Between May 2005 and May 2006, three young women vanished from Cabecinha de Rei, a village in the municipality of Santa Comba Dão in central Portugal. All three had grown up near the same man: António Costa, a corporal of the Guarda Nacional Republicana, Portugal's rural police force, who had recently left active service. Neighbors thought well of him. He helped the families look for their missing daughters.
In June 2006 the Polícia Judiciária, Portugal's criminal investigation police, arrested him. He confessed, and his directions led investigators to the body of the third young woman. In court a year later he withdrew the confession, said the police had coerced him, and blamed the uncle of one of the victims. On July 31, 2007, a court in Figueira da Foz convicted him of the three homicides, with other charges, and gave him 25 years in prison, the legal maximum in Portugal. Two appeals failed.
He became known across the country as Cabo Costa, Corporal Costa, and as the serial killer of Santa Comba Dão. In 2021 he left prison for the first time on a three-day leave, and in August 2026 a regional paper, citing the broadcaster SIC, reported that he would be freed in April 2027.
Jornal de Notícias gave his full name in 2006 as António Luís Rodrigues da Costa. During his trial in 2007 the news agency Lusa reported his age as 53; Jornal de Notícias gave 58 in its report on the verdict. He had served in the GNR, and Lusa reported at the time of his arrest that he had been in the reserve since April 2005, just before the first young woman disappeared. Later reports describe him as retired.
He lived in Cabecinha de Rei, close to the families of all three victims. According to Lusa, he had known the young women since they were children and was in almost daily contact with their families. He was married and had two sons. Since leaving the force, neighbors told Lusa, he had spent his time in his yard or helping his in-laws. He also owned a house in Figueira da Foz, on the coast.
Correio da Manhã later described him as a well-regarded member of the GNR who was active in the local Benfica supporters' club and took part in pilgrimages to Fátima. A neighbor, 74, told Lusa after his arrest that he was a very good person and that the news seemed like something from a horror film. A younger neighbor said she had never suspected him. When the PJ had questioned her, the older woman said, she had suggested that the young women might have been taken by an international kidnapping ring, a theory many people in the village believed.
Isabel Cristina Isidoro was the first to disappear. She was 17, according to Lusa's report at the time of the arrest and later reports in Correio da Manhã and Diário de Viseu; some Lusa reports in 2006 and 2007 gave her age as 18. A neighbor told Lusa she had left her studies.
She went missing on May 24, 2005. Diário de Viseu, summarizing the facts proven in court, reported that she disappeared after accepting a ride in his car. Her parents did not report her missing, according to Lusa, because they believed she had gone to France to work.
On May 31, 2005, a week later, a woman's body was found at Figueira da Foz, on the coast. No one knew who she was. She was buried in the section of the Figueira da Foz cemetery set aside for the unidentified, and remained there for more than a year. According to Correio da Manhã's 2019 account of the case, the autopsy found that she had drowned. Police later matched her clothing to old photographs.
Mariana Lourenço, 18, was a first-year student at the Escola Superior de Tecnologia e Gestão in Oliveira do Hospital, according to Lusa. Correio da Manhã gave her full name as Mariana Gonçalves Lourenço. Her family belonged to the Congregação Cristã em Portugal, a Protestant church.
The date of her disappearance is given differently in the reports. The head of the GNR's criminal investigation unit in Santa Comba Dão told the court in 2007 that she disappeared on October 14, 2005, and had been seen that morning, and Lusa's report of the prosecution's closing argument gives the same date. Lusa's reporting in June 2006 and a Jornal de Notícias report of the same month gave November 14, 2005; Correio da Manhã's 2019 account gave October 15.
She was missing for months. Her remains were recovered near Penacova in June 2006, the first part on June 1, according to Lusa.
Joana Oliveira was the last. She was a student at the Escola Secundária de Santa Comba Dão, according to Lusa, and was reported as 17 at the time of the arrest; some later Lusa and Jornal de Notícias reports gave 18. Correio da Manhã gave her full name as Joana Margarida Marques de Oliveira.
She disappeared on May 8, 2006, on her way between school and home, according to Lusa. Her family put up posters around the town and alerted the authorities. White, Jornal de Notícias reported later, was her favorite color.
Correio da Manhã later wrote that the neighbor who would be convicted took part in the searches for the missing young women, and TVI reported the same in 2021.
Three disappearances in about a year, of young women of about the same age from the same small area, led investigators to consider whether they were dealing with a serial killer, Lusa reported.
The local GNR had its own doubts. Carlos Mateus, head of the GNR's criminal investigation unit in Santa Comba Dão, testified in 2007 that Costa had seemed worried about the PJ's investigation and kept asking whether the PJ suspected anyone. He seemed nervous, Mateus said, and kept explaining away scratches he had, although no one had asked him about them. Mateus said he met the PJ inspectors in Mortágua, about 11 kilometers from Santa Comba Dão, and told them Costa would be his main suspect.
About six weeks after Joana disappeared, according to Correio da Manhã, the PJ spent three days searching his home and his car. Diário de Viseu reported that the searches covered his home, his apartment in Figueira da Foz and his car. Investigators found forensic traces linked to Joana in his car; Correio da Manhã called that evidence key to the case. The PJ's deputy national director, Almeida Rodrigues, later told the court that the case had been built on many small clues and circumstantial evidence, house searches, forensic analysis and telephone taps.
On June 23, 2006, Joana's brother told Lusa that PJ agents had told him that morning that her presumed killer had been detained. Almeida Rodrigues told Lusa that at least three young women were believed to have been killed. Police sources said there could be four or more victims, a claim that did not lead to further charges.
That afternoon, at about 4:15, the suspect arrived at the Figueira da Foz court with his face covered, escorted by two officers, while onlookers shouted insults. Outside his home in Cabecinha de Rei, residents gathered and GNR officers stood guard. The court charged him with three counts of qualified homicide and three of concealment of a corpse and ordered him held in preventive detention. He left the court at about 10:15 p.m. past hundreds of people who insulted him, Jornal de Notícias reported. Correio da Manhã later gave the date of the arrest as June 24, 2006.
He confessed. According to the testimony of PJ officers at his trial, he was first questioned by two inspectors, Chief Inspector Domingues and Inspector Sineiro, and did not confess to them. He confessed only when he was brought before Almeida Rodrigues. Asked how he wanted to be remembered, he said he wished to be seen as a good man who had had a breakdown, Rodrigues told the court.
Rodrigues said everything in the case file came from the suspect himself, who showed investigators where the crimes had been committed and where Joana's body was. Joana's body was found only because of his directions, Rodrigues said. He also said the suspect had a pen that belonged to Isabel Cristina and explained where it was. Diário de Viseu, summarizing the case in 2026, reported that in June 2006 he confessed to the three homicides and told the authorities where the crimes had taken place and where he had left the bodies.
On June 24, 2006, a woman's body was recovered, and PJ officials told Jornal de Notícias it was probably Joana Oliveira. Identification required laboratory tests.
Isabel Cristina, buried without a name in Figueira da Foz the year before, was identified. Her body was exhumed and moved to Santa Comba Dão, and on July 6, 2006 the town stopped for her funeral. Shops closed at 6 p.m. and about 1,000 people gathered in and around the church, Lusa reported. The priest, Father Ricardo Ferreira, urged calm, said the town should mourn and learn a lesson, and named the three young women. One woman in the crowd told Lusa she still could not understand how he could have done it; one man said the families, not the courts, should deliver justice.
The next day, Mariana and Joana were buried two hours apart, before about 4,000 people, many of them young and dressed in white, according to Jornal de Notícias. At Mariana's service, held according to the rites of her family's church, the presiding elder urged the mourners to reject hatred and revenge. Joana's funeral was held at the parish church, which was too small for the crowd. In his homily, the priest spoke against violence by men and said that in the 21st century people still committed the worst crimes against others.
The prosecution's indictment listed ten offenses: three counts of qualified homicide, three of concealment of a corpse, one of desecration of a corpse, one of calumnious denunciation for accusing an innocent man, and two further counts. Lusa reported that the maximum combined sentence was 25 years.
The question of his criminal responsibility was central to the defense. A first medical and legal report found him criminally responsible. His lawyer, Carla Bettencourt, called it very vague: three pages with three conclusions. At the first session of the trial she asked for a second forensic psychiatric examination. The prosecution and the lawyers for the victims' families opposed the request; on the second day of the trial, the three-judge panel granted it, asking for experts with the greatest experience in forensic psychiatry.
He was examined on June 19, 2007, for about two hours at the Instituto de Medicina Legal in Coimbra, and that afternoon relatives were interviewed to reconstruct his family history. The report, signed by the psychiatrists Silva Marques and Máximo Cólon, reached the court in early July. It found that he did not suffer from mental illness in the strict sense of the term and that there was no psychiatric reason to exclude or reduce his criminal responsibility. Bettencourt said the report was very well founded and removed any doubt.
The trial began at the Figueira da Foz court on June 4, 2007, under heavy security, with extra police and metal detectors at the courtroom door. He was brought from Santarém prison, where he was held in preventive detention, and arrived in handcuffs at 9:37 a.m. Dozens of people waiting outside called him a murderer, a coward and a liar, and told him he had stained the name of Santa Comba Dão. Many came from Cabecinha de Rei. One woman, 67, who had arrived at 7:30, called him a wolf in sheep's clothing. Isabel Cristina's mother told Jornal de Notícias she was certain he was responsible for the deaths. Joana's father said no sentence could ease the pain of losing his daughter.
The panel was presided over by Judge Jorge Loureiro. In court, the defendant declared himself innocent. He said he had confessed only because the PJ had trapped him and coerced him, and he blamed the killings on an uncle of Mariana. Confronted by the judge with recordings of telephone calls in which, according to the prosecution, he admitted to relatives that he had killed the three young women, he said he did not remember. As he left the court that evening, trying to avoid photographers, he fell as he climbed into the prison van.
At the third session, on June 13, PJ officers testified. Almeida Rodrigues said the defendant had confessed to him and had never complained of mistreatment. He called the defendant an intelligent man, aware of what he was doing, and said the crying he showed at one point was feigned. He rejected the idea of an accomplice: the crimes needed no preparation, he said, and the victims knew and trusted him. He linked the motives in part to the defendant's concern for his social standing, and said the case fit a serial pattern, with about six months between killings. Chief Inspector Domingues and Inspector Sineiro denied that anyone had threatened or struck him, and Domingues denied that he had asked for a lawyer. During the afternoon a relative of Mariana called the defendant a murderer as he arrived and was removed by police.
On June 20, eight witnesses testified, among them three PJ inspectors, four members of the GNR including the Viseu district commander, and the machine operator who had found part of Mariana's remains. Carlos Mateus described the suspicions the local GNR had had from the start. He testified that Mariana's uncle had been in Castro Daire from the day before she disappeared until the end of that day, and that he saw no connection between the uncle and her disappearance. As Mateus spoke, the defendant shook his head and wrote on a notepad. The uncle was due to testify that afternoon.
Final arguments were heard on July 11, 2007, the seventh session. The prosecutor, Jorge Leitão, asked for the maximum of 25 years and said the defendant deserved more: "25 anos porque mais não há, merecia mais" (25 years because there is no more; he deserved more). Two psychiatric examinations had found him responsible, Leitão said, and there was no doubt he understood what he had done. If he had not stopped himself, it was because he had not wanted to. His answers to the psychological tests showed manipulation and simulation, the prosecutor said, and he described the defendant as cold. The best way out, in his view, had been to be declared mad.
Leitão said the defendant's first confession had described in detail how he disposed of the bodies. He called Mariana's uncle a scapegoat and completely innocent. For Mariana, the prosecution said, the motive was a kiss she refused.
The lawyers for the three families supported the prosecution's request. João Pereira, for Mariana's family, called the defendant a wolf in sheep's clothing and said the maximum penalty was very little. Leopoldo Camarinha, for Joana's family, said the evidence was overwhelming, pointed to contradictions in the defendant's account and said there was no mitigating circumstance.
For the defense, Carla Bettencourt said her client's constitutional rights had been called into question and that he had been treated from the start as guilty, accused of being a serial killer and a psychopath. She said prosecution witnesses had commented outside the courtroom on what was said inside it, that the witnesses had already made up their minds, and that no conclusive witness evidence had been produced. She blamed the media and leaks from the case. Her client, she said, considered himself innocent, and the confession he had made at his first court hearing was a lie he could not sustain. The defendant sobbed as she spoke. Then he addressed the judges and said he took back nothing he had said: he was innocent.
On July 31, 2007, the court found almost all the facts in the indictment proven. It convicted him of nine offenses: three homicides, two of them qualified, with other charges including two counts of concealment of a corpse, one of desecration of a corpse and one of aggravated calumnious denunciation. He was acquitted of the third concealment count. The court did not find Isabel Cristina's homicide to be qualified, a finding her family's lawyer said he disagreed with but accepted. The combined sentence was 25 years in prison, the maximum Portuguese law allows.
Judge Loureiro said the defendant's version, blaming a relative of one victim, made no sense and was implausible. He said he was surprised that a man with a normal past should suddenly do such things, that the facts bore a mark he had not seen in two decades on the bench, and that he would never understand what could make someone with that background go so far astray. He also noted that, when arrested, the defendant had told a relative he risked 25 years, and said the defendant had already counted on that sentence.
Only the victims' relatives were allowed in the courtroom. Outside, about thirty people shouted insults as he left, calling him a murderer and a disgrace to the town. Joana's mother told Lusa that justice had been done. Her father accepted the ruling but said the sentence did not make up for the family's suffering. Mariana's family's lawyer said 25 years was not a fitting punishment, since he could be released on parole after serving two-thirds of the term, about 16 years, and called for a review of the rules on conditional release.
Bettencourt announced an appeal on the day of the verdict, saying some points mentioned in the judgment had not been proven. In February 2008 the Coimbra Court of Appeal rejected it on procedural grounds as manifestly without merit, finding that the appeal did not identify the disputed facts, the evidence that required a different decision or the evidence to be reexamined.
She appealed again, to the Supreme Court of Justice, on May 21, 2008, arguing that under the case law the Court of Appeal could not have dismissed the appeal on those grounds. A panel of the court's Fifth Criminal Section found the appeal without merit, confirming the first-instance judgment, Lusa reported on June 6, 2008. Bettencourt told Lusa she had not yet been notified of the ruling.
He served his sentence at Évora prison, in the south of the country, far from Santa Comba Dão. Correio da Manhã reported that after serving a quarter of his sentence he began to apply to the sentence enforcement court for temporary leave, and that dozens of requests had been refused. A source close to the case told the paper that a leave or conditional release was almost impossible to obtain, given the nature of the crimes and the fact that he had never confessed in court. The victims' families, the paper wrote, were relieved.
The compensation the court awarded the families was largely unpaid. Correio da Manhã reported in 2021 that the largest award, 150,000 euros to Joana's family, had been paid only in part: the family had received about 12 percent, or 18,000 euros.
On the morning of May 31, 2021, at 68, he left Évora prison for the first time since his conviction, on a three-day leave granted by the sentence enforcement court. TVI reported that he stayed at a religious house in Évora. Jornal do Centro, a Viseu paper, reported that he would stay at a house for priests until June 3, that he would be allowed a leave every four months, and that he was barred from Santa Comba Dão. Correio da Manhã wrote that the authorities were restricting his leaves because of the public alarm they could cause.
The families were angry. Joana's mother told Jornal do Centro she was shocked and devastated, called the decision a terrible atrocity of the justice system and called him a dangerous man. "Espero bem que não venha a Santa Comba e que nos deixe sossegar" (I really hope he does not come to Santa Comba and lets us be at peace), she said. Isabel Cristina's brother told Correio da Manhã that what he thought was one thing and the law, which had to be respected, was another. Mariana's relatives said they would not forget.
He returned to the prison on the morning of June 3, 2021, alone, shortly after 7 a.m., Correio da Manhã reported. The families said the leave was sad and shameful, but that it was the justice system they had.
The expected date of his final release has shifted over the years. In 2007, Mariana's family's lawyer said he could be released on parole after two-thirds of the sentence, about 16 years. In June 2021, Correio da Manhã reported that he could be granted conditional release only after serving 20 years and 10 months. On August 31, 2026, Diário de Viseu reported, citing SIC, that he would be released in April 2027.
The case was the subject of a novel before the trial had ended. In July 2007, ten days before the verdict, the writer Manuel da Silva Ramos presented "A ponte submersa," published by Dom Quixote, in Santa Comba Dão. The novel gives the victims and the corporal fictional names, and its author used it to criticize the GNR and the Church. Almeida Rodrigues of the PJ and relatives of the victims attended the presentation, Lusa reported.
The verdict also renewed argument over the 25-year limit on prison terms in Portugal. The prosecutor told the court the defendant deserved more than the law allowed, and Mariana's family's lawyer called for a review of the conditional release rules.
His own account. After confessing to the PJ and at his first court hearing, he told the trial court that he was innocent, that the PJ had coerced him and that an uncle of Mariana was the killer. The court rejected that version as implausible. A GNR investigator testified that the uncle had been away from Santa Comba Dão when Mariana disappeared, and the prosecutor called him completely innocent. The uncle was never charged; the defendant was convicted of calumnious denunciation.
More victims. When he was arrested, police sources told Lusa there could be four or more victims. No further charges were reported.
Ages and dates. The reports differ on the young women's ages, by one year in each case, and on the day Mariana disappeared (October 14, October 15 or November 14, 2005). The defendant's age at trial is given as 53 by Lusa and 58 by Jornal de Notícias.
Released or not. In August 2026 he had not yet been released; the April 2027 date is SIC's, as reported by Diário de Viseu.
April 2005: Lusa later reports that he had been in the GNR reserve since this month.
May 24, 2005: Isabel Cristina Isidoro disappears in Santa Comba Dão.
May 31, 2005: A woman's body is found at Figueira da Foz; she is buried as unidentified.
October 14, 2005: Mariana Lourenço disappears, according to court testimony (other reports give October 15 or November 14).
May 8, 2006: Joana Oliveira disappears.
June 1, 2006: Part of Mariana's remains are recovered near Penacova.
June 23, 2006: The suspect is brought before the Figueira da Foz court, charged and remanded in custody.
June 24, 2006: A body believed to be Joana's is recovered; Correio da Manhã gives this as the date of the arrest.
July 6, 2006: Isabel Cristina's funeral in Santa Comba Dão.
July 7, 2006: Funerals of Mariana and Joana.
June 4, 2007: Trial opens in Figueira da Foz; he says he is innocent.
June 13, 2007: PJ officers testify about his confession.
June 19, 2007: Second psychiatric examination in Coimbra.
June 20, 2007: GNR investigators testify.
July 11, 2007: Closing arguments; the prosecutor asks for 25 years.
July 21, 2007: The novel "A ponte submersa" is presented in Santa Comba Dão.
July 31, 2007: Convicted and sentenced to 25 years.
February 2008: Coimbra Court of Appeal rejects his appeal.
June 6, 2008: Lusa reports that the Supreme Court of Justice has rejected his appeal.
May 31 to June 3, 2021: First temporary leave from Évora prison.
August 31, 2026: Diário de Viseu, citing SIC, reports that he will be released in April 2027.