it from Randall Sullivan's article, the People magazine article, and an article in another magazine that must not have said much, because I don't remember where I read it. I didn't hear anything else about the case until the movie came out; at the end, I learned that Bernadette had been released. Thanks for the info on the newspaper clippings; I missed that.
ReplyDeletePurple Haze- I never thought of the blood in the car or on Bernadette to tell you the truth. All I can think of is the blood on the knife. It would be hard to get blood cleaned up in a car during the daylight. You are in a hurry and in a panic. Add the darkness and you have to have blood left. Who cleaned the car? Did she sneak in the house? Very, very interesting!
ReplyDeleteExcellent point about the blood. This was a bloody murder-how in the hell was there not blood in the car.
ReplyDeleteKirsten Costas - S3 amazonaws com
ReplyDeletehttps://s3.amazonaws.com › kristen-costas
Google the above and the third entry down is a PDF file with many old articles and a couple pictures I haven't seen. Info in some of the articles is interesting. Some of you may have seen this but for those that haven't....
FROM the June 26th 1984 article
ReplyDelete(Arnold said he saw the driver of the Pinto
move past his car to the porch,
raise her right hand and attack
the other girl . Arnold said Kirsten then be-
gan screaming , fell to the
porch, but got up and ran back
past him , bleeding profusely.
He said he last glimpsed her
attacker standing on the porch,
holding a "blood-covered ob-
ject," apparently a knife .
Arnold told deputies the sus-
pect jumped into her car and
roared off. He chased the car
briefly, but then returned to try
and aid Kirsten.)
This was written just a couple days after the murder. Sounds like the witness did see bloodon Kirsten and tried to chase Bernadette down.
She must have been driving like a speed demon. How the hell she got away with this for 6 months is unbelievable. Also pretty picture of Kirsten in article. Maybe it was her most recent school portrait?
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteHi Texan. The newspaper clippings are so sad. Some are from before Bernadette was caught when people in the Orinda community feared a crazed perpetrator was on the loose, some discuss her trial and some discuss her release. They are a good read. Did you read the comment above from a helpful individual who informed people there is an article detailing Bernadette’s trial on world cat?
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteHi Kmaham, Susan, Leslie,
Bernadette said there was no blood on her hands which is absurd. As Leslie has written above; the witness who drove Kirsten home stated that the knife was covered in blood, so logically Bernadette’s hands were covered in blood also. The witness also stated Kirsten was bleeding profusely, so logically blood would have gotten on Bernadette’s clothes, quite a lot too given the magnitude of Kirsten’s wounds. Blood would logically have stained the interior of the car. It would be impossible to get blood out (especially if the blood was dry) quickly from the interior of the car, especially with poor visibility at night. It’s highly possible the blood stains were seen in the car the following day by someone else. The individual I was discussing this with said the very clear description of Bernadette as well as blood stains in the car suggests it’s highly possible someone in her family knew about the murder before Bernadette confessed. Could someone have helped Bernadette clean the car? Also, her family couldn't possibly be that stupid and naïve. Maybe her parents were naïve, but I don’t think the sister was. Could that be why she concocted the absurd story about the 15/18 inch knife being left in the car to cut vegetables? This case was not thoroughly investigated at all.
purple Haze- I thought I read the sweat suit Bernadette was wearing was burgundy. If that is true, blood would not have been easily noticed. I strongly believe someone helped get rid of the blood in the car. Also, you would think Bernadette would of had some cuts on her.
ReplyDeleteHi Kmaham,
ReplyDeleteI think it was just her pants that were maroon. Yes, when blood dries it's a maroon color. Is it a coincidence that Bernadette wore maroon pants?
I also believe someone helped her. Maybe Bernadette did have cuts. However, some people were very deluded about Bernadette and if you are in denial or naive about a person, you can fail to notice things, even if they are obvious. The description of Bernadette was very clear, yet she apparently wasn't suspected by people around her. The description of the killer: tall dishevelled teenage girl with blonde hair and maroon sweats driving an old yellow pinto. I read that her friends were also aware that she had maroon sweats. It's astounding that people didn't theorize that the perpetrator could have been Bernadette, or maybe some did and they were rebuffed.
I wonder could it have been the sister with the absurd knife story that helped Bernadette clean the car.
If she had help cleaning up the car, it would have been from a family member. I wouldn't be surprised if upon seeing evidence in/on the car a family member put it together & cleaned/discarded evidence without telling anyone or even confronting Bernadette.
DeleteK
Hi Purple Haze--I did see that, and I will look up that one. At the time I read the Randall Sullivan article, I remember feeling sorry for the girls who were suspected of the crime. Bernadette, obviously, knew they didn't do it the whole time and kept her mouth shut, while they were made outcasts. Wonder if they ever got an apology!?
ReplyDeleteThanks for the info on the PDF, Leslie. Interesting stuff.
ReplyDeleteShe was the baby of the family so I am sure they wanted to protect her. I would have never put myself in the middle of that mess. It had to have been a sibling. I would not think her parents would have helped her. As far as the color of the pants that she wore. Not sure if she would have thought about it but if she did, that was have been another war to prove premeditation. Am I right or wrong on that? I know it doesn't matter now, just curious.
ReplyDeleteI would love to say that I would never do what her sister, or family, may or may not have done but because I've never been in that situation I don't know. It's not an enviable position to be in. Her clothing choice could go towards premeditation. But if you argue she chose maroon sweatpants because they would not show blood, then why was she wearing a white & gold shirt? Truth is, we may never know. I've wondered about her shoes. Surely she stepped in blood & had blood splatter on them.
ReplyDeleteUnknown- I see where you are coming from with the family helping. In my opinion a lot of times it may be a split second decision with a bit of panic to help a loved one. The guilt would eat me alive. Did Bernadette still have the shoes?
ReplyDeleteI don't know about the shoes but it'd be interesting to know if she left a bloody footprint on the floorboard, or what color her shoes were. If they were dark, blood wouldn't show.
DeleteI know it's easy for me to say as I haven't been in that position, but I know I wouldn't cover for her, unknown. The brutal manner in which she murdered Kirsten is sickening beyond words. I wouldn't protect someone who did that.
ReplyDelete"I wouldn't be surprised if upon seeing evidence in/on the car a family member put it together & cleaned/discarded evidence without telling anyone or even confronting Bernadette"
I wouldn't be surprised either. If someone did cover for her, I wonder who it was. Is it too obvious to think it was the sister with the ridiculous knife story? I don't know.
I was discussing this case with an individual and she made a pertinent point about how blood may have gotten on Bernadette's clothes and what it may have transferred on to in Bernadette's car:
ReplyDelete"She should have had blood on her hand & upper body from the first two stabs. And blood on her shoes. In the car it would have transferred to the door handle (inside & out), steering wheel, blinker, floor board, and seat. And wherever the knife was laid."
No blood indeed, Bernadette. I doubt many people believed that fallacious story anyway.
We had a teen murder in our area about 3yrs ago (Skylar Neese)case. Two of her female friends (ages 15-16) stabbed her to death on a lonely backroad. Getting to the point these girls were descriptive about how bloody and gory the scene was. They were splashed with blood on their arms, clothes etc.. The girls planned ahead by bringing fresh clothes to change into and wipes to clean up with. Very premeditated and planned. It is hard to say if Bernadette's reason for maroon sweatpants was planned. Logically it makes sense. I feel though that Bernadette's temporary "success" at this crime is due to blind luck. What if Kirstens parents had been home and seen he car pull up? How would Bernadette
ReplyDeleteknow Kirsten didn't tell Mr. Arnold who the girl following them was as he was driving her home? I sort of think she definitely planned to kill or hurt Kirsten but didn't have a well thought out plan of escape. Seems like she just got damned lucky at least for 6 months. Still boggles the mind how she wasn't caught sooner.
I think had this happened during the school year she would have been caught sooner. Sadly, if Kirsten's parents had been home they would have picked her up from the house she called them at. Or, had they come home 10 minutes sooner, she would have been in the house before Bernadette could have gotten to her. And I'm sure her family knows that & blame themselves, which is so wrong. They should not have to feel one ounce of guilt. It was basically a perfect storm of circumstances that led to the death of a beautiful young girl
DeleteMy guess is the thing that set Bernadette off was Kirsten being at Cheerleading camp . She may not of even seen Kirsten since school ended (early June). I can picture Bernadette slowly stewing with jealous rage for weeks. Knowing Kirsten was having fun at camp and going to be a cheerleader may have sent her into a tailspin. Kirsten had everything Bernadette wanted.
ReplyDeleteI have not been in that position either but I feel 100% sure I would not help anyone who did a crime that horrendous. The amount of blood had to have been unbelievable. Kirsten had to have been fighting like hell to live. That would have required physical contact between the 2 girls. Bernadette had to have been grabbing, pushing, holding etc. to have done the damage she did.
ReplyDeleteYou're right, it was a very up close & personal attack. I would like to believe that I, being the moral & upstanding citizen that I am, would never help someone cover up a murder, but I have never been in that situation. What if it were my little sister? Or my twin sister? The only thing I know for certain is that I would never want to be out in that situation
DeleteK
K- in my opinion, if someone helped her clean the car and lied about the knife, it had to have been a split second decision . I think it was Purple Haze that made the comment about maybe someone cleaned the car and not confronting Bernadette. I can see that happening. That must have been one heck of a clean up job.
ReplyDeleteHi Texan. No, I don't think they got an apology. If Nancy got an apology she probably would have said so. Bernadette's murderous actions had a negative impact on many lives.
ReplyDeleteHi Kmaham- "Bernadette had to have been grabbing, pushing, holding etc. to have done the damage she did"
ReplyDeleteI agree. It's so sad and gut wrenching to think of Kirsten's struggle and terror. Horrendous. The savage violent attack Bernadette subjected Kirsten to suggests that Bernadette really, really hated Kirsten.
Unknown, I agree it's possible Kirsten could have been saved that night. However, I think Bernadette could have hurt her at another time. Bernadette was obsessed with Kirsten and appears to have resented and hated her. However, it's possible it could have come to Kirsten's attention how dangerous Bernadette was and she could have steered clear.
ReplyDelete" I wouldn't be surprised if upon seeing evidence in/on the car a family member put it together & cleaned/discarded evidence without telling anyone or even confronting Bernadette"
Very possible. I wonder who? Is it too obvious to suspect the sister. If so, why did she fabricate such a ridiculous story about cutting vegetables with a 15/18 knife. I wonder how she managed to say that in court with a straight face.
Wasn't Bernadette's' car examined? Wouldn't her car have been examined for traces of blood? What a poorly conducted investigation
Virginia was still living at home, right? That's the impression I'm under. My guess is that if anyone helped her, it was her
DeleteK
"I can picture Bernadette slowly stewing with jealous rage for weeks. Knowing Kirsten was having fun at camp and going to be a cheerleader may have sent her into a tailspin"
ReplyDeleteThat's a good point, Leslie. It could very well have been the thing that set her off.
The following is a comment about a dissertation about the murder left under another article from a helpful individual:
ReplyDeleteThe one from Virginia Tech is extensive and detailed. It has a lot of information and mentions that the knife was jammed in the middle of the front seats. It also has names of neighbors and students who knew Bernadette/Jeannette.
The knife jammed between the front seats suggests premeditation. I wonder if Kirsten didn't flee from the car when she did, would Bernadette have stabbed her in the car?
I'd love to read that!
DeleteK
If Kirsten had not fought or tried to escape, I could (maybe) see there not being a lot of blood on Bernadette. I don't understand how she got in the house without having blood dripping all over her. This myrder is like a crime of passion. Overkill!
ReplyDeleteYou know IMO, if a sibling did clean the car , I bet he/she had help. If that someone did not confront Bernadette, they would have needed to talk to someone. That is a huge secret to keep.
ReplyDeleteI didn't mean for my above comment "I agree Kirsten could have been saved that night" to suggest that her parents were at fault. They did nothing wrong and suffered an unbearable loss.
ReplyDeleteI don't think your comment read that way at all, but I understand you clarifying. I, too, always stress that the only person responsible for a crime, & the outcome, is the perpetrator(s). I would never want to add to someone's greif & survivor's guilt by not stating that they were not at fault in the least! They were victims, too.
DeleteFrom K
DeletePurple Haze- I did not read it like that either. Everything went wrong for Kirsten that night. You know the parents did the "what if" for years. It is tragic how everything worked out for Bernadette. When I think of kids killing, I think of mistakes being made and it being sloppy. Not someone who plans it. To pull something like that off and continue to function is mind boggling.
ReplyDeleteHi K,
ReplyDeleteThe dissertation is on "course hero". I've read that many dissertations on Bernadette's crime is on course hero and one can join for a small fee per month. I'm considering joining it.
"Virginia was still living at home, right? That's the impression I'm under. My guess is that if anyone helped her, it was her"
ReplyDeleteI agree. Perhaps that why she lied about the large knife.
Hi Kmaham,
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you didn't read it that way, but I had to mention it anyway to make sure.
A lot of things did unfortunately go wrong for Kirsten that night:
She was told by friends there was no bobbies party, but her curiosity unfortunately appears to have gotten the better of her,
Her family were out,
The guy who drove her home didn't walk her to her neighbor's door,
Her neighbor was too frightened to open the door because Kirsten was frantically banging her fists on the door.
Again, the only person to blame for Kirsten's murder is Bernadette and Bernadette alone.
"It is tragic how everything worked out for Bernadett"
Yes, she was quite lucky for a long time.
"To pull something like that off and continue to function is mind boggling"
I don't understand it either, but she was able to detach herself from the crime and appears to have functioned normally. According to friends and family, nothing was amiss with Bernadette.
I think it was Virginia that helped her clean the car. I think it's possible that Virginia posted the reprehensible comments about the blog owner and Kirsten. It's clear why she is livid and spitting nails. If people discuss Bernadette, it's likely people will discuss her and her illogical and implausible knife story.
ReplyDeleteSickening how everything worked out perfectly for Bernadette that night. Supposedly when she left the scene she didn't know Kirsten would die.
ReplyDeleteShe left while Kirsten was still alive and could of possibly survived to tell who did it. Kirstens death was the icing on Bernadette's cake that night.
What a shame Kirsten didn't say more to Mr. Arnold as he was driving her home. More clues as to who was following them and what she meant by "my friend has gone weird on me". Seems as though she had no idea of what Bernadette was capable of.
ReplyDeleteBernadette was an obsessed stalker in my opinion
Leslie- I never really thought about Bernadette leaving knowing Kirsten was alive. How did she leave not knowing if Kirsten may be able to point the finger at her? That alone would make most people anxious. You would think she would be sweating bullets, looking over shoulder, etc. She must of dealt with the car and clothes that night. If she knew Kirsten was dead there would be no need to be in more of a panic to get cleaned up. If that makes sense.
ReplyDeletePurple Haze- I agree about her sister helping. Given the fact she was the owner of the knife story. Kind of makes wonder if the case was discussed around the dinner table. Were they quiet, not looking anyone in the eyes?
ReplyDeleteLeslie, I agree she had crazy luck that night.
ReplyDeleteThe wounds that Bernadette inflicted on Kirsten were so monstrously vile, I think she knew she mortally wounded Kirsten.
No, sadly Kirsten wasn't aware of how dangerous Bernadette was. I think she not only was obsessed with Kirsten, but hated and resented her deeply.
Kmaham,
ReplyDelete"How did she leave not knowing if Kirsten may be able to point the finger at her? That alone would make most people anxious"
Yet she was able to nonchalantly take a walk with her mother and their dog. I think she intuited that Kirsten wouldn't survive.
" Kind of makes wonder if the case was discussed around the dinner table"
What a repulsive thought.
There should have been repercussions for Virginia for that ridiculous lie.
Purple Haze- it is a repulsive thought thinking it may have been discussed around the dinner table. It was big news, one of Bernadette's class,ages. Not to mention the type car that was seen. I would bet it was the main topic many nights. I agree about the repercussions for Virginia. I wonder if they sleep sound at night. I know one thing, Bernadette HAD to have had help. To pull off the murder by herself was mind blowing. But, to clean herself and the car would SEEM to be impossible for someone that age.
ReplyDeleteI hate to bring this up but what I find repulsive is the fact that the knife that was used that night was probably used to prepare food at some point in those 6 months. And one thing that wasn't discussed when we were wondering about blood splatter on her shoes is the fact that the had a dog. I don't say these things for shock value or to upset anyone, I bring them up only as facts that pertain to the case.
DeleteK
Hi Kmaham,
ReplyDeleteIf it was the topic of conversation at dinner which it could very well have been, I don't believe both of her parents were oblivious to the fact that the description of the murderer and the pinto matched Bernadette. Both of them couldn't be that naive...surely.
I agree she had help cleaning the car. Who I wonder?
There should have been legal consequences for Virginia committing perjury.
"Purple. Haze yku snoulg havr uour own talkshod you just seem to know enerhtbing and know so much. T"
ReplyDeleteGolly gee wilikers, Stephanie, you are sweet. Thank you.
Unknown- I brought up the knife being used so I am ok with it. However, I see what you are saying about the shoes. Never thought about that.
ReplyDeletePurple Haze- I don't know which would be worse, her parents knowing and doing nothing OR being that naive or dumb to not notice. I agree about the consequences. And to think they are living the good life right now.
ReplyDeleteHi K,
ReplyDeleteKmaham brought up the point about the murder weapon being used for food preparation in the 6 months after Kirsten's death.
I read that it's difficult to get blood out of the space between the knife and the blade. It's also possible there were remnants of blood and tissue in grooves on the knife. The thought of that knife being used to prepare food is sickening beyond words, but an unfortunate probable scenario.
"and one thing that wasn't discussed when we were wondering about blood splatter on her shoes is the fact that the had a dog"
Care to elucidate? Thank you.
Dogs are carnivorous animals. They are naturally attracted to blood. If there was blood on her shoes (which there was. How much is hard to say but it was there) her dog would lick it off. Of there was blood on or in the car (and there was) her dog would be attracted to it. My guess is that when she & her mom took the dog out that night, the dog was probably sniffing at the car.
DeleteHi Kmaham,
ReplyDeleteI don't want to accuse the parents of anything, but it's very typical of the Catholic mindset to deny, repress, and brush things under the carpet. very typical.
"to think they are living the good life right now"
I understand your point. They should have felt the full brunt of the law. However, we have no control over their lives, so it's best not to allow yourself to be bothered by how well they may or may not be doing
Her parents also left the car WITH Bernadette that night. At some point they had to ponder the coincidence that the murder occurred in the same little window of time that the car was with her.
ReplyDeleteI am assuming that Bernadette brought the car back and parked it at the babysitters house after the murder to continue her rouse. She may have walked home and then one of her parents went back to get it..? Bernadette didn't have a drivers license or permission to drive it home. I wonder if one of her parents noticed the heat coming from the hood? Or could tell that the car had been moved or recently driven. Just speculating.
ReplyDeleteNope, she drove the car home Leslie.
ReplyDeleteI will go back to my previous comment that Bernadette meant to kill poor Kirsten that night. If she just wanted to talk to her as she claimed she would never have had a huge knife in her hand when she confronted her. I also believe that one of the wounds pierced her heart or aorta which in itself was a mortal wound.Kirsten had no chance of surviving this attack and it's so sad that that she was not tried as a adult for premeditated first degree murder and handed a life sentence. There was no justice in this case.
ReplyDeleteI like that picture of Kirsten in the tree. When she smiled her eyes also did.
The aorta is very deep in the abdominal cavity, if the aorta was hit she would not have been able to make it to the neighbor's house. It's more likely that she was stabbed in the subclavian & brachiocephic vessels, as well as at least one lung.
DeleteK
Thank you for the clarification, Unknown. I really should have picked that up straight away.
ReplyDelete"At some point they had to ponder the coincidence that the murder occurred in the same little window of time that the car was with her"
ReplyDeleteThat's a good point. You would think so, wouldn't you. No disrespect to them, but surely they couldn't possibly have been that naive to such a ridiculous and witless degree.
ReplyDeleteI agree, Susan.
It was stated that Bernadette “jammed” the large knife into the front car seats.
Just to humor Virginia’s ludicrous story, a knife being used to cut vegetables would be left in the glove department. You are not going to place a utensil that you will use on food between car seats that will most likely be a bit dirty or dusty.
With the murder of a teenager in the area, it HAD to have been the topic of conversation at least once. I can't believe they did not suspect that Bernadette did this. I can't imagine the parents being so dumb. Wasn't Bernadette supposed to be babysitting? Did the police not follow up with that story? Maybe that question has been answered. Sorry, if it has. What did she do with the clothes she was wearing?
ReplyDeleteHow far away was Bernadette’s house from the house Bernadette said she was babysitting in? Surely it couldn't have been far if she expected her mother to walk home. Was the pinto a family car? Was Kirsten's house far from Bernadette’s and if so, shouldn't one of Bernadette's parents have noticed from the odometer that the car had been used a bit more than it should have.
ReplyDeleteWasn't it after ten when Bernadette drove home after killing Kirsten? As stated above by different people, it’s unlikely there was no blood on Bernadette after such a savage murder and it’s highly probable that blood transferred from her clothing and her butcher knife onto the car interior. It would have been quite late when she went for a walk with her mother, so did she clean the interior of the car before she went for a walk with her mother? If so, surely she would have been tired and drained and her mother would have noticed. If she cleaned the car after her walk with her mother, wouldn't her cleaning the car so late at night have aroused suspicion from her parents?
Anybody with 2 brain cells must have asked these questions. I have no doubt more people knew what went on that. The blood splatter had to have been over-whelming. It just had to be. No doubt in my mind. I was playing with my dogs and got a small scratch. Blood was all over my arm and on my pants. This was a tiny scratch. So with the size of the cuts and the physical contact, the blood had to be everywhere. Maybe her mom did not detect the blood on the pants because of the color. The shirt was light. That had to have had blood all over it. Never thought of the odometer . Maybe mom was in on it.
ReplyDeleteWhile Kirsten was on the porch of the neighbor’s house, Bernadette attacked her with a large knife she found in the Pinto. She stabbed Kirsten five times, two foot-long gashes in her back and two to Kirsten’s front, including a 15-inch slashing wound that penetrated her left arm, chest and left lung. The remaining wound was a defensive wound on Kirsten’s right arm.
ReplyDeleteThe wounds to Kirsten’s back punctured her right lung, passed through her diaphragm, and lacerated her liver.
Seriously, I think she meant to kill her. She's a cold blooded killer. This was such a brutal attack.
ReplyDeleteBoth lungs were punctured. Two foot long gashes in her back and front? There must have been a LOT of blood and it must have been all over Bernadette.
A stab wound went through a major artery.
ReplyDeleteAnd you know that when an artery is hit the blood just spurts out so she had to have blood all over her.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely. And venous blood will come out a little darker, slower & steadier. I'm sure both types of vessels were hit. Plus, Kirsten was moving around & running away. There would have been so much blood everywhere. It would have been impossible to not have blood transfer in the car
DeleteAnd, let's not forget she was a teenager who had some "issues". There is no way she would have been able to do what she did, clean herself up, clean the car, and pull herself together that fast. The person who drove that car home walked into a mess. It would not surprise me if more than one person knew that night what happened.
ReplyDeleteSusan,
ReplyDelete"Seriously, I think she meant to kill her"
I agree. She was going to kill her if she didn't get the reaction she wanted.
"And you know that when an artery is hit the blood just spurts out so she had to have blood all over her"
Visualizing that is horrific and I feel tremendous sympathy for the horrendous excruciating pain Kirsten must have felt.
Unknown,
ReplyDelete" It would have been impossible to not have blood transfer in the car"
Isn't it astounding that blood traces were not discovered when Bernadette's car was examined. Was that due to utter incompetence on the authorities part, or utter cunning and guile on Bernadette's part.
I don't know if they searched her car. Since she confessed they may not have seized the car & her clothes from that evening. Forensics has come a long way since then
DeleteK
Kmham,
ReplyDelete"It would not surprise me if more than one person knew that night what happened"
I agree. There was too much for her to do on her own. As you wrote above, she would have been a mess. It was lateish at night when she returned home so where did she find the time to clean herself up (she would need a shower), give the car a clean and dispose of the bloody clothing at the Sleepy Hollow swim club before taking a nonchalant walk with her mother? As I wrote above, if she was cleaning the car late at night, surely that would have aroused suspicion. As Unknown wrote above, Bernadette's dog would have possibly been attracted to the car and Bernadette's shoes due to the blood. If so, how could something like that escape her mother's notice? Very strange.
Purple Haze-going back to the intention to kill. I would love to know what Kirsten would have had to say to stay alive. Also, maybe Kirsten saw the knife and questioned Bernadette about it. Maybe she did not even question her but jumped out of the car when she saw it. Sad thing is we will never know the whole truth. Bernadette told family and police what she wanted to tell them.
ReplyDeleteBefore she murdered Kirsten Bernadette was halfway pppular
ReplyDeleteShe wanted tp social climb higher Bobbies wasnt enough
Before tge Bobbies she.just had one friend and her childhood friend who eas friends with Kirsten and them. Bernadette wantrd to be in and couldnt get in her friend and frienfs cousin went swimming with Bernadette that Sumner and LP suspected Bernadette but JG didnt and KJ would never believe Bernadette was guilty. Bernadette didnt have many guys pay attention to her they thought she was unnattractive afyer she became a bobbie her social life changed. Didnt make it a year. Before that guys mercilessly teased her and paid attention to. Kirsten and. Bern couldnt handle it. They didnt tease her very badly or horribly mistreat her unt she murdered Kirsten them they all did yhey all saw her in court and outed her thete even her so called sweetie pie did to. They did her as bsf ss they did Joama when they blamed her everyone in the community outed Bernadette sje got it worse than Nancy by far and deserved it. Google and download East bay slayong of. Kirsten. Costas. But before all that she was liked and after became a bobbie dream come true. Thats why she coildnt tell life changed for her.
K-she supposedly did see the knife in the car and asked Bern about it and Bern said it was her sister's and that she used it to eat veggies with. Right.
ReplyDeleteanonymous-you need to proofread your posts before hitting "publish". Your posts are very hard to read because of all the errors.
ReplyDeleteGoogle the story Via East bay slaying of. Kitsten. Costas and read it from there tells ypu all about the case and trial and how the community outed Bernadette at her trial and the anger Bern endured after the verdict even told reporters 500 people would love to sboot her and her worst fears were confirmed peoples acceptance she craved they all were angry at the verdict and seethed hatred towards her. Google it and see.
ReplyDeleteI don't care about Bernadette and what she perceived or perceives. She was and still is a disturbed individual.
ReplyDeleteThe victim in this case is Kirsten not her.
Hi Kmaham,
ReplyDelete"Also, maybe Kirsten saw the knife and questioned Bernadette about it. Maybe she did not even question her but jumped out of the car when she saw it"
It's possible, but I don't think so. I think if Kirsten saw the knife she would have told the guy who drove her home. She logically would have been alarmed when Bernadette was tailgating her. I think she would have been reluctant to leave the car alone knowing Bernadette had such a large knife in her possession and also knowing that Bernadette was unhinged from their conversation in the pinto.
Hi Susan,
ReplyDelete"she supposedly did see the knife in the car and asked Bern about it and Bern said it was her sister's and that she used it to eat veggies with. Right"
I think that was just made up nonsense for the movie. Bernadette is reported to have had the knife "jammed" between the from seats in the car.
Hi Anonymius,
ReplyDeleteSurely Vernadette had more than 2 friends?
Are you getting this from the movie.
"after she became a bobbie her social life changed"
How so? Was she a social butterfly all of a sudden or what?
"Before that guys mercilessly teased her and paid attention to Kirsten and Bern couldn't handle it.."
"They didn't tease her very badly or horribly mistreat her until she murdered Kirsten"
You've contradicted yourself. What did they do to "mercilessly tease" her?
TBH, I don't care how she felt at her trial, or if people ridiculed her, which was fully deserved, imo. She got off lightly.
"Even her so called sweetie pie did to"
Didn't realize she had a BF at the time.
Hi Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteI've read the article. There are a couple of inaccuracies in it such as the size of the knife and the name of Bernadette's sister. However, it's a good article.
I said she was popular before that guys just teased her for being flar chested a few did.mericlessly likec Kirstem s boyfriend it sbin news adeticles in. San. Francisco tomes she wasnt near as teased as Joanna the goth Kirsten picked on and others now. Nancy was in the elote group as. Kirsten but she just wanted to be herself and wasnt socially accepted after that the. she and. Joanna were blamed and Nancy was an outcast to Joanna. I think she was never accepted and had a very hard social life. Nancy and. Bernadette didnt till later on in high school. Nancy got the guys and all before that
ReplyDeleteBernadette had a few that flirted with her but after she turned 16 they hated her girls to as well and did her like. Joanna and left. Joaana alone and Nancy to finally. They were nicer to. Joanna senior year and sppke more to her Bernadette was lucky she was in police custody at her trial cause tp many students that were there esp. Kirstens friends. and boyfriends friends were after her and wpuld pf loved to of gotten ahold of her. She didnt want to turn herself in cause she was finally a popular Bobbie with ger childhood friends and others she achieved her goal and didnt want to throw it all away. She was sort of popular all along not like. Kirsren or even. Nancy. Articles told it
I
So called sweetie was her high school short termed boyfriend and people stated it was. Kirstens boyfriend not from what I read he never lijed. Bernadette ever but hatef het after. Kirsten. Poor. Joaans was tge one who was an outcast all her life so to soeak cause she wasnt rich like the rest and you go in a school with rich kids youre singled oit at mu school Joanna would of been accepted cause uts a small towm big cities have rich kids I come from middleclass we dont know what rich is on our town is middle class
ReplyDeleteI said she was popular before that guys just teased her for being flar chested a few did.mericlessly likec Kirstem s boyfriend it sbin news adeticles in. San. Francisco tomes she wasnt near as teased as Joanna the goth Kirsten picked on and others now. Nancy was in the elote group as. Kirsten but she just wanted to be herself and wasnt socially accepted after that the. she and. Joanna were blamed and Nancy was an outcast to Joanna. I think she was never accepted and had a very hard social life. Nancy and. Bernadette didnt till later on in high school. Nancy got the guys and all before that
ReplyDeleteBernadette had a few that flirted with her but after she turned 16 they hated her girls to as well and did her like. Joanna and left. Joaana alone and Nancy to finally. They were nicer to. Joanna senior year and sppke more to her Bernadette was lucky she was in police custody at her trial cause tp many students that were there esp. Kirstens friends. and boyfriends friends were after her and wpuld pf loved to of gotten ahold of her. She didnt want to turn herself in cause she was finally a popular Bobbie with ger childhood friends and others she achieved her goal and didnt want to throw it all away. She was sort of popular all along not like. Kirsren or even. Nancy. Articles told it
I
Karen. Severson and. Laura Doyle thier murder with. Missy Availa was similar. Karen moved in with. Irene. Availa and the family and friends blamed Karens old boyfriend cause he pulled Missy on his lap in thier apartment, Laura Doyle was seeing. Victor and. Victor wanted Missy back so. Laura helped. The guy whp got blamed got beat up by. Missys friends. Thier trial wasnt packed lije. Kirstens was friends and family of. Irwne. Availa attended and Ka Karens stepmom and. Laura s mom were on tge other side akone sitting in the outcast section just those. They got justice and served almost 30 years not hiding under a new identity. Bernadette got mor public publicity than those 2 they live in. Los. Angeles. Karen goesvto schools talking about bullying she was once one. Bernadette is just hiding the facts willing not to face them. She needs to come forward and admit her wrongdoings and not escape them. Laura. Doyle reminds me of. Bernadette tall and lanky strong Missy didnt have a chance with fat butt Karen sitting on her while. Laura helped hold her down and tie her hands up. Bernadette overpowered also. Wonder if. Mrs Costas ever met. Irene. Availa since. Irene goes around to parents and help tgem with thier murdered kids.
ReplyDeleteKaren. Severson and. Laura Doyle thier murder with. Missy Availa was similar. Karen moved in with. Irene. Availa and the family and friends blamed Karens old boyfriend cause he pulled Missy on his lap in thier apartment, Laura Doyle was seeing. Victor and. Victor wanted Missy back so. Laura helped. The guy whp got blamed got beat up by. Missys friends. Thier trial wasnt packed lije. Kirstens family and friends and family of. Irene . Availa attended and Karens stepmom and. Laura s mom were on the other side alone sitting in the outcast section just those. They got justice and served almost 30 years not hiding under a new identity. Bernadette got more public publicity than those 2 they live in. Los. Angeles. Karen goes to schools talking about bullying she was once one. Bernadette is just hiding the facts willing not to face them. She needs to come forward and admit her wrongdoings and not escape them. Laura. Doyle reminds me of. Bernadette tall and lanky strong Missy didnt have a chance with fat butt Karen sitting on her while. Laura helped hold her down and tie her hands up. Bernadette overpowered also. Wonder if. Mrs Costas ever met. Irene. Availa since. Irene goes around to parents and help them with thier murdered kids.
ReplyDeleteSorry about the 2 pages correcting errors hity it by mistake.
DeleteBernie reminded me of. Laura Doyle and. Kirsten reminded me of. Missy. Both beautiful and popular girls and. Bernie and. Laura were jealous of thier boyfriends so was hippo Karen.
ReplyDeleteHi K,
ReplyDeleteThe car was examined before Bernadette got caught. I'm just surprised nothing was discovered. As someone mentioned above: Bernadette had a lot of luck.
"Forensics has come a long way since then"
Yes indeed.
Bernadette would have caught a lot sooner in this day and age and would have received an appropriate sentence befitting the crime.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDelete“Bernadette is just hiding the facts willing not to face them. She needs to come forward and admit her wrongdoings and not escape them.
That will never happen.