Lost Women of Highway 20 (2023) s01e02 Episode Script
Hidden in Plain Sight
1
Rachanda Pickle
is still missing.
Friends and family
scramble for answers.
What really happened that day?
How did it happen?
Only the one who took her
knew the truth.
And, of course, the trees.
The trees always saw
the monster's deception.
John goes to work.
Comes back early.
Which, in and of itself,
is not unusual.
But it's It's a flag.
Why would he come home early?
He talks to Rachanda.
He leaves.
He comes back, she's gone.
He's not too worried about her
even though he doesn't
see her anywhere.
The location.
Those things are flags.
And as the afternoon
and the evening wears on,
there's still no concern,
that's gonna be a flag.
The whole thing seems very odd.
No one is calling 911
on a 13-year-old child,
you know,
in this rugged environment,
who rarely strayed from home.
Then this development happens
that really stood out
to investigators.
On the day of his
stepdaughter's disappearance,
he is all over Linda.
And then, when asked by police,
"Well, how was it?"
He goes on to
describe this encounter.
Anybody that's
been a parent knows
the gut-wrenching feeling
when your kids
are five minutes late
let alone
You come home, they're not
there and you can't find them.
That being said, before
she is reported missing,
that night, they had the
nest sex of their married life.
Detectives were suspicious
'cause in other cases,
men may have difficulty
getting an erection
unless they are committing
an act of violence.
Sweet Home, is, you
know, right there in the foothills.
And so there's green trees,
and beautiful mountains
and it's just like this picturesque
little quaint, small town.
Some days it can be,
like, idyllic and sunny
and you look out, and you're
like, "It's so beautiful here."
It looks so pretty to the eye.
But the spirit is not pretty.
I remember thinking,
"Sweet Home?
"There's nothing
sweet about this place."
There's a lot of hidden
secrets inside that town.
I remember talking
to the officers.
I remember telling them,
you know, "We know who did this.
"We know what happened."
One day, when
Rachanda's nine or ten,
she started coming to school with
real, real apparent signs of abuse.
She was not doing
her hair as much,
which was a big deal before.
She was anxious.
Not smiling as much.
And just sad.
And, like, I do remember,
she had a black eye
and she had a little
cut under her eye.
She would,
literally, count down the hours.
There'd be two
Exactly two hours
before we'd have to go home.
She was like, "My gosh.
"Two hours and
we're going home."
And I'm like, "I know."
'Cause I didn't
wanna go home either.
Well, my stepdad
was very physically,
emotionally abusive,
sexually abusive.
And that's that was our life.
I mean, it's
not like I asked Rachanda,
"Are you being
molested?" You know.
I just remember, she
taps me on the shoulder,
and she said, um
"You know what you told me
that happened to you and Mandy?"
And I said, "Yeah?"
She's like, "Well,
that's happening to me."
Her stepdad, John Ackroyd,
was coming in to her room.
I think that is what
brought out a lot of our talks
and just knowing that we
all felt like we're going to hell.
I remember one night,
I'm 14, Rachanda's 13.
My mom was gone. I think she
was staying down at Sweet Home.
And it was just John
Rachanda and me.
And I don't even know
how I woke up but woke up.
And there was John in
Rachanda's bedroom,
kneeling down on
the side of her bed
and Rachanda's there in bed
and it was weird, I'm
like, "What's going on?"
Allegedly, John heard
Rachanda, you know,
possibly having a nightmare.
Screaming, "Mom,
no!" And went in there.
And I thought that was weird.
So when I asked
Rachanda, "What's going on?"
She "I don't wanna
talk about it." I'm like
"'Chanda, what's going on?"
One day, Rachanda told an adult
a trusted person,
what was happening.
And we were like, "Good
for you, Rachanda. Good for you."
But she honestly
She never said anything,
what happened after that.
I also had
confided in the same adult
about what was
happening in our home.
And I remember just saying,
"I'm tired of getting beat
up. I'm tire of getting hit.
"I'm tired of my stepdad
coming into our room."
And I remember, in my heart,
I felt like I was at
the end of a tunnel
I knew the police
officers were coming.
We were gonna be saved.
And then, this trusted person,
is like, "They didn't really feel
like you were telling the truth.
So they're not They're
not gonna do anything.
And I left it at that.
And so, when Rachanda
went and told them,
I felt, in my heart,
that nothing happened.
That they ignored her.
And she
was really, really scared.
Because she told
about the abuse.
So she was scared
on what John Ackroyd
might do.
It requires so much
for a child to come forward.
And then, for that, to be
treated with indifference
is deeply upsetting.
Clearly, there was a culture that
allowed men not to be held accountable.
Sexual abuse and
rape, at the time,
was not investigated
and treated the way
it is by police today.
While we were out
searching in the woods, for Rachanda,
I was one of the people that
was assigned to be with John.
And he would talk about
things that were so strange.
Talking about, like, his daughter's
Stepdaughter's breast size.
And what she's wearing.
And about her period.
We kept talking about
Rachanda in the past tense.
Not the present.
Then, when we decided to
change on to some other subject,
that's when he started talking
about about Kaye Turner.
It's about August.
So it would've been eight months
after Kaye Turner went missing.
This guy comes into the store.
And says that he found
some clothes in the woods.
I remember it really vividly.
It's etched there
because it was strange.
He just said he was the
last one to see her alive.
I didn't know at the time.
That was Ackroyd.
John Ackroyd goes
to the Camp Sherman store
and says, "I found the
missing jogger's clothing."
Then he says, "Why
did I have to find her?
"I was the last one
to see her alive."
It's an alarming statement.
And he would later say,
he was the last person to see
his stepdaughter, Rachanda, alive.
Ackroyd brought me here.
This was kind of a thicket.
So, from the road,
you couldn't see in here.
This area right here, is
where the clothes were.
They were just put there,
which was odd.
These clothes appeared
to be on top of the pine needles.
Investigators
would later surmise
that he had placed
these things there.
He didn't say
much. He seemed exited.
Like he Like he got
excited seeing these clothes.
Minutes after that, big police
showed up, the real guys.
We went and searched the area.
We found a lower jaw bone.
Couple of bones.
Ad it was determined
it was Kaye Turner.
While I was waiting by the
road, talking to the store owner,
John Ackroyd came up.
I didn't know him.
Hadn't really
talked to him before.
When Kaye Turner vanished,
on Christmas Eve, 1978,
police set up a roadblock.
Um, they began to look
for potential suspects.
John Ackroyd's name
had emerged early on
because he had been seen
by another highway worker
who knew John from work.
When Ackroyd's name came up,
we interviewed him
about Kaye Turner.
He said he did see her.
On January 11th,
John Ackroyd is interviewed.
John Ackroyd is treated as
nothing more than a witness.
John was just a good,
old boy. A local guy.
He liked to hunt, fish,
do things outdoors.
Police did seem to be
particularly interested in
following up with
him as a suspect.
Eight months after Kaye
Turner has gone missing,
Kaye's friends put
up a $1,000 reward.
And then, out of nowhere
John Ackroyd claims he's
found these clothing in the woods.
As soon as I found out
Ackroyd had
found these articles,
I had a I had a suspicion
that John Ackroyd was
Knew more than
he was telling us
and asked him to
take a polygraph.
Well, he failed the polygraph.
I was a detective sergeant.
And a lieutenant for the Oregon
State Police had come to my office,
asking me if I
knew John Ackroyd.
And I said, "Yeah,
for a fact, I do."
I said, "I kinda
grew up with him."
And I knew his mother.
We'd been in the same
community all our lives.
And he said, "Well
"He's had something to do
with that Kaye Turner thing."
And I said, "How
do you know that?"
He said, "I polygraphed
him and he's dirty."
1958-'59 school year.
That was at Pleasant Valley.
I knew John Ackroyd because
we went to school from
From the first grade
to the 12th grade.
We were never close friends.
He was
quiet.
Kind of a loner type.
I never really knew him
to have much
association with anybody.
I remember an incident
in in the sixth grade.
There were a
couple of little rabbits
that lived right there,
where we got off the bus.
And one day, John set
one of those rabbits on fire.
Somebody said, "John,
you set that rabbit on fire!"
And the rabbit
was scurried off.
And he just kinda had
a grin on his face, like
He was proud of what he'd done.
I thought, you know, "Why?"
I was raised that you don't
hurt anything or kill anything
unless you're gonna
eat it, you know.
You didn't go shooting
deer just for the horns,
you know, unless
you needed the meat.
You just You just
didn't kill anything.
After Kaye Turner
came up missing,
I reached out to
the investigators.
From the standpoint that
I thought that it might
be a little more difficult
for John to avoid
pertinent questions with me
than a total stranger.
Because I knew John's mom.
We worked together, in law
enforcement, in the late '70s.
At that time, there was only
one police officer in Sweet Home
on the graveyard
shift, and that was me.
And she was the dispatcher.
I'd quite often ask
her about John.
You know, as what
we had to talk about.
Some of the police officers
came to interview me.
I was really disappointed
on how they perceived me.
They asked me questions
that were totally inappropriate.
I don't think they had ever had
that type of investigation, before.
And at that time, I
ended the conversation,
I said, "We have
nothing to talk about."
At the time of
Turner's disappearance,
law enforcement weren't
necessarily in the habit
of collaborating and sharing.
And we're talking about a
rural law enforcement agency.
Me, in the Jefferson
County Sheriff's office.
And we're talking about,
you know, a small community,
and the Oregon State Police.
And there's not email. No one's
sending these reports to one another.
Small town politics.
Law enforcement doesn't share
a lot of information with other
Unless it's a
need-to-know basis.
After Ackroyd finds Kaye
Turner's clothing in the woods,
his story begins to shift.
After he failed the polygraph,
I interviewed him in my office.
And he denied
everything except
He said that he talked to her.
He discloses
that he spoke with Kaye.
That they actually had
a brief conversation.
They exchanged
holiday greetings.
And it's all very
charming and cordial.
The polygraph asked
if he'd ever touched Kaye Turner.
And he said no.
But the polygraph
showed that he did.
So we ask him about
not touching her.
And he said, well, he
did touch her in February,
when she was laying
on top of the snow.
That's be two months
after she disappeared.
There were three feet of
snow in February that year.
She couldn't have
been on top of the snow.
What he ends up
admitting acknowledging is that
he find a decomposing
body in the woods,
and that he stops and
touches these remains
and then does not tell anyone
despite knowing about the extensive
search and investigation for Kaye.
His disclosure is disturbing.
Because it's
It's very graphic.
He says that he saw a
body lying next to a large log.
That he was repulsed
by what he saw.
That he had seen her
neck had been slashed.
And that it appeared she had
a bullet wound in her chest.
So, suggesting how
she had been killed.
You know, she had been cut or
stabbed and then she had been shot.
Another element emerges
in this crucial Oregon
State Police interview.
And that is that John
Ackroyd was not alone.
He was with his
friend, Roger Dale Beck.
So, police go interview
Roger and Roger's wife, Pam.
Pam Beck provided an alibi for
Roger Beck and John Ackroyd.
According to Pam, Ackroyd arrived at
their house on Christmas Eve morning.
And Ackroyd and Beck
did not go out that day.
There are all of
these troubling signs
that implicate Ackroyd in
the murder of Kaye Turner
But there is actually
no physical evidence.
There's no eyewitness.
There's no clarity.
That Ackroyd was involved.
We had no evidence to hold him
so we let him go.
The woods witnessed
exactly what John had done.
Helpless, they
watched him walk free,
to hide once more.
Justice failed.
What else would happen
before he stopped?
It was very important to Durr
that we keep the spirit
of Kaye Turner alive.
He even checked me
up before I made a drive
to the top of Santiam Pass,
introduced me to
John, personally.
To look at him,
you wouldn't think
he was the smartest
person in the world.
But John was clever.
Clayton Durr told me this is
the guy that killed Kaye Turner.
He says, "You need
to know this guy
"because this'll happen
again sometime."
And the next time we
came across John Ackroyd,
his stepdaughter
shows up as missing.
And John's back in
the spotlight again.
For me, as a
journalist on the story,
you're asking questions,
"Well, who is this guy?"
I thought, "Well,
I'm gonna dig in
"to the big file cabinet."
Buried among all that
was this slim set of reports
that showed Ackroyd had
had this violent encounter
with a stranger,
a year before Kaye
Turner's murder.
It was an incredibly important
moment in the timeline
of Ackroyd's criminal exploits.
This woman, she had not talked
about this since it happened.
John Ackroyd
could have been stopped.
If the police would
have listened to me,
none of this would
have ever happened.
I'm never gonna forget about
what happened that night.
Every time I wash I can
never get him out of my mind,
I can never get that dirt off.
I still can't, and I'm 66.
There was times I'd wake up in
the middle of the night, screaming.
And flailing, and throwing
punches and kicking.
I gave my husband
a black eye once.
It was always
right there with me.
It was like he was
on my shoulders.
Like i was carrying
him on my shoulders
but no one could see
him or feel him but me.
My husband Bill and
I, we went to the rodeo.
And got all dressed up.
We used to wear, you
know, cutoff work pants
and gym pants,
you know, to take care
of a baby, all day long.
And it was the first time I had
on a pair of jeans, real nice.
Looking good and smelling sweet.
And I had these boots on
that I waited for a very long time
and my husband did without
to buy me those boots, for me.
We got there and that's
when I started drinking beers.
And Though they
really hit me fast
'cause I hadn't been
drinking since What?
Eight months and then nine
months. It had been over a year.
We had some food and
then some people came over.
"Bill, I heard you were
over." Some buddies of his.
"Let's go to this bar."
I can't go in a bar.
I was 19.
You have to be 21 in Oregon
to get in a bar and drink.
So, I got angry.
"No, we came here, you and me,
"first time we've been
out since, you know"
But he hadn't seen his buddies
in so long and blah-blah-blah.
So, I said, "Fine,
I'm going home."
I was always
used to hitchhiking.
In Oregon, back in those days,
you didn't have to
really worry about it.
So I went to Highway 20
and I stuck my thumb out.
And lo and behold, the first
ride I got was John Ackroyd.
He pulls over and I
run up to the truck.
And I opened the door and I
kinda glanced at the door like this,
and got all the
way in and shut it.
Then I looked at the little knob
that you push up and down for
the lock, and there wasn't any.
By that time, he was off
on Highway 20, driving.
I passed out and
I went to sleep.
Just before dusk, I feel
my feet being grabbed
and he was dragging me out
by my feet o the passenger side
And my head hit every from
the seat to the car truck floor,
and to the outside
edge of the truck,
the door, and then, all
of a sudden, the ground.
And I I tried to te to
scream. I couldn't scream.
He even put the
knife to my throat.
And it hurt. 'Cause he pressed.
And he says, "You're gonna do every
thing I tell you to do, aren't ya?"
And I go, "Yes, sir.
"What do you want? Anything
I'll do anything you want.
"Just don't hurt me."
He took my pants by the
front of them, belt and all
and just ripped all the
way down to the boots.
And then he got pissed 'cause
he couldn't get 'em further
so he took a knife and
he cut my boots off.
I wanted my baby
to have a mother,
I had to stay alive for her.
That's all I pictured in my
head, was her little bald head.
Perfectly round.
Afterwards, I was,
like, in a fetal position
'cause I was in pain.
And he was, like,
you know, um
zipping up his pants.
Straightening up his
jacket and shirt and stuff.
And I go And he looked at me and
he goes, "Now what do I do with you?"
I said, "Take me home."
I was just being nice to him
because I wanted to
go back to my baby.
I had John Ackroyd drop me off
at Bill's mom's house.
So, I'm knocking, knocking.
And that's when
she came to the door
and I go, "I've just been
raped, he raped me!
"Please call the police."
The police came over
and they took a report.
After they did that, I left
and went to the hospital
and did the rape kit.
And then they ask me if I
would submit to a lie-detector
and I go, "Yeah, I'll do it."
Because I know I
was telling the truth.
They asked if I egged him on.
If I, you know, came on
to him, you know, sexually.
Was I flirting with
him, you know?
"Do you do drugs, Marlene?"
"How much were you
drinking?" "That much?"
The police made
me feel like a liar.
Why would a mother
of a little, tiny baby
that's breastfeeding lie
lie about a rape?
His explanation was
Marlene, she had come onto him.
And he just kind
of submitted to her.
And that, apparently,
made sense to the detective.
I felt stupid.
They made me feel stupid.
Little woman, brown woman, don't
know what she was talking about.
They made me feel
like it was my fault.
They questioned him.
Didn't prosecute him
or even arrest him.
They believed him and not me.
How does that fly?
After that
incident with John Ackroyd,
I was so scared
so paranoid that he was gonna
come back and finish me off.
'Cause I You
know, I told on him.
That's how I got insomnia.
I'd get up, two or three
time, in the middle of the night
check every single
lock, every single door.
He got away with it.
If he would have
been held accountable,
you know, it could have
had a chilling effect on him.
He would have been known as
someone with a rape conviction.
Sometimes I almost wish
that he would have killed me
but I don't do that anymore.
Especially after I found
out that 13-year-old girl.
Really? A child?
It's just heartbreaking.
Marlene
tried, but no one listened.
Her pleas were silenced.
The monster was allowed
to continue hunting.
Getting bolder.
My family, in general,
was close with John, you know.
My grandmother
loved John. Loved John,
In her eyes, he was
the perfect son-in-law.
My grandmother died thinking
John was completely innocent.
That the law and
everybody in the State
was just against John, just
trying to destroy the family.
When you're around a family, you know,
a lot of people are high school dropouts.
And then you have this guy that appears
to have all of his together.
And he wants to come
and be a part of the family
and marry, you know, their
daughter, which is my mom.
They all felt like
it was a step up.
They didn't wanna let go of
that The happy ever after, kinda.
Well, for me,
'cause I was sexually assaulted
throughout most of my childhood
by older men
John was one of the very
few that never abused me.
So, to me, that was a win,
I felt comfortable and safe
whenever John was around.
I mean, I didn't like the
spankings and beatings that we got.
I definitely knew
that wasn't normal.
I knew that wasn't normal.
I knew that my other friends,
that I went to school with,
didn't suffer the crap
that me and my sister did.
This was a hellish existence
for Rachanda and her brother.
Ackroyd disclosed
in one police interview
that he had made a paddle that he
would use to discipline Rachanda.
He was a good liar.
He was truly two
different people.
I never saw the John
that Linda and the
kids had to live with.
When Rachanda went missing,
he was just like a
good old boy, you know.
"I'm just here to help."
John would come up with these
theories on what a guy would do.
With John, it was always
an another person.
"A guy would do this."
And, "A guy would do that."
I was convinced he was
demonstrating to me what he'd done.
When he talked
about tying her up,
there was a search done
of the house and his truck
and there was rope
with Rachanda's hair
in the back f John's truck.
He talked about holding her down
which was indicating
that she was
struggling, yet still alive.
And there was blood
found on the bedspread
near the front
door of the house.
The woods have
a way of getting darker,
entombing secrets.
Secrets John hopes
will never see the light.
John was a Jekyll
and Hyde kind of person.
He's Hyde when he was my uncle.
Somebody I can count on.
When he was doing bad things,
that's Jekyll.
But one time, I was
with John, in his truck.
It was a while after
Rachanda came out missing.
And he decided to go
off on some side road.
It was all brushy and secluded.
The bushes came right up
to the door, on both sides.
It was that dense.
And he said to me,
"You know, you could hide a body in
here and nobody would ever find it."
I said, "Yeah, you
can. Can't you?"
And he said, "Yeah. Do
you have to go potty?"
And I said, "No, I'm good."
And I had to go
really, really bad.
But something told me
to stay near the truck.
I watched him as he went
straight down to the left
and then, I couldn't
see him anymore.
I was terrified.
And I've never been
afraid of John, like that.
At the time, I wasn't aware
that John was capable of murder.
I just blocked it
out of my mind.
But you can bet
your sweet bottom
if I would have
gotten out of that truck,
he would have killed me.
When Rachanda came up missing,
a week went by,
two weeks, three weeks.
Now it was
She ain't coming back.
I need to know
where my sister is.
This is what you guys are
You guys are supposed to be
the good guys helping us out.
Help us out.
Let me know what's going on.
This is my sister.
This is my blood.
This is my best
friend, you know.
Where is she?
The monster is free.
And they are no closer
to finding Rachanda.
We searched for
Rachanda everywhere.
And we couldn't find her.
The evidence, the
blood spots and the rope,
were problematic for us
because she lived there.
There are many ways
that she could have bled.
She could have cut herself.
She could have had a nosebleed.
We didn't have any DNA evidence
to tie John directly to it.
It was very clear to all of us
that he had taken her life.
But we didn't have a body.
At that point in time, they would
not prosecute without a body.
You've gotta be able to prove
that she met with foul play
and she was killed.
If you can't prove your case,
You can't go try him again.
They're done. And you lost.
And they're out there, free.
Everything kinda just
went back to normal.
It was over pretty fast.
The searches were over
before school even started.
Being that
young and feeling helpless
The beginning of seventh
grade was horrible.
Because she wasn't there.
All I know is
that my sister's gone
and my family's destroyed.
It's done. game over.
Here we are, in the
world, by yourself.
I'd give up everything. Even
if that meant my last breath.
Just to let her know
that I love her. i miss her.
They sense, as with Kaye Turner,
Rachanda's life
had come to an end.
John Ackroyd remains unscathed
and enjoys his freedom.
After Rachanda went missing,
I don't think anybody
suspected John Ackroyd
capable of doing
anything like that.
A lot of the guys were
like, "There's no way."
And then we started hearing
that he actually had been
the main suspect in
Kaye Turner's murder
and he found Kaye's body.
I think everybody up
there was shocked.
You just think back. How
many times have you seen him?
How many times
have you talked to him?
How many times
when you're with him
in the maintenance
shop at night?
We didn't want him up there
anymore. We weren't comfortable.
Our only phone on the
compound, that was available to us,
was one phone up in the
wash-house in the trailer shed.
We kept telling the police we spend
a lot of time alone here, as women.
They got quite
a bit of pressure.
So they moved him.
And we were
thankful to see him go.
John Ackroyd was transferred
from the Santiam junction
to Corvallis,
Highway Department.
And I said, "That's nuts!
"That's a college
town full of girls!
"That's crazy!"
But I wasn't in control.
When we heard that
John had been moved
to the Highway
Department in Corvallis,
we were like, "Holy,
who's thinking that one through?"
We need to truly get this
guy before he kills again.
Nobody wants to have a
serial killer in their backyard.
oakislandtk
Rachanda Pickle
is still missing.
Friends and family
scramble for answers.
What really happened that day?
How did it happen?
Only the one who took her
knew the truth.
And, of course, the trees.
The trees always saw
the monster's deception.
John goes to work.
Comes back early.
Which, in and of itself,
is not unusual.
But it's It's a flag.
Why would he come home early?
He talks to Rachanda.
He leaves.
He comes back, she's gone.
He's not too worried about her
even though he doesn't
see her anywhere.
The location.
Those things are flags.
And as the afternoon
and the evening wears on,
there's still no concern,
that's gonna be a flag.
The whole thing seems very odd.
No one is calling 911
on a 13-year-old child,
you know,
in this rugged environment,
who rarely strayed from home.
Then this development happens
that really stood out
to investigators.
On the day of his
stepdaughter's disappearance,
he is all over Linda.
And then, when asked by police,
"Well, how was it?"
He goes on to
describe this encounter.
Anybody that's
been a parent knows
the gut-wrenching feeling
when your kids
are five minutes late
let alone
You come home, they're not
there and you can't find them.
That being said, before
she is reported missing,
that night, they had the
nest sex of their married life.
Detectives were suspicious
'cause in other cases,
men may have difficulty
getting an erection
unless they are committing
an act of violence.
Sweet Home, is, you
know, right there in the foothills.
And so there's green trees,
and beautiful mountains
and it's just like this picturesque
little quaint, small town.
Some days it can be,
like, idyllic and sunny
and you look out, and you're
like, "It's so beautiful here."
It looks so pretty to the eye.
But the spirit is not pretty.
I remember thinking,
"Sweet Home?
"There's nothing
sweet about this place."
There's a lot of hidden
secrets inside that town.
I remember talking
to the officers.
I remember telling them,
you know, "We know who did this.
"We know what happened."
One day, when
Rachanda's nine or ten,
she started coming to school with
real, real apparent signs of abuse.
She was not doing
her hair as much,
which was a big deal before.
She was anxious.
Not smiling as much.
And just sad.
And, like, I do remember,
she had a black eye
and she had a little
cut under her eye.
She would,
literally, count down the hours.
There'd be two
Exactly two hours
before we'd have to go home.
She was like, "My gosh.
"Two hours and
we're going home."
And I'm like, "I know."
'Cause I didn't
wanna go home either.
Well, my stepdad
was very physically,
emotionally abusive,
sexually abusive.
And that's that was our life.
I mean, it's
not like I asked Rachanda,
"Are you being
molested?" You know.
I just remember, she
taps me on the shoulder,
and she said, um
"You know what you told me
that happened to you and Mandy?"
And I said, "Yeah?"
She's like, "Well,
that's happening to me."
Her stepdad, John Ackroyd,
was coming in to her room.
I think that is what
brought out a lot of our talks
and just knowing that we
all felt like we're going to hell.
I remember one night,
I'm 14, Rachanda's 13.
My mom was gone. I think she
was staying down at Sweet Home.
And it was just John
Rachanda and me.
And I don't even know
how I woke up but woke up.
And there was John in
Rachanda's bedroom,
kneeling down on
the side of her bed
and Rachanda's there in bed
and it was weird, I'm
like, "What's going on?"
Allegedly, John heard
Rachanda, you know,
possibly having a nightmare.
Screaming, "Mom,
no!" And went in there.
And I thought that was weird.
So when I asked
Rachanda, "What's going on?"
She "I don't wanna
talk about it." I'm like
"'Chanda, what's going on?"
One day, Rachanda told an adult
a trusted person,
what was happening.
And we were like, "Good
for you, Rachanda. Good for you."
But she honestly
She never said anything,
what happened after that.
I also had
confided in the same adult
about what was
happening in our home.
And I remember just saying,
"I'm tired of getting beat
up. I'm tire of getting hit.
"I'm tired of my stepdad
coming into our room."
And I remember, in my heart,
I felt like I was at
the end of a tunnel
I knew the police
officers were coming.
We were gonna be saved.
And then, this trusted person,
is like, "They didn't really feel
like you were telling the truth.
So they're not They're
not gonna do anything.
And I left it at that.
And so, when Rachanda
went and told them,
I felt, in my heart,
that nothing happened.
That they ignored her.
And she
was really, really scared.
Because she told
about the abuse.
So she was scared
on what John Ackroyd
might do.
It requires so much
for a child to come forward.
And then, for that, to be
treated with indifference
is deeply upsetting.
Clearly, there was a culture that
allowed men not to be held accountable.
Sexual abuse and
rape, at the time,
was not investigated
and treated the way
it is by police today.
While we were out
searching in the woods, for Rachanda,
I was one of the people that
was assigned to be with John.
And he would talk about
things that were so strange.
Talking about, like, his daughter's
Stepdaughter's breast size.
And what she's wearing.
And about her period.
We kept talking about
Rachanda in the past tense.
Not the present.
Then, when we decided to
change on to some other subject,
that's when he started talking
about about Kaye Turner.
It's about August.
So it would've been eight months
after Kaye Turner went missing.
This guy comes into the store.
And says that he found
some clothes in the woods.
I remember it really vividly.
It's etched there
because it was strange.
He just said he was the
last one to see her alive.
I didn't know at the time.
That was Ackroyd.
John Ackroyd goes
to the Camp Sherman store
and says, "I found the
missing jogger's clothing."
Then he says, "Why
did I have to find her?
"I was the last one
to see her alive."
It's an alarming statement.
And he would later say,
he was the last person to see
his stepdaughter, Rachanda, alive.
Ackroyd brought me here.
This was kind of a thicket.
So, from the road,
you couldn't see in here.
This area right here, is
where the clothes were.
They were just put there,
which was odd.
These clothes appeared
to be on top of the pine needles.
Investigators
would later surmise
that he had placed
these things there.
He didn't say
much. He seemed exited.
Like he Like he got
excited seeing these clothes.
Minutes after that, big police
showed up, the real guys.
We went and searched the area.
We found a lower jaw bone.
Couple of bones.
Ad it was determined
it was Kaye Turner.
While I was waiting by the
road, talking to the store owner,
John Ackroyd came up.
I didn't know him.
Hadn't really
talked to him before.
When Kaye Turner vanished,
on Christmas Eve, 1978,
police set up a roadblock.
Um, they began to look
for potential suspects.
John Ackroyd's name
had emerged early on
because he had been seen
by another highway worker
who knew John from work.
When Ackroyd's name came up,
we interviewed him
about Kaye Turner.
He said he did see her.
On January 11th,
John Ackroyd is interviewed.
John Ackroyd is treated as
nothing more than a witness.
John was just a good,
old boy. A local guy.
He liked to hunt, fish,
do things outdoors.
Police did seem to be
particularly interested in
following up with
him as a suspect.
Eight months after Kaye
Turner has gone missing,
Kaye's friends put
up a $1,000 reward.
And then, out of nowhere
John Ackroyd claims he's
found these clothing in the woods.
As soon as I found out
Ackroyd had
found these articles,
I had a I had a suspicion
that John Ackroyd was
Knew more than
he was telling us
and asked him to
take a polygraph.
Well, he failed the polygraph.
I was a detective sergeant.
And a lieutenant for the Oregon
State Police had come to my office,
asking me if I
knew John Ackroyd.
And I said, "Yeah,
for a fact, I do."
I said, "I kinda
grew up with him."
And I knew his mother.
We'd been in the same
community all our lives.
And he said, "Well
"He's had something to do
with that Kaye Turner thing."
And I said, "How
do you know that?"
He said, "I polygraphed
him and he's dirty."
1958-'59 school year.
That was at Pleasant Valley.
I knew John Ackroyd because
we went to school from
From the first grade
to the 12th grade.
We were never close friends.
He was
quiet.
Kind of a loner type.
I never really knew him
to have much
association with anybody.
I remember an incident
in in the sixth grade.
There were a
couple of little rabbits
that lived right there,
where we got off the bus.
And one day, John set
one of those rabbits on fire.
Somebody said, "John,
you set that rabbit on fire!"
And the rabbit
was scurried off.
And he just kinda had
a grin on his face, like
He was proud of what he'd done.
I thought, you know, "Why?"
I was raised that you don't
hurt anything or kill anything
unless you're gonna
eat it, you know.
You didn't go shooting
deer just for the horns,
you know, unless
you needed the meat.
You just You just
didn't kill anything.
After Kaye Turner
came up missing,
I reached out to
the investigators.
From the standpoint that
I thought that it might
be a little more difficult
for John to avoid
pertinent questions with me
than a total stranger.
Because I knew John's mom.
We worked together, in law
enforcement, in the late '70s.
At that time, there was only
one police officer in Sweet Home
on the graveyard
shift, and that was me.
And she was the dispatcher.
I'd quite often ask
her about John.
You know, as what
we had to talk about.
Some of the police officers
came to interview me.
I was really disappointed
on how they perceived me.
They asked me questions
that were totally inappropriate.
I don't think they had ever had
that type of investigation, before.
And at that time, I
ended the conversation,
I said, "We have
nothing to talk about."
At the time of
Turner's disappearance,
law enforcement weren't
necessarily in the habit
of collaborating and sharing.
And we're talking about a
rural law enforcement agency.
Me, in the Jefferson
County Sheriff's office.
And we're talking about,
you know, a small community,
and the Oregon State Police.
And there's not email. No one's
sending these reports to one another.
Small town politics.
Law enforcement doesn't share
a lot of information with other
Unless it's a
need-to-know basis.
After Ackroyd finds Kaye
Turner's clothing in the woods,
his story begins to shift.
After he failed the polygraph,
I interviewed him in my office.
And he denied
everything except
He said that he talked to her.
He discloses
that he spoke with Kaye.
That they actually had
a brief conversation.
They exchanged
holiday greetings.
And it's all very
charming and cordial.
The polygraph asked
if he'd ever touched Kaye Turner.
And he said no.
But the polygraph
showed that he did.
So we ask him about
not touching her.
And he said, well, he
did touch her in February,
when she was laying
on top of the snow.
That's be two months
after she disappeared.
There were three feet of
snow in February that year.
She couldn't have
been on top of the snow.
What he ends up
admitting acknowledging is that
he find a decomposing
body in the woods,
and that he stops and
touches these remains
and then does not tell anyone
despite knowing about the extensive
search and investigation for Kaye.
His disclosure is disturbing.
Because it's
It's very graphic.
He says that he saw a
body lying next to a large log.
That he was repulsed
by what he saw.
That he had seen her
neck had been slashed.
And that it appeared she had
a bullet wound in her chest.
So, suggesting how
she had been killed.
You know, she had been cut or
stabbed and then she had been shot.
Another element emerges
in this crucial Oregon
State Police interview.
And that is that John
Ackroyd was not alone.
He was with his
friend, Roger Dale Beck.
So, police go interview
Roger and Roger's wife, Pam.
Pam Beck provided an alibi for
Roger Beck and John Ackroyd.
According to Pam, Ackroyd arrived at
their house on Christmas Eve morning.
And Ackroyd and Beck
did not go out that day.
There are all of
these troubling signs
that implicate Ackroyd in
the murder of Kaye Turner
But there is actually
no physical evidence.
There's no eyewitness.
There's no clarity.
That Ackroyd was involved.
We had no evidence to hold him
so we let him go.
The woods witnessed
exactly what John had done.
Helpless, they
watched him walk free,
to hide once more.
Justice failed.
What else would happen
before he stopped?
It was very important to Durr
that we keep the spirit
of Kaye Turner alive.
He even checked me
up before I made a drive
to the top of Santiam Pass,
introduced me to
John, personally.
To look at him,
you wouldn't think
he was the smartest
person in the world.
But John was clever.
Clayton Durr told me this is
the guy that killed Kaye Turner.
He says, "You need
to know this guy
"because this'll happen
again sometime."
And the next time we
came across John Ackroyd,
his stepdaughter
shows up as missing.
And John's back in
the spotlight again.
For me, as a
journalist on the story,
you're asking questions,
"Well, who is this guy?"
I thought, "Well,
I'm gonna dig in
"to the big file cabinet."
Buried among all that
was this slim set of reports
that showed Ackroyd had
had this violent encounter
with a stranger,
a year before Kaye
Turner's murder.
It was an incredibly important
moment in the timeline
of Ackroyd's criminal exploits.
This woman, she had not talked
about this since it happened.
John Ackroyd
could have been stopped.
If the police would
have listened to me,
none of this would
have ever happened.
I'm never gonna forget about
what happened that night.
Every time I wash I can
never get him out of my mind,
I can never get that dirt off.
I still can't, and I'm 66.
There was times I'd wake up in
the middle of the night, screaming.
And flailing, and throwing
punches and kicking.
I gave my husband
a black eye once.
It was always
right there with me.
It was like he was
on my shoulders.
Like i was carrying
him on my shoulders
but no one could see
him or feel him but me.
My husband Bill and
I, we went to the rodeo.
And got all dressed up.
We used to wear, you
know, cutoff work pants
and gym pants,
you know, to take care
of a baby, all day long.
And it was the first time I had
on a pair of jeans, real nice.
Looking good and smelling sweet.
And I had these boots on
that I waited for a very long time
and my husband did without
to buy me those boots, for me.
We got there and that's
when I started drinking beers.
And Though they
really hit me fast
'cause I hadn't been
drinking since What?
Eight months and then nine
months. It had been over a year.
We had some food and
then some people came over.
"Bill, I heard you were
over." Some buddies of his.
"Let's go to this bar."
I can't go in a bar.
I was 19.
You have to be 21 in Oregon
to get in a bar and drink.
So, I got angry.
"No, we came here, you and me,
"first time we've been
out since, you know"
But he hadn't seen his buddies
in so long and blah-blah-blah.
So, I said, "Fine,
I'm going home."
I was always
used to hitchhiking.
In Oregon, back in those days,
you didn't have to
really worry about it.
So I went to Highway 20
and I stuck my thumb out.
And lo and behold, the first
ride I got was John Ackroyd.
He pulls over and I
run up to the truck.
And I opened the door and I
kinda glanced at the door like this,
and got all the
way in and shut it.
Then I looked at the little knob
that you push up and down for
the lock, and there wasn't any.
By that time, he was off
on Highway 20, driving.
I passed out and
I went to sleep.
Just before dusk, I feel
my feet being grabbed
and he was dragging me out
by my feet o the passenger side
And my head hit every from
the seat to the car truck floor,
and to the outside
edge of the truck,
the door, and then, all
of a sudden, the ground.
And I I tried to te to
scream. I couldn't scream.
He even put the
knife to my throat.
And it hurt. 'Cause he pressed.
And he says, "You're gonna do every
thing I tell you to do, aren't ya?"
And I go, "Yes, sir.
"What do you want? Anything
I'll do anything you want.
"Just don't hurt me."
He took my pants by the
front of them, belt and all
and just ripped all the
way down to the boots.
And then he got pissed 'cause
he couldn't get 'em further
so he took a knife and
he cut my boots off.
I wanted my baby
to have a mother,
I had to stay alive for her.
That's all I pictured in my
head, was her little bald head.
Perfectly round.
Afterwards, I was,
like, in a fetal position
'cause I was in pain.
And he was, like,
you know, um
zipping up his pants.
Straightening up his
jacket and shirt and stuff.
And I go And he looked at me and
he goes, "Now what do I do with you?"
I said, "Take me home."
I was just being nice to him
because I wanted to
go back to my baby.
I had John Ackroyd drop me off
at Bill's mom's house.
So, I'm knocking, knocking.
And that's when
she came to the door
and I go, "I've just been
raped, he raped me!
"Please call the police."
The police came over
and they took a report.
After they did that, I left
and went to the hospital
and did the rape kit.
And then they ask me if I
would submit to a lie-detector
and I go, "Yeah, I'll do it."
Because I know I
was telling the truth.
They asked if I egged him on.
If I, you know, came on
to him, you know, sexually.
Was I flirting with
him, you know?
"Do you do drugs, Marlene?"
"How much were you
drinking?" "That much?"
The police made
me feel like a liar.
Why would a mother
of a little, tiny baby
that's breastfeeding lie
lie about a rape?
His explanation was
Marlene, she had come onto him.
And he just kind
of submitted to her.
And that, apparently,
made sense to the detective.
I felt stupid.
They made me feel stupid.
Little woman, brown woman, don't
know what she was talking about.
They made me feel
like it was my fault.
They questioned him.
Didn't prosecute him
or even arrest him.
They believed him and not me.
How does that fly?
After that
incident with John Ackroyd,
I was so scared
so paranoid that he was gonna
come back and finish me off.
'Cause I You
know, I told on him.
That's how I got insomnia.
I'd get up, two or three
time, in the middle of the night
check every single
lock, every single door.
He got away with it.
If he would have
been held accountable,
you know, it could have
had a chilling effect on him.
He would have been known as
someone with a rape conviction.
Sometimes I almost wish
that he would have killed me
but I don't do that anymore.
Especially after I found
out that 13-year-old girl.
Really? A child?
It's just heartbreaking.
Marlene
tried, but no one listened.
Her pleas were silenced.
The monster was allowed
to continue hunting.
Getting bolder.
My family, in general,
was close with John, you know.
My grandmother
loved John. Loved John,
In her eyes, he was
the perfect son-in-law.
My grandmother died thinking
John was completely innocent.
That the law and
everybody in the State
was just against John, just
trying to destroy the family.
When you're around a family, you know,
a lot of people are high school dropouts.
And then you have this guy that appears
to have all of his together.
And he wants to come
and be a part of the family
and marry, you know, their
daughter, which is my mom.
They all felt like
it was a step up.
They didn't wanna let go of
that The happy ever after, kinda.
Well, for me,
'cause I was sexually assaulted
throughout most of my childhood
by older men
John was one of the very
few that never abused me.
So, to me, that was a win,
I felt comfortable and safe
whenever John was around.
I mean, I didn't like the
spankings and beatings that we got.
I definitely knew
that wasn't normal.
I knew that wasn't normal.
I knew that my other friends,
that I went to school with,
didn't suffer the crap
that me and my sister did.
This was a hellish existence
for Rachanda and her brother.
Ackroyd disclosed
in one police interview
that he had made a paddle that he
would use to discipline Rachanda.
He was a good liar.
He was truly two
different people.
I never saw the John
that Linda and the
kids had to live with.
When Rachanda went missing,
he was just like a
good old boy, you know.
"I'm just here to help."
John would come up with these
theories on what a guy would do.
With John, it was always
an another person.
"A guy would do this."
And, "A guy would do that."
I was convinced he was
demonstrating to me what he'd done.
When he talked
about tying her up,
there was a search done
of the house and his truck
and there was rope
with Rachanda's hair
in the back f John's truck.
He talked about holding her down
which was indicating
that she was
struggling, yet still alive.
And there was blood
found on the bedspread
near the front
door of the house.
The woods have
a way of getting darker,
entombing secrets.
Secrets John hopes
will never see the light.
John was a Jekyll
and Hyde kind of person.
He's Hyde when he was my uncle.
Somebody I can count on.
When he was doing bad things,
that's Jekyll.
But one time, I was
with John, in his truck.
It was a while after
Rachanda came out missing.
And he decided to go
off on some side road.
It was all brushy and secluded.
The bushes came right up
to the door, on both sides.
It was that dense.
And he said to me,
"You know, you could hide a body in
here and nobody would ever find it."
I said, "Yeah, you
can. Can't you?"
And he said, "Yeah. Do
you have to go potty?"
And I said, "No, I'm good."
And I had to go
really, really bad.
But something told me
to stay near the truck.
I watched him as he went
straight down to the left
and then, I couldn't
see him anymore.
I was terrified.
And I've never been
afraid of John, like that.
At the time, I wasn't aware
that John was capable of murder.
I just blocked it
out of my mind.
But you can bet
your sweet bottom
if I would have
gotten out of that truck,
he would have killed me.
When Rachanda came up missing,
a week went by,
two weeks, three weeks.
Now it was
She ain't coming back.
I need to know
where my sister is.
This is what you guys are
You guys are supposed to be
the good guys helping us out.
Help us out.
Let me know what's going on.
This is my sister.
This is my blood.
This is my best
friend, you know.
Where is she?
The monster is free.
And they are no closer
to finding Rachanda.
We searched for
Rachanda everywhere.
And we couldn't find her.
The evidence, the
blood spots and the rope,
were problematic for us
because she lived there.
There are many ways
that she could have bled.
She could have cut herself.
She could have had a nosebleed.
We didn't have any DNA evidence
to tie John directly to it.
It was very clear to all of us
that he had taken her life.
But we didn't have a body.
At that point in time, they would
not prosecute without a body.
You've gotta be able to prove
that she met with foul play
and she was killed.
If you can't prove your case,
You can't go try him again.
They're done. And you lost.
And they're out there, free.
Everything kinda just
went back to normal.
It was over pretty fast.
The searches were over
before school even started.
Being that
young and feeling helpless
The beginning of seventh
grade was horrible.
Because she wasn't there.
All I know is
that my sister's gone
and my family's destroyed.
It's done. game over.
Here we are, in the
world, by yourself.
I'd give up everything. Even
if that meant my last breath.
Just to let her know
that I love her. i miss her.
They sense, as with Kaye Turner,
Rachanda's life
had come to an end.
John Ackroyd remains unscathed
and enjoys his freedom.
After Rachanda went missing,
I don't think anybody
suspected John Ackroyd
capable of doing
anything like that.
A lot of the guys were
like, "There's no way."
And then we started hearing
that he actually had been
the main suspect in
Kaye Turner's murder
and he found Kaye's body.
I think everybody up
there was shocked.
You just think back. How
many times have you seen him?
How many times
have you talked to him?
How many times
when you're with him
in the maintenance
shop at night?
We didn't want him up there
anymore. We weren't comfortable.
Our only phone on the
compound, that was available to us,
was one phone up in the
wash-house in the trailer shed.
We kept telling the police we spend
a lot of time alone here, as women.
They got quite
a bit of pressure.
So they moved him.
And we were
thankful to see him go.
John Ackroyd was transferred
from the Santiam junction
to Corvallis,
Highway Department.
And I said, "That's nuts!
"That's a college
town full of girls!
"That's crazy!"
But I wasn't in control.
When we heard that
John had been moved
to the Highway
Department in Corvallis,
we were like, "Holy,
who's thinking that one through?"
We need to truly get this
guy before he kills again.
Nobody wants to have a
serial killer in their backyard.
oakislandtk