It was Halloween, back in 2006, just a few short months after 18 yr old Nikki Catsouras had graduated from high school. After being caught with a cigarette in the house, she and her parents got into an argument, and as a punishment, her father decided to take away her car keys. “Nikki broke a house rule, and we had a disagreement, and I took her car keys away" said Christos Catsouras, Nikki's father.
Later that day, after her father left, Nikki did something that her family says was completely “out of character” for her. Without permission, she grabbed the keys to her fathers Porsche 911 Carrera; not only a car that she had never driven before, but a car that is capable of accelerating from 0 to 60 mph in less than 5 seconds, and she left with it.
According to the state highway patrol, at
Nikki Catsouras was dead on impact.
Her mother and father, Lesli and Christos Catsouras, were completely devastated. Their beautiful 18 year old daughter was dead. Her body so badly disfigured in the accident, it was beyond recognition.
As Nikki’s parents grieved for the loss of their eldest daughter, their two younger daughter’s grieved as well, trying to cope with the reality of what happened to their older sister, whom they looked up to, and admired.
Before the family could even begin to figure out a way to move on from this tragic event, they were faced with something even more horrifying than they could've ever imagined…
Graphic photos of their daughter’s horrific accident had been leaked to the public, on the internet. Photographs that contained images of their daughter’s partially decapitated head had been plastered over thousands of websites for the world to see. At one point there were over 16,000 websites containing the graphic pictures, and people went as far as emailing pictures to the family, and even threatening to hang the pictures on the locker belonging to Nikki’s sister at school.
Christos Catsouras had even received an email, deliberately sent to him as a way to force him to see the pictures. It was sent to him by someone posing as a business lead, but when he opened it, it contained the graphic photos of his disfigured daughter, and along with it, a taunting message.
The family banned their two daughters from the internet, and had them pulled out of school, to home school them instead, in fear they would be shown the pictures.
The once beautiful and full of life Nikki Catsouras, is now known on the internet as the girl in photo, who they call "Porsche Girl".

