Introducing - Bone Valley Season 5 | The Devil's Quarry: Preview

In the woods outside Carmel, New York, a hunter finds the bones of a twelve-year-old girl. She had been missing. The people meant to protect her had looked the other way. Police set their sights on two teenage drug dealers, who are convicted of her murder and sent to prison.

But this is just the beginning of the story. Now, buried records, ignored warnings, and a justice system that may have gotten it dangerously wrong are forced into the open, while the real killer bides his time, counting the days until he can hunt again.

Award-winning investigative journalist and longtime Rolling Stone Magazine contributor Paul Solotaroff hosts the next entry in the acclaimed Bone Valley anthology.

To hear this episode in its entirety, search for Bone Valley Season 5 | The Devil's Quarry wherever you listen to podcasts. 

Listeners can binge the entire season by subscribing to Lava for Good+ on Apple Podcasts.

Bone Valley Season 5: The Devil’s Quarry is a production of Lava for Good™ Podcasts in association with Rolling Stone Films and Signal Co. No1.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This series includes sensitive and potentially distressing topics, including sexual
assault and abuse involving children. Listener discretion is advised. On
November twenty second, nineteen ninety five, a hunter named Peter

(00:23):
Erickson walked the woods of Carmel, New York, fifty or
so yards in from Fields Lane. He was out there
that morning with a buddy of his named Bruce. It
was the first day of a hunting season in Putnam County,
and the two friends were setting up a tree stand
that morning. That's the perch that hunters hinda waiting for
a deer.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
My buddy was down below. He's free to heights, so
he was handing me stuff and I was up in
this tree and all of a sudden, I look out
in the road, and there's like twenty cop cars pull up,
you know, all at once, and then they start walking
into the woods, and you're like, what is going on here?

Speaker 1 (01:05):
The Carminlson County seat of Putnam. It's still a pretty
small town enough so that Peter knew some of the
cops who swarmed the woods that morning.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
I recognized a few of them, one of them Pat
His name was Pacistaldo.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
Pacstaldo, a detective for the Putnam County sheriff straight out
of a drugstore novel. He slicked his hair back in
a tight pompadour and wore a top coat even when
it was warm. Oh and he moonlighted on weekends as
an Elvis impersonator in several of the local dives.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
And the guy kind of looked like Elvis a little bit.
But that's why he was so memorable to me. It
wasn't my friend. I was like an acquaintance that we
knew from working there in the jail periodically doing electrical work.
So as they were coming in, I say, I ain't
doing what's going on? And he goes, well, somebody found
something in the woods.

Speaker 1 (02:02):
Earlier that morning, another hunter had stumbled over something in
those woods. He went to check it out. It was
the skull of a preteen girl.

Speaker 2 (02:12):
He had found that skull, took it home, took it home.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
Later that day, the hunter called the cops. And now,
as costalgo told Peter and Bruce, he was out there
looking for her body.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
So we're like, no way. You know, this is Putnam County.
Back then it was a quieter town. You don't hear
this stuff here. So my friend Bruce and I said,
do you mind if we kind of look around and
help you. So he goes, uh, yeah, no problem.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
Cops rarely let civilians walk their crime scene. According to Peter, though,
that's what happened here.

Speaker 2 (02:58):
So I'm walking and my buddy Bruce goes, hey, come
over here.

Speaker 1 (03:05):
Castaldo and the other cops rushed over to Bruce. He
was crouched in the clearing between the trees, over a
mound of sticks and leaves that looked composed. He lifted
one of the branches and a chunk of the ground
cover came up. He saw something underneath it.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
It was her skeleton. There's a tremendous amount of debris
as well. I mean, you see the skeleton, but it's
not like this bright white thing that's sticking out in
the woods. There was a mandible the lower part of
the jaw and her moram was tied inde mandible was

(03:43):
sitting on the ground. There was hair there. You could
see there was hair there, dirty blonde like hair, just
laying there in the leaves. It was the ribbed cage.
It looked like it's kind of sickening. I mean, it
looked like the rib cage was mostly intact. This skeleton
was small too. It was It was a small skeleton.

(04:06):
It was horrible.

Speaker 1 (04:10):
The body belonged to a twelve year old girl, a
girl going missing a full year prior. Her name was
Josette Right and it was Costaldo they put in charge
of finding her. The cops taped the site off and
gathered forensics. They were clothes draped over the body, including

(04:30):
the coach she was last seen wearing. It was badly moldered,
with plant where it's growing through it. Her broad been
tied around her head. Forensics pros would later say that
it had been used to gagger, along with her underwear,
which had been stuffed in her mouth. Her hands were
bound in a complex odd tie. A sash cord ran

(04:53):
from her wrist to both her neck and ankle, yanking
her right foot back behind her and not far from
her body, cops found a hunting knife rusted in the damp.
I'm Paul Salatarov, and for thirty three years I've written
for Rolling Stone magazine. I go after racist cops who

(05:16):
shoot and kill on her black kids. I investigate me
on Nazi's bent on genocide in Virginia, and social media
tech lords who look the other way, while the cartel's
poisoned children on their platforms. Now, when you write those
kinds of stories, one after another, you build a layer
of callous around your heart. But this story has pierced

(05:39):
the skin and will not give me peace. I keep
hearing the voices of girls who'd warned the cops about
a demon, a hundred of girls hiding in the woods.
And I keep hearing the voice of that demon in
the woods, a voice that's still in my head five
years later. You'll soon meet him in this reason. In fact,

(06:01):
he's lurking here.

Speaker 3 (06:03):
In this episode. To him, my madness, laughter, my fears, sorrows,

(06:25):
depths are endless.

Speaker 1 (06:29):
In this.

Speaker 3 (06:31):
Valley of the years. I want to see your revelation.
I want to know whar I'm reaching out and desperate

(06:57):
shn to the one who's holding the stars, to the
one who's holding holding the stars.

Speaker 1 (07:26):
This is the devil's quarry.