Apr. 13, 1963 - A lanky, 18-year-old high school youth was booked tonight for the dismemberment slaying of skier Sonja McCaskie in Reno, Nev., a week ago Friday. District Attorney William J. Raggio told newsmen Thomas Bean (center) admitted the slaying and gave rape as the motive. Raggio said Bean told him he had not known Miss McCaskie. The district attorney, relaying Bean’s story, said Bean entered the 24-year-old McCaskie’s duplex apartment, about half a mile from Bean’s home, about midnight on Thursday, April 4. He carried with him a piece of rope and a butcher knife. Bean told Raggio he awakened Miss McCaskie, strangled her, raped her, and stabbed her with the knife. He then took the body to the living room and cut it up. Bean was linked to the case through a camera belonging to Miss McCaskie which had been found in a pawnshop. In a routine check of pawnshops, an investigator came across the camera, a type fitting operating instructions found in Miss McCaskie’s apartment last Thursday. The investigator’s further checking led to the pickup of Bean at his home. Raggio said Bean willingly re-enacted the slaying while a sound motion picture was made. “He is one of the coolest subjects I have ever been confronted with in any serious offense,” Raggio said. Raggio said Bean told him he had been committed at times to the State Industrial Training School at Elko. Raggio, calling Miss McCaskie a “chance victim,” said Bean had prowled her neighborhood a week before she was found dead on April 5.
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