Costa was born in 1954 and had served in the Guarda Nacional Republicana. He lived at Santa Comba Dao in central Portugal.
Between 2005 and 2006 he killed three young women: Isabel Cristina Isidoro, seventeen; Mariana Lourenco, eighteen; and Joana Oliveira, nineteen. He raped and strangled them and concealed the bodies.
He was arrested on June 24, 2006 and sentenced on July 31, 2007 to twenty-five years' imprisonment.
Twenty-five years is Portugal's maximum sentence; the country abolished life imprisonment in 1884 and has no provision for it. Sentenced in 2007, he would be released around 2031 at the latest, and earlier if conditional release were granted. Nothing accessible records his current position, and this is one for the re-check list.
The accessible sourcing is Portuguese press reporting of the trial.