The Bully of Barstow - Sound Familiar?

Costello has had a long history of violence, much of it directed toward women, but also to children and nearly everyone else who crossed his path over nearly the past 30 years, according to Barstow Police Department reports and court documents.

He allegedly assaulted a man at a party in January 1977 by knocking him to the ground and repeatedly kicking him in the face.

He again allegedly attacked the man a month later in the parking lot of a Barstow business, causing enough injuries to his face that the victim had to have reconstructive surgery, according to the reports.

The matter was rejected by the Barstow District Attorney's Office for lack of probable cause.

Between January 1977 and August 1978, Costello was arrested four times on suspicion of assault and battery but later released because of a lack of cooperation by the victims, even though they had all been severely beaten. During this time, he was well-known to police as being involved in the nacotics trade.

Ida May Bolton, 75, remembers Rickey Costello well, even though she's tried to rid herself of his memory. He killed her son, Donny Ray Bolton, she said.

"I just got to where I didn't want to keep it in my mind," Bolton said at her Barstow home.

Costello was charged with murder on Jan. 17, 1979, in connection with the death of Donny Ray Bolton, according to court documents. The victim was found lying in pool of blood and brain matter at his apartment earlier that year. According to a police report, he'd received a shotgun blast to the head from point-blank range. He and Costello allegedly had a falling-out over a drug debt.

At the time, Costello was acquitted of the murder, but he later admitted to the crime during a polygraph interview with San Bernardino County Sheriff's investigators when he was briefly the suspect in the 1991 murder of another Barstow woman, according to police documents.

Bolton recalled the months of psychological terror Costello put them through after his acquittal. He would often brag about the killing to her other seven children and stare them down in public, she said. In 1979, the police department received a report that Costello had allegedly been driving up and down Riverside Drive, where the Bolton's live, and making threats.

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