Oxygen documentary explores disappearance, alleged murder of Reynoldsburg man

Granville resident Sharon Sellitto has been telling her brother’s story for nearly 40 years — how she and her brother, Paul Cosner, had grown up as the closest of siblings in Reynoldsburg.

And she tells how, in 1969, both had started new lives for themselves on the West Coast.

How, in 1984, Cosner crossed paths with two cold-blooded serial killers — and how his disappearance and death put authorities on the trail of those murderers, Leonard Lake and Charles Ng.

And how, ever since, Sellitto has sought justice for her sibling.

“He was my big brother,” Sellitto said in a recent interview with The Dispatch. “He took care of me and protected me, and we had a lot of fun.”

Sellitto, now in her 70s, has told her story anew in the documentary “Manifesto of a Serial Killer,” all three installments of which will air starting at 7 p.m. New Year's Day on the Oxygen True Crime cable channel. (Parts 2 and 3 immediately will follow part 1.)

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What will be shown in the documentary?

The documentary takes a deep dive into the notorious case, the basic facts of which are these: In November 1984, Cosner, then 39 and living in San Francisco, disappeared along with his car, a Honda. Through the dogged efforts of his sister, Sellitto, then 36, the disappearance stayed on the radar of authorities — who in the following year identified Lake and Ng in Cosner’s car while they were shoplifting.

That discovery took authorities to a cabin in Wilseyville in Calaveras County, California, where Lake and Ng had held captive, sexually assaulted and killed a series of women they had kidnapped. The pair also killed men whose identities they thought could be stolen by Lake, according to Todd Howe, the director and an executive producer of the documentary.

Sellitto said she believes her brother was targeted because Lake thought Cosner resembled him physically.

Lake killed himself with cyanide capsules, and Ng managed to evade authorities and end up in Canada, where he remained until he was extradited in 1991.

Howe learned about the case through a friend and became fascinated.

“I quickly went down the rabbit hole,” Howe said. “This thing unfolded in a way that was crazier than fiction.”

But Howe soon found himself responding to the human story beneath the headlines.

“When I discovered Sharon’s story and we first spoke, that was really the moment that I thought to myself, ‘I want to do this documentary, but I want to do it in a way that honors the victims, their family members and the law enforcement guys that worked so hard to solve this case and to bring these perpetrators to justice,'” he said.

What was Paul Cosner's life like in California?

In her interview with The Dispatch, Sellitto remembered moving to California with her brother in the fall of 1969. There, Cosner, a car and motorcycle aficionado worked for Motorcycle News and eventually ran a used-car lot. Sellitto, a trained dancer, performed for Bob Hope and was a showgirl with the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.

“He didn’t want to go by himself all the way to California,” Sellitto said. “I had never been out of Ohio, so it was such a big shock. San Francisco was crazy. A lot of fun, but kind of scary for two kids from Reynoldsburg.”

Over the next decade and a half, the siblings enjoyed their California adventure.

“He was smart and quick and witty,” Sellitto said of her brother. “We’d go to motorcycle races, and I’d be the trophy girl. He’d cover the races for different magazines. He was a great salesman. He could sell wings to angels.”

How was Cosner's disappearance connected to Lake and Ng?

After placing an ad for his Honda in the San Francisco Chronicle, Cosner came into contact with Lake — whom Cosner had mentioned, not by name, during his last phone conversation with his sister.

“He had said to me (during) that conversation ... that he thought he’d sold the car, and I said, ‘Oh, who to?’ And he said, ‘Some weird guy,’” said Sellitto, who presumes that Lake and Ng later arrived early to buy the car and were buzzed into Cosner’s apartment.

He then disappeared.

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“It took me three days to call (our) mother,” Sellitto said. “You think, ‘Well, it’ll be settled in a couple of days. Maybe he did meet a good-looking girl. Who the hell knows?’”

Sellitto describes many months of working with indifferent law enforcement personnel to locate her brother.

“(We) went to the police station and took a close-up picture (of Cosner), a full-length picture, anything I can find on the car,” she said. “It was awful. They wouldn’t take his picture.”

All the while, she kept her brother's Honda on a “hot sheet” for stolen vehicles — which led to Lake and Ng being identified with the car.

“Cars drop off the hot sheet every 28 days, so every 27-and-a-half days, I’d call to report Paul’s car stolen again,” she said.

In 1998, Ng was put on trial in California, where a jury found him guilty of 11 murders — but Cosner wasn't one of them.

“(The jury) couldn’t decide whether Lake or Ng shot and killed him in the car,” said Sellitto, adding that she believes Cosner’s Honda was driven by Lake while her brother was in the passenger seat. She thinks Ng shot Cosner from the backseat.

“The headrest had two shots in it,” she said.

Sellitto had an opportunity to confront Ng, who is on death row.

“The judge let me make a victim’s statement to (Ng), which he didn’t have to, in the courtroom, which was fulfilling in a tiny, thin, pathetic way,” she said.

Her brother’s remains have not yet been found.

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Sharon Sellitto's fight for justice

When Howe first visited Sellitto to work on the documentary, he found that she had an encyclopedic knowledge of the case and an equally extensive archive of materials to share.

“She had some 50 or 60 videotapes, archive boxes full of documentation from the case, letters that she had written, Paul’s bank statements, phone statements,” Howe said.

Howe — who also relied on research provided by the authors of a book about the case, “No Kill, No Thrill” — flew Sellitto to Calaveras County, where she was interviewed on camera.

“We were able to take her to the sheriff’s department and have her visit Paul’s car, which is still in the possession of the sheriff’s department,” Howe said. “We also took her and a few of the officers up to the Wilseyville cabin that was owned by Leonard Lake and his ex-wife.”

“Manifesto of a Serial Killer” also makes use of videos Lake had recorded of himself giving an account of his crimes — the “manifesto” referred to in the title.

“Both he and Ng also had videotaped themselves psychologically tormenting two of the female victims,” Howe said.

But the focus of the documentary is not on the perpetrators; it's on the victims, he said.

“Charles Ng and Leonard Lake have never really been, for me personally, the focus of my attention,” Howe said. “They were the cause of everybody’s grief.”

Instead, the documentary shines a light on the perseverance of a woman determined to do right by her brother.

When asked what she hopes audiences would take away from the documentary, Sellitto was blunt.

“Don’t give up,” she said. “It’s a fight for justice. And for me, you’re not doing this and getting away with it. You’re not taking my brother’s life and going on with yours.”

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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Oxygen's 'Manifesto of a Serial Killer' includes Reynoldsburg man