Bend man arrested in 2009 Columbia Gorge killing

A 40-year-old Bend man was arrested late last week at San Francisco International Airport, accused of murder in the death of his former girlfriend during a hike in the Columbia River Gorge nearly six years ago, news reports stated.

Stephen P. Wagner Nichols, 40, is being held without bail at the NORCAR Regional Correctional Facility in The Dalles pending his return to court March 3, having been arraigned Friday, the Hood River News reported.

A previously secret indictment handed down last April accused Nicholas of murder in the March 2009 death of Rhonda Kristen Casto, 23, of Portland, on the popular Eagle Creek Trail west of Cascade Locks, the newspaper said. KOIN-TV in Portland said Casto was Nichols’ ex-girlfriend.

The Hood River paper reported that 911 dispatchers got a call shortly after 6 p.m. the evening March 18, 2009 from a man who said he’d accompanied Casto on a hike and that she had died after falling off a cliff along the trail.

Rescuers arrived about an hour later and found Casto’s body down an embankment, about 100 feet off the trail, the newspaper said.

Nichols faces, if convicted, a minimum 25-year prison sentence and a maximum life sentence, the report stated.