Lost Women of Highway 20 (2023) s01e01 Episode Script
Vanished
1
Her family
hasn't heard from her.
Authorities don't
have any new leads.
State police say
they're gonna continue searching
as long as necessary for her.
The girl's body was found just a
short distance after this growth.
If the police
would have listened to me.
None of this would
have ever happened.
I hear I'm the only
frickin' survivor!
In the wooded
heart of Central Oregon
there's a road that winds through
the pine-studded mountains,
Highway 20.
Picturesque and striking.
Many find comfort here.
But across three decades
hiding in plain sight
a predator
hunts this trail.
Some still think
of this monster,
dragging away the
innocent like prey,
from all that they knew.
But others think of the victims,
who they could have become
if anyone had stopped to listen,
to see them.
For only the woods,
their witnessed
all the lost women.
I'm a long-time
reporter in Oregon,
covering crime.
The editor of The Oregonian
came over to my desk one day
and said, "I have a story
I wanna talk to you about.
"It's about
a serial killer."
There's a cluster
of missing girl cases,
you know, unsolved
cases, cold cases,
on and around Highway 20,
a coast-to-coast highway.
It starts in Boston and
ends in Newport, Oregon.
It was very intriguing.
Who is this guy?
How have we never
heard about him?
And who are these women?
I thought, "Well,
I'm gonna start
"with the unsolved disappearance
"of this young girl,
Rachanda Pickle."
On July 10th,
13-year-old Rachanda Lea Pickle
disappeared from her home
near the State Highway
division maintenance complex
just west of Santiam Pass.
She was reported
missing on the 11th.
Santiam
Junction, I think the best way
to describe it would be
put five maybe six houses
with a few people living in
camp trailers out in
the middle of nowhere
and make a community out of it.
If someone wants to look on the
map, look at where Highway 20
and where Highway 22 meet,
and that's where the
Santiam Junction is.
We're probably about
23, maybe 26, miles
from Sisters, Oregon,
which was the nearest town.
Forty-five, to 48 miles
from Sweet Home,
where we went to
elementary school at.
My sister and I, we were
definitely close at a very young age.
We were up there at the
Junction, there was no one else.
It was us against the world.
And then, have you
seen one of these?
- It's been a long time.
- Yeah.
I was in, um, third grade,
when I met Rachanda
at school.
I remember that day.
She looked exactly
like Punky Brewster.
She did.
Literally the first day
on the playground I've seen her,
we clicked.
Before the word
diva, I would express her now
definitely as a diva, as somebody
who was into the latest fashion
pop music and stuff.
Hair
style never changed.
It was always in a little floof,
dangly earrings,
the '90s bangs, um
the bigger they are,
the better they are.
And goofy.
She was funny.
I mean she was
like, truly, truly funny.
She was just a goofball.
She would
make me laugh until I cried.
And she'll do
another little thing
and set me off again.
Start laughing my butt off.
She could be friends
with anybody at school.
Being so little and
just having such that
presence about her, you know
Excuse me.
On July 10th, I remember
getting a call from my mom, you know,
"Hey, has Rachanda
gotten ahold of you?
"Well, she's missing."
I'm like, "Well, did
you look for the note?"
'Cause we'd always leave notes and stuff,
ju if, you know around in the case that
Mom or my stepfather,
John, came home.
"No, there's no note."
I'm like, "Did you go
look for her BB gun?
"Maybe she's out
shooting her BB gun."
"No, her BB gun's here."
So, it it just
didn't make sense.
I was trying to
rationalize stuff, you know.
I knew that she wouldn't go
off in the woods alone by herself
Rachanda found the woods
very scary and intimidating.
'Cause the Junction is out
in the middle of nowhere.
And then I was like, "Well,
did you call the cops?"
"They say we got
to wait 24 hours."
The morning of July 11th
is when my mom called
the law enforcement.
My aunt Linda
married Steve Pickle
and she had two kids with him,
Rachanda and Byron.
There's a picture
there of my mom
with my dad Steve, with me,
and I'm, you know, I'm looking
at them now, and I'm like,
"My gosh, you
guys were babies,
"having babies." I mean
Holey-moley, they
were just so young.
My mom had to be either
18 or 19 in the picture
and my dad had to
be 20 or 21, maybe.
They definitely did
not get along well.
I mean, my parents, both of them
were very vindictive
to each other.
As kids, we were definitely
used as their little pawns.
And of course, my mom
would always remind me
how much I did look
like my dad, Steve, so.
They got divorced.
Linda was struggling to
make it on one income.
I think I was seven years old,
when my mom and
John first got together.
John was a mechanic
for the State
Highway Department.
We grew up there in
the Sweet Home area.
John was my favorite uncle.
John would actually
make you feel
special.
My 16th birthday, John
and I, we went to Arby's,
and I must have had four
roast beef and cheddars.
After that, we
went to the drive-in
And he gave me $50.
That was really nice.
A fun fun day.
My mom asked my sister and I
to come talk with her and John.
And they asked what we think
about moving to the Junction.
And at that point, I was like,
"This is getting serious."
Rachanda was six,
I think, when
Linda married John.
Linda ended up
quitting her second job
'cause John was so well off.
From where we
were at to where he was at,
I mean, it was believed
some balance financially.
I remember the first
time that he pulled $5
out of his wallet and handed us,
I was like That
was the most cash
I've ever had in my
hands at that point in time.
I felt like, I mean
That might as well
have been a Benjamin.
Some of the people in the family
couldn't even
read or write well.
And then you have this guy
who graduated high school
He had a great career,
a previous military guy.
This guy was my dad.
Taught me how to hunt.
Taught me how to fish.
Actually spent time with me
Definitely heavy-handed,
but he was a good dad.
You know, my dad,
Steve, wasn't around.
I knew who he was,
but really didn't get
to know who he was.
It was 1990, during
the spring time.
I'm 14, Rachanda is 13.
I can't remember if I came up
with it or it was Rachanda's idea, ,
we wanted to get know
our biological father.
We called up, my grandmother
on the phone,
with the pay phone,
put the quarter in and
called her and said,
"Hey, I wanted to go spend
the summer with my dad.
"Do you have his phone
number, so I can give him a call?"
My mom was like,
"Absolutely not.
"Why would you even
wanna go see that guy?"
I really wanted to
know who he was
so I could form my own opinion.
My dad came and picked
us up from the Junction.
We had the windows open,
you know, standing by and stuff.
And my stepfather,
John, came up.
Looked at me, put
his finger right at me.
He's like, "You
remember what I told you."
I was like, "Yeah, I
remember what you told me."
Never to leave my
sister Rachanda alone
with our biological
father, Steve Pickle.
Members of my
family kept their distance
at an arm's length from Steven.
You give Steve an
inch, he'll take a mile.
And that's saying it loosely.
We drove to Medford.
Big change from
Santiam Junction.
Steve was living in a
manufactured home park.
But the awesome thing about
it was it had the tennis court,
it had the basketball court,
it had the swimming pool.
Had tons of kids to play with
and stuff that were our own age.
We ended up having a blast.
There was a big field with
that tall grass and stuff.
So we were gonna go play hide and
seek with a bunch of other boys and girls.
But my dad thought it was a
ruse, you know, to go have sex.
That's
taking a big jump, man.
Looking back, I think my dad
had some mental illness problems.
Everything was sexual with
my dad. Everything was sexual.
That was not even
a thought to me.
Having sex at
that point, I just
You know, they were just kids.
Then he started
screaming at Rachanda,
which made her cry.
I mean, you got your biological
father basically calling you a whore.
And she was like,
"I wanna go home."
She never wanted to
see Steve Pickle again.
My sister went back.
And I stayed there.
In Medford,
with my dad, Steve.
'Cause I figured it was just
only about a week or two
and then we were gonna
see each other again.
I wanted to give her a hug but she
was already in the back of the truck
and I didn't wanna call
her back out of there.
Rachanda came back because her dad
was asking her inappropriate innuendos.
And I said, "Like what?"
And she said, "I don't
wanna talk about it."
My aunt married a pedophile.
She didn't know.
I never said anything
about the sexual assault
from
Steve Pickle.
But it happened
numerous times.
I didn't say anything because
who would believe a little girl?
Well, that next morning,
Linda came down
to pick up Rachanda.
And she took Rachanda
up to the Santiam junction.
I waved at her.
And I told her, "I will
see you next weekend."
We were
in a foster home.
And we were
summoned into the house.
And detectives were asking
if we'd heard from Rachanda.
Your friend
Rachanda's gone missing.
I'm like, "What?"
Like, it just It was like
a kick in the stomach.
I'm like, "Missing? What
do you mean missing?"
"Do you know where she is?"
"Have you guys had
any contact with her?"
We're like, "No."
They thought we might
have something to do with it
because we ran away so much.
Maybe that she'd
found her way to us.
"Do you think
she could have run away?"
"No, she's not gonna run away."
Where was she gonna go?
She lived in the
middle of a mountain.
There's nowhere to go.
We knew something
must have happened to her.
I get quiet
until, you know, I cross
over the mountain limits.
It's just a dark place
along Highway 20.
Rachanda has
been missing for 24 hours.
Her disappearance
spurs people to action.
They just hope
it isn't too late.
The day she goes missing,
Rachanda had been at home
with her mom and
stepdad, John Ackroyd.
Linda and John
had left to go work.
Byron was not home at the time.
Rachanda
is told by her mother
"Please, you know,
empty the dishwasher,
"vacuum, and take out the
frozen hot dogs for dinner."
John picked up Linda.
And they came back home.
And Rachanda was not home.
They started getting a little bit
concerned about 10:00, that night.
They believed that they had to
wait 24 hours to report her missing,
so they waited until
the next day to call.
You're just going through
all those basic who, what,
where, when, why, how questions.
"Did she have any
friends in the area?"
"Was she unhappy?"
You wanna kinda check out
what the general
family dynamic is.
She's a young girl. I'm
a dad of four daughters.
When I looked at the
pictures of her bedroom,
nothing was missing.
Her brush, all of her, you
know, hygiene products,
were still in the room.
If a 13-year-old's gonna
run away from home,
she's gonna take
her stuff with her.
Her mom,
Linda, was also convinced
she didn't run away from
her home in Santiam Junction.
Rachanda is a very
responsible little girl.
She wouldn't go
wandering out by herself.
Usually, if she goes off
it's with her brother, Byron.
Byron turns to
his father, Steven Pickle,
and says, "I gotta
go back there.
"You know, we
gotta go look for her."
And the father is like, "No, we're
gonna see how this plays out."
And, you know, Byron, all of 14,
is like, "No, I'm
not gonna do that."
You know, "Something is wrong."
The search
area covers 50 square miles
of rugged, wooded country
near the Hoodoo Ski Area.
This morning, search
and rescue teams
from seven different
counties were here,
to find the teenager.
Everybody was convening
at the shop office.
And some were all like, "Well, I
mean, where should we go look?
"We should start searching."
There is umpteen
million people searching
John was the head
of the search team.
He was telling all the
searchers where to go.
If anybody knows this area,
Ackroyd knows this area.
Stand forward!
John was the greatest
resource that we had.
This was in his backyard.
John knew those woods very well.
Probably one of the
most extensive searches
in Linn County history.
We're gonna go
up to the end of the road,
Linn County is gonna take one
side, we're gonna take the other.
About 10-15 feet apart.
Then we'll come back down here.
There was
multiple agencies.
Multiple man hours
searching for her.
Everywhere.
My mom was convinced
that somebody kidnapped Rachanda.
Somebody parked on the
highway and came down,
see Rachanda, chance of
opportunity, snagged her.
And that was the only
thing that did make sense.
People were accusing others
over the disappearance
of Rachanda.
Yeah, if you're out there,
Rachanda, at least call your mother.
Let 'em know you're alive.
We love you and
miss you very much.
The family situation
wasn't good.
It was a very
dysfunctional situation.
So, we go talk to John
and he's emotionally distraught.
I see tears up in his eyes.
And the first thing that
comes out of his mouth is,
"I'mma kill the son of
a bitch who did this."
As they
search for Rachanda,
Hope turns to resignation.
What they don't know is,
that the rot is more
than a decade old.
Just a few miles away,
in Camp Sherman,
the monster has taken another.
It was a summer's day.
And I was down here,
working at the store.
The news was on.
She's been
missing for a week now.
Her family hasn't
heard from her,
authorities don't
have any new leads.
So, searchers are
resigned to the fact
that they aren't going to
find any good news here.
I wasn't really
paying attention.
And then, on the news on TV,
I hear this voice saying that,
"I was the last one
to see her alive."
Same tone, same
inflection, same everything.
And I thought, "Holy smoke.
"I know that voice."
And it's just like
Christmas Eve of '78.
And I hollered at Chrissy, I said,
"That son-of-a-bitch did it again."
She went for a jog.
Kaye Turner never returned.
When I said,
you know, to Chrissy,
"The son-of-a-bitch
did it again,"
I was angry.
We knew the guy that did it
because everybody
knew about the murder,
back in '78.
Because he got away with it.
So
Camp Sherman is a
vacation-type resort community,
along Highway 20.
We came in '78.
Such an idyllic spot.
I mean, it's almost
rainbows and unicorns.
I mean, it's that
perfect a place.
The type that
there's just one store.
Back then, we were the pulse if
you need to know what's going on.
And when people were lonely,
or had cabin fever,
they'd head to the store.
So, we see everybody.
So, the penny candy's
always been here.
The folks that had the store
before us had penny candy,
we have penny candy.
Now these are charge accounts.
Most all of these are
summer home people.
But there are locals, too.
And when they'll come
for a weekend, or a week,
rather than pay each
time, we run a tab.
Who else does charge
accounts anymore?
The store was a gathering point.
It's just a perfect
place to grow up,
perfect place to
raise your family.
You know, and up until
the incident, super safe.
You know, so
Christmas
Eve morning, 1978.
35-year-old Kaye
turner of Eugene
was vacationing in this cabin
at Camp Sherman, Oregon.
She went for a jog on this road.
Kaye Turner never returned.
Christmas Eve started
out foggy and cold.
And then the sun came
out and it was super warm.
So, I got up, we
opened the store.
I just walked through and
Chrissy's talking to this guy.
And I came in and she
said, "Did you find her yet?"
And he said, "No."
And I said The way
he said "no", I said
I asked him, "So, what
kind of dog did you lose?"
And he said, "
no, I lost my wife."
I said
"Whoa!"
"When'd you last see her?"
He said, "
between 8:00 and 8:30."
I said, "My God."
He was from Eugene,
he was new to the area.
Didn't really know anybody here.
We didn't have a search and
rescue team in Camp Sherman, at all.
We just never had to have one.
So, I said, "Well, let
me just take a drive."
I just hopped in the Reagan,
made a quick loop,
expecting to find a gal
with an injured ankle.
I never once
suspected foul play.
It never even entered my mind.
This is Camp Sherman.
Nobody dies in Camp Sherman.
Her
husband, Noel, called.
And then And it was
a short conversation.
He wanted to know
if Kaye would be likely, when
we were running together,
to head off into the trees.
"She always stayed on the road.
"She never went bounding off
"into the trees.
"If she went out to run
and she hasn't come back,
"somebody's grabbed her."
I'm sure those were
almost my exact words.
I think, by the time we hung up,
I was already crying.
I called
Jefferson County.
Just told 'em we
had a missing jogger.
And, you know,
"What should we do?"
'Cause we never had
that happen before.
And they said, "Well, get some
people together, we'll be right over."
"Okay."
To kinda show
what community it is,
I made three
calls or four calls,
and yet 15 or 20
four-wheel drives
were in my parking
lot in 20 minutes.
Christmas Eve.
Some people left
diner to come right over.
There was no law enforcement
in Camp Sherman, at the time.
Because the
statistics, the crimes,
didn't add up
We wasted an
hour or so of daylight.
But we were told to wait.
And so they got here and they said,
"Okay, so what do you want us to do?
"We'll just fan out
and drive the roads."
We could have
done that in daylight.
Kaye!
We went until about I think
about 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning.
So, it was Yeah, it was
a difficult Difficult time.
The next day, my husband and I
went up and participated in the search.
I remember calling out her name.
Now wanting to find
what we were looking for.
You didn't wanna find a body.
But at the same
time, you wanted to.
So, it was just
push-pull.
It was so surreal.
The police set
up a command center
in the restaurant
across the river.
At that time,
I remember thinking
everything was so disorganized.
People were just
taking off in the woods.
And every woods looks the same.
It was just chaos.
I stayed away from the
command center, completely.
Because it was chaos.
And it wasn't even organized
chaos. It was just a mess.
"Well, let's do this."
"Well, I know she
must be there."
It was like this, you know.
It was nuts.
Well, the initial thinking
of the initial deputies
who were on that scene,
is that Noel, Kaye
Turner's husband,
did her in and just
dumped her in the woods.
As far as
they were concerned,
the husband was the
last person to see her,
there were signs that the
marriage was on the rocks.
And they spent a lot
of time not searching for her
but questioning him,
expecting he would crack.
They thought that he's come
out to some small community
to do his dirty work.
Figuring that nobody'd
catch him that way.
I met Kaye in college.
We both finished school in 1966.
And decided we
would we'd get married.
We moved to, Eugene.
Kaye grew as a person
as she transitioned from
having taught high school
into becoming
an interim director
of the Planned Parenthood
facility in Eugene.
We met because she was the
director of Planned Parenthood.
And I was in charge of
family planning for the county.
So we worked closely together.
Everybody knew who Kaye
Turner was, it seemed like.
You know, she was independent.
She was a feminist.
As though she cared
But she didn't act like she
cared what other people thought.
She had kind of a Princess
Diana quality about her.
She was like a butterfly
when she kind of
I'm coming up
with all these things.
I never thought of
her that way, but
people really were
attracted to her.
Eugene was really the center of
this new movement around running.
And she was infected by that.
It was almost like
a lifestyle to her.
She was running in in
marathons, in races, and
was really a serious runner.
Nike had just come out with
its first running show for women.
And she had a pair.
Kaye and I
ran, the two of us, a lot.
I didn't think I could ever run
on my own, without stopping.
And she did.
So, i decided, "Well, if
she can do it, I can do it."
She was my mentor, I guess.
We were real busy in
our respective work environments.
There were
There were areas where we
should have communicated better
with one another instead
of maybe assuming
that we were on the same page.
Investigators find, in
her office, her calendar.
Which showed that Kaye had
relationships outside of her marriage.
It was a surprise to Noel
when investigators told him.
He was aware that
she was unhappy.
But unaware that she was, um
You know, that she was seeing
men outside of their of their marriage.
And they asked me
if I'd take a polygraph test.
I didn't have any
qualms about doing it.
But it was not a a
comfortable experience.
I mean, I guess
they have to do that
'cause it's always the
husband and the wife
or the
He's so unlike
I don't know what the
typical killer is, but
You know, Noel is one of the
gentlest men I've ever known.
He passed.
There was nothing that linked
him to his wife's disappearance.
And the case just kind of didn't
really Didn't really go anywhere.
Not only had no suspect emerged,
they still had no idea what
had happened to Kaye.
It was like she just vanished.
Sometime in the
week after Christmas,
it was a feeling of hopelessness
for everybody that was
participating in it to
to come to that conclusion.
That they'd
gone over that
area as much as they
thought they
could have. Um
When you've You
know, you gotta
You gotta stop
stop doing this at some point.
And
And so
And I I don't remember
who said talked to me.
And they said
"Until you leave
"none of these people
are gonna leave."
So, then
Then shortly after that,
I said, "Well, I gotta go home."
Months pass.
There are no suspects.
You got the sense
from the friends
that there was this
kind of frustration
about the scope and
scale of the search.
This area was
searched once before, wasn't it?
Parts of it was.
And other parts weren't
searched hard enough.
And we wanna see We
wanna look at it another time.
We were getting frustrated 'cause we
know something must have happened.
So, we thought about a reward
to kinda jumpstart
the situation.
Kaye's friends
put up a $1,000 reward.
Thinking that the suspect would
come out to claim this reward.
And that's exactly
what happened.
A few months later,
I'm doing something in the back.
Chrissy says, "Gary,
there's a guy at the counter
"that wants to use the phones.
"Says that he found
some clothes in the woods."
And I said, "Okay."
So I went out.
He says, "I was out
rabbit-hunting with my dog,
"and I found some
clothes in the woods."
Well, that's a red flag to me
'cause there's really no rabbits here.
And he says, "Well, I found a pair
of short, a shirt and a sweatshirt."
And I say, "You know what?
Probably not our jogger.
"She didn't have a sweatshirt."
And he just looked at me.
He didn't say a word,
he just looked at me.
So I called the State Police.
And I said, "Hey, we got a guy
here that found some clothing."
"He says, "I wonder if I
get any reward for this."
And I say something
like, "Well, it's just clothes,
"you know. No."
So I'm filling up this
propane tank behind the store,
and Chrissy comes back
and tells me, "Gary, this
guy just told me he was
"the last one to see
Kaye Turner alive."
So I didn't even talk to him.
I went back to the phone, I
called the cops and I said,
"Would it make any
difference to you folks
"if I told you he just said he
was the last one to see her alive."
They said, "We're
sending more people."
Boom.
Who says something like that?
The guy that killed her.
Right?
The last one to see her alive.
If a tree falls in
the woods, an no one hears it,
does it make a sound?
The real question is
What does it mean to exist?
To be seen?
If the tree is a woman,
like Kaye Turner,
and she screams,
does her voice matter?
Sometimes, a fallen tree can
tell the story of what happened.
But it can also be a warning
of what will happen again.
And in 1990, Santiam Junction,
that is exactly the case
with Rachanda Pickle.
Even with
all the manpower,
authorities say there is just
too much ground to cover here.
They think Rachanda
met with foul play
Her family hasn't
heard from her.
Authorities don't
have any new leads.
So, searchers are
resigned to the fact
that they aren't going to
find any good news here.
It was horrible,
knowing how she'd
get homesick, you know.
And how dependent
she was upon my mom.
I knew
I knew something bad happened.
As bad as it sounds, I was hoping she
got kidnapped and we would find her.
You are hoping for
the best, like, "She's lost."
But mentally, a detective's preparing
himself for worst-case scenario.
Especially if we don't find
the child within 48 hours.
Especially up in the woods
The statistics
show that 88% of the time
the victim knows
their assailant.
So, you look at people
closest around someone
when they disappear.
Sometimes it may
be offensive to parents
when we ask some of
the questions we have
but, you know, the parents
were the last one to see 'em.
We gotta ask certain questions
to rule them out and move on,
or to other people.
We interviewed many people,
including Rachanda's
mother, Linda Ackroyd.
I felt like
Linda was just
laying out what she knew.
And she was very
pen and forthright.
I don't think she
was lying about it.
I think she just really
didn't know what happened.
Some people
in the family thought
maybe Steven
Pickle was to blame.
We know, from court records,
he had sexually
abused another child.
Children are not
safe in his care.
His own daughter didn't
feel safe in his care.
Well, that's kind of what I thought
Rachanda was running away from.
He was not in the area during the
time in which Rachanda went missing.
He was in Medford,
a long ways away,
with his son.
But John could not
account for his time.
Well, she thought that I did
something to Channy
I loved Chandy.
I did not do nothin' to Channy.
oakislandtk
Her family
hasn't heard from her.
Authorities don't
have any new leads.
State police say
they're gonna continue searching
as long as necessary for her.
The girl's body was found just a
short distance after this growth.
If the police
would have listened to me.
None of this would
have ever happened.
I hear I'm the only
frickin' survivor!
In the wooded
heart of Central Oregon
there's a road that winds through
the pine-studded mountains,
Highway 20.
Picturesque and striking.
Many find comfort here.
But across three decades
hiding in plain sight
a predator
hunts this trail.
Some still think
of this monster,
dragging away the
innocent like prey,
from all that they knew.
But others think of the victims,
who they could have become
if anyone had stopped to listen,
to see them.
For only the woods,
their witnessed
all the lost women.
I'm a long-time
reporter in Oregon,
covering crime.
The editor of The Oregonian
came over to my desk one day
and said, "I have a story
I wanna talk to you about.
"It's about
a serial killer."
There's a cluster
of missing girl cases,
you know, unsolved
cases, cold cases,
on and around Highway 20,
a coast-to-coast highway.
It starts in Boston and
ends in Newport, Oregon.
It was very intriguing.
Who is this guy?
How have we never
heard about him?
And who are these women?
I thought, "Well,
I'm gonna start
"with the unsolved disappearance
"of this young girl,
Rachanda Pickle."
On July 10th,
13-year-old Rachanda Lea Pickle
disappeared from her home
near the State Highway
division maintenance complex
just west of Santiam Pass.
She was reported
missing on the 11th.
Santiam
Junction, I think the best way
to describe it would be
put five maybe six houses
with a few people living in
camp trailers out in
the middle of nowhere
and make a community out of it.
If someone wants to look on the
map, look at where Highway 20
and where Highway 22 meet,
and that's where the
Santiam Junction is.
We're probably about
23, maybe 26, miles
from Sisters, Oregon,
which was the nearest town.
Forty-five, to 48 miles
from Sweet Home,
where we went to
elementary school at.
My sister and I, we were
definitely close at a very young age.
We were up there at the
Junction, there was no one else.
It was us against the world.
And then, have you
seen one of these?
- It's been a long time.
- Yeah.
I was in, um, third grade,
when I met Rachanda
at school.
I remember that day.
She looked exactly
like Punky Brewster.
She did.
Literally the first day
on the playground I've seen her,
we clicked.
Before the word
diva, I would express her now
definitely as a diva, as somebody
who was into the latest fashion
pop music and stuff.
Hair
style never changed.
It was always in a little floof,
dangly earrings,
the '90s bangs, um
the bigger they are,
the better they are.
And goofy.
She was funny.
I mean she was
like, truly, truly funny.
She was just a goofball.
She would
make me laugh until I cried.
And she'll do
another little thing
and set me off again.
Start laughing my butt off.
She could be friends
with anybody at school.
Being so little and
just having such that
presence about her, you know
Excuse me.
On July 10th, I remember
getting a call from my mom, you know,
"Hey, has Rachanda
gotten ahold of you?
"Well, she's missing."
I'm like, "Well, did
you look for the note?"
'Cause we'd always leave notes and stuff,
ju if, you know around in the case that
Mom or my stepfather,
John, came home.
"No, there's no note."
I'm like, "Did you go
look for her BB gun?
"Maybe she's out
shooting her BB gun."
"No, her BB gun's here."
So, it it just
didn't make sense.
I was trying to
rationalize stuff, you know.
I knew that she wouldn't go
off in the woods alone by herself
Rachanda found the woods
very scary and intimidating.
'Cause the Junction is out
in the middle of nowhere.
And then I was like, "Well,
did you call the cops?"
"They say we got
to wait 24 hours."
The morning of July 11th
is when my mom called
the law enforcement.
My aunt Linda
married Steve Pickle
and she had two kids with him,
Rachanda and Byron.
There's a picture
there of my mom
with my dad Steve, with me,
and I'm, you know, I'm looking
at them now, and I'm like,
"My gosh, you
guys were babies,
"having babies." I mean
Holey-moley, they
were just so young.
My mom had to be either
18 or 19 in the picture
and my dad had to
be 20 or 21, maybe.
They definitely did
not get along well.
I mean, my parents, both of them
were very vindictive
to each other.
As kids, we were definitely
used as their little pawns.
And of course, my mom
would always remind me
how much I did look
like my dad, Steve, so.
They got divorced.
Linda was struggling to
make it on one income.
I think I was seven years old,
when my mom and
John first got together.
John was a mechanic
for the State
Highway Department.
We grew up there in
the Sweet Home area.
John was my favorite uncle.
John would actually
make you feel
special.
My 16th birthday, John
and I, we went to Arby's,
and I must have had four
roast beef and cheddars.
After that, we
went to the drive-in
And he gave me $50.
That was really nice.
A fun fun day.
My mom asked my sister and I
to come talk with her and John.
And they asked what we think
about moving to the Junction.
And at that point, I was like,
"This is getting serious."
Rachanda was six,
I think, when
Linda married John.
Linda ended up
quitting her second job
'cause John was so well off.
From where we
were at to where he was at,
I mean, it was believed
some balance financially.
I remember the first
time that he pulled $5
out of his wallet and handed us,
I was like That
was the most cash
I've ever had in my
hands at that point in time.
I felt like, I mean
That might as well
have been a Benjamin.
Some of the people in the family
couldn't even
read or write well.
And then you have this guy
who graduated high school
He had a great career,
a previous military guy.
This guy was my dad.
Taught me how to hunt.
Taught me how to fish.
Actually spent time with me
Definitely heavy-handed,
but he was a good dad.
You know, my dad,
Steve, wasn't around.
I knew who he was,
but really didn't get
to know who he was.
It was 1990, during
the spring time.
I'm 14, Rachanda is 13.
I can't remember if I came up
with it or it was Rachanda's idea, ,
we wanted to get know
our biological father.
We called up, my grandmother
on the phone,
with the pay phone,
put the quarter in and
called her and said,
"Hey, I wanted to go spend
the summer with my dad.
"Do you have his phone
number, so I can give him a call?"
My mom was like,
"Absolutely not.
"Why would you even
wanna go see that guy?"
I really wanted to
know who he was
so I could form my own opinion.
My dad came and picked
us up from the Junction.
We had the windows open,
you know, standing by and stuff.
And my stepfather,
John, came up.
Looked at me, put
his finger right at me.
He's like, "You
remember what I told you."
I was like, "Yeah, I
remember what you told me."
Never to leave my
sister Rachanda alone
with our biological
father, Steve Pickle.
Members of my
family kept their distance
at an arm's length from Steven.
You give Steve an
inch, he'll take a mile.
And that's saying it loosely.
We drove to Medford.
Big change from
Santiam Junction.
Steve was living in a
manufactured home park.
But the awesome thing about
it was it had the tennis court,
it had the basketball court,
it had the swimming pool.
Had tons of kids to play with
and stuff that were our own age.
We ended up having a blast.
There was a big field with
that tall grass and stuff.
So we were gonna go play hide and
seek with a bunch of other boys and girls.
But my dad thought it was a
ruse, you know, to go have sex.
That's
taking a big jump, man.
Looking back, I think my dad
had some mental illness problems.
Everything was sexual with
my dad. Everything was sexual.
That was not even
a thought to me.
Having sex at
that point, I just
You know, they were just kids.
Then he started
screaming at Rachanda,
which made her cry.
I mean, you got your biological
father basically calling you a whore.
And she was like,
"I wanna go home."
She never wanted to
see Steve Pickle again.
My sister went back.
And I stayed there.
In Medford,
with my dad, Steve.
'Cause I figured it was just
only about a week or two
and then we were gonna
see each other again.
I wanted to give her a hug but she
was already in the back of the truck
and I didn't wanna call
her back out of there.
Rachanda came back because her dad
was asking her inappropriate innuendos.
And I said, "Like what?"
And she said, "I don't
wanna talk about it."
My aunt married a pedophile.
She didn't know.
I never said anything
about the sexual assault
from
Steve Pickle.
But it happened
numerous times.
I didn't say anything because
who would believe a little girl?
Well, that next morning,
Linda came down
to pick up Rachanda.
And she took Rachanda
up to the Santiam junction.
I waved at her.
And I told her, "I will
see you next weekend."
We were
in a foster home.
And we were
summoned into the house.
And detectives were asking
if we'd heard from Rachanda.
Your friend
Rachanda's gone missing.
I'm like, "What?"
Like, it just It was like
a kick in the stomach.
I'm like, "Missing? What
do you mean missing?"
"Do you know where she is?"
"Have you guys had
any contact with her?"
We're like, "No."
They thought we might
have something to do with it
because we ran away so much.
Maybe that she'd
found her way to us.
"Do you think
she could have run away?"
"No, she's not gonna run away."
Where was she gonna go?
She lived in the
middle of a mountain.
There's nowhere to go.
We knew something
must have happened to her.
I get quiet
until, you know, I cross
over the mountain limits.
It's just a dark place
along Highway 20.
Rachanda has
been missing for 24 hours.
Her disappearance
spurs people to action.
They just hope
it isn't too late.
The day she goes missing,
Rachanda had been at home
with her mom and
stepdad, John Ackroyd.
Linda and John
had left to go work.
Byron was not home at the time.
Rachanda
is told by her mother
"Please, you know,
empty the dishwasher,
"vacuum, and take out the
frozen hot dogs for dinner."
John picked up Linda.
And they came back home.
And Rachanda was not home.
They started getting a little bit
concerned about 10:00, that night.
They believed that they had to
wait 24 hours to report her missing,
so they waited until
the next day to call.
You're just going through
all those basic who, what,
where, when, why, how questions.
"Did she have any
friends in the area?"
"Was she unhappy?"
You wanna kinda check out
what the general
family dynamic is.
She's a young girl. I'm
a dad of four daughters.
When I looked at the
pictures of her bedroom,
nothing was missing.
Her brush, all of her, you
know, hygiene products,
were still in the room.
If a 13-year-old's gonna
run away from home,
she's gonna take
her stuff with her.
Her mom,
Linda, was also convinced
she didn't run away from
her home in Santiam Junction.
Rachanda is a very
responsible little girl.
She wouldn't go
wandering out by herself.
Usually, if she goes off
it's with her brother, Byron.
Byron turns to
his father, Steven Pickle,
and says, "I gotta
go back there.
"You know, we
gotta go look for her."
And the father is like, "No, we're
gonna see how this plays out."
And, you know, Byron, all of 14,
is like, "No, I'm
not gonna do that."
You know, "Something is wrong."
The search
area covers 50 square miles
of rugged, wooded country
near the Hoodoo Ski Area.
This morning, search
and rescue teams
from seven different
counties were here,
to find the teenager.
Everybody was convening
at the shop office.
And some were all like, "Well, I
mean, where should we go look?
"We should start searching."
There is umpteen
million people searching
John was the head
of the search team.
He was telling all the
searchers where to go.
If anybody knows this area,
Ackroyd knows this area.
Stand forward!
John was the greatest
resource that we had.
This was in his backyard.
John knew those woods very well.
Probably one of the
most extensive searches
in Linn County history.
We're gonna go
up to the end of the road,
Linn County is gonna take one
side, we're gonna take the other.
About 10-15 feet apart.
Then we'll come back down here.
There was
multiple agencies.
Multiple man hours
searching for her.
Everywhere.
My mom was convinced
that somebody kidnapped Rachanda.
Somebody parked on the
highway and came down,
see Rachanda, chance of
opportunity, snagged her.
And that was the only
thing that did make sense.
People were accusing others
over the disappearance
of Rachanda.
Yeah, if you're out there,
Rachanda, at least call your mother.
Let 'em know you're alive.
We love you and
miss you very much.
The family situation
wasn't good.
It was a very
dysfunctional situation.
So, we go talk to John
and he's emotionally distraught.
I see tears up in his eyes.
And the first thing that
comes out of his mouth is,
"I'mma kill the son of
a bitch who did this."
As they
search for Rachanda,
Hope turns to resignation.
What they don't know is,
that the rot is more
than a decade old.
Just a few miles away,
in Camp Sherman,
the monster has taken another.
It was a summer's day.
And I was down here,
working at the store.
The news was on.
She's been
missing for a week now.
Her family hasn't
heard from her,
authorities don't
have any new leads.
So, searchers are
resigned to the fact
that they aren't going to
find any good news here.
I wasn't really
paying attention.
And then, on the news on TV,
I hear this voice saying that,
"I was the last one
to see her alive."
Same tone, same
inflection, same everything.
And I thought, "Holy smoke.
"I know that voice."
And it's just like
Christmas Eve of '78.
And I hollered at Chrissy, I said,
"That son-of-a-bitch did it again."
She went for a jog.
Kaye Turner never returned.
When I said,
you know, to Chrissy,
"The son-of-a-bitch
did it again,"
I was angry.
We knew the guy that did it
because everybody
knew about the murder,
back in '78.
Because he got away with it.
So
Camp Sherman is a
vacation-type resort community,
along Highway 20.
We came in '78.
Such an idyllic spot.
I mean, it's almost
rainbows and unicorns.
I mean, it's that
perfect a place.
The type that
there's just one store.
Back then, we were the pulse if
you need to know what's going on.
And when people were lonely,
or had cabin fever,
they'd head to the store.
So, we see everybody.
So, the penny candy's
always been here.
The folks that had the store
before us had penny candy,
we have penny candy.
Now these are charge accounts.
Most all of these are
summer home people.
But there are locals, too.
And when they'll come
for a weekend, or a week,
rather than pay each
time, we run a tab.
Who else does charge
accounts anymore?
The store was a gathering point.
It's just a perfect
place to grow up,
perfect place to
raise your family.
You know, and up until
the incident, super safe.
You know, so
Christmas
Eve morning, 1978.
35-year-old Kaye
turner of Eugene
was vacationing in this cabin
at Camp Sherman, Oregon.
She went for a jog on this road.
Kaye Turner never returned.
Christmas Eve started
out foggy and cold.
And then the sun came
out and it was super warm.
So, I got up, we
opened the store.
I just walked through and
Chrissy's talking to this guy.
And I came in and she
said, "Did you find her yet?"
And he said, "No."
And I said The way
he said "no", I said
I asked him, "So, what
kind of dog did you lose?"
And he said, "
no, I lost my wife."
I said
"Whoa!"
"When'd you last see her?"
He said, "
between 8:00 and 8:30."
I said, "My God."
He was from Eugene,
he was new to the area.
Didn't really know anybody here.
We didn't have a search and
rescue team in Camp Sherman, at all.
We just never had to have one.
So, I said, "Well, let
me just take a drive."
I just hopped in the Reagan,
made a quick loop,
expecting to find a gal
with an injured ankle.
I never once
suspected foul play.
It never even entered my mind.
This is Camp Sherman.
Nobody dies in Camp Sherman.
Her
husband, Noel, called.
And then And it was
a short conversation.
He wanted to know
if Kaye would be likely, when
we were running together,
to head off into the trees.
"She always stayed on the road.
"She never went bounding off
"into the trees.
"If she went out to run
and she hasn't come back,
"somebody's grabbed her."
I'm sure those were
almost my exact words.
I think, by the time we hung up,
I was already crying.
I called
Jefferson County.
Just told 'em we
had a missing jogger.
And, you know,
"What should we do?"
'Cause we never had
that happen before.
And they said, "Well, get some
people together, we'll be right over."
"Okay."
To kinda show
what community it is,
I made three
calls or four calls,
and yet 15 or 20
four-wheel drives
were in my parking
lot in 20 minutes.
Christmas Eve.
Some people left
diner to come right over.
There was no law enforcement
in Camp Sherman, at the time.
Because the
statistics, the crimes,
didn't add up
We wasted an
hour or so of daylight.
But we were told to wait.
And so they got here and they said,
"Okay, so what do you want us to do?
"We'll just fan out
and drive the roads."
We could have
done that in daylight.
Kaye!
We went until about I think
about 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning.
So, it was Yeah, it was
a difficult Difficult time.
The next day, my husband and I
went up and participated in the search.
I remember calling out her name.
Now wanting to find
what we were looking for.
You didn't wanna find a body.
But at the same
time, you wanted to.
So, it was just
push-pull.
It was so surreal.
The police set
up a command center
in the restaurant
across the river.
At that time,
I remember thinking
everything was so disorganized.
People were just
taking off in the woods.
And every woods looks the same.
It was just chaos.
I stayed away from the
command center, completely.
Because it was chaos.
And it wasn't even organized
chaos. It was just a mess.
"Well, let's do this."
"Well, I know she
must be there."
It was like this, you know.
It was nuts.
Well, the initial thinking
of the initial deputies
who were on that scene,
is that Noel, Kaye
Turner's husband,
did her in and just
dumped her in the woods.
As far as
they were concerned,
the husband was the
last person to see her,
there were signs that the
marriage was on the rocks.
And they spent a lot
of time not searching for her
but questioning him,
expecting he would crack.
They thought that he's come
out to some small community
to do his dirty work.
Figuring that nobody'd
catch him that way.
I met Kaye in college.
We both finished school in 1966.
And decided we
would we'd get married.
We moved to, Eugene.
Kaye grew as a person
as she transitioned from
having taught high school
into becoming
an interim director
of the Planned Parenthood
facility in Eugene.
We met because she was the
director of Planned Parenthood.
And I was in charge of
family planning for the county.
So we worked closely together.
Everybody knew who Kaye
Turner was, it seemed like.
You know, she was independent.
She was a feminist.
As though she cared
But she didn't act like she
cared what other people thought.
She had kind of a Princess
Diana quality about her.
She was like a butterfly
when she kind of
I'm coming up
with all these things.
I never thought of
her that way, but
people really were
attracted to her.
Eugene was really the center of
this new movement around running.
And she was infected by that.
It was almost like
a lifestyle to her.
She was running in in
marathons, in races, and
was really a serious runner.
Nike had just come out with
its first running show for women.
And she had a pair.
Kaye and I
ran, the two of us, a lot.
I didn't think I could ever run
on my own, without stopping.
And she did.
So, i decided, "Well, if
she can do it, I can do it."
She was my mentor, I guess.
We were real busy in
our respective work environments.
There were
There were areas where we
should have communicated better
with one another instead
of maybe assuming
that we were on the same page.
Investigators find, in
her office, her calendar.
Which showed that Kaye had
relationships outside of her marriage.
It was a surprise to Noel
when investigators told him.
He was aware that
she was unhappy.
But unaware that she was, um
You know, that she was seeing
men outside of their of their marriage.
And they asked me
if I'd take a polygraph test.
I didn't have any
qualms about doing it.
But it was not a a
comfortable experience.
I mean, I guess
they have to do that
'cause it's always the
husband and the wife
or the
He's so unlike
I don't know what the
typical killer is, but
You know, Noel is one of the
gentlest men I've ever known.
He passed.
There was nothing that linked
him to his wife's disappearance.
And the case just kind of didn't
really Didn't really go anywhere.
Not only had no suspect emerged,
they still had no idea what
had happened to Kaye.
It was like she just vanished.
Sometime in the
week after Christmas,
it was a feeling of hopelessness
for everybody that was
participating in it to
to come to that conclusion.
That they'd
gone over that
area as much as they
thought they
could have. Um
When you've You
know, you gotta
You gotta stop
stop doing this at some point.
And
And so
And I I don't remember
who said talked to me.
And they said
"Until you leave
"none of these people
are gonna leave."
So, then
Then shortly after that,
I said, "Well, I gotta go home."
Months pass.
There are no suspects.
You got the sense
from the friends
that there was this
kind of frustration
about the scope and
scale of the search.
This area was
searched once before, wasn't it?
Parts of it was.
And other parts weren't
searched hard enough.
And we wanna see We
wanna look at it another time.
We were getting frustrated 'cause we
know something must have happened.
So, we thought about a reward
to kinda jumpstart
the situation.
Kaye's friends
put up a $1,000 reward.
Thinking that the suspect would
come out to claim this reward.
And that's exactly
what happened.
A few months later,
I'm doing something in the back.
Chrissy says, "Gary,
there's a guy at the counter
"that wants to use the phones.
"Says that he found
some clothes in the woods."
And I said, "Okay."
So I went out.
He says, "I was out
rabbit-hunting with my dog,
"and I found some
clothes in the woods."
Well, that's a red flag to me
'cause there's really no rabbits here.
And he says, "Well, I found a pair
of short, a shirt and a sweatshirt."
And I say, "You know what?
Probably not our jogger.
"She didn't have a sweatshirt."
And he just looked at me.
He didn't say a word,
he just looked at me.
So I called the State Police.
And I said, "Hey, we got a guy
here that found some clothing."
"He says, "I wonder if I
get any reward for this."
And I say something
like, "Well, it's just clothes,
"you know. No."
So I'm filling up this
propane tank behind the store,
and Chrissy comes back
and tells me, "Gary, this
guy just told me he was
"the last one to see
Kaye Turner alive."
So I didn't even talk to him.
I went back to the phone, I
called the cops and I said,
"Would it make any
difference to you folks
"if I told you he just said he
was the last one to see her alive."
They said, "We're
sending more people."
Boom.
Who says something like that?
The guy that killed her.
Right?
The last one to see her alive.
If a tree falls in
the woods, an no one hears it,
does it make a sound?
The real question is
What does it mean to exist?
To be seen?
If the tree is a woman,
like Kaye Turner,
and she screams,
does her voice matter?
Sometimes, a fallen tree can
tell the story of what happened.
But it can also be a warning
of what will happen again.
And in 1990, Santiam Junction,
that is exactly the case
with Rachanda Pickle.
Even with
all the manpower,
authorities say there is just
too much ground to cover here.
They think Rachanda
met with foul play
Her family hasn't
heard from her.
Authorities don't
have any new leads.
So, searchers are
resigned to the fact
that they aren't going to
find any good news here.
It was horrible,
knowing how she'd
get homesick, you know.
And how dependent
she was upon my mom.
I knew
I knew something bad happened.
As bad as it sounds, I was hoping she
got kidnapped and we would find her.
You are hoping for
the best, like, "She's lost."
But mentally, a detective's preparing
himself for worst-case scenario.
Especially if we don't find
the child within 48 hours.
Especially up in the woods
The statistics
show that 88% of the time
the victim knows
their assailant.
So, you look at people
closest around someone
when they disappear.
Sometimes it may
be offensive to parents
when we ask some of
the questions we have
but, you know, the parents
were the last one to see 'em.
We gotta ask certain questions
to rule them out and move on,
or to other people.
We interviewed many people,
including Rachanda's
mother, Linda Ackroyd.
I felt like
Linda was just
laying out what she knew.
And she was very
pen and forthright.
I don't think she
was lying about it.
I think she just really
didn't know what happened.
Some people
in the family thought
maybe Steven
Pickle was to blame.
We know, from court records,
he had sexually
abused another child.
Children are not
safe in his care.
His own daughter didn't
feel safe in his care.
Well, that's kind of what I thought
Rachanda was running away from.
He was not in the area during the
time in which Rachanda went missing.
He was in Medford,
a long ways away,
with his son.
But John could not
account for his time.
Well, she thought that I did
something to Channy
I loved Chandy.
I did not do nothin' to Channy.
oakislandtk