24 year old Sonja McCaskie was a Scottish Olympic Skier who moved to Reno, Nevada for work. She was the mother of two small children, and during the week she worked as a secretary at a meat company. On the night of Thursday, April 4, 1963, both of her children were out of the house, one was with the child's father and the other was with a babysitter for the night. Sonja had some friends over to her condo, then did laundry before going to bed at a reasonable time.
After Sonja fell asleep, eighteen-year-old Thomas Lee Bean snuck into her condo through an unlocked back door without waking her. He climbed on top of her in her bed and wrapped twine around her neck. She woke up as Bean began to rape her and tighten the garrotte around her neck, at which point she began to beg for her life. Bean was merciless and stabbed Sonja with a kitchen knife. He continued to strangle her until she died. Even after she was dead, Bean continued to rape her corpse.
Thomas Lee Bean then dragged her body into the living room, took the knife, and cut out her heart from her chest. He then decapitated her body and stuffed her body into a hope chest that was in Sonja's living room. He couldn't fit her foot in the chest, so he cut it off and wrapped it with a blanket. He threw her head into the chest as well, and attempted to clean up the massive amount of blood in the living room. Thomas stayed in the condo for a short time, then left between 5-5:30AM on April 5th.
When Sonja failed to pick up her 10 month old child from the babysitter, the police were called and went to her condo to check on Sonja. Upon entering the apartment, the responding officers discovered her heart and a massive amount of blood in the living room before finding Sonja's body in the chest. Little was missing from the home, except for the lens of a camera that couldn't be located. A week after the murder, the lens was recovered from a pawn shop, which led investigators to Thomas Lee Bean.
After his arrest, he told investigators that he had never met or seen Sonja before, but took the opportunity when he found her back door unlocked. He claimed that he had fantasized about rape since he was a child and finally decided to act out his fantasy in real life. When asked why he decapitated Sonja he responded, "I don't know why I cut her up. I don't. I just shoved the knife in and started to cut, that's all." Thomas was charged with first degree murder and pleaded not guilty due to insanity. The jury disagreed with the insanity defense and found him guilty, and he was sentenced to death. His sentence was reduced to life in prison in 1972 when the US Supreme Court ruled against the death penalty.