SAVING ANNIE-Book Two-The Investigator-Steve Jackson

told police investigator she slipped and fell. Yet Nicholls's story didn't quite mesh with the facts, and some of his other actions raised suspicions as well, including just days after her death, trying to collect on a million dollar life insurance policy had taken out on his unemployed twenty three year old girlfriend four months earlier. What had begun with a nine one one called report and accident quickly turned into a homicide investigation. However, in part due to lackluster

police work, the case grew cold. Then, in twenty eleven, Darty Robinson, a tenacious investigator with a Portland law firm began digging into the circumstances surrounding Ronda's death. The law firm represented Ronda's mother, who believed that Nicholls, thirty four at the time, had murdered her daughter. She wanted to prevent him from gaining custody of Annie and the life

insurance money. What Robinson discovered, including an tempt by Nichols to throw his first wife off a high rise balcony in China, as well as sexual abuse allegations with Ronda's underage sister, convinced her that Ronda's death was no accident. So began her six year battle to save Annie from

her own father and fine justice for Ronda. In the meantime, a parallel investigation into the case by co author Steve Jackson, an award winning journalist and New York Times bestselling author and private investigator Tom McCallum, posed the same questions, what really happened to Ronda Casto on that cold, rainy afternoon on the Eagle Creek trail and what would become of her child. The book that we're featuring this evening is

Saving Annie Book two. The Investigator with my special guest Steve Jackson, journalist, author, and Wild Blue Press publisher Steve Jackson. Welcome back to the program, and thank you very much for agreeing to this interview. Steve Jackson, Thanks Ann, always good to be here. Thank you. It's always a pleasure to have you and some of the authors from Wild Blue Press as well. Let's talk about Saving Annie. This

is the book two. Previously not I think a few weeks ago, four or five, six weeks ago, we had you talk about Saving Annie book one. As you do in the prologue, you give a synopsis for those people that didn't get a chance to hear that. Let's talk about March two thousand and nine. Ronda Casto, twenty three year old, as we mentioned in the introduction, gives us a little bit of a synopsis of what happened, as you do in the prologue to Saving Annie. Book two.

the previous book of where we're at the book. But anyway, on March two thousand and nine March sixteenth, two thousand and nine, Ronde Casto and her boyfriend, who also was the father of her child, her instant, went for a hike up in the an area off the Columbia River Gorge in Oregon, and at some point in that hike, around three o'clock in the afternoon, Ronda plunge from an almost three hundred foot cliff, and a few hours later, her boyfriend, Stephen Nichols, called nine one, and that is

how the story begins.

criminal act. At a point in here around May June of two thousand and nine, Nichols demanded Annie and from the grandmother, and she believed that she had to hand the child over to him. He took the child and moved in with his father and stepmother up in Bend, Oregon, which is central organ As opposed to where they've been living in Portland.

ends up dead. Now with the police and their suspicions, but yet he gets a lawyer and refuses to talk to police, makes us move to Bend, Oregon, moves in with his family. What is the living arrangement there in Bend, Oregon. And then when do we introg when do you introduce Darty Robinson and how she comes into the picture here in this story.

so that's that's where they're living at this time. Uh. Julia Simmons, the child's maternal grandmother one, is trying to prevent Nichols from collecting the money the insurance policy, and she's also wants custody as a child, so that uh, and some of these imaginations are going on during this time. Miss Simmons actually thinks that if anybody is going to get the insurance money, she should and get the child, so that the money is being used on the child

and it's it's in her possession. So as she's doing this, she goes to a victim's assistance program in the county where she's living, and they refer her to Gardy Robinson, who is a paralegal working for an attorney in Portland named Robert Barton, as former prosecutor in Orange County. And the whole purpose is Darty has signed up through her

church to do some free legal work for people. And so she's told about this story about this woman who is trying to gain custody of her granddaughter and also prevents the child's father, who she believes killed her daughter, from getting the money. So disinterest Darty, who has her own history of children being specially abused, and so it kind of strikes a heartstring with her when she hears about this, and so she invites Ms. Simmons to their law office to hear her story.

this and do what's necessary. Tell us a little bit about Darty Robinson and her background that shaped her about this.

her childhood and when she was a teenager. And uh so, of course that has brings its own trauma and uh into it. But also even more tragically is that Darty was married and had a had a family with a number of children, and one day one of her daughters came to her and said that her husband, his husband, the child's father, had molested her. And this, of course just threw everything into chaos. Dardy uh went to the

police with with the allegations. Her husband was arrested. He was a very well known man and uh they lived in Washington, the state of Washington this time, and so he uh, you know, he denied it, of course, and h Darty went to Hell with a lot of church people and other people, uh accusing her of making all this up and and that sort of thing, and uh until well into all of this, her husband, former husband at this point uh finally confessed, which of course vindicated Darty.

But you know, she now had a shattered family with daughter who had been sexually molested as she had been. So it's sort of one of those things where you know, she's she's very empathetic to the plight of children. You know, Darty ish would put any child ahead of herself, and so when she hears about this story about Ron the casto's child living with the man who possibly killed her mother and is having an affair with the mother's younger sister, it definitely motivates her to get involved.

Bob Barton that he should get involved? And once well, once the isn't involved, what do they do in terms of trying to get this before a district attorney and have these charges followed up on that she has done this work for and investigated and about Stephen Nichols.

insurance case. And and what they what Darty wants to do is to make sure that this money is put aside for the child into the future, obviously thinking that the child may have some issues to deal with, but also just you know, the whole idea of this man who that she quickly learns the police believe killed uh the mother, and and the insurance company has refused to to pay off on this policy at this time due to, uh, you know, concerns that Stephen Nichols may have murdered Ron

de Casto. So that's how they initially get started. It's that they don't start to to uh try to prove that Nichols did anything to Ron, that they that basically they start with the idea of let's stop him from getting the money right now and uh and then if we have to, will file a wrongful death, which is a civil version of a of a murder charge. And and it's kind of as he's starting to do this that she's learning that, you know, there's a lot more

to this this whole case. There's the case of the younger sister who was being sexually exploited by Stephen Nichols when she was only fifteen years old. Nichols goes up to when he moves to Bend and is living up there with Annie, gets in trouble for sexually molesting a thirteen year old girl in a swimming pool, so he basically can't keep his hands to himself or anything else.

During you know, this is eight months after Ronda's death, He's already getting in trouble for this sort of thing, and so Darty starts to get more and more alarmed. Not only is Nichols possibly the murder of murderer of Annie's mom Ronda, but he sexually molested underage girls, so of course that starts to raise concerns.

violence charges against him. He had lawsuits with his siblings were suing him for stealing money from a trust, which is yet another motive for him needing a lot of money fast as he was being sued for about a half a million dollars by his siblings, and all of this stuff had not been run down by the police investigation which was supposed to be headed by Sergeant Tiffany.

So Tiffany, as she started to feed him information hoping that he would reciprocate and give her information, basically would take her information, say thank you, but then say he couldn't tell her anything because it was an ongoing investigation. Curious as to what ongoing investigation since he had not interviewed some witnesses or interview them late or it wasn't doing anything much with these as far as a Darty could tell or any sort.

of evidence. But tell us about why they thought of this, how it came to them, and explain the difference in the civil and criminal cases and why they thought that this would be an advantage for them.

high bar. It's not beyond any and all doubt, as some people will say, but it's beyond a reasonable doubt, which Andy, and you have to have a unanimous jury verdict to convict somebody in a criminal case with a with a murder condition with a wrongful death you are. Basically, it's the preponderance of an evidence would lead uh, you know, the jury to believe that he was indeed guilt, guilty of having caused the death of the victim in this case,

Rondo Castro and Uh. And it doesn't require a unanimous jury. It's it's a majority, a simple majority. And of course in the criminal case there's the possibility of imprisonment as well as fines and that sort of thing. With the civil case, it's it's it's a matter of the money and getting getting a settlement from the the defendant. In this case with Ronda, there's a couple of things that

are trying to accomplish. One is that if Nichols, the insurance company turns around, turned around and and gave Nichols the money, because he was doing the insurance company for this money, if they turned around and gave it to him, they wanted to make sure they could sue Nichols and hopefully get the money that way for Annie through the

wrongful death losses. And the other part is to is that if Nichols was sued, they'd be able to depose him, which in a criminal trial, we all know that the defendant isn't required to take the stand in his own defense. Most don't take the stand because then if you subject yourself to cross examination, questions and all that sort of thing.

But in the civil suit, Nichols would have had to have been deposed under oak, which means they could have asked me questions about the circumstances of Ronda's death, and in the same sort of cross examination that would have happened in aiminal trial, except for with the deposition, and then of course that he could have been brought to the span during the civil during the trial part of the civil suit, and the and question on the stand with the attorney of course having the record of what

he said in the deposition. So in a way it's it's a way of forcing him to answer questions about Ronda's death, which he had refused to do after the initial couple of interviews with police that night of and so this is sort of a way to get to him without it being a criminal case. And of course, at this time, the difference between the O. J. Simpson case and this case was there was no criminal case

yet against Nickels, no murder murder case. So whatever he had said in a deposition during the civil case, or if he took the stand during the civil case, could have also been used in a future criminal case. And that's the importance of what they were trying to do.

So anyway, they they've gone up and they've talked to the prosecutor in the Shoots County District Attorney's office during after Nichols was indicted, and and for a good half year, or actually more than half. You're almost a year and a half of all this. You know, the Nichols get some good defense attorneys. They stall, they they get to ask for other times. They they investigate. They of course go after the thirteen year old and try to paint

a bad picture of her. There's a lot of this sort of thing going on, and so uh, but Darty and Bob Barton are very interested in that the prosecutor uh stays on the case and uh and goes after him for the felonies, which will also give him a sexual assault felony. While this other case of sexual assault down in Portland on Rondo's younger sisters is also being investigated. So the prosecutor up there, a woman named Jody Bond, assures them for during this whole time that she's she's

not going to plead this case. She's going to continue to press for felony charges. She's very confident, she's very good. She's done this, done sexic cases for number of years. And uh, and so it looks like they're going to go to in January of twenty eleven. But shortly before they're they're a an election and they're a new district

attorney is elected. And one thing, he fires all of his all of the former deputy district attorneys, including Jody Vonn when this is going on, and then he directs another deputy district attorney, one who's still there, to plead the case out. So basically they pleaded out to a misdemeanor sexual molesting case. Nichols gets a slap on the risk, essentially, and suddenly that case goes away. Right.

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Third love dot com slash true. Steve we talked about the frustration that Darty Robinson was experiencing with this incredibly lenient sentence, especially when they were agreed to that they were hoping for and been promised a much more harsh sentence for him, a more appropriate sentence. So what to does Starty Robinson and Bob Barton do next?

and sending it to Jerry Tiffany, hoping that at some point he he will put a case together and and do something about Ron de Casto's death. They are convinced by this time because they've they've done their own investigation,

probably a better investigation than the police had done. I think that's actually fairly obvious, and were as convinced as any of the police detectives, and a number of them were convinced that Jerry Tiffany has said he was convinced that Nichols was responsible, but another number of other detectives who weren't in charge had also believed it, and in

so so Gardy and Bob Barton. Remember Bob Barton was a former prosecutor in Orange County, which is a very large UH district attorney's office, as opposed to the very tiny district attorney's office in Hood River County, which is the county where Ronda was murdered or died. I guess I should say at this point the so all they can do is is is keep trying to gather information,

talk to witnesses, get them on the record. As you noted, Darty got a copy of the Nichols sentencing hearing him the plea deal he got because as you said, this will this will come into play uh later in UH and actually will appear in book three. It's important. But so they just continue with their investigation, just realizing that somehow Nichols keeps slipping through the uh uh. The fine machinations of justice. I guess.

And this is a thirty four year old guy. I'm sending this sort of thing to a thirteen year old girl. And so this is all preserved will, which, as we've said, will come in to play later on in this. So you know that basically is the is that they're they're building this case that they they believe should have been being built by the police.

for Annie and so, and that's Darty's of course. The main objective is to make sure that Hanny gets the money. So they they they get to the they deposed the insurance company agent who sold this insurance policy to Ronda, and a lot of things come out. There's there's items like originally they had asked for a smaller amount five hundred thousand on Ronda and Steve both, and that was

when Ronda was present. Then when the agent got back to his office, Steve called him up and asked if they could raise it to actually he wanted one point four million on Ronda's But after a couple of weeks of negotiating back and forth, they settled on a one

million dollar policy, which is very questionable. In the first place, you don't give a million dollar policy for a young woman who was unemployed, had no asset, was on was as a matter of fact, on welfare and food stamps, because Steven Nickels did very little to support her or her child. And so this is a mistake in the

first place by this insurance company. And and for this very reason is that you don't, you know, give somebody an insurance policy that provides a motive to to h to murder somebody else and you and there should be and there usually is requirements of you know, uh being able to prove a certain amount of income for that that is somewhat close to what you're asking as an

insurance policy. And there's it's also the quickness that uh, you know, Steve Nichols is very anxious to have this done and done quickly and uh, and it's done he I believed, first applies in November. They're given the UH. After this, from this back and forth and settling on a million dollars, UH, they go back to they get the policy is a is awarded to them in December and they receive it in January. There's a number of buys on both applications, so the whole thing was a mess.

The insurance agent who sold it to him was very inexperienced and he did not get much help from the higher ups in the office, and so they deposed him. And all of this comes out about how this was arranged and arranged very quickly, and I believe they get the insurance policy sign on it in January, and of course Ronda is dead two months later.

might say or have exposed in a criminal trial. So he agrees that it's going to release any any sort of hole he has on the money and so the only money Steve Nichols actually gets out of this is to pay his attorneys off, which is it was a chunk of money several one hundred thousand dollars and uh and the rest of the money goes into a trust for Annie. Uh and and that's sort of where the book two ends up with Darty has been successful at

stopping Nichols from getting any of this money. The remainder of the money, UH well, his interest on it is in a trust with Annie. Now at this point Steve Nichols is still her guardian, has custody of her, and he's allowed to use the money for her her niece, not his, but hers such as the dance lessons or clothing or or things along those lines. But he's supposed to be held under a very uh if there's somebody watching over this this trust who he has to report

the expenditures too. And this will also come into play in later books as to how he manipulates this uh somewhat. But the main point and ending for book two is that Guardy and Bob Barton have done what they set out to do, which is to make sure Steve Nichols doesn't receive this money. And that it's put a guide

for Annie. But the last the last part of book two is that at this point Gardy is determined that not only will Steve Nichols not receive any money, but he'll answer uh uh to justice for the death of Ron mcasso if she has anything to do with it.

million dollar insurance policy as one motive. There's another motive in the in the younger that he's obsessed with the younger sister and wants Ronda out of the way so he can be with her. Even tells her at some point that Annie will forget her mom and and the

younger sister can step in and be the mom. There's the the He makes claims such as that he he went and bought an engagement ring and was going to propose to Ronda on this trail from which she fell, and that was the reason they're up there on a rather nasty weather day. But there's there's no proof that he ever bought it. That they go to the jewelry store where he claims to have purchased this, and they said no, they were in here, but nobody ever bought anything.

So he's getting caught and lies for one thing, And why do you lie if if the truth serves you. He has the two sexual assault on minors cases, the one, of course we just talked about he ends up with the slap on the wrist because of the district attorney, and the other one is still being investigated this time. And so there's there's just a lot of you know, it's a it's a circumstantial case. There's you know, there

were no witnesses to when Ronda fell. Uh, there is a witness that Darty at this time is not yet aware of who was the search and rescue a guy who was the first with his partner, were the first to reach Ronda's body, and that they found there. We talked in the first first segment about how that did not match Nichol's story either. So she's just she's like any good investigator. You know, there's a point where you

use a chipping point, where you're convinced of something. And so now you've got to go see if you can put together a case and if you can present it

to somebody who will take this board. Darty by this time has talked to Stephen Nichols's former wife, who's told her that when they were living in Shanghai, at one point he attempted to first smother her and then tried to throw her off the balcony of an eight four balcony in Shanghai, kind of which, you know, you start putting things together of motus forenda, which is throws somebody off of a high h of a balcony or a

cliff or or whatever else. And then in his history of sexual assault and physical assault, particularly with women, and and so this just sets her off on quest number two, which is too you know, pursue. She's she's protected Annie, and and and even though Annie is still in the possession of Steve Nichols, which she's now trying to work on that custody Casey, the first custody lawyer, does not do a very good job and in fact doesn't do anything, is eventually disbarred as a results of this and some

other cases. But so they kind of they take on the custody case as well, even though Bob Barton now has kind of done his job and is backing out of it, but he he allows Darty to continue forward trying to put together the evidence needed for a murder case.

point nothing much comes of it yet. And once again that will be handled in book three and four, uh and in how that comes to uh to change over time and and some of the other things that happened during this period of time.

But the aunt and the grandmother said they receive a note from Ronda shortly before they leave for this hike thing he either wants to propose to me or shove me off a cliff. And that of course is just you know, day day, this is the day that she dies. That's sort of one of those you know, trust the sort of statements of of what what happens, you know, the uh, you know Nichols will come along later. Know

that you know they're lying about that. You know, there's because they don't have they don't didn't keep the text and uh, and so there's there's no proof of this. On the other hand, when you're looking at this as an investigator, the police go over to the house on the night Ronda dies, uh that they've been told she's dead. They go over there to to break the news, and without having any time to kind of come up with the story or make these sorts of things up, they

they make these statements. They make the statements about that there's a life insurance policy. Uh. The ant and the grandmother says, she told us he was either going to propose or throw her off the cliffs. So you know, if you don't realize the kind of timing of this, you could say, Okay, well, this is a upset, angry family. They came along later. Maybe they want the insurance money,

so they make up all these things. They didn't have time for that, they didn't have time to put their heads together and say, Okay, what you should say is this, and what you should say is that. So, you know, when you're building a circumstantial case, a good prosecutor has to be very aware of making sure the jury understands that that very thing is that there is no time here to come up with a this kind of a story with this kind of details.

Tom is from a very very wealthy man in the Bend area of Oregon, and he has some concerns because his daughter, who is going through a divorce, is is dating this guy that he and all their friends find kind of creepy. This guy, you know, he's he's got a young child now, uh, you know, a year and something years old, almost two. He's hanging around her daughter with his kind of money. You know, he checks out everything. So he has Tom to run a background check, and that,

of course becomes part of becomes book three. Sort of interesting.

Tom and I had met in nineteen eighty nine, I believe, when I was living in Oregon and the Oregon Department of Corrections head was murdered in a parking lot outside of the organ Department of Corrections building, and it became the police and prosecutors tried to paint this story that he'd been surprised by some burglar as he was getting into his car, but none of that added up, and a young man was arrested about a year after it happened.

And everything I've been doing up to that point, investigating who I'd probably written several hundred stories all told, maybe maybe not quite that many by this time. But I suddenly got a call from the defense investigator for the young man who had been arrested, and he wanted me to sit down with him and talk about how I found out what I'd found out, And at first I told him to bug off. I wasn't sharing anything with anybody.

And that happened for a couple of times, and finally this guy, Tom McCollum volunteered to buy me lunch, and as you know, all journalists will go for a free lunch, so we ended up meeting and uh and it became fast friends after that have done some different investigations together.

So when Tom got a call from this billionaire and this is the start of book three, UH, and Tom discovers that this guy, this creepy guy whose name is Stephen Nichols, just some domestic violence charges restraining orders against

him had it was possibly a suspect and a murder case. Obviously, this raises a bunch of red flags, and Tom decided he needed a little help on the investigations, so he called me and I drove out in January of twenty twelve and we started our investigation, which as you note parallels a lot of what Darty had done and is still doing at this time, though we are unaware of her for probably the next six months.

who don't want to read that way. In late February will probably be releasing the entire book or all four books combined into one. So if you'd rather wait until till then you can, or you can stay up with everybody else on what's going on in the case.

to the audience, I think. So I want to thank you very much for coming on and talking about Saving Annie. Book two The Investigator. Thank you very much, Steve Jackson. For those people that might not know about Wild Blue Press, can you just give us a little bit of information. I know many authors that have been on this program

are from the Wild Blue Press stable of authors. Tell us a little bit about Wild Blue Press and how they might look at your other work and the roster of fine authors Wild Blue Press.

to find our list of authors. We have some great true crime That is that this ball has just been one great book after another, and it's going to continue into the new year. We like to like to think that we're the leading publisher and true crime right now.

talking about saving Annie Book two The Investigator. You have a great evening. Thank you very much, Steve Jackson.