There was nothing in the record that showed where this request came from or why it had been sought. Before she left, she had slipped into her fathers workshop in the garage, writing Hi Dad, I love you, Kaye in neat cursive on a yellow legal pad for him to find later. In 1992 he was sentenced to five life terms in prison for the abduction and murder of Kaye Turner. The teens had managed to build a sordid social circle in their young lives, so investigators had plenty of violent men to consider. Source? 25 November 2021. He made a brief stop at the house he shared with his mother in Sweet Home, his hometown. John Arthur Ackroyd was an American murderer and suspected serial killer. When I outlined each days story, I focused on cliffhangers, kickers and which scenes could propel the narrative. There were no somber words from the bench about justice served, no deathbed confessions. How did it affect you and your colleagues? His confidants were a pair of child molesters serving long prison sentences. Didnt do anything to Kaye Jean Turner? McAnulty asked, his voice cool. The watch played a key role in helping to pin down when she was killed. It was just a hell of a story. Our Apps. His parents worked as a maintenance man . On one of our reporting trips along Highway 20, I spent the ride focused on the road, what he would have seen from his truck. Talking about some other people that are dead up in that area., Oh, said Ackroyd, now youre trying to lay some others on me?, No, Im just asking you, the detective said. I burned through so many leads before landing on this one. Then Rachanda Pickle, Ackroyd's 13-year-old stepdaughter, disappeared. During the course of my reporting, I heard several references to this infamous Cline Falls attack, which took place around the time of Marlenes rape and Kayes murder. My footnotes for this passage: Oregonian interview with Byron Pickle: They had paddles. Both reports are attached to this post. The nut graf is: One woman was raped, four others disappeared. The deputy ran at a steady pace, the thrum of the truck approaching her from behind. They assumed the two had gotten a ride from friends. I heard the river on one of those trips and took the liberty of saying he would have heard it too if his windows were rolled down. Constant references make Highway 20 a character in its own right? The style of the series is elliptical in that it leaves out information, such as dialogue, names of source and other details. Guilty. It lets the reader know that this could be an important turning point in the story. It wasnt far from where the teens remains were found. It is a very convoluted story with a blizzard of facts, dates, people, incidents, etc. A state police sergeant and a lieutenant from a local sheriffs office tracked down Marlene at home. Rachanda disappeared on July 10, 1990. Among the files were details from grand jury testimony, which included precise accounts of Kayes state of mind and the days and hours before and after her disappearance. Extraordinary because the court sealed the plea and effectively silenced Rachandas brother. I did not have any models in mind. A stranger had driven his pickup over two young women as they slept at Cline Falls State Park, less than an hour southeast of Camp Sherman. I spoke with his coworkers and friends. This is a crucial moment where Ackroyd is confronted with one of these crimes, in this case Rachandas disappearance. The others: Did you force her to have sex at knifepoint? Marlene started this series and it seemed fitting to end with her. Do investigators believe Ackroyd was responsible for these unsolved deaths? Marlene Gabrielsen, who survived her encounter with John Ackroyd, told us at one point how Ackroyd had dragged her from his truck. Over two decades, four women disappeared and one was raped along the same stretch of road in rural Oregon. John Arthur Ackroyd (October 3, 1949 - December 30, 2016) was an American murderer and suspected serial killer. At one point, Kelley Benham French was a consultant on the series. Did you assume readers would know what a Fireball is? Historical Person Search Search Search Results Results John Arthur Ackroyd (1892 - 1953) Try FREE for 14 days Try FREE for 14 days. Of course they remembered. What the heck happened to you? Laront asked. We encourage you to research and examine . Hooper's aunt in Wisconsin called him to share the details of the gruesome finds inside Gein's house, some of which he . I asked Marlene to describe what she saw and smelled when Ackroyd yanked her from the truck. Why did choose to organize by chronologically, by victim? Yet Ackroyd went on working for the state, responding to broken down cars, clearing wrecks and fixing state rigs along the highway, alone. I can hear him on the recording that the detective made. Laront and a coworker sat on seats salvaged from old vans, talking about the night ahead. His friends became sick at the sight and left. I wanted the reader to feel rooted in that time and place. The state didnt take the case to a grand jury. I also wanted to touch on the idea that this story served as a form of justice for Marlene. In 1986 he became the . Ackroyd led investigators into the brush, about a half-mile off the road where Kaye had gone running the previous winter. He said very little that day but thanked us for making the trip. If you had to characterize the way the system worked in the Rachanda Pickle case, what words would you use? His arrest was imminent. Ackroyd, going to Newport for work that day, encountered the teenagers somewhere along the highway and offered them a lift, just as he had in the past. We talked to grieving loved ones. Marlene flew out of the pickup, a blur moving toward the house. Harmon was more direct when he returned to the prison a second time. The familys kittens were curled up on the girls lap, he said. You handle time very effectively, jumping from minute to minute, day to day, month to month and year to year, eliding what came between without the reader feeling a sense of having missed something. Shed hung onto the damaged boots and showed them to the men. who said that they had a rocky childhood, and their father abused their mother to the point that she left the family. All these years later, the Turner trial would be the first step in bringing the killer to justice. Their bodies were found off a logging spur. How do we create a person's profile? He ripped off her jeans with such force, the pants split from the waist to the ankle along the inseam. When it snapped, he smacked her repeatedly with his open hand. When he got home, I explained the purpose of our visit, what the series would report and how it would include details about his wifes killing that would be upsetting. Over two decades, four women disappeared and one was raped along the same stretch of road in rural Oregon. This scene has a cinematic quality cops gathering on an empty road days before Christmas reenacting an abduction using a woman deputy and then deciding to give the story their own happy ending. The Oregonian/OregonLives five-part series on John Ackroyd details crimes that include sexual abuse, rape and murder. Account & Lists Returns & Orders. A father himself now, Byron gets a catch in his voice when he talks about it. Was the passage longer and, if so, how did you revise it? The district attorney delivered his decision on whether to prosecute. Four years after they started, Benson and Snow had strung together enough evidence to take the double murder to a grand jury. I wanted the story to be easy on the reader. How did you reconstruct the details included in this long section about Marlenes rape and the aftermath? A new prosecution would be too expensive. It was so essential to the chronology that the cash-strapped county that tried Ackroyd years later flew in a Timex exec from the East Coast to testify about the watch and its timekeeping. Highway workers told them the rivet was a common part they carried on the job. bridal shower wording sample for guests not invited to wedding; family life resurrection eggs story printable. They were investigating the killing of a young woman on an isolated stretch of road outside Sisters. www.opendialoguemediations.com. Pretty bleak. The focus seemed wrong. Melissas parents awoke to find the young women gone, their tent empty. This is a such a powerful, almost poetic detail. Im not sure what the reader gains from reading a detailed description of a rape. Great details, especially the belt. Ackroyds explanations of his encounter with her never added up, but detectives found no physical evidence directly tying him to the killing. Hed planned to fix snowplows but decided to take the day off after learning parts hadnt arrived, a claim that baffled his supervisor, who said there was plenty of work to keep Ackroyd busy. It was a real weight. I wanted the reader to feel rooted in that time and place. I never got a clear answer about why it was sealed or who made that request. I understood how painful it could be to have us revisit this traumatic time in his life so I respected his decision. How come he had all this blood on his hands?. Its also a testament to the human need to find answers and how these disappearances and Ackroyd himself affected people who knew there had to be a connection. I moved my desk next to Daves. We had multiple victims across a large swath of rural Oregon and crimes that covered a long period of time. But the work of discovery keeps you going as well as the realization (maybe anxiety) that you must make a fair and supportable case and do justice to the time involved, the expense and most of all, the material. 1946, in Atlanta, Georgia. You dont describe the rape, instead skipping over graphic details. John Arthur Ackroyd was an American murderer, rapist and most likely a serial killer. At the beginning of my reporting, I wrote a letter to Noel Turner, the husband of Kaye Turner who had disappeared on the Christmastime run. Kayes gold Timex watch with the vinyl band was there, too. Several thousand when all was said and done. Read "John Arthur Ackroyd, Serial Killer" by Ruth Canton available from Rakuten Kobo. Her hair was matted with sticks and dirt. At one point before the trials, investigators had returned to Camp Sherman to re-enact theories of what had happened. Others told the investigators that Ackroyd started hanging around the Sharis in Lebanon after he met the teens. It wasnt long before teenagers Melissa Sanders and Sheila Swanson disappeared from a camping trip to the coast. In that way, the story feels unresolved. A doctor identified bruising on her back, legs and knee. Marlene suspects it was rooted in their bias against Native Americans. Harmon wondered if time had softened the old highway worker. Pretty much all the details of the attacks and deaths are sickening in the series. I would describe it as unsatisfying and extraordinary. She spotted two young women she knew. An examiner asked a series of questions: Did she tell the truth about being raped? I relied on hundreds of pages of transcripts from police interviews with Ackroyd for some of these details. That may have also played a role in their response. They could prove only a single case Turners 1978 murder. Be a good girl. More than two years later, another set of investigators went looking for the police report detailing Marlenes account. Plus, in an era of smartphones, a Timex wrist watch gives readers the sense that this crime happened in another era. Why? And Marlene was the victim of police malpractice, which had lethal consequences. In our meetings early on, I filled every square inch of the board with dates, victims, themes, etc. It seems remarkable in hindsight that he managed to elude police despite such compelling circumstantial evidence and his rape a year earlier of another woman off Highway 20. He said her body was lying in the same wooded area where scraps of her clothing and bits of bone were found. We have found 138 people in the UK with the name John Ackroyd. How did you settle on this entry point to their story? You mentioned the watch earlier. He said he returned home to find his stepdaughter under a blanket on the couch. Was it difficult to have to summarize so much of the story when your reporting had turned up more than enough details to dramatize the action? In 1992, he was sentenced to five life terms in . We were in the car a lot, a lot of very long road trips. This story is complicated and confusing. Maybe thats why these are the cases that stuck with investigators. When the family returned to Sweet Home later that week, Melissa wasnt there. Its amazing how much serendipity plays a role in this story, isnt it? He has won the Whitbread Biography Award, the Royal . They were restless and broke, living an itinerant existence, drinking too much and keeping dangerous company. Her husband was abusive and she drifted from Ackroyd. Within weeks, Melissa and Sheila were dead. The body count tied to Ackroyd was now up to four. They wrote down his habit of taking time off around the disappearances, as hed done with Kaye and Rachanda. In the courtroom, she turned to face Ackroyd. You could, I assume, have used sources to describe this scene. Court and police files contained several references to Jane.