Wagner

A Bend man faces a murder charge in Hood River County, where authorities there believe he killed a Portland woman who fell to her death on the popular Eagle Creek Trail six years ago.

Stephen P. Wagner Nichols, 40, made his first court appearance Friday and is set to appear again on March 3, according to Hood River County Circuit Court records. The records show that a grand jury indicted Nichols for murder last April. The indictment accuses him of killing Rhonda Kristen Casto, 23, on March 16, 2009.

Going on a tip from Oregon authorities, San Mateo County (California) Sheriff’s deputies arrested Nichols on Feb. 2 at the San Francisco International Airport, Deputy Rebecca Rosenblatt wrote in an email Tuesday. He was arrested without incident after he came off a plane from China and was detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents.

He was set to fly to Medford next, Rosenblatt wrote. Oregon authorities picked up Nichols, who was wanted on a felony warrant, on Thursday.

He was being held without bail Tuesday afternoon at the Northern Oregon Regional Correctional Facility in The Dalles, according to the jail’s website.

Nichols had been hiking with Casto the day she died, according to The Oregonian. Casto fell 100 feet to her death in March 2009 on the Eagle Creek Trail in the Columbia River Gorge.

She fell down a steep section of trail pitted with wire cables and pipe handrails, which help hikers navigate the narrow, slippery terrain, according to The Oregonian..

“The trail is very steep and narrow there, and it’s been pretty wet and slippery,” then Hood River County Sheriff’s Deputy Matt English told The Oregonian in 2009. “There was still snow on the ground down near the parking lot.”

— Bulletin staff and wire reports