by Henry Cordes
Back in the ambulance, Smith asked Nichols what his girlfriend had been wearing. He was given a brief description of “jeans” and that she had blond hair. The deputy then asked what happened to cause her to fall.
“She must have been high on something,” Nichols said. “She was just flying around.”
Rhonda had been about fifty feet in front of him, Nichols explained, and heading down the trail. He said he was trying to catch up to her when she suddenly plunged off the cliff. He said that when he reached that spot he looked over the edge and saw her “lying in the water” and screamed. That’s when he ran down the trail to find a place where he could get to the stream.
Nichols also gave a rough description of the spot where his girlfriend fell, saying it was between two sets of cables attached to the rock face along the trail. He said she fell about 3 p.m.
After providing his and Rhonda’s personal information, and stating that they lived together, Nichols was asked if he knew what made her “high.” He said he didn’t know but that she’d had a drug problem in the past.
Detective Sergeant Gerry Tiffany, the senior detective on the small Hood River Sheriff’s Office staff, arrived. After obtaining Nichols’ consent, he and Deputy English began to search the car while Smith continued his interrogation.
Nichols told him that he’d known his girlfriend for about four and a half years, living together for four of it. He also said that he and Rhonda had hiked the trail before, and that she had been on it “frequently” prior to knowing him. “She used to come up here to drink vodka and take pills,” he asserted.
At that point, the ambulance crew said they’d be taking Nichols to the hospital for further evaluation. Nichols asked if he could retrieve his cellphone from his car, but Smith told him that he’d bring it and his wallet to him at the hospital. The ambulance then departed at 7:03 for the twenty-minute ride.
Smith then returned to Nichols’ car where the other officers were searching the contents. They gave him a bottle for a prescription made out to Rhonda Casto that had been located in her purse. They’d also located a checkbook belonging to Nichols, noting he’d recently written a check to the Oregon Department of Revenue for more than $20,000, and that was another check $1600 check for “child support.” The searchers also found a small card from a jewelry store with various diamond cuts and sizes on it.
Taking the prescription bottle, as well as Nichols’ wallet and cellphone, Smith was about to leave for the hospital when Tiffany told him to question Nichols again about his relationship with his girlfriend.
Arriving at the hospital, Smith was met by emergency room doctor Phil Chadwick, who asked about weather conditions at Eagle Creek and Nichols’ physical behavior when he was being questioned. The deputy reported that Nichols shivered, though not all of the time, and that he switched back and forth between an oddly flat demeanor and voice, and sudden sobbing.
Smith showed Chadwick the prescription bottle for Gabapentin and was told it was an anti-seizure/anti-depressant medication. The deputy then asked to speak with Nichols.
When Smith entered the examining room, he handed over the cellphone. Nichols looked at it and told the deputy that Rhonda’s mother, Julia Simmons, had tried to call several times and had texted once asking where they were. He again expressed concern about her being told of her daughter’s death.
Smith asked for Simmons’s address so she could be notified. But Nichols said he didn’t know it, though he could personally find her house in Hillsboro, Oregon.
The deputy then asked Nichols to again go over the events leading to Rhonda’s fall. Nichols said that they’d arrived at the trailhead about 2 p.m. “We’re trying to lose some weight by hiking,” he said.
They got as far as Punchbowl Falls before turning around and heading back down the trail. On the way back, he said, Rhonda started acting like “Super Girl,” running down the trail, forcing him to hurry to catch up. Then when he reached her, she’d take off again. He repeated his assertion that she was “high” on something and that she’d run ahead fifty feet when she slipped and went over the edge at a narrow place on the trail.
Again, he recounted how he’d looked over the edge and saw her lying “in the water,” not moving. After scrambling down to the stream, he said he got in and attempted to “swim” upstream for several minutes but that the current was too strong. He claimed that he then got up on the bank and made his way to her body where he gave her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. But he soon realized she was dead and returned to the trailhead where he had cell service and called 911.
“What were the weather conditions like?” Smith asked.
Raining at times with some hail, Nichols replied. There was even snow on the sides of the trail, which he described as “wet and slippery.” However, he noted, they both were wearing hiking shoes that were good for the conditions.
When Smith asked about his hiking activities, Nichols said he didn’t do much. It was his fourth time on that trail but only the second time with Rhonda. He repeated his story that she’d been there frequently to drink vodka and take pills.
“How did you know she was high?” Smith asked.
Nichols said that he’d known her to do “everything under the sun,” but she hadn’t done drugs to his knowledge since the birth of their child. He wouldn’t elaborate on the types of drugs she’d allegedly used.
“What about today specifically?”
Nichols shrugged. He hadn’t seen her take, drink or smoke anything. However, he said, whenever she acted as she had prior to her fall, she was “usually on something.”
Smith asked if Nichols knew if Rhonda was taking any prescription drugs. At first, Nichols denied it, but a few minutes later said she was taking something for post-partum depression. When the deputy showed him the anti-seizure medication bottle, he said he didn’t know anything about it.
Moving on, Smith asked about his relationship with Rhonda. Nichols replied that the relationship was a good one. They’d had their arguments like any couple, he said, but denied they’d been fighting lately. He also said he’d never been physically abusive to her.
The deputy wanted to know if Rhonda had any injuries before her fall. “She was clumsy,” Nichols answered. “Just this week she fell down for no reason in the bedroom. Two weeks ago she fell down the stairs and hit her head hard. … She was always tripping and falling.”
Other than the issue with post-partum depression, Rhonda was in good health, Nichols said. She’d seen her doctor a week earlier, but Nichols didn’t recognize the doctor’s name on the prescription bottle.
The interview ended with Smith asking what the couple did for a living. Nichols said he was a day trader; Rhonda mostly stayed home and took care of Annie.
About this time, Deputy English arrived, and Smith asked him to question Nichols again while he listened from another room. Nichols repeated his answers without deviating, except for one item.
When Nichols noted that Julia Simmons had continued trying to contact him, Smith told him that law enforcement had not been able to find her at the location he’d given them. Now, however, Nichols suddenly remembered that she was staying at his house watching Annie.
“Did she know you and Rhonda were going hiking?” English asked.
“She just knew we were going out for a few hours,” Nichols replied, adding that Simmons didn’t know they were going to hike on the Eagle Creek Trail.
Both Smith and English would note in their subsequent reports that throughout the questioning that Nichols had remained withdrawn and somber. He’d answered their questions unemotionally and without volunteering any information unless they asked a direct question.
After English finished questioning him, Nichols asked if he could make a call from his cellphone. He was told he could make any call he pleased.
Nichols said he wanted called his father, Stephen P. Nichols Sr., who live
d in Bend, Oregon, a mid-sized city in Central Oregon about a three-and-a-half hour drive from Hood River. Nichols placed his call and reached some unknown person with whom he made some small talk as the deputies listened. He then told the person on the other end that he needed to talk to his father because Rhonda had died. The call was brief, as was Nichols’ crying during it.
After he hung up, he asked if Rhonda’s mother had been notified of her death. And if he was free to go.
About 8:30 p.m., Dr. Chadwick said Nichols could go. His body temperature readings had all been normal, and other than a small bruise on the palm of his left hand, he had no other injuries despite “scrambling” down a steep incline, attempting to swim a vigorous, debris-filled stream, and then working his way through brush, fallen trees and rocks to reach his girlfriend.
English and Nichols left the hospital to return the latter to his car at the trailhead. On the way, the detective called the Washington County Sheriff’s Office and requested that they contact Simmons at Nichol’s house.
During the drive, Nichols said he wanted to drive home. English replied that the deputies were concerned with him operating a motor vehicle after all he had been through. But Nichols assured him that although he was “sad like when my mom died” and depressed, he was fine to drive. He said he just wanted to go meet his father so that he could help him with Annie.
Upon arriving back at the trailhead, English and Nichols found Sheriff Jerry Wampler waiting. He was there to check on the search and recovery effort.
Wampler and English reiterated the concern with Nichols driving. However, when he insisted, the sheriff said that English would follow him as far as Cascade Locks to observe how he did on the road.
“I want you to wait for me there until we hear from Washington County that Rhonda’s mother has been notified,” English added.
When they reached Cascade Locks, Nichols parked near the deputy who could see him making phone calls. English called the Washington County Sheriff’s Office and spoke to Corporal Scott Mikkelson, who told him that there’d been a holdup contacting the family because they couldn’t locate a chaplain in case the family needed spiritual help. Mikkelson told him that Rhonda’s family had filed a missing person report.
After waiting several more minutes, Nichols asked if he could leave. English said yes on the condition that he not go into his apartment until Rhonda’s family had been notified. He promised to wait outside if he arrived before then.
English returned to the Hood River Sheriff’s Office where he was contacted by Mikkelson a short time later. The other deputy told him that Rhonda’s mother, Julia Simmons, had been notified “and things are not going well.”
Without having been told any details beyond that she’d fallen from a cliff while hiking with Nichols, Rhonda’s family believed that he was responsible for her death. “Apparently, he took a million-dollar life insurance policy out on her recently,” Mikkelson said. “And they’re saying that she told some of them that if something happened to her, or she died, he was responsible.”
Hanging up with Mikkelson, English then asked dispatch to call Nichols and tell him the family had been notified. He then called Tiffany and Wampler to tell them about the insurance policy and the family’s accusations.
Just three hours after Nichols called to report an “accident” that claimed the life of his child’s mother, it was appeared that there might be an entirely different theory about what happened that afternoon on the Eagle Creek trail.
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* * *
1. March 16, 2009, Transcript of 911 Call From Stephen P. Nichols to Hood River County Sheriff’s Office 911 Call Center
2. If you want to visit Eagle Creek Trail make sure it’s open first. The trail was closed for hiking after extensive forest fires tragically swept through the area during the summer of 2017; it was still ‘closed until further notice’ when this chapter was written in spring 2018.
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Introduction
People’s lies make me feel different from the rest of society. The lies separate me from them—Luka Magnotta
There was no part of me that wanted to watch 1 Lunatic 1 Icepick.
You can find some terrible things on the Internet. If you find yourself bored and spending your time surfing around the net, you might wind up going into some dark places, like many people do. If so you might come across 3 Guys 1 Hammer, a murder video filmed by, and starring the Dnepropetrovsk Maniacs, who are a brutal pair of Ukrainian serial killers who have since been apprehended. The video features them bashing in a man’s head with a hammer and stabbing him in the eyes.
They did if for fun. The violence was less troubling than the unfettered joy the killers took in murdering a helpless man. The video is extremely unsettling on every level, but it wasn’t meant to be seen by anyone but the killers. To them it was a personal keepsake, a trophy so to speak, something for these lunatics to get off on when they are sitting around the house with nothing to do, when they weren’t busy killing people.
This was different. 1 Lunatic 1 Icepick was more than an incredibly disturbing murder video that featured acts of necrophilia and cannibalism, it was a snuff film meant by its maker to be seen by millions. To Luka Magnotta, the director and one of the stars of the video, the other being his victim Jun Lin, it seemed that the killing itself was meant to be secondary to the reaction the act would receive. Although he denied it to me numerous times, on the phone and in writing, it seems to many that Luka butchered a man and abused his corpse mostly because he wanted to mess with people’s heads, and to be famous, for something. Even something such as this.
Traditionally makers of such atrocities tried to keep such things underground. In the book Killing for Culture author David Kerekes says that “Snuff films depict the killing of a human being — a human sacrifice (without the aid of special effects or other trickery) perpetuated for the medium of film and circulated amongst a jaded few for the purpose of entertainment. Magnotta had no interest in performing for the jaded few; he wanted the world to see what he had done. 1 Lunatic 1 Icepick was his opus on violence, murder, and depravity, and he made sure that it made him a star.
He even had a marketing campaign to make sure that it was seen. It is theorized that he was the person who sent the video to Bestgore.com, a shock website owned by Canadian Mark Marek, who later spent time in prison for simply putting the video on his site. Just in case that wasn’t enough, Luka started sending body parts through the mail to Canadian political parties and to an elementary school in Vancouver. He had even made reference to the video by name on some of his numerous social media accounts ten days before the crime ever took place saying, “There is apparently a video circulating around the deep web and called ‘One Lunatic One Ice Pick Video.’ Does anyone have a copy of it?”
I am writing this book with Luka’s mother. To my surprise she told me that Luka wanted to talk to me. I have spent a lifetime working with and hanging out with people who much of society finds odd, or even abhorrent. The Cannibal Cop has stayed in my spare bedroom when he was drunk. The Unabomber has criticized one of my letters to him, saying I had “the worst handwriting” he had ever seen. I pride myself on not being judgmental. I don’t let things freak me out. But this felt different somehow.
I wrote Luka a letter. He responded. Luka Magnotta told me that he wanted the truth to come out. He wrote me that “I don’t give interviews. I don’t trust the media at all, I have been completely defamed and slandered by them for years, the lies they’ve told are horrendous and very troubling. I am constantly being bombarded by news agencies all over the world to tell my story. So far, I have not. Since my mother trusts you, it will be my pleasure to work with you and help this be su
ccessful.” This was at the beginning of a twenty-five page missive, the first of many, in which he answered my questions on everything to his life growing up, his criminal history, his life as a model and an escort, and about the murder of Jun Lin.
Then I talked to Luka on the phone. He’s charming. He’s got a good sense of humor. We made each other laugh. I like his mother Anna. She says nice things about her son. Of course, I want to think nice things about Luka too.
When we talked he told me of how everyone had him wrong, and how he was looking forward to setting the record straight. He said “Everything I do, I do to succeed. It’s important to do things properly and right. My background has constantly been edited, I haven’t spoken to anyone about any of this, none of this is my side of what happened. It’s very annoying. I never wanted anything to do with the NCR (Not Criminally Responsible) defense. I have no mental illness whatsoever. I had to go with it, even though I didn’t want to, but my lawyers pressured me into it. I told the doctors I had no mental illness. Even now in prison I take no medications, but the lawyers said our only chance was to go with the NCR defense. I wish I didn’t do it, I wish I testified and told the story my way. Everyone else had the chance to tell their story. The judge, the prosecutors, my lawyers, I am the only one that didn’t get a chance to tell my side. There is a preconceived notion that I am an attention seeker or that I love the limelight. That is something that really annoys me, all throughout my life I haven’t done that. I mean I have done some auditions to be on reality shows, and then people just spin that around and make it something it isn’t. Or people would talk about how many photos I would have taken of myself, that was for my job, you have to have pictures taken for your job when you are a model. Information is just fed to people, and they just go with it. They just recycle it and spin it their way and edit my history.”
