April 1993 - Danny Costello
(Right) with his
friend who died of AIDS. |
DANNY'S
MOTHER tried to kill him at birth because
she wanted a
girl.
Danny survived but lived a life of
beatings. "My mother would spit in my
face and tell me she was not my mother and
would ask me why I didn't just run away
and die." Danny said. At 8 years of age Danny began drinking and smoking tobacco and marijuana. He began running away from home and hanging out with a bad crowd and began drinking heavily, "I wanted to go to school, but my mom would not let me go. I wanted help. The courts put me in halfway houses that cared only about the cheques they received to spend the money on themselves" Danny laments. |
Young Danny began to feel that no one cared, "If my own mother couldn't love me then nobody could " he said. He ran away from home and learned how to rob petrol stations as well as breaking and entering. He hung out with "wine-head bums" sleeping in boxes besides railway tracks begging to get change for "a fifth of Mad Dog Wine." He sometimes begged for food and ate from trash cans and was in and out of Juvenile detention.
On one occasion while standing in a homeless soup line, Danny met a homosexual man and allowed him to take him to bed. "It seemed like that's all anyone ever wanted from me," Danny said. "I'd be asleep at night by the tracks and an old bum would be trying to get into my pants. I hit one in the eye one time!" he recounts.
Later Danny spent three months in jail for breaking and entering. Upon returning home Danny's friends enticed him into selling himself for money - "They took me to a gay bar and told me I didn't have to steal for money, 'Oh yeah, what we gonna do, rob the fags?' - 'No, no, they will pay us for sex,' they said. 'Your crazy' I told them, 'and I'm not a fag'. - 'Man' they said, 'We all do it, everyone on the block does it.' " Danny said.
After this, Danny says that he got right into it and began on hard drugs too. He thought he had found "something" because these people seemed to love him. Now Danny had money and new clothes but says he was not happy. He slept on bus benches, people's porches, in cars and even graveyards, "People were scared to bother me there." He said.
Shortly afterwards, Danny went says to jail for setting a house on fire. He then began to hate and hurt people and hung around with gangs, "Robbing whoever - it didn't matter anymore."
On New Year's Eve 1978, Danny met a girl - "I saw this girl that was so beautiful she was angel. I winked my eye at her and boy, I felt like a million dollar man."
The day Danny died. Danny had never been with a girl before but said he had kissed many of them. Danny says there was a kid at the Mall living with a gay man until he was 18, so after the movie they all went back to the homosexual man's house - "The girl put so much PCP in my drink it would have killed a grown horse. I lay in that man's house for 3 days, out cold and stiff as wood." Danny said.
Danny says that a woman working downstairs finally found him and called his mother and sister. Upon arrival his sister called 911 emergency. He was taken to Intensive Care. His heart had stopped beating and the doctors said there was no hope for him. His father came to see him, and while praying for Danny wept bitterly - "My daddy was praying and crying and God's almighty hand was upon me because my heart began to beat again. The doctors said it couldn't be, I was supposed to be dead!"
Danny was in a coma and sent to another hospital, and later to a mental hospital for 3 months because they were not sure he had not tried to kill himself. During this time, Danny thought the gay man had done this to him but discovered that it was the girl. He never saw here again and has always wondered why she did it.
Danny did not stop taking drugs and was later told by his mother that she did not want to see him ever again, and so since 1979, Danny has not seen his 10 year old sister or brother alive and seen no other member of his family either. Shortly afterwards, at age 16, Danny was sent to jail where he was raped by two older inmates and says that the police did nothing about it.
| Danny
says that during this time in jail his
heart became cold, but had heard of Jesus
during 1980. He says it was great but
did not last long and he fell away,
"Prison was bad in those days. You had
fights and carried a homemade knife all
the time wherever you went. Prison life
made you harder," he said, "No
love, can't trust anybody. Everybody is
trying to be bad and tough, when inside a
little boy is crying for love and
help." |
 |
Danny got a regular job and began living with a gay man 13 years his senior but kept fighting with him. He says that although there were many pretty girls at his workplace he did not let on that he was gay because he was ashamed - "I wanted a wife and kids of my own so I could give them the love I never had." Danny says he was fired because he fought with a waiter for cheating him out of tips. Shortly afterwards Danny left his gay lover because he was slapped around for kissing a girl.
 Everglades Correctional Institute, Dade County, Florida USA. |
The
crime that finally got Danny Costello life
in prison -
"I
just
snapped." Danny then went back to his hateful life of cocaine, pills, pot, drinking and selling his body and this led him to the fateful day when he had finally lost all hope for a normal future. Danny was picked up by a man and went home with him and began a drug and alcohol binge that ended in a tragedy for both. "I wanted help so bad and was tired of my life and wished I could die. I asked God to let me die so I wouldn't suffer so much and I ended up being picked up by a man, and we were doing heavy cocaine and drinking. He took me home and I kept looking at myself in the mirror. I was higher than ever and tired of having to sell my body in order to survive. I just snapped. I kept on hitting that man until I beat him to death. It was like I had sold My soul to the Devil." |
Danny was sentenced to life in prison with little chance of parole (We are not sure if Danny was on death row). He spent many years in various maximum security prisons, and although Danny never forgot his brief encounter with Jesus in 1980, Danny continued to sell his body because it was the only life he knew; he had no one to send him money to buy things in prison and this was the only way he could survive. Danny said the he watched other prisoners die from AIDS and wondered when it would be his turn.
 June 2006 - Danny Costello today at Everglades - Danny now preaches God's love to other inmates. |
During
this time Danny prayed for God to teach
him about His Word and to understand it.
"I was transferred to Everglades CI
and met the chaplain there who showed me a
Godly love that nobody had ever shown me
before. This man and his wife became
special spiritual parents to me."
Danny says.
Danny recounts that at first he just went to the chapel to eat Chinese and Spanish food. "People would ask me why I came and I was honest with them about coming for the food. Then one day, I finally ate the spiritual food and my life was transformed." Danny eventually registered for a Life in The Spirit Seminar and his transformation began. "It is a 3 day fellowship where brothers and sisters from the outside came into prison to share talks of what their life was like before meeting Christ as their Lord and Savior. They were loving people who did not see the wall I had put up around me that |
As much as Danny's life has changed, he like all of us suffer temptations that attempt to drag us back to our old lives. "Do I have problems? Yes, and I get tempted daily. That's the way it is to be a Christian - We must endure the difficulties in order to grow stronger."
Danny holds on to his faith in Jesus and draws on the grace God has given him saying, "I learn daily from the Holy Spirit because Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to lead and teach us all the truth. I know that I can do all things through Christ Jesus because my life is not just mine now - it is his!"
Danny says that he is grateful that the Lord did not let him die in his sins and go to Hell - "He took a foolish thing like me and made me into something! So now it matters not if I am inside or outside prison - I will will preach the truth of Jesus Christ, for I am truly free within myself - Jesus Christ set me free and forever I will always be grateful to him." Danny says.
Danny has now been to many camps giving his testimony and preaching Christ. He says that he has seen how God delivers people from bondage and gives him all the glory for his love and power to heal and set free - "I am nothing without Christ and I will give honor and glory with praise to God the Father and Jesus Christ who makes us one through the Holy Spirit. Amen." Danny says in conclusion.
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