"Death of a Cheerleader."

Full cheese-filled movie starring Tori Spelling @ link.

I'm gonna be a lark!

I remember this case. A made-for-tv movie starring Tori Spelling as "Kirsten" was made about the case, the title was "A Friend to Die For".

They went on to make a TV movie with Tori Spelling. The popular girl who got killed was only like 15, so however much of a mean girl she was she didn't deserve to be murdered. It apparently happened in some posh area of San Francisco where the kids are encouraged to be super competitive and get into the best schools. It's only speculation what happened to set the girl who killed her off, but sine she didn't belong to the popular clique it may have been that she told the popular girl how much her friendship meant to her and the the popular girl turned it around and acted like the other girl was a lesbian and was going to tell all the other girls. She flipped out in that moment and stabbed the popular girl to death. A lot of the kids interviewed in the article talked about how mean the popular girls could be in that school.

The casting in the tv movie version was ridiculous. Tori Spelling was the pretty, popular mean girl and Kellie Martin was the plain girl desperate to fit in. Well, Tori Spelling is nobody's idea of a pretty, popular girl and the very cute Kellie Martin was a million times more appealing than her. It just didn't work.

The Rolling Stone article was really a fine piece of journalism. It's featured in the anthology "The Best of Rolling Stone." It was a very sad story. Bernadette Protti wanted to be like the rich, privileged girls but couldn't quite cut it. It's unclear what happened, but the theory is that she opened up her heart to Kirsten Costas, the popular girl she wanted to be friends with, and was horrified to think that Costas would probably go to school the next day and tell everybody about it, sealing her humiliation. She freaked out, lost it and Costas ended up dead.

Costas WAS a really "mean" girl. One of her friends, Stacey Bennett, "kept remembering the cute things Kirsten did":

"One thing that was just so much like her" went back to the winter of their sophomore year when Stacey invited Kirsten to spend Ski Week with her family at Lake Tahoe. "We had four girls in our cabin", Stacey recalled. "And there was this one that we all didn't like. My Mom had invited her because she invited me to this thing of her before." The lonely girl brought a diary. "She would look at us and write something and it was totally bugging us", Stacey remembered. "So finally she goes to take a shower and puts the book down on the table. Kirsten looks at me and starts laughing, and I started laughing and we opened it and started reading. Every time she'd take a shower we'd read it, then put it back in the same place, and she never knew. We would like, repeat what she had written about us and it was SO funny."

"She was only mean to people she didn't care about," said Kirsten's friend Liesl Palmer.

I didn't know there was a movie. Tori Spelling is terrible casting! It could have been a great movie, in the right hands.

It's a very sad story - even if Costas was a bit of a bully, she didn't deserve to die for it and Bernadette Protti sounded so tragic. She must have been paroled by now? Wonder how the rest of her life has been?

I also found it fascinating that two completely innocent girls were shunned after the murder - people suspected them just because one was a goth and the other a punk and they had to change schools because of harassment.

Did they make a tv movie out of this?

Bernadette Protti served seven years in jail. She was paroled in 1992. I guess she's gone on to live a very quiet life.

Obviously she was very disturbed. She told police she resented Costas and attacked her because "I was afraid she was going to tell people I was weird."

Apparently being part of the in-crowd was more important to Protti than anything. "I lost for cheerleader and I didn't get the club I wanted and I didn't get (on the) yearbook (staff)," Protti told officers in a taped confession played at the trial. "The things that got me mad was it hurt and I couldn't change... like looks or money or popularity or things."

The Rolling Stone article emphasized how the teenage culture of the time (the murder was committed in 1984; oh, those marvelous eighties!) placed vast importance on having money, the best clothes, the best trips, being popular, being with the "right" people, being WORTHY. It was what drove poor mixed up Bernadette Protti to murder.

Did Kirsten Costas deserve to get killed? Maybe not. But I wouldn't shed any tears for her. She seemed like she took pleasure in making other girls feel bad about themselves.

Is this what sparked DL interest?

here is bernadette

here is kirsten

I think bernadette is prettier.

Michele Avila

Remember the article and the case well.

Both girls were under 18 and it struck me that the writer of the article took extreme care to vague it all up ......... It seemed to me that Bernadette has a 'crush' on Kirsten and arranged a meeting to talk to her about it and Kirsten made a big scene about it and told Bernadette she was going to tell everyone she was 'that way'.

Kirsten actually left the scene of their meeting and knocked on a neighbors door and asked for a ride home. Bernadette then struck before the neighbor could do anything. She rean away and Kirsten died of her injuries.

Always wondered what happened to Bernadette. I think she changed her name upon release and started over somewhere else. Perhaps with a lovely wife.

I disagree with the posters who thought Spelling and Martin were cast opposite how they should have been. The most popular kids aren't always the most classically beautiful and the nerdy kids aren't always the most unattractive. It's more a matter of money and power.

Plus Kelly Martin is quite short, "cute" at best, and wouldn't have made a convincing in-crowd "mean girl" either. Although no beauty, Spelling was perfectly acceptable in the role.

Where'd You Go, Bernadette?

Also, the real Kirsten fit in with the rest of the in crowd, not because she was gorgeous, but because her parents had money and she had the right clothes, the right look, the right house, etc.

Bernadette was kind of a 'other side of the tracks' girl ....... trying to work her way up the high school food chain.

From her photo, Kirsten typified the cuteness of that era. I remember my older sister's friends had that bobbed hair, paired with a polo short and coloured tights.

Believe it or not, I went to the high school where this all took place (albeit many years earlier.)

My sister and I loved this movie. We thought it was hilarious that a fugly troll like Tori was playing the pretty popular role.

You and your sister sound like the salt of the earth, R19.

"Although no beauty, Spelling was perfectly acceptable in the role."

She SUCKED in the role. Kirsten was considered pretty; Tori Spelling is homely. Aside from that, Spelling's acting was laughable. One reviewer said that Spelling's death scene, where she dramatically rolls her eyes upward to simulate death agonies, was hilarious.

Tori was homely to some straight women and gay men. Tori was pretty in the movie. She was also perfectly cast. As was Kellie.

They used to show this all the time on Lifetime along with a similar movie where Tiffani Amber Theissen is murdered by her best friend, while Tiffani's mother (played by Patty Duke) tries to figure out the pieces of puzzle. Loretta Swit played the detective, and Patty gives a fierce bitchslap to the killer at the end.

R22 You are thinking of A Killer Among Friends. That was a good movie and it was also based on a true story. I remember seeing that movie when it originally aired on ABC and I also remember seeing Death of a Cheerleader when it aired on NBC.

I have to admit I miss the days when the Big 4 networks made TV movies based on true stories, sure some of them were bad, but some were decent. I remember NBC produced several TV movies based on true crime stories involving teens and college students. There was one movie about sorority hazing and it starred Hilary Swank trying to get justice for a friend who died.

Many of those movies got a lot of airings later on Lifetime. Another channel that used to air Death of a Cheerleader was ABC Family. I remember watching it on there a few years back on a Saturday morning.

Everyday adult life is like this now, thanks to social media.

R22m Google Missy Avila for the true story that 'A Killer Among Friends' is based on. Not only did the killer (Missy's 'best friend') kill her with some other girls, she moved into Missy's mother's house and acted like she was trying to find the killer.

I hope Missy's mother really bitchslapped her killer in real life.

Loretta Swit is unrecognizable in A Killer Among Friends. I just see the title of that movie and I flash on her ridiculous wig and horrible plastic surgery.

When the movie was first shown it was called [italic]A Friend to Die For.[/italic]

R23 That was Jenna Von Oy who played Hillary's friend. I also loved the movie Swank did where she terrorized her family (including a drunk Joanna Kerns)

I agree that they don't make made for TV movies like they used to. Those networks made some true entertaining camp back in the day.

That was a terrific movie r1. They don't make them quite that bad anymore!

There is a blog that is dedicated to Bernadette Protti, the real Angela DelVelchio. The funny thing is that the real Stacey Lockwood looked more like Kellie Martin and Bernadette Protti seemed to resemble Tori Spelling, except for being skeletal like her.

I read that blog several years ago after seeing it posted on the IMDB boards. Supposedly, the person behind that blog found out details about Bernadette. According to the blog she changed her name after being released and works in health care.

R28, I think that Swank/Kerns movie is called Terror in the Family.

[4] True, but money, pedigree and confidence also play a huge role. I've noticed how these attributes can sometimes create the illusion of physical beauty.

Bernadette looks more like Tori and Kirsten looks like Kellie could have played her. Odd. Did Aaron produce it or something?

Oopsie!!!! Didn't see R30.

R25, I watched the true story on ID. Super-creepy how Missy's murderer moved in with her mother. What the ID program left unsaid - but you could see if you read between the lines - was that these were trashy kids. Girls getting in physical fights, boys with criminal records - the ID show portrayed it as Middle America but it wasn't.

Wait, this sounds familiar. Wasn't Tori Spelling in a TV movie about this?

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

"Tori was pretty in the movie. She was also perfectly cast. As was Kellie."

You're an idiot. The casting was atrocious. And by no stretch of the imagination was Tori Spelling ever "pretty" in anything, much less this movie. She had a ton of plastic surgery and it still didn't help. She's always been homely as a horse.

I was in high school when this all went down with Bernadette Protti and lived a few towns away (Walnut Creek - it happened in Orinda). Several friends knew the participants and they were very shocked Bernadette did this and was capable of it. She supposedly was a bit less affluent than most of her Orinda classmates, driving an older car, etc. but she was well-liked. It was very sad and it's the first violent act by a teen on a classmate that I remember being aware of up to that point.

If I had to pick who is Kirsten and who is Bernadette from those pictures, I would have picked opposite. Bernadette is far more attractive, but Kirsten is cute. And Kirsten gives off more than a whiff of baby dyke.

Happened in the town next to mine.

Very big story of course. It was bad enough then with people being snotty.......you can not imagine how bad it is now.

The sense of entitlement is outrageous.

Especially the women. I work in a physicians office and they are soooooo demanding. They don't realize we have our ways of getting back at them

All my friends who are married to doctors don't let on that we are the wives....we have had them discharged as patients because they push us so much. And the doctors that do this are at the top of their field. So they will scream for us to put them back on the schedule. Etc.

They think they have hit Broadway when they live here...having grown up on Long Island these nouveau don't even know how to spell snob.

My sister in law went to Mirramonte High where this took place and she was a Lark.

I personally like the movie and thought all the actors did a great job

[quote]All my friends who are married to doctors don't let on that we are the wives....we have had them discharged as patients because they push us so much. And the doctors that do this are at the top of their field. So they will scream for us to put them back on the schedule. Etc.

Could someone please translate?

I'm sorry but I have no sympathy for mean girls or bullies in general.

Either Jennie Garth, Shannon Dougherty or Candy Spelling are posting all over this thread.

We get it .... you think Tori Spelling is a dog.

Bob Costas killed a teenager and got away with it? Typical. Fucking typical.

They should really make this into a TV movie.

This movie was so camp, and it made the killer look so sympathetic it made you wonder if the Protti family sponsored it. Not surprisingly, the Costas family hated it. People were shocked that Bernadette was not an outcast at all and was basically the B+ lister to Kirsten's A list. Who would you cast in the movie today?

Bernadette- Emma Stone Kirsten- Megan Fox (lack of acting talent is not a problem, she is off screen for most of the movie)

Except Megan Fox looks about 40 after all her plastic surgeries.

you must google Skyler Neese, It just happened this year. Insane.

So I guess teenage girls just kill each other...Christ!

[quote]My sister in law went to Mirramonte High where this took place and she was a Lark

MIRAMONTE - only one 'r'.

Lesbians

R29 I have a few dozen home-burned DVDs of Lifetime flicks from the 90s starring most of the cast of 90210, as well as people like Yasmine Bleeth, Judith Light, Cynthia Gibb and Tracey Gold.

When the real world gets too serious I pull out a movie and laugh my ass off at all the manufactured melodrama.

What that screaming frau is saying, R43, is that she's a doctor's wife who works in an office where all the doctor's wives have jobs, and they hide the fact that they're married to the doctors. When they don't like what a female patient does, they deliberately fuck with their health care and their appointments to "get back" at them. Show them who's boss, as it were.

It's a case of a group of grown-ass women acting like high school mean girls and telling you why the hoi polloi deserve to be shit on.

Lesbian melodrama.

The girls weren't lesbians. They were just unbearable teenagers, ALL of them.

The link of the photo of Bernadette Protti is kind of misleading. That photo was flattering; it looked like a professional photographer took it. I've seen photos of Protti taken at the time of her arrest where she looks like a plain 40 year old woman.

Kirsten Costas was said to be "pretty", but her photos don't bear this out. Maybe she was thought of as pretty because she was popular and had one of those conspicuous personalities that some people find so attractive.

I didn't find either Protti or Costas very sympathetic.

A really sad part of this story are the two innocents that got blamed for this murder and were ran out of school. People assumed the Trenchcoat mafia had no friends, and while they were not the most popular, as Chris Rock said they had enough friends for half court basketball. It is not always the friendless that commit these crimes. It sucks that two people had their lives ruined because people decided they were the killer. There was/is a Kirsten Costas type, and usually several, in every high school in America. It makes you wonder why this particular girl snapped.

Is Tori the perfect example of, "A face only a mother could love," I mean, ignore that her mother doesn't love her.

She is now a nurse and has published many scholarly articles in prestigious medical journals.

Bernadette Protti is now named Jeannette Tomanka and lives in Texas.

[quote]Bernadette Protti is now named Jeannette Tomanka and lives in Texas.

There is no place in Texas that is anywhere near as nice as Orinda.

That was a fascinating article in RS, I remember it very well.

More info on Jeannette Tomanka from this blog site. Posters worry about living near her.

One of the most compelling, well-written features ever published by Rolling Stone.

The movie is worth watching, as well; Valerie Harper is very good as the devoutly Catholic mother of the killer--played by Kellie Martin.

Hi, Torta!

Just wanted to give ya a shout-out. You've always been one of my favorite posters.

There was a recent case with two high school girls from Morgantown, WVa, that stabbed their "best friend" to death. They cried with the victim's family while posting cryptic tweets to one another about how they killed her. Sick little brats, they're everywhere.

I miss made for TV movies and miniseries. I guess since channels like LMN exist, they don't make them anymore?

Jeannette Tomanka is quite the busy bee online.

R68: that's not her, you retard.

[quote] I miss made for TV movies and miniseries. I guess since channels like LMN exist, they don't make them anymore?

Broadcast networks still make the occasional TV movie or mini-series. NBC seems to be wanting to get back into that with the Rosemary's Baby mini-series and Hilary Clinton one. ABC bought the rights to Gregory Maguire's Wicked to turn into a 8 hour mini-series, but it hasn't happened and I doubt that it will ever happen due Once Upon A Time. I miss the based on a true crime story movies that the broadcast networks used to make. I agree with R65, Valerie Harper was great in Death of A Cheerleader. I remember some TV movies in the 80s and 90s worked well because of the people cast in them. Patty Duke was great in several 90s tv movies.

Now they don't make so many for TV anymore. That's not where people are watching them. Mostly straight to DVD/streaming ........and not nearly enough of them anymore.

There is a shortage of good recent true crime books or movies. So many cases nowadays are husband/wife, wife/husband, children/parent.

Even the true crime shows like 48 Hours and Dateline are not so great anymore.

And writers like Ann Rule, who wrote some classics, aren't choosing great cases.

This thread only proves it .......how old is this cast ? Like 20 years ??

The movie was made in '94.

There are two Jeannette Tomankas? That's a drag for the non-murdering one.

Whoever called the Poster a "Retard" is WRONG!!! That IS Bernadette Protti: Jeannette Tomanka of Texas; Supposedly now lives in "Oregon and is a Food Blogger"; YEAH RIGHT, IT IS ALL A COVER; AND EVERYONE KNOWS IT NOW!!!

For R21:

Kirsten Costas may not have been tall and drop dead gorgeous, but she did typify the diminutive cute look that was popular in that era. Here are more pics of her, even as a tyke. In the top right photo she looks very mean girlish.

Here are more pics of Bernadette Protti. She really had a big schnozz and looks rather homely as opposed to that professional picture someone posted earlier.

Bernadette Protti did her time. Granted, it does not bring Kirsten Costas back, and the Costas family had to go on living a life that would not be the same with Kirsten's absence. The law, however, is what it is. As difficult as it may be, there must be something we can learn from the tragedy that will serve us in some capacity. Maybe Bernadette (or whatever her new name is) could address the public someday and tell us what was going on in her life that somehow left her capable of the crime that is well known to those posting on this thread. Somehow, I suspect there could be a lesson to the rest of us we could take advantage of and maybe prevent another similar tragedy. For that to happen, I sense it may be best to not "uncover" whoever Bernadette is, too - she is no longer that sick teenager. She is now a grown woman with a family, and for all we know, maybe she was rehabilitated in the 7 years following her conviction.

Remember Karla Faye Tucker (a murderer who converted to Christianity in prison) who was executed for her crimes back in 1998? That woman had a lot of supporters from those who believed she was completely rehabilitated before her execution. That said, by extension, maybe today's Bernadette has since be doing something positive with her life since her release from custody over 20 years ago. If she has been a law abiding and productive citizen all this time, my sense is, it is best to leave Bernadette alone. If the judicial system ultimately did not adopt the proper course of action with Bernadette back in the 80's then just leave the matter in the hands of He who said, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay."

R.I.P., Kirsten Costas, and God Bless you and your loved ones.

Jeannette lives in Colleyville, TX.

Here is the link to the blog that has a recent photo of jeannette

R23 The sorority hazing TV movie with Hilary Swank was called 'Dying to Belong' and garnered negative reviews.

I found 'Death of a Cheerleader' to be something of a guilty pleasure, I taped it when it was shown on TV back in the 90's and watched it a number of times over the years; the tape is long gone now, though. The Randall Sullivan article upon which the movie was based was called "Death of a Cheerleader: An American Tragedy" and featured in the 1985 Summer double issue of Rolling Stone magazine (John Travolta and Jamie Lee Curtis were on the cover LOL). I actually read the entire article online some years ago, but I haven't been able to find it since, only an abbreviated version.

Regarding Karla Faye Tucker and her supposed reformation... the supporters who said she ought to get clemency were conservative Christian, of the ugly stripe that believe that a claim to be "born again" should put one above the law. As long as a criminal learns to copy their Jesus-speak and is white, they'll say that God has forgiven the perp and they ought to be spared any further punishment. They don't care if a person is a sociopath, is batshit crazy, or has the kind of unresolved anger that makes them likely to kill again, they believe that being "born again" makes you a good person (which shows that they don't look at each other very closely).

Sorry for the thread hijack. Back to cheerleader murders!

Well, Karla Faye Tucker was executed in Texas, a very Christian state. It's likely that most of the jury members and likely the judge were Christian.

[quote]the supporters who said she ought to get clemency were conservative Christian, of the ugly stripe that believe that a claim to be "born again" should put one above the law. As long as a criminal learns to copy their Jesus-speak and is white, they'll say that God has forgiven the perp and they ought to be spared any further punishment. They don't care if a person is a sociopath, is batshit crazy, or has the kind of unresolved anger that makes them likely to kill again, they believe that being "born again" makes you a good person (which shows that they don't look at each other very closely).

In their defense, Christians and Catholics believe in forgiveness and redemption. Many are against abortion and against the death penalty. They're being consistent in their beliefs.

I doubt anyone wanted Karla Faye to go free, but many people are against the death penalty.

I saw this movie last year for the first time. And it did not disappoint when it came being cheesy. That death scene was awkward as fuck. And i now know what Christa Miller looked like before all the fillers and botox lol

[quote]This movie was so camp, and it made the killer look so sympathetic it made you wonder

I didn't understand it until I learned about Aaron Spelling -- every achievement in his life stemmed from the hurt he felt because he wasn't invited to join a frat at Rice. 50 years later, if it came up in interviews he would practically cry about it. He's another example as Narcissist Wound as motivator (Lance Ito is another one.)

Despite his success, he always felt like an outsider and it permeated into his work -- this movie, why all the "dates" of Charlie's Angels were nice but not classically handsome guys, all the people he casted who probably would not have been casted by others...

Too bad he didn't come up to Boston -- we had tons of Jewish kids and tons of Jewish frat and clubs, and he would have rightfully left fundie Texas in the dust. But if he had come north, he would have been a less driven player...

I miss journalism. Too bad Rolling Stone drove a stake through its heart with the UVA 'rape' travesty.

r88 they did that the second they hired Rubin Erdely for earlier work. She had a history of ethics issues before that story was published.

R89 talking about fine journalism -- or lack thereof -- the video at R89 is pure sensationalism. Totally one-sided. Makes Bernadette out to be an evil murderer. The comments are disgusting from people who are taking it at face-value.

Bernadette the Butcher / Jeannette Tomanka is an evil murderer. She slaughtered that poor girl in an envious rage.

I thought this thread was about this crazy loon...this convoluted scheme never made any sense to me. How is killing the mom of a rival cheerleader going to secure your daughters spot on the cheer squad?

There is an epic AmericannHustice episode about this with Bill Kurtis & his leather jacket. The hitman also has a luscious mullet.

LOL when I typed Hitman it autocorrected to Gutman!!!!! Ha ha On you Barbara Thorndyke!!!!

R93 wasn't Wanda, the mother, hoping that the other girl would be so distraught about her mother's death that she would drop out of the squad, which would leave a slot open for her daughter?

Four years ago when this thread was started, we weren't allowed to say those names, r92. Wonder if that still stands? Guess we'll find out.

R94 everything about that whole scenario was whacked. Wanda's daughter was disqualified for handing out pencils saying VOTE FOR ME!! Or something, bc that constituted "campaigning". WTF???? And the conspiracy was cooked up in the posh, super exclusive & home of the most discerning of palates, GRANDY'S, which looks like a poor mans Denny's, if such a thing exists.

They just remade this. Kellie Martin plays the FBI agent that talks to the Angela character