For faster navigation, this Iframe is preloading the Wikiwand page for John Arthur Ackroyd . Then theres Ackroyds first known victim. His Stepdaughter Vanished. What He Said Was Disturbing She rode her bike in the lane just outside the door and took a bus to grade school in Sweet Home. Was there a question she was afraid to answer? The television was on. This story is complicated and confusing. I spoke with his coworkers and friends. John Arthur Ackroyd (1902-1997) FamilySearch But those relationships shifted over time. Her sneakers and socks were still on her feet. Over time, Ackroyd added incriminating details to his account. Over two decades, four women disappeared and one was raped along the same stretch of road in rural Oregon. There was something really hinky about it. Why the shift? The young mother managed to survive. Harmon thought back to the handful of cases from the 1970s that remained unsolved: the bodies or clothes of women and one young man found in the isolated wilderness of Linn County, not far from Highway 20, the route Ackroyd spent years traveling for the state. He went inside to get a soda and use the bathroom. Too good to be true, Snow thought. most spectacular scenery from the Cascade foothills to the coast. It seems remarkable in hindsight that he managed to elude police despite such compelling circumstantial evidence and his rape a year earlier of another woman off Highway 20. Karen Lee, 15, and Rodney Grissom, 14, were friends. Where did it and the other information about Kayes run come from? Over time, the story took on even darker tones. Theyd noticed that Ackroyds truck was still parked outside and his work rig wasnt there. Some of these details were included in police reports. She talked about how she thought he was a logger or someone who made a living in the woods. She felt the cool blade of Ackroyds hunting knife against her neck. We chose to go with the legacy of the investigation. He made a brief stop at the house he shared with his mother in Sweet Home, his hometown. John Arthur Ackroyd, Serial Killer on Apple Books I would describe it as unsatisfying and extraordinary. He drove another 12 miles down the road and stopped in front of her mother-in-laws house in Lebanon, where shed asked him to drop her off. Ackroyd, an opportunist who preyed on women, had worked for more than a decade as a state mechanic along the last 170 miles of Highway 20 from the Cascade foothills to the coast. Sheilas parents had died, leaving her younger brother to carry on alone with his grief. He recalled the blood, Ackroyds unlikely story and the odd timing. Biography. The extraordinary arrangement meant Ackroyd would die in prison. 2-7+. They simply felt they had enough. He wondered aloud if Rachanda had been dumped and buried in the woods or threatened with a knife, tied up and gagged, her body rolled in plastic. After one year, the couple divorced, but they continued to live together with Linda's children. A thought skittered An examiner asked a series of questions: Did she tell the truth about being raped? I wanted him to know that the reporting was continuing and that a story would likely appear sometime in the coming months. Beck left Oregon. To some, she seemed lost, almost invisible. Extraordinary because the court sealed the plea and effectively silenced Rachandas brother. He didnt respond. What was the justification to go ahead and use them in a family newspaper?. The lead prosecutor has a formidable memory and kept meticulous notes that were part of the case file. Companies played included two seasons at the old Derby Playhouse, two seasons at the Lyceum Theatre, Crewe, The Swan Theatre, Worcester and notably three years with the EMMA Theatre Company based in Loughborough. At the same time, a dozen investigators working the Turner case seized on Ackroyds shifting accounts. The men were told to drop it. I did not do nothing. Its definitely hard to read but written, I hope its seen, with deliberation and circumspection. Why did you decide to use Benson and Snow as a vehicle to transmit all this background? Ackroyd was charged with Rachanda's murder in 2013, and pleaded no contest. Later, the men told her that theyd mistaken Kaye for a deer and fatally shot her. After the rape, Ackroyd slapped the knife against his grimy jeans held up by orange suspenders. The family lived at the state highway division compound at Santiam Junction, where U.S. 20 and Oregon 22 meet. This is a kicker to the intro and sets up the only survivors story that immediately follows but it surely is the series emotional center of gravity: The dismissal of Marlenes account by police had tragic consequences. It ended with a gripping five-part, 7,000 word narrative, a gallery of haunting photos and a heartbreaking documentary that leave no doubt about the guilt of a serial killer, but precious little solace for his victims. Its damning circumstantial evidence linking Ackroyd to the deaths of these two women, Melissa and Sheila. In 1992, he was sentenced to five life terms in prison for the abduction and murder of Kaye Turner. She saw it as a way of letting readers know how much work went into this series. She denies that he beat her kids. An ominous lead. Why did you decide to tell it in the omniscient third person as you do so much of the story? Do investigators believe Ackroyd was responsible for these unsolved deaths? That beating she got was over, over the top. Wait a minute, Laront thought, how come he is coming back so late at night? One of the best investigative reporters in the state had written episodically about it, but nobody had put it all together. Pronunciation of John Arthur Ackroyd with 1 audio pronunciation and more for John Arthur Ackroyd. Murderer John Arthur Ackroyd - YouTube He lies down in the dirt and stares up: Is this what his sister saw before she died? John Arthur Ackroyd part 1 - True Crime But That's None of My Business Over the course of the investigation, he acted strangely. You aim to anticipate the next question theyll have. He ripped off her jeans with such force, the pants split from the waist to the ankle along the inseam. I wanted to pick up the watch detail again because we first saw Kaye wearing the watch as she heads on a run and now the watch is a detail in her killing. She hadnt been out long when a state highway worker named Thomas Hanna spotted her, running south, alone. I heard the river on one of those trips and took the liberty of saying he would have heard it too if his windows were rolled down. The DA knew Ackroyd had changed his story and admitted he had talked to Kaye the morning he encountered her on a run. Shes finally believed and theres satisfaction that comes with that. Historical Person Search Search Search Results Results John Arthur Ackroyd (1903 - 1914) Try FREE for 14 days Try FREE for 14 days. The judge didnt remember the circumstances and the lawyers for each side pointed fingers at one another. Her Timex wristwatch read about 8:15 a.m. What lay behind that decision? She talked about how she thought he was a logger or someone who made a living in the woods. Reporting on this series was emotionally grueling. His stretch of it twisted through Bend, logging towns, Corvallis and on to the coast. John Arthur Ackroyd, Serial Killer - Barnes & Noble The men ate and left to poach deer, not returning until the next day, she said. I have to go. Instead, they focused on Kayes husband and possible ties between Kayes disappearance and extramarital relationships she had with two men at the time. Yes and it was something I struggled with. She introduced the women to him and they climbed in. Rachandas green nightgown was on her bedroom floor. In 1992, he was sentenced to five life terms in prison John Arthur Ackroyd - Top podcast episodes john arthur ackroyd childhood john arthur ackroyd childhood. He had an older and younger sister. The next day, Hanlon hopped in a car with a Jefferson County deputy for a briefing on the search for Rachanda. Read Full Profile. It took a lot of force to break them. Its also a testament to the human need to find answers and how these disappearances and Ackroyd himself affected people who knew there had to be a connection. He was the middle child between two sisters. Again, he didnt respond. It doesnt conclude with a dramatic trial in a packed courtroom. A cop once mentioned to me that Ackroyd always had a bunch of these candies in his pocket and would pop them into his mouth during interrogations. I wanted him to know that the reporting was continuing and that a story would likely appear sometime in the coming months. If I put 50 dollars on a gamble that there wasnt punishment in a week I would lose that 50 dollars. When John snapped, it was scary. She was looking for a ride and wandered out of the campground onto Highway 20, the route that leads through the heart of Sisters, back then little more than a dusty outpost amid pine forests in central Oregon. Actually, the beginning and the ending were the most rewritten parts of the series, as we knew they would be. He said he came home during a break from work and asked Rachanda if she wanted to go for a ride with him. I sought to write a driving narrative that relied on detail, dialogue and description with a bedrock of reporting and research. Hed stopped by a half-dozen times since Kaye had gone missing. Showing : Public Libraries K-12 Schools Library Name Distance. Both were present for almost every interview. At this point in the story, I didnt want to reveal too much about why the cops were taking another look at Marlenes rape. Initially, he told police hed passed Kaye without stopping. Ackroyd worked out of Corvallis and continued to roam the highway. Even today parts of the road are so narrow and quiet the highway has the feel of a country lane. The trackers noticed two sets of footprints preserved in the frozen ground. Her calendar at work noted recent liaisons with the men. We worried about this constantly. They were restless and broke, living an itinerant existence, drinking too much and keeping dangerous company. Beth Nakamura / The Oregonian/OregonLive. The Oregonian has published the 1977 polygraph reports for both John Arthur Ackroyd and Marlene K. Gabrielsen, who credibly alleges that he raped her at knifepoint. He is most likely one of the Ghost of The Ghosts of Highway. I relied on interviews with a detective and the woman deputy to reconstruct this scene. We went back in our clips. Though investigators were certain he was behind her disappearance, they couldnt prove it. John Arthur Ackroyd - Top podcast episodes Byron recalled regular beatings. But Ackroyd was already serving a life sentence. Ackroyd's step-daughter Rachanda Pickle went missing in 1990. How do we create a person's profile? A father himself now, Byron gets a catch in his voice when he talks about it. Its dramatic and I wanted to draw it out for the reader. His father worked as a truck driver and his mother was a homemaker. Over two decades, four women disappeared and one was raped off the same stretch of road in rural Oregon. She spotted two young women she knew. Ackroyd, now 63, went over the timeline of the day Rachanda disappeared, spinning the same old lies. The annotation: Storyboards questions are in red; Crombies responses in blue. John Arthur Ackroyd (October 3, 1949 December 30, 2016) was an American murderer and suspected serial killer. More than two years later, another set of investigators went looking for the police report detailing Marlenes account. Benson made a four-hour trek to a courthouse three counties away, where a metal filing cabinet held Kaye Turners case. What allowed you to finally crack open a story that had been lost for 40 years? Sheilas ankles were bound with leggings. It was the kind of menial task you might give a rookie detective. She recalled how Marlene had arrived at her house, sobbing, saying something terrible had happened. Here is the . Was it difficult to have to summarize so much of the story when your reporting had turned up more than enough details to dramatize the action? What was your source for this description of Ackroyds temper? Mike Harmon, a longtime investigator with the Linn County Sheriffs Office, worried Ackroyd had a shot at parole. What triggered the new investigation? Other highway workers lived there, but there were few children. He said her body was lying in the same wooded area where scraps of her clothing and bits of bone were found. You end this section by withholding what happened with the grand jury. Structurally, what was your intention? In exchange, he agreed never to seek parole. In other scenes, Beck grabbed her as Ackroyd looked on. The sheriff declined to comment last year and has since retired. One man committed all the crimes and he is held responsible for the first time here. It was earlier in the year, though he couldnt recall the date. Ackroyds explanations of his encounter with her never added up, but detectives found no physical evidence directly tying him to the killing. Ackroyd earned low grades in school; his high school diploma was marked special education. He was a loner, bullied and beaten by classmates. Ackroyd obviously is the catalyst of destruction. He and his wife walked out of the county courthouse, where he paced and wept. Be a good girl. When the dispatcher asked why she hadnt called sooner, Linda said she assumed she had to wait 24 hours to report a missing person. I relied on interviews with a detective and the woman deputy to reconstruct this scene. Marlene started this series and it seemed fitting to end with her. She thought of how Kaye must have felt, the air so cold she could see her breath. Do you consider this your nut graph? He was willing to talk. I wanted the story to be easy on the reader. For instance, Ackroyd told police he drove to his mothers house after raping Marlene. Ackroyd was one of many leads they pursued. If you have experienced sexual violence and need support, please call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE. We encourage you to research and examine . Months later, the highway worker led police to the wooded area where scraps of her clothing and her jawbone were found. In scene after scene, over a couple of long days as the Christmas holiday approached, the investigators playing Ackroyd and Beck would snatch her off the road. John Arthur Ackroyd (October 3, 1949 - December 30, 2016) was an American murderer and suspected serial killer. Pretty much all the details of the attacks and deaths are sickening in the series. Prosecutors didn't have a body. Of course they remembered. He was the only son of an office worker at the local police department and a maintenance man. The dialogue and scene-setting details how Ackroyd tapped his leg with his knife, for instance came from interviews with Marlene. In a separate call, his old coworker told the same story. On one of our reporting trips along Highway 20, I spent the ride focused on the road, what he would have seen from his truck. It lets the reader know that this could be an important turning point in the story. Why? But detectives long suspected Ackroyd preyed on women who disappeared along or around Highway 20 from the late 1970s through the early 1990s. It was on one of them that hed raped Marlene Gabrielsen a year before Kaye Turner disappeared. Months later, I wrote him another letter. How and why did you settle on that approach? sat and waited to hear his fate. She planned an 8-mile run. He was based in Santiam Junction, about 25 miles from Camp Sherman, and said hed gotten off work at 6:30 a.m. A while later, he drove through the camp, planning to hunt coyotes. Marlene had hitchhiked plenty and didnt think twice as she squeezed into the front seat between the men. . Beth Nakamura / The Oregonian/OregonLive, A lone truck makes its way along Highway 20 at dusk. Later, Ackroyd would drive back roads, shooting squirrels and cutting off their tails. He didnt respond. It was just a hell of a story. She was married to one suspect and romantically involved with the other. My sister was denying it. I tell new reporters not to do what I did; its a ridiculously inefficient way of amassing documents for a big project like this. Laront didnt think of it again until that fall when he heard the news on the radio. Rachanda's stepfather, John Arthur Ackroyd, is the last person known to have seen her. This spectral photograph opens Ghosts of Highway 20, a stunning multimedia narrative series published last December by The Oregonian/OregonianLive. Secondary trauma from reporting stories like this is real. In 1986 he became the . . I wanted the reader to hear Ackroyds reaction when confronted with the detectives suspicions. Amazon.com: Agatha Christie: Books, Biography, Blog The Murder of Roger Ackroyd Questions and Answers. I had his work, schooling and military records. The story also features an annotated version using footnotes identifying all your sources? Did you discover Jane Morris in the trial transcript? The sheriff declined to comment last year and has since retired. GHOSTS OF HIGHWAY 20 - oregonlive Just like with Kaye, detectives would never know what had happened to Ackroyds stepdaughter, Rachanda Pickle. Investigators suspicions deepened as his story began to shift. Why did Pam Ramirez lie when first interviewed by the cops? Structurally, what was your intention? A father himself now, Byron gets a catch in his voice when he talks about it. There was a tremendous amount of secrecy. The aging killer headed to the door and returned to his cell. Ackroyds name emerged early on. Ackroyds low libido was the source of such open conflict that Lindas teenage son, Byron, knew of their troubles. Even before hunters had stumbled upon the teens remains, Ackroyd told a friend: They are assuming its me.. Trauma had seared these details into her memory. They ran away from home with plans to make it to California. The nut graf is: One woman was raped, four others disappeared. Early on in the project videographer Dave Killen and photographer Beth Nakamura were riding together on Highway 20 on one of our many reporting trips. Ackroyd considered her for a long moment, then reached into the back of the truck and held out a dingy pair of plaid pants. A hunter would likely overlook the bits of cloth and bone as nothing more than trash and animal carcasses. Plows stood ready to rumble onto the mountain pass during winter storms. Detectives moved on. And narratively, the detectives and their work showed connections among all the cases. Call the police, Marlene said. How did you decide on these and did they form part of the narrative strategy? John Arthur Ackroyd was a state highway mechanic whose route took him along Route 20 from the Cascade Foothills to the Pacific Ocean's coast. It was scary. Just as before, police turned up no physical evidence linking him to Melissa and Sheila. I did not have any models in mind. To do that in a way that was going to keep a readers interest through five installments was herculean. The cops cheered. These particular details are important as circumstantial evidence. This time Ackroyds lawyer responded. Kayes killing serves as the cliffhanger at the end of Day 1. We needed to say that. Ackroyd, going to Newport for work that day, encountered the teenagers somewhere along the highway and offered them a lift, just as he had in the past. I asked Marlene to describe what she saw and smelled when Ackroyd yanked her from the truck. I never got a clear answer about why it was sealed or who made that request. Why? They wrote down his habit of taking time off around the disappearances, as hed done with Kaye and Rachanda. Due to his connection with Rachanda's disappearance, many women at Santiam Junction were uncomfortable with his behavior and he began to work out of Corvallis.[2]. We had a lot of discussion about the ending. This week is the origins of Northern Soul and Disco. She wrote it down on a pack of cigarettes. If we said we really needed to go to California, she said yes. In fact, when she didnt feel I was doing enough on the project, she made that clear. This is the story of, Rachanda Pickle, Kaye Turner, Marlene Gabrielson, Melissa Sanders, Shiela Swan, and potentially many others. These are key characters in this story. She told them how Ackroyd had once offered the young women a ride. Hanna told police hed seen both the highway worker and the runner in Camp Sherman that morning. Why did you write it and place it here? Over two decades, four women disappeared and one was raped off this same stretch of lonely road in rural Oregon, which winds through some of the Northwest's most spectacular scenery. The style of the series is elliptical in that it leaves out information, such as dialogue, names of source and other details. Cops did a thorough timeline of Kayes morning so that detail came from those records. The men drove by Santiam Junction, slowing as they passed the eastern edge of the highway compound where Ackroyds manufactured home backed up to the woods. This took months of work. It started when a supervisor in the Linn County Sheriffs Office assigned McAnulty to organize press clippings from the early days of the investigation. Beth Nakamura / The Oregonian/OregonLive. There was so much information to move through. It is available in multimedia format. This story is complicated and confusing. We collect and match historical records that Ancestry users have contributed to their family trees to create each person's profile. Historical Person Search Search Search Results Results John Arthur Ackroyd (1892 - 1953) Try FREE for 14 days Try FREE for 14 days. You could, I assume, have used sources to describe this scene. The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd Agatha Christie Comic Strip Bruno Lachard Several parts conclude with a cliffhanger, effectively designed to keep the reader reading. The two camps on the ending: Stop at Ackroyds death with a scene of a cop looking around the killers cell for a confession but finding nothing. Few kids lived there and the ones who did werent Rachandas age. Then one finally offered: Try a woman who worked at the Sweet Home shop back then. The Oregon Department of Justice has additional information and resources for survivors of sexual violence. He thought she was pretty, he said, and noticed that shed begun to develop. This detail is so specific. I moved my desk next to Daves. At one point, Kelley Benham French was a consultant on the series. We gobbled up newsroom resources and space online and in the paper, but theres a limit and thats the reality of the job and format. We needed to say that. That day, she tied her hair back and pulled on her green Levis. He offered no explanation. Kids. It was produced by senior staff writer Noelle Crombie, videographer Dave Killen and photographer Beth Nakamura, who worked side-by-side for nearly two years an unusual arrangement given the buyouts and layoffs that have hollowed out Americas newsrooms, including those in Oregon. Kindle Edition. These are heartbreaking stories of isolation., We asked Crombie to tell us about the process of producing the project, and the emotional toll it took, and then to help us annotate the reporting and writing of Ghosts of Highway 20.. His arrest was imminent. This section could perhaps have served as a nut graf, placed much higher in the story. Several thousand when all was said and done. At the beginning of my reporting, I wrote a letter to Noel Turner, the husband of Kaye Turner who had disappeared on the Christmastime run. Over the course of hours of interviews with The Oregonian/OregonLive, she unburdened herself of every ugly detail. The couple married in the mid-1980s but divorced after a year. When cops went back to her years later, she apparently felt more at ease talking about what really happened. The dispatcher asked: Who was the last person that saw her, do you know?. It felt clunky to me to stop and quote a source. She talked about her plans to run in Camp Sherman, inviting a friend to join her that morning. Why did you open the series this way? She answered right away and was willing to tell me about her experience so the three of us headed to Salem to interview her. Books similar to John Arthur Ackroyd, Serial Killer: A collection of The Oregonian has prepared a complete dossier on the crimes of John ACKROYD. He has won the Whitbread Biography Award, the Royal . This let us quickly introduce the five women we write about but also put them first in the mind of the reader. It seemed like decent shorthand for conveying the remoteness of this area. He had done all his talking to investigators during hours of interrogations after Kaye vanished. Libby; Sora; Kanopy; Help . No, what do you think I am? Ackroyd said, his voice rising in rare agitation. How do we create a person's profile? She recounted the attack in detail, how the man cut off her underwear and boots. John Arthur Ackroyd, Serial Killer by Ruth Canton - Ebook | Scribd How were you able to describe his breathing? His work meant long hours alone on Highway 20, the route that bisects Oregon from east to west. That beating she got was over, over the top. This is a dramatic scene Ackroyd walks into the Sweet Home shop spattered with blood and offers a strange explanation. They were there because they were investigating the killing of Kaye Turner, the woman who is the subject of Day 2. Marlene and Ackroyd agreed to be polygraphed. The Turners lived in Eugene, where Kaye, 35, had worked at Planned Parenthood and then as a manager at a local public health agency.