Amber Lynn Costello had been in the sex trade since she was 17. Last September she booked a date for $1,500 and headed out into the night. She never came back. In this week's Newsweek, Christine Pelisek has the inside story of a serial-killer victim's final hours.
A call from a stranger, a negotiation over sex, and an agreed-upon price-$1,500-that made it even easier than usual for a heroin user supporting herself through prostitution to cast aside caution and head out into the night alone. For 27-year-old Amber Lynn Costello, who had been selling herself since the age of 17, the offer was much higher than usual, yet in other respects not out of the ordinary. But on the evening of Sept. 2, 2010, Costello made that date and never came back.
Related story on The Daily Beast: A Serial Killer on the Loose in Los Angeles
For safety reasons, she used the cell phone belonging to her roommate,...
A call from a stranger, a negotiation over sex, and an agreed-upon price-$1,500-that made it even easier than usual for a heroin user supporting herself through prostitution to cast aside caution and head out into the night alone. For 27-year-old Amber Lynn Costello, who had been selling herself since the age of 17, the offer was much higher than usual, yet in other respects not out of the ordinary. But on the evening of Sept. 2, 2010, Costello made that date and never came back.
Related story on The Daily Beast: A Serial Killer on the Loose in Los Angeles
For safety reasons, she used the cell phone belonging to her roommate,...
- 4/17/2011
- by Christine Pelisek
- The Daily Beast
Amber Lynn Costello's path to prostitution ended at the hands of a serial killer. Christine Pelisek talks exclusively to her roommate about her life-and the phone calls she received the night she disappeared.
In the 10 years she'd been working in prostitution, 27-year-old Amber Lynn Costello had developed a system to minimize the danger. She arranged dates through her roommate Dave Schaller's cellphone, and sometimes had him wait in the next room to fend off violent clients, or watch as she was picked up outside their apartment. Now for the first time Schaller speaks about the calls Costello received on September 2, 2010, the night she disappeared, another victim of the suspected serial killer terrorizing Long Island.
Related story on The Daily Beast: A Serial Killer on the Loose in Los Angeles
In Costello and Schaller's system, an "incall" was preferable to an "outcall," but after the stranger called several times that evening,...
In the 10 years she'd been working in prostitution, 27-year-old Amber Lynn Costello had developed a system to minimize the danger. She arranged dates through her roommate Dave Schaller's cellphone, and sometimes had him wait in the next room to fend off violent clients, or watch as she was picked up outside their apartment. Now for the first time Schaller speaks about the calls Costello received on September 2, 2010, the night she disappeared, another victim of the suspected serial killer terrorizing Long Island.
Related story on The Daily Beast: A Serial Killer on the Loose in Los Angeles
In Costello and Schaller's system, an "incall" was preferable to an "outcall," but after the stranger called several times that evening,...
- 4/17/2011
- by Christine Pelisek
- The Daily Beast
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