Chapter 1 | Criminal Mischief

Summary

Podcast Summary: Bone Valley – Chapter 1 | Criminal Mischief

Podcast: Bone Valley
Episode: Chapter 1 | Criminal Mischief
Date: June 10, 2026
Host: Paul Solotarov (in association with Lava for Good Podcasts)

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Main Theme & Purpose

Chapter 1 of Bone Valley: The Devil’s Quarry opens the new season by recounting the tragic 1994 disappearance and murder of 12-year-old Josette Wright in Carmel, New York. Through a tapestry of first-hand accounts and investigative narrative, the episode lays the foundation for a deep exploration of the failures and biases embedded in small-town policing, the trauma left in the wake of violent crime, and the people—innocent and guilty—whose lives are forever changed.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Discovery in the Woods

Timestamps: 01:30 – 05:40

• Peter Erickson, a local hunter, recounts the discovery:

  • On November 22, 1995, a hunter finds a skull in the woods near Carmel, NY.
  • "All of a sudden I look out in the road and there's like 20 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?" (Peter Erickson, 02:14)

• Investigation of the crime scene:

  • Civilians (hunters) are allowed to help search the woods, which is highly unusual.
  • Josette's skeleton is found, bound and gagged in a disturbing manner suggestive of a sexually motivated murder.

2. The Victim: Josette Wright

Timestamps: 11:05 – 20:20

• Background on Josette:

  • Josette, 12, was reported missing a year prior.
  • She came from a troubled home; her mother worked multiple jobs, and her father was absent.
  • "She wanted to be seen, and it and her mom probably was the person she needed to be seen by." (Rachel, pseudonym, 15:34)

• Home Life and Safe Havens:

  • Group home ‘Saint Cabrini’ was a refuge for abused or neglected girls; Josette often gravitated toward the girls and adults there.
  • Rachel describes Josette as energetic, loving, and kind, yet deeply searching for a place to belong.

3. The Town & Its Characters

Timestamps: 05:40 – 17:56

• Carmel, NY:

  • Presented as a small, tightly-knit, somewhat insular town with a veneer of safety but underlying issues—small-town suspicion, economic disparity, and a generational divide.

• Freddy:

  • Josette's mother's boyfriend, a man with a violent criminal past and rumored white supremacist ties.
  • "His name was Pat Castaldo. Pac Castaldo, a detective for the Putnam county sheriff, was straight out of a drugstore novel...he moonlighted on weekends as an Elvis impersonator." (Paul Solotarov, 02:51)

• Detective Pat Castaldo:

  • Characterized as colorful and unorthodox, he’s tasked with finding Josette but has little experience in missing persons.
  • He becomes a symbol of the limits and misplaced focus of small-town policing.

4. The Investigation: Cast of Suspects

Timestamps: 22:46 – 33:34

• Anthony Dipipo:

  • Local "bad boy"—a large, soft-spoken teen involved in drug dealing.
  • Suspected by police largely due to reputation and proximity rather than evidence.
  • "My first real encounter with the cops was...criminal mischief. I threw a metal garbage can at the window of a Metro north train...the fucking dog comes right up there. He finds me like, you got me, takes me to jail." (Anthony Dipipo, 26:49)

• Town’s View on Anthony:

  • "They stood out based on their clothes...They looked exactly like unsavories." (Peter Erickson, 27:47)
  • Rachel: "He was always soft spoken, you know, like he's, he was this big guy but yet so teddy bearish." (28:30)

• Castaldo’s Approach:

  • Picks up Anthony, interviews him about Josette, but has no substantial leads. Gives Anthony his card in case he hears anything.

5. The Unanswered Questions & Setting Up the Mystery

Timestamps: 33:34 – end

• Lingering Mystery & Systemic Failures:

  • The episode underscores how the actual perpetrator “has been lurking in plain sight forever. But the Putnam cops won’t touch him and never did.”
  • Narrator/Host Paul Solotarov is haunted by the case:
    • "But soon, very soon, you’ll know what I know. That the devil is real and walks among." (Paul Solotarov, 34:10)

• Personal Stakes:

  • Rachel’s pain at not “just taken her,” reflecting survivor’s guilt and the lasting impact on Josette’s friends (“It crushed me. I worried about her. I worried about her.” Rachel, 19:52)

• Promise of the Series:

  • Clear intention to show both the human cost of this crime and the institutional impediments to justice—police biases, small-town secrets, and ignored warning signs.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the grim discovery:

  • “Underneath was her skeleton. … The mandible sitting on the ground. There was hair there. … It was a small skeleton. It was horrible.” (Peter Erickson, 04:53–05:13)

• Regarding Josette’s struggle:

  • "She was just looking in the pasture, looking to belong somewhere and didn't feel like she did." (Rachel, 19:24)

• On missed opportunities:

  • “She was there as we were leaving and I remember her saying, just take me. They won't even notice I'm gone… Should have just taken her, you know… It crushed me.” (Rachel, 19:52)

• Paul Solotarov’s drive:

  • "When you write those kinds of stories, one after another, you build a layer of callous around your heart. But this story has pierced the skin and will not give me peace." (Paul Solotarov, 06:11)

• The Devil’s metaphor:

  • “But soon, very soon, you’ll know what I know. That the devil is real and walks among.” (Paul Solotarov, 34:10)

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Key Timestamps by Segment

• 01:30 – 05:40 — Hunters find Josette's remains and describe the shocking crime scene.
• 11:05 – 19:52 — Rachel (pseudonym) recounts Josette’s family life, escape to the group home, and their friendship.
• 22:46 – 24:53 — Timeline of Josette’s disappearance, including her last known actions and the initial investigation.
• 24:53 – 33:34 — Introduction to Anthony Dipipo, his life, reputation, and police’s early focus on him.
• 33:34 – End — Reflections by Paul Solotarov on the continuing hold of the case and foreshadowing the “real killer”.

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Overall Tone & Approach

The episode is investigative and compassionate, blending small-town gothic with trauma-informed reporting. Solotarov employs literary storytelling and a haunting, reflective tone. First-hand accounts are raw and unpolished, capturing the emotional complexities of the people involved.

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This opener immerses the listener in a world where innocence is lost, both for Josette and for those who briefly sheltered her, and sets the stage for an inquiry not just into a murder, but into how a close-knit community’s flaws and blind spots allowed real evil to take root in plain sight.

Transcript

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[Ryan Reynolds]

Every family has its secrets. But what happens when you discover that your dad has been living a double life?

[Rachel (Pseudonym)]

That is not the look of an innocent man. Is everyone lying to me about who they are?

[Ryan Reynolds]

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[Ryan Reynolds]

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[Paul Solotarov]

This series includes sensitive and potentially distressing topics, including sexual assault and abuse involving children. Listener discretion is advised. On November 22, 1995, a hunter named Peter Erickson walked the woods of Carmel, New York, 50 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 hunting season in Putnam county, and the two friends were setting up a tree stand that morning. That's the perch that hunters hide in, waiting for a deer.

[Peter Erickson]

My buddy was down below. He's afraid of 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 20 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?

[Paul Solotarov]

The Carmel's the 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.

[Peter Erickson]

I recognized a few of them. One of them, Pat. His name was Pac Castaldo.

[Paul Solotarov]

Pac Castaldo, a detective for the Putnam county sheriff, was 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.

[Peter Erickson]

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, pat, how you doing? What's going on? And he goes, well, somebody found something in the woods.

[Paul Solotarov]

Earlier that morning. Another hunter had stumbled over something in those woods. He bent to check it out. It was the skull of a preteen girl.

[Peter Erickson]

He had found that skull, took it home, took it home.

[Paul Solotarov]

Later that day, the hunter called the cops. And now, as Castalo told Peter and Bruce, he was out there looking for her body.

[Peter Erickson]

So we're like, no way. You know, this is Putnam County. Back then it was a quieter town. You don't want to 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, yeah, no problem.

[Paul Solotarov]

Cops rarely let civilians walk their crime scene. According to Peter, though, that's what happened here.

[Peter Erickson]

So I'm walking, I'm looking, and my buddy Bruce goes, hey, come over here.

[Paul Solotarov]

Castaldo and the other cops rushed over to Bruce. He was crouched in a 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

[Peter Erickson]

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 wood. There was a mandible, the lower part of the jaw. And her bra was tied in. The mandible 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 rib 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. It was horrible.

[Paul Solotarov]

The body belonged to a 12 year old girl. A girl had gone missing a full year prior. Her name was Josette Wright, and it was Castaldo they put in charge of finding her. The cops taped the site off and gathered forensics. There were clothes draped over the body, including the coat she was last seen wearing. It was badly moldered with plant roots growing through it. Her bra had been tied around her head. Forensics prose would later say that it had been used to gag her along with her underwear, which had been stuffed in her mouth. Her hands were bound in a complex hogtie. A sash cord ran 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 Solotarov, and for 33 years I've written for Rolling Stone magazine. I go after racist cops who shoot and kill unarmed black kids. I investigate neo Nazis bent on genocide in Virginia and social media tech lords who look the other way while the cartels poison 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 the skin and will not give me peace. I keep hearing the voices of girls who warn the cops about a demon, a hunter 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 series. In fact, he's lurking here in this episode.

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This is the devil's quarry.

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[Rachel (Pseudonym)]

I was in the group home in Carmel. I'd say we were pretty tight with the crew that was there. You know, we all came from different backgrounds. We were all kind of there for same reasons but for different.

[Paul Solotarov]

Rachel was 7 or 8 when her mom's new boyfriend crashed into their lives. Within weeks he was abusing both Rachel and her mom. It's why she landed in the group home a few years later. That home was known as Saint Cabrini and it proved to be a blessing

[Rachel (Pseudonym)]

for Rachel when it came to Carmel. It was like kind of like a clean slate for me.

[Paul Solotarov]

Cabrini was a haven for the yanked out girls of Putnam County. The ones who'd been abused by man in their house or ignored by their drug distracted mother. They ranged in age from 11 to 18, but looked out for each other like sisters. Rachel and the others loved to hang on the big stone porch out front smoking menthols with the boys who stopped by. That porch is where she first met Josette Wright.

[Rachel (Pseudonym)]

She was an average 10, 11 year old, you know, like she had long blonde hair.

[Paul Solotarov]

Rachel is one of the first people the Putnam cop spoke to after Josette's body was found. Rachel, by the way, is a pseudonym. You'll see why she needs one soon enough. As it happened, she was classmates with Josette's sister who was four years older than Josette. Their house was the hang spot on weekday afternoons.

[Rachel (Pseudonym)]

It was the house to go to, you know, it was the party house. It was, it was a place where kids went to hang out to get drunk. There was people there all the time.

[Paul Solotarov]

While hanging at that house, she met Josette's mom Susan and spent time with her boyfriend Freddie. Freddie wore a ponytail, was missing three front teeth and had a nasty scar under his lip.

[Rachel (Pseudonym)]

He was very free spirited, I guess want to say, you know, he. He spent a lot of his life in jail and he was very, for his age, kind of immature.

[Paul Solotarov]

That house was the sort of place where the adults often behaved like teens instead of authority figures. They partied just as hard as the kids they were raising, shared their beer and Newports with them and brought around men like Freddy. How did Freddy support himself?

[Rachel (Pseudonym)]

I think he did odd jobs. I think he was a carpenter. He did do carpentry work. He also said he was a reverend.

[Paul Solotarov]

Did Freddy strike you as religious?

[Rachel (Pseudonym)]

No. Yeah, he wasn't godly at all. He was covered in tattoos. And you know, I remember them being on his arms and they were like jailhouse tattoos. So, you know, like the tattoos that after years they just look like blah. That's kind of like how I remember his tattoos being like some you can't even make out. Exactly. He tell you it was a horse and you're like, what?

[Paul Solotarov]

The Putnam cops took a run at Freddy after Josette's body was found. His mug shots are in the case file as well as pages of handwritten notes about him. One of those pages describes his jailhouse tats. And no, that wasn't a horse on Freddy's forearm. It was a circle of Klansmen burning crosses. And there's another note in that file. Apparently Freddy had founded a white supremacist gang while in prison. There's also a number of people said that Freddie held neo Nazi views.

[Rachel (Pseudonym)]

Well, maybe that's what he was a reverend in.

[Paul Solotarov]

I couldn't corroborate that Freddie was ordained in anything, but it was easy enough to confirm that he'd done a serious stretch in prison. Do you know what he went to prison for?

[Rachel (Pseudonym)]

Honestly? Killing a man.

[Paul Solotarov]

But for killing a man, I want

[Rachel (Pseudonym)]

to say killing a man.

[Paul Solotarov]

There aren't any murders on Freddy's sheet, at least not I could find. And there aren't any details on his aggravated assaults, the counts that sent him to prison. But there are statements in that file from Josette's friends. They said Freddy often called Josette nasty names. And one of them said he slapped her hard in the face after she asked him for pizza money.

[Rachel (Pseudonym)]

I know that she didn't. She didn't like Freddy.

[Paul Solotarov]

Josette's dad was in California and been out of the picture for years. Her mom worked two jobs to support three school age kids and often left Josette to her own devices.

[Rachel (Pseudonym)]

She wanted to be seen, and it and her mom probably was the person she needed to be seen by.

[Paul Solotarov]

To keep herself busy, Josette wandered the streets. She was constantly seen walking the town at all hours alone. From the age of 10. Carmel, New York is a town surrounded on four sides by the lakes of the Hudson Valley. It's an hour or so from midtown Manhattan, and it's one of the more well off towns in Putnam County. But Carmel isn't a suburb for CFOs. It's where cops and firemen move their families. In the white flight panic of the 1970s, they built their homes on banks of Lake Carmel, then inadvertently fouled the waters with the runoff from their cheap septic tanks. I've spoken to a number of locals who swam the lake as kids. They tell me they'd come down with weird sinus problems or gastric flare ups that hung on for a week after they took a dip. Still, you can certainly find beauty in Carmel. There's the postcard. Perfect town square with its quaint old courthouse and banners hanging from lampposts for the sons who went to war. There are twisty roads up dense green hills where lake views sparkle between the trees. But drive the main drag in either direction. You'll pass strip malls with rundown or shuttered stores. From the first time I walked here, I had the sense I was being watched. There's a vibe here you don't get in the posher towns west of Carmel. A deep going suspicion of strangers. A mile up the hill from Carmelstown Square stands the house where Josette lived. On her walk down that hill, she'd passed the girl's home on her left.

[Rachel (Pseudonym)]

She walked by the group home a lot. We were like a pit stop, I guess. I think that's how we ended up starting to talk to her. And she became like talking to all the group home girls.

[Paul Solotarov]

Having seen firsthand what her home life was like, Rachel got why that group home was Josette's pit stop.

[Rachel (Pseudonym)]

It gave her something to do. She wasn't just walking around aimlessly or she wasn't, you know, by herself.

[Paul Solotarov]

Something the lost girl herself. Rachel felt for Josette and became a kind of big sister to her. She made time for at the group home and bought her snacks at the deli. The two of them formed a bond that deepened the following year when Rachel left Cabrini and moved back home. Her mom had rented an apartment in Carmel, a 10 minute walk from the group home. Within weeks, if not days, Josette showed up there.

[Rachel (Pseudonym)]

She spent a lot of time with my mom as well. My mama taught her how to crochet and just, you know, passing the time together. My mom would make everything, like potholders, napkins, blankets, scarves, you know, like she would make everything. But I remember her just teaching her how to like just do a single stitch or to do a little box

[Paul Solotarov]

and they'd sit at a table together.

[Rachel (Pseudonym)]

My mom never sat at a table. She always sat on the floor so they'd probably sit on the floor after a while.

[Paul Solotarov]

Josette was over there all the time.

[Rachel (Pseudonym)]

She was a part of the household and, you know, eating dinners together and things like that. Yeah, she belonged. She was very energetic, she was very loving, she was very kind. I don't know why I think of a horse, but she was very

[Peter Erickson]

a

[Rachel (Pseudonym)]

gentle person, you know, was just looking in the pasture, looking to belong somewhere and didn't feel like she did.

[Paul Solotarov]

But several months later, in the summer of 94, Rachel and her family decided to move to Pauling, half hour drive from Carmel. The day they finished packing, Josette showed up at their front door.

[Rachel (Pseudonym)]

She was there as we were leaving and I remember her saying, just take me. They won't even notice I'm gone. I was like, we can't, we can't take you. I told her that she couldn't come with us. She was crying. I think we, we both were. Should have just taken her, you know. It crushed me. I worried about her. I worried about her.

[Paul Solotarov]

After she moved away, Rachel lost touch with Josette. Then four months after she left, Rachel got news from her mother. Josette had gone missing. Just vanished.

[Alexis Cuadrado (Singer)]

Foreign

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[Paul Solotarov]

October 3, 1994. It was the last day Josette was seen in Carmel. She stepped off a school bus in front of her small ranch house at 3 o' clock that afternoon. The house, per usual, was packed with teens. Josette's two older sisters, their friends. Putnam detectives would later interview those teens. One said Josette had argued with her sister Chloe before walking out of the house. Josette, she said, admired Chloe and tried to mix in with her clique, but the older girls would have none of it. That day, nasty words were exchanged. According to those teens, Josette called her mom, saying she was going over to a friend's house. Then she went to the basement and made a second call. She briefly left the house and stood on the porch, waiting there in her thin brown jacket. When no one showed up, she went back in the house. There she did a very odd thing. She went up to her sister Shelly, stood in front of her staring, then said goodbye and left. At 3:45 she went walking down the hill, headed toward the shops downtown. That night, when she didn't come home for dinner, her mom, Susan, called around to Josette's friends, knocked on the doors of their houses. None of them had seen her since school let out. So Susan asked her daughters if she should call the cops. Her oldest girl, Shelly, nixed the idea, saying that cops do nothing till 48 hours have passed. Nonetheless, Susan called the next morning when there was still no sign of Josette. Pat Castaldo, the Elvis impersonating detective, was assigned to find Josette. But he had no training in missing person searches. He'd spent the bulk of his career as a deputy and detective in a narcotics squad. So with no leads to go on, he focused on the town's drug dealers, starting with Anthony dipipo.

[Anthony Dipipo]

I I would not really argue that I was a successful drug dealer. I wouldn't even argue that I broke even, you know, I, I covered some cost, but mostly ingested more than I was ever intent.

[Paul Solotarov]

Anthony was all of 18 when Josette Wright went missing. At 6 foot 5 and 230 pounds, he walked and talked like an underground wrestler, which was exactly the sort of vibe he was going for. He and his boys got up to crazy stuff together. They'd stage many WrestleManias in their yards, breaking chairs and tube lights over each other's skulls. They ditched class to get high and sell weed to their classmates. And any money Anthony made never Amounted much was used to fund his rave trips to the city.

[Anthony Dipipo]

You know, the music would be like. And then they would have these laser lights and these smoke machines. You got 5,000 kids and they're just in there. And half of them don't even know they're there. And the other half are just dancing until they drop.

[Paul Solotarov]

He and his buddies would walk the South Bronx at night night to cop weed and angel dust. And Dan still dawn at the raves and Chelsea clubs.

[Anthony Dipipo]

So like the city ones are really the best ones. And it's like just, it's, it's, it's an experience, you know, I wasn't the great.

[Paul Solotarov]

They drive home to Carmel High off their heads. Scene two of everything, including the Cross County Parkway.

[Anthony Dipipo]

Listening to music on the way there. We're listening to music on the way back. We're driving our vehicle. Smoke and space base now we're mixing the crack and the dust and off the cloud nine.

[Paul Solotarov]

In a town with little or no violent crime, Anthony had his run ins with the cops.

[Anthony Dipipo]

My first real encounter with the cops was it was criminal mischief. I threw a metal garbage can at the window of a Metro north train. And then the cops all of a sudden came and they started running after us. And so I ran and I got in the woods and they were bringing the dog, Rebel, the canine. So I'm like, fox, I try to bury myself in these leaves and I'm like, fucking dog comes right up there. He finds me like, you got me, takes me to jail. And it felt like, you know, it felt kind of like a badge on her. Crazy. I had just shaved the sides of my head and I had all this leaf particles on it and I was itchy and I guess I probably ran into some poison ivy or something. I would love to have all my mug shots back.

[Paul Solotarov]

You could say Anthony had a rep around town.

[Peter Erickson]

They stood out based on their clothes. And actually this was probably cutting edge at that time to have them baggy, you know, hanging, you know, your butt hanging out. They looked exactly like unsavories.

[Paul Solotarov]

That's Peter Erickson again. He's one of the hunters who was in the woods the day Josette's bones were found. He remembers seeing Anthony and his boys around town.

[Peter Erickson]

They had that type of look like they were the type of kids that were selling drugs to school kids as they were walking up from the school of the deli. Not kids I'd want my daughter to come home with. And I would assume at that time a lot of people had that same opinion.

[Rachel (Pseudonym)]

You couldn't you couldn't miss Anthony. He's huge. I'm sure they like stereotyped him to be a thug or you know, a hood rat or however you want to call him. But yet he was always soft spoken, you know, like he's, he was this big guy but yet so teddy bearish.

[Paul Solotarov]

Rachel got to know Anthony on that group home porch. He dropped by to flirt with a dozen or so girls who lived there.

[Anthony Dipipo]

St. Cabrini's group home, it was on Seminary Hill Road. We'd hang out and talk and you know, sometimes we'd sneak off a little bit and smoke or make out, whatever. And I'm a young guy, there's a lot of young girls and it's like, you know, hey, how you doing? How you doing? You want to smoke pot? Yeah. They were already having pot problems so that's what we did.

[Paul Solotarov]

Anthony was often there with his best friend Andy. Andy was a lot smaller than Anthony, maybe five' seven in boots, but had a short king's confidence around girls. Around guys though, he had a quick fuse, temper.

[Rachel (Pseudonym)]

Andy, he was more of the what? You know, I'm not, I'm not trying to, you know, like, but if, if you had a problem with him, he wanted to know why. And I remember Anthony and Andy with the big old jukebox, you know, like they would just be doing nothing and get blamed for something. Like something just is walking up and down a hill with a jukebox, you know, like what are you doing?

[Paul Solotarov]

Detective Castaldo suspected Anthony was more than just a two bit dealer. Anthony found that out one cold winter morning three months after Josette disappeared.

[Anthony Dipipo]

I'm walking down 301. Now 301 is a road that goes to cold spring. It's a long road. I didn't have my license yet, I just had a permit and I didn't have a car.

[Paul Solotarov]

He was walking home from a girlfriend's house where he just spent the night. Now if you ask him, Anthony was a player in the day. He says he kept a notebook with the numbers of 300 girls. But he either didn't have it on him that day or none of those girls would field his calls.

[Anthony Dipipo]

So I'm, I'm walking. It is a long walk. I don't want to walk the whole thing. I'm stressed out about it. It's six, seven, maybe eight miles to Carmel and I'm way out of place at a way out of an hour, like early fucking 7:30, 8:00'.

[Peter Erickson]

Clock.

[Paul Solotarov]

I'm walking 20 minutes into it. Anthony found himself surrounded.

[Anthony Dipipo]

I get four cop cars. They pull up all different ways, like weird, right? And then an unmarked car. And then it's Castaldo. Well, the first thing you don't want to do when you're surrounded by four cop cars and you're not doing nothing is run. If I ran, they know I got something. I'm not running.

[Paul Solotarov]

Besides, this time he was clean.

[Anthony Dipipo]

By dumb luck, I didn't have anything. If I did, it was probably half a joint.

[Paul Solotarov]

Castaldo rolled his window down to talk to Anthony.

[Anthony Dipipo]

He's like you. Anthony the Pippo. Yeah, Come with me. So I get, I get in his car. He was, you know, a big Italian guy. You know, he seemed like kind of scary guy, but he was being polite to me.

[Paul Solotarov]

Anthony thought he was being taken for a tune up. That was Castaldo's rep around town. A cop with heavy hands. But Castaldo had a different message in mind.

[Anthony Dipipo]

He says he's investigating this missing girl. Josette. Right?

[Paul Solotarov]

Anthony knew her, of course. He'd seen her hanging with the group home girls and wandering the streets of Carmel at all hours.

[Anthony Dipipo]

You know, you would see Josette walking around. You see Josette in the deli there, the Glenida deli and the laundromat and this little area.

[Paul Solotarov]

He remembered one time in particular.

[Anthony Dipipo]

I was sitting on the church steps. Like a lot of times the girls from the group home. Around 3:30 would go to these steps and she was crying and I. I could tell it was probably something from home, but I wish I asked and always thought that like my whole life, if I could have just asked one question, you know, what's wrong? But she asked me for a cigarette. I knew it was wrong. But you're crying, girl, you're already smoking. I know what you're doing out here, so have it. And I gave her the cigarette.

[Paul Solotarov]

He lit the cigarette for her.

[Anthony Dipipo]

She had long blonde hair and blue eyes. Tall for a 12 year old.

[Paul Solotarov]

But Castaldo wasn't asking about her appearance. He wanted leads on her disappearance.

[Anthony Dipipo]

I'm like, I don't really know. I know the girl. I don't really know anything. I haven't heard anything. He says if you do, please call this. And he gave me his. His card.

[Paul Solotarov]

By the time Castaldo dropped him in downtown Carmel, Anthony's stomach was a knots. All those detectives to drop a business card. They were clearly on a mission and not for crime stopper tips. What Anthony couldn't have known then was how far those cops would go to put Josette Wright's murder on someone. Or that he, Anthony, would spend the next three decades searching for actual killer. That killer has been lurking in plain sight forever. But the Putnam cops won't touch him and never did. And so, five years after I first wrote this story, I'm as possessed by it as Anthony in 2021. I've laughed in your face if you'd asked me about the devil. But soon, very soon, you'll know what I know. That the devil is real and walks among. The Devil's Quarry is a production of Lava for Good in association with Rolling Stone Films and Signal Company Number One. I'm your creator and host, Paul Solotarov. Executive producers are Jason Flom, Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wardes and Gilbert King. From Rolling Stone Films, our executive producers are Alexandra Dale and Sean Woods. Our producers are Kara Kornhaber, Hannah Beale, Jackie Pauly, Austin Smith and Kathleen Horn. Our editor is Joel Lovell. Fact checking by Lucy Croning. Our sound designer is Britt Spangler and our engineer is Austin Smith. Additional reporting by Kathleen Horan. Original music arranged and produced by Alexis Cuadrado at the Plaza Rojas Studio. Head of marketing and operations, Jeff Clyburn Publicist Nathaniel Baruch art director, Andrew Nelson social media manager, Sarah Gibbons Legal review provided by Clarice Law and Gibson Dunn. Our theme song, the One Whose Horror holding the Stars, is performed by Alexis Quadrado at the Plaza Rojas Studio. Vocals by Rob Reddy of Californicorns written by Leo Schofield and Kevin Herrick. At the Florida Department of Corrections, Hardy Correctional Facility,

[Alexis Cuadrado (Singer)]

Sam.