48 Hours: Stephen Nichols and Rhonda Castro
This past weekend, 48 Hours profiled the story of Stephen Nichols and Rhonda Castro.
Julia Simmons, Rhonda’s mother, rented a room from Stephen Nichols, and she decided to introduce her daughter to Nichols.
Stephen and Rhonda hit it off and started dating. They dated three years and had a little baby girl together.
After having her baby, Rhonda gained a little weight and wanted to lose it, said Nichols, so he suggested they go hiking.
Rhonda told her mom about going on the hike, “He’s either gonna give me a ring or he’s gonna throw me off the cliff.”
They went hiking in Oregon’s Columbia River Gorge–a place of stunning beauty and unforgiving cliffs.
On their hike, Rhonda, according to Stephen, slipped and fell to her death.
Stephen has since been charged with murdering Rhonda, but has not yet faced a trial.
What do you believe? You can see more here: Trail of Tears
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I put lying without watching more than 20 seconds if that of video. reason is this.. first person on video to link provided ‘see more here” said she was “incredible athlete, very strong” coupled with video of the trails as well as images looked up yes dangerous but no reason I’d expect someone to fall let alone someone comfortable in their body. “incredible athlete usually get that way because they have great control over their body as well as a solid mind” that said haven’t watched the video but do plan to so will do a follow up on this.. probably lol
So far all I see is a mother who steals her granddaughter’s money, has no problem assuming that her own (deceased) daughter was using the father of her baby for money and not in love with him and then alleges that her underage younger daughter is a sexual victim of Nichols. The only incredible athlete I recall in this story is the young woman who nearly died at the same point where Rhonda fell but managed to grab a root, which proves that an “incredible” athlete can lose her footing and fall. I don’t think anyone described Rhonda as “an incredible athlete”.
Exactly! The girl who fell and survived was playing sports and obviously very athletic at the time of her fall (which isn’t the case with Rhonda), so being strong obviously has nothing to do with it. I also think Rhonda’s mother is extremely vindictive and she seems like she is totally lying about her claims against Stephen, not to mention she showed ZERO emotion when talking about her daughter that died tragically. SHe is an opportunistic, lying piece of crap in my view!
lol yes being an athlete is less relevant if you “DO” fall but makes a big difference in your “likelihood” to fall. as far as your opinion thats totally fine.. You guys do realize I simply put my relatively uninformed opinion based off of 20 seconds up right? I’m pretty sure I mentioned that..
Just because the mother is a creep (all of the people involved seem like lowlifes, frankly), doesn’t mean that Nichols isn’t guilty. And oh yes, he is guilty as sin.
That isn’t the case, seeing as the girl who was on the show that had also fallen from the same cliff and survived was also very athletic and strong. It makes no difference whatsoever if you’re an athlete. If you trip or slip, that’s irrelevant. Did you not hear that FOUR other people fell from that same ledge in 6 months??
I think it was an accident, based on the footage of the treacherous trail conditions. It said there’d been four deaths in a 6 month period on that trail. Rhonda’s mother cashing the grandaughter’s death benefit checks seems also fishy to me.
I can’t tell if he is lying. He seems like a jerk, but I fail to see evidence that he pushed her. The most shady character seems to be her mother, but that doesn’t mean he did not do it. I just don’t understand how they can try him.
I am not sure. My gut tells me he’s guilty, especially after he left the country and stayed in China with his daughter. But then when they brought the mother into the story, she seemed even more shady than the boyfriend. There seems to be too many women falling to their deaths on these cliffs with their significant other surviving. If your sig other wants to climb a mountain, tell them to go by themselves !
He doesn’t really come across like some of the other husbands/boyfriends who have been suspected of killing their partner. In fact, I actually feel that the mother is the more shady one. When she says Rhonda said/did one thing that Stephen disagrees with, I believe she is the one who is lying and he’s being truthful. So I feel it was an accidental death and I feel an autopsy or the crime scene would show signs of a struggle if it was murder (I’m not that far into the show yet). The mother, however, I feel is trying to capitalise on the accident which is sad.
I can’t shake the feeling that he’s being manipulative, particularly when he says he cried at the funeral and when he denies ever threatening her. Also, the mother is framed as the person who is lying, but regardless of the mother’s wrongdoing there are multiple accounts from multiple people that Stephen denies outright. Occam’s razor.
Also, when he denies pushing her off the cliff in the interview, his short bursts of emphasized minimally connected sentences reminded me of Bill Clinton’s denial. Stephen says: “No I did not. I love Rhonda. I will always love Rhonda. I fully expected to spend the rest of my life with her, I have never done anything to harm her”. Using never doesn’t make it that believable, but maybe he’s just trying to deny strongly because he wants to distance himself from this false accusation. I wonder if the distancing language of “her” at the end means anything.
I don’t think the mother was framed to look like she was lying- I just think she WAS lying and happens to be a terrible liar. She showed no emotion at all when talking about her daughter. She clearly just wanted money and thought she would score a payday here. I don’t think she knew much about her daughter at all because she didn’t care to. Rhonda clearly had hiked many times, yet Mom never even knew she had been hiking, ever. On top of that, the claims from the other people didn’t mean much in regards to whether or not Stephen may have killed her- they were just claims of him saying something to her that wasn’t very nice. I don’t believe her friends either when they say he threatened to kill her.
hmm, interesting. Why don’t you believe her friends?
Odd that you find the need to defend Nichols so strongly–I have a feeling you’re not exactly a neutral party. I wonder how healthy your own relationships are with men. No matter what your opinion of the mother (or of the victim, for that matter) , this girl did not deserve to die.
Wow! Has anybody else only just now seen this?! It was a challenging one because of the shady characters on both sides of the story. Stephen, a pompous day trader, was probably not doing as well financially as he wldve liked people to think. He divorced when the market was at its height and then chose to get a roommate. If it was simply for loneliness he cldve had a friend move in, not some strange lady he’d never met. (Successful day traders don’t move to China to teach English, either.) So strange lady and her daughter Rhonda saw dollar signs when they met Stephen. Stephen’s ego saw arm candy when he met Rhonda. Give the relationship a few years, a severe economic downturn, “trapped” in relationship by having a baby, and a girlfriend who doesn’t like you but wants a ring. Instead she got a brand new life insurance policy and a special invitation for a hiking date in a wet Oregon spring on a trail where several people had recently fallen to their deaths. Even Rhonda knew she was going to get pushed.
Rhonda’s mother seems to have a prescription drug problem, and doesn’t make any bones about getting money any way she can. So I wld scrap her testimony, but there’s plenty of motive even w/out it. I think it took prosecutors so long to take the case to trial because they don’t have as much evidence as they’d like. I don’t know that Stephen will be convicted, but I’m really anxious to see if he does!