Death of a British Olympian

Twenty-four-year-old Sonja McCaskie’s mangled heart, in a pool of blood on the floor of her duplex at 2640 Yori Avenue, was the first thing to greet Reno Police officer’s checking on the one-time Olympic skier when she failed to pick up her son April 5, 1963. And for more than a week, they had no idea who murdered her.

Reno police originally thought that Sonja had known her murderer, since no sign of forced entry could be found to either the doors or windows. They also investigated the possibility that the killer had knowledge of butchery or surgery skills.

Sonja was born in Elgin, Scotland, on February 13, 1939. Her father died shortly after, and her mother moved the family to the U.S., first to Long Beach, California, then to Tahoe City in 1954.

There, Sonja took up skiing and competed for Tahoe-Truckee High School. With the 1960 Winter Olympics coming to the area, Sonja wrote the Ski Club of Great Britain for a chance to ski for her native country.

The rest of the British team arrived in 1960, and Sonja tried out, earning a spot. Wearing number 50, she raced in the slalom, fell and finished last.

Sonja worked part-time as a ski instructor at the Slide Mountain Ski School and as a secretary for Blue Ribbon Meat Packing in Sparks. She’d been married and divorced and had a child from that marriage and a 10-month-old born out-of-wedlock at the time of her death.

The case had all the makings of a salacious news sensation. It was a grisly murder of an attractive young woman, who along with some racy photographs, had a diary that detailed her sex life, and police questioned her lovers to eliminate them as suspects.

Police found a bloody footprint at the murder scene, but had no one to match it to. Investigators, also found a camera instruction manual but no camera. Later, cops found the camera at a Reno pawn shop, where a Thomas Lee Bean sold it for $10.

Eight-days later, Reno police arrested the 18-year-old Wooster High School student.

Bean was born in Reno and lived on Neil Road when he murdered Sonja. Bean had also lived on Grove Street where there were indications he prowled the area looking for women’s underwear.

In June 1961, Salt Lake City Police arrested Bean after he tried to strangle a girl sleeping on a porch. The family then moved to Las Vegas, and Bean transferred to the Nevada Youth Training Center in Elko where he spent eight months.

Once at the Reno police station Bean bolted, and everyone gave chase. Bean made it out of the police station and ran down East Second Street where a police officer fired five warning shots, which brought the chase to a close.

Back in custody, Bean cooperated, describing the murder when they took him back to Sonja’s home. First, Bean found Sonja’s laundry which she left on a clothesline in the side yard to dry.

Among the items drying, Bean found an under-slip, which investigators believe he used as a sexual-trigger. Bean also found Sonja had left her back door unlocked, where he took off his shoes, and wearing no socks, crawled through every room.

Finding only Sonja sleeping alone in her bedroom and using a homemade garrote he had brought with him, he twisted it around her neck and increased the pressure, forcing her to awaken and plead for her life. He then stabbed her several times as he raped her.

Finished gratifying himself, Bean dragged her lifeless body out of the bedroom, carved her heart from her chest, threw it on the floor and stomped on it. Next he cut her head off, then tried to skin her, but found the process too difficult.

Finally, he slit her from the crotch to her neck then stuffed her body, with three knives still in her torso, into her hope chest after having first tossed Sonja’s severed head into the chest “like a basketball.” Her left foot, dangling out the chest, was cut off and left lying on the floor.

During all of this he continued to stab her using both the knife he’d brought with him and with knives taken from Sonja’s kitchen. Bean then lolled around listening to her music records and once tiring of that, took her Triumph sports car for a joy ride, returning it and leaving it parked in it’s usual spot near her duplex.

On July 8, 1963, a Washoe District Court jury deliberated for 70 minutes before giving Bean the death penalty. Nine-years later, the U.S. supreme Court overturned all pending death sentences in the U.S., including Bean’s, to life in prison without parole.

He remains in prison to this day.