‘Angel’ to crime victims is dead
Published 9:00 pm Friday, May 25, 2001
By Scott North
Herald Writer
When bad things happened to good people, Bobbi Costa was there to try and help.
The Marysville woman spent countless hours with the parents of murdered children, listening to their stories and looking at photo albums. She helped guide them through the fog of grief and the often bewildering criminal justice system, with its maze of courtrooms, police departments and prosecutors’ offices.
A victims’ rights advocate for nearly 25 years and executive director of Everett-based Families and Friends of Violent Crime Victims since 1995, Costa died Thursday after a brief illness. She was 59.
"She was an angel here on earth, as far as I’m concerned," Snohomish County Sheriff Rick Bart said Friday.
"Her life was all about serving others and about lending a helping hand and doing what she could to help others," said one of her three daughters, state Sen. Jeri Costa, D-Marysville.
Bobbi Costa became involved in victims’ issues in 1976 after one of her children was abducted and sexually assaulted. At the time, police and prosecutors did not provide crime victims with much assistance in understanding the system. There were no laws requiring victim notification when offenders were released from prison. Not every judge allowed crime victims to address the court at sentencing.
Bobbi Costa joined Families and Friends and began pressing for change. She continued her association with the group for nearly a quarter-century.
Costa was not only an effective lobbyist for victim-friendly legislation, but an inspiration to others who cared about those hurt by violent crime, said Chuck Wright of Mill Creek, a retired state community corrections officer and vice president of Families and Friends.
"I don’t know how may times I’ve heard from victims, ‘If it wasn’t for Bobbi, I would be dead,’ " he said. "She was there to listen and listen and listen."
Bart first met Costa in 1982. He was a young homicide detective investigating the brutal murders of two women and a young girl near Clearview. The volunteer victim advocate bluntly told him that he and other detectives needed to do a better job communicating with victims’ families about their investigation, Bart said.
The sheriff said he listened, and became a better detective. In time, he also found in Costa somebody he could talk to about the stress and ugliness encountered on his job.
Other detectives have benefited over the years from Costa’s counsel, Bart said.
"She’s been like a second mother for all of us in law enforcement," he said. "She’d pat us on the back when we did something right and spank us when we did something wrong."
Jenny Wieland, a local victims’ rights advocate and founding board member of Mothers Against Violence in America, got to know Costa in 1992. That’s when Wieland’s 17-year-old daughter, Amy Ragan, was shot to death in a south Everett apartment.
She met with Costa at a restaurant. They spent hours paging through an album filled with photographs of Wieland’s slain daughter. The volunteer advocate was with her every step of the way as the case worked its way through the courts, and continued to remember significant dates, such as the anniversary of the killing.
"I owe Bobbi my sanity," Wieland, said. "All the things I’ve been able to do in the aftermath of Amy’s murder (I owe to her). If it hadn’t been for the intervention that our family received, I don’t know what would have happened."
Gwen Kuntz of Lynnwood got to know Costa after Kuntz’s 18-year-old daughter was raped and murdered in May 1976. Kuntz went on to run the office at Families and Friends. Her friend and co-worker was there last year when Kimberly Kuntz’s killer finally pleaded guilty and was sentenced for his crimes.
Kuntz said that about a month ago she told Costa how much she respected her for being a "caring, compassionate, loving advocate."
"I’m so glad I said that to her," Kuntz said. "She just went out of her way and gave 150 percent."
In addition to Jeri Costa, Bobbi Costa is survived by her mother, Katy Dodson of Oklahoma, and two other grown daughters, Rietta Costa and Charvette Costa, both of Marysville. She also has seven grandchildren, three sisters and numerous nieces and nephews..
Jeri Costa said her mother was hospitalized May 17 with a sudden onset of heart problems. That’s when doctors discovered that she was suffering from acute leukemia. She died of complications from the illness, her daughter said.
Services are planned June 3, but details were not immediately available.
Donations to the Bobbi Costa Memorial Fund may be made in care of Families and Friends of Violent Crime Victims, P.O. Box 1949, Everett, WA 98206.
You can call Herald Writer Scott North at 425-339-3431
or send e-mail to north@heraldnet.com.
