Sonja McCaskie

Who was Sonja McCaskie?

Sonja McCaskie was a British alpine skier who participated in the 1960 Winter Olympics.

McCaskie lived in Reno, Nevada and was working as a part-time skiing instructor at the nearby Slide Mountain ski resort when she was brutally strangled, raped, decapitated & mutilated in her Yori Avenue apartment by 18 year old high school student Thomas Lee Bean in the early morning hours of Friday 5 April 1963. Bean was sentenced to death in the Nevada gas chamber for the murder, but was taken off death row in 1970 and remains in the Nevada State Prison. This murder was sensationalized in the 8 September 1963 issue of The National Enquirer with the frontpage headline as: "I CUT OUT HER HEART & STOMPED ON IT".

Sept. 8, 1963 National Enquirer