Christina Costa

In the early morning hours of August 20, 2022, firefighters in Maryville, Tennessee, responded to a fire alarm at the Regal Tower condominium complex. On the sixth floor, they discovered a scene of immense tragedy. Inside one of the apartments lay the bodies of 41-year-old Christina Costa, a female resident, and a 40-year-old man named Sam Olea. Both had died from gunshot wounds.

Evidence at the scene painted a grim picture of the final moments. A trail of gasoline led from the elevator into Costa's apartment, where a gas can and other accelerants were found in a back bedroom near the bodies. Investigators determined that the incident was a murder-suicide. Detectives believe Olea, Costa's ex-fiance, broke into the top-floor apartment, possibly by climbing down from the roof to her balcony. After fatally shooting Costa, he set fire to the residence and then died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

The violence was preceded by a history of domestic abuse. Just weeks before her death, Olea had been arrested and charged with assaulting Costa in her home. During that incident, he had entered her apartment without permission, taken her phone, and attempted to drag her into a closet where police later found handcuffs, a belt, and two firearms. As a condition of his release on bond, a court ordered Olea to wear a GPS ankle monitor.

Tragically, the monitoring system failed to protect her. On the afternoon of August 19, the day before the murder, Olea tampered with and removed his ankle monitor, which was later found outside a friend's house. The device sent an automatic tamper alert to the monitoring company and to Costa’s phone. Alarmed, Costa saw the alert showed Olea’s last known location was only five miles away. She left a voicemail for the Assistant District Attorney, expressing her concern and asking if the system was accurate, but she never received a call back. The DA's office did, however, notify the county probation office of the alert.

Less than 12 hours after disabling the device, Olea was able to reach Costa’s apartment and take her life. Because the perpetrator died by suicide at the scene, the criminal case is considered closed. In the aftermath, Costa’s mother, Carolyn Stull, filed a lawsuit against the GPS monitoring company and later against Blount County. The suit alleges that employees at both the company and the county's probation office were negligent for failing to notify law enforcement or take any action after receiving the tamper alert. As of March 2024, that civil litigation was ongoing.