24-year-old Rebecca Koster, who was murdered and dismembered by Evans Ganthier, is the subject of The latest episode of Secrets of the Morgue on Investigation Discovery.
Koster went missing on December 3, 2009, after a night out with friends and her boyfriend in Suffolk County, New York.
The former home health aide was reportedly dropped off at her home around 3:00 a.m., and that was the last time anyone saw her alive.
Three days after her disappearance, her mother, Barabra, received multiple text messages from her daughter’s phone.
One message said, “Dan has me tied up in a basement somewhere in Commack.”
Another said, “Don’t tell Dan or he’ll kill me.”
Dan is Koster’s boyfriend.
Officials said those text messages were fake, and they believe it came from Ganthier. At the time they were sent to the victim’s mother, Koster was not alive.
Her mutilated body was found in a field around 7:30 p.m. on December 4, 2009, near the intersection of Jeremy Hill Road and Route 201 in North Stonington, Connecticut.
Phone records revealed that Koster received two calls from Ganthier after she was dropped off at her home.
Police said Koster and Ganthier were seen exchanging numbers in the bar.
Detectives took Ganthier to the police station for questioning. He told investigators he didn’t know anything about her murder.
When Police obtained a warrant to search Ganthier’s home and SUV, they discovered blood in “various parts of the car” and there appeared to have been “some recent cleaning in the garage floor.”
Ganthier denied killing Koster.
He claimed that after picking Koster up from her home and bringing her to his house, she became ill. Ganthier said she started to “cough and foam at the mouth” before tripping over dumbbells in his garage.
When he realized she was dead, he went into panic mode. Ganthier said he dismembered her body so she wouldn’t be identified.
Afterward, he wrapped Koster’s body in a plastic bag and a blanket before placing her in the trunk of his car.
Ganthier then drove his SUV onto a car-carrying ferry and went to Connecticut where he dumped her body and set it on fire.
A Suffolk judge said Ganthier’s story of how Koster died made “no sense” as an autopsy revealed Koster died from a stab wound to her liver.
He was found guilty of second-degree murder and was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.
Secrets of the Morgue — Long Way from Home, airs at 11:00 p.m. on Investigation Discovery.