Mystery at Eagle Creek
48 Hours
CBS News
4.1 • 7.8K Ratings
🗓️ 12 March 2026
⏱️ 43 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On March 16, 2009, Rhonda Casto went on a hike in Oregon’s Columbia River Gorge with her boyfriend, Stephen Nichols, only to never return home. Before Casto headed out on her hike, she joked to a friend that Nichols was either “going to propose or kill me”. Somewhere along the trail, she slipped or fell 150 feet to her death. “48 Hours" Correspondent Peter Van Sant reports.
This classic "48 Hours" episode last aired on 9/08/2018. Watch all-new episodes of “48 Hours” on Saturdays and stream on demand on Paramount+.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I want people to know that Rhonda wasn't just beautiful. |
| 0:13.0 | Bye, Daddy. |
| 0:15.0 | People always are surprised when they hear this like, |
| 0:18.0 | no, you can't be super beautiful like her and be intelligent |
| 0:20.9 | at the same time. I'm like, actually, she was wicked smart. |
| 0:28.8 | Very in love. We planned on getting married in the summer. That was my timetable. |
| 0:33.1 | They did look at wedding rings. I think she wanted one that was around 35,000, and I was thinking more 15,000 was my range. |
| 0:43.7 | And you and Rhonda, did you like to get outdoors? |
| 0:46.1 | All the time. |
| 0:46.8 | We loved hiking. |
| 0:48.3 | We played a lot of Frisbee golf. |
| 0:50.3 | So, yeah, we were outdoors most of the time. |
| 0:54.5 | We woke up early. |
| 0:56.1 | She opened the drapes, and we saw, |
| 0:58.0 | oh, it's a beautiful day. |
| 0:58.9 | Okay, so we are going to go hiking. |
| 1:01.2 | One of the things she asked me on the drive over, |
| 1:04.9 | she said, if anything ever happens to me, |
| 1:08.0 | do you promise to watch our daughter and take care of her? |
| 1:18.6 | And I go, what are you talking about? She goes, I have dreams all the time that I am dead before 25. Did Rhonda ever tell you that she was sensing something bad was going to happen to her? |
| 1:25.6 | She said that he's either going to propose to me or kill me. |
| 1:32.4 | She wasn't happy. |
... |
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