Crime Junkie - INFAMOUS: Highway 20

Episode Date: January 13, 2025

Over several decades, women and girls have encountered a monster whose full reign of terror might not even be fully known. He hunted his own backyard, the wilderness of the Pacific Northwest, and there could be victims out there that have yet to be discovered.If you have any information about John Ackroyd, or any of the cases discussed in this episode, please contact the Linn County Sheriff’s office tip line at 866-557-9988. Source materials for this episode cannot be listed here due to character limitations. For a full list of sources, please visit: crimejunkiepodcast.com/infamous-highway-20/Did you know you can listen to this episode ad-free? Join the Fan Club! Visit crimejunkie.app/library/ to view the current membership options and policies. Don’t miss out on all things Crime Junkie!Instagram: @crimejunkiepodcast | @audiochuckTwitter: @CrimeJunkiePod | @audiochuckTikTok: @crimejunkiepodcastFacebook: /CrimeJunkiePodcast | /audiochuckllcCrime Junkie is hosted by Ashley Flowers and Brit Prawat. Instagram: @ashleyflowers | @britprawatTwitter: @Ash_Flowers | @britprawatTikTok: @ashleyflowerscrimejunkieFacebook: /AshleyFlowers.AF Text Ashley at 317-733-7485 to talk all things true crime, get behind the scenes updates, and more!

Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. And the story I have for you today is about the women and girls whose lives were cut short after encountering a monster whose full reign of terror might not even be fully known. He hunted in his own backyard the wilderness of the Pacific Northwest, and there could be victims out there that have yet to be discovered. This is the story of the mysteries of Highway 20. It's around 10 a.m. when Noel Turner realizes his 35-year-old wife Kay hasn't returned from her run.

Now, she had left around 8 a.m. and planned to be gone for about an hour, but to make it home for breakfast. Well, that's now come and gone times two, and Noel is getting a little worried. So he hops in his truck to see if he can go find her, probably just hoping that she maybe sprained an ankle or got lost or something. Because though she's an avid runner, she is kind of an unfamiliar terrain right now, because this is Sunday, Christmas Eve actually of 1978, and Noel and Kay are vacationing in this remote area of Oregon called Camp Sherman, which is right off of this big main

road known as Highway 20. And they took this little trip as a holiday getaway with some friends, exchanging gifts, sitting by the fire, like singing carols. It was supposed to be this magical time, like doing all the Christmassy things. But that wouldn't stop Kay from getting her workout in. Again, avid runner.

And what should have been Kay's time to recharge and clear her head is quickly becoming now her family and friends' nightmare because there is no sign of Kay as her husband is driving around everywhere. And by 1.30, Noel is thoroughly panicked, enough that now he needs to call police. So Noel and others are eager to get searching right away, but they're told by police to wait, which is just at this point burning precious daylight hours in their minds. So eventually sheriff deputies arrive and they along with the locals and the Turner's

friends finally do start searching for Kay. Even when it gets dark, they search through the night, but there isn't a single sign of her, not even on Christmas day or the day after, despite the searches getting bigger and bigger. Like these are extensive land searches. And I assume they've talked to all the friends and stuff and we're sure she actually even made it on the run. Like nothing happened to her wherever it is they're all staying.

Yeah, according to Noelle Crombie, who wrote extensively about this for the Oregonian, Kay even asked one of their friends to go jogging with her, but they declined. And they do eventually find a couple of witnesses, this pair of highway workers who they talked to separately. They said they saw her, again, separately, running solo in the morning that she vanished. So she went on the run. Everything seemed fine. And they must not have seemed all that suspicious or suspicious at all because police didn't

seem to dig deeper into either of these like highway worker guys. And there's something else that they didn't dig deeper into either. This one to me is far more baffling. So on day three, this is December 26, the deputy in charge of the search gets a radio call from a couple of trackers who had been helping authorities out. And they tell the deputy that they've discovered two sets of frozen footprints in this clearing over by the woods. Like near where she was seen running?

I don't know. It sounds like it was close. I'm not totally clear on exactly where this was, but according to these trackers, one set of prints could have been from Kay's running shoes. They knew that she'd been wearing this specific type of Nike shoe, ones with like the old- school waffle sole that we know. But the other set of prints appear to be from a larger shoe. And so right away, it's clear that these are not the prints of two people out for a stroll in the woods. More alarmingly, the trackers say it seems

like there was some kind of struggle and that the larger person dragged away the smaller person. Did they follow these prints? They did, but then it got dark and they couldn't go any further, which is something that to me, like, you follow up on after, but it seems like this deputy didn't believe them or he didn't seem as interested because that appears to be as far as this went. How does it even happen?

This is like the best and kind of the only lead that they have. I don't know. I mean, maybe authorities did look further into it and there's just no record or reporting of it. And maybe there wasn't anything more to learn or they decided they weren't like from the people or K whatever. But I don't know, I feel like we should have at least closed the loop on that. Like, yeah, especially if they're not related at all.

That doesn't happen. So we're here left guessing. And as more days pass without any sign of Kay, police start looking inward a little more, examining Kay's life to see if there would be any reason for her to leave on her own. According to the limited docuseries Lost Women of Highway 20, when investigators look at her and her husband's life back in Eugene, Oregon, where they live. They discover this calendar that belonged to Kay at her office. And in it, there is evidence to suggest that she had actually been seeing people

outside of her marriage. And at the time that police are learning this, this is news to Knoll, who they obviously like ask about this. And they know or like believe that he's not lying about not knowing because they do end up asking him to take a polygraph about this. And they know or like believe that he's not lying about not knowing because they do end up asking him to take a polygraph about this and he ends up passing. But he does admit that he knew Kay wasn't happy

in their marriage. And we can assume police looked more into any possible affairs that Kay was having, but there's nothing in the source material to suggest that Kay did take off with someone. And again, they have witnesses like putting her out running. So logistically, like that might not even make sense. Like you're not gonna be like putting on your running shoes.

Well, you're on vacation with your husband to like- And then decide mid run. Right. So before they knew it, it was spring and then summer. And it takes a full eight months before the first sign of Kay pops up and in a really chilling way. So one day in August, the owner of this little general store in Camp Sherman is just like

going about their usual day when this local guy rolls in. Now the guy is known to her, the owner, but not in the best way. He had been in a couple of times and really skeeved her out when she caught him touching himself in the store while looking at some adult magazines. So like the second she sees him walk in, she's like, oh hell no. And she goes into the back and gets her husband. When he comes out, the guy tells him he found some clothes

while he was out rabbit hunting that he thinks might belong to that missing jogger from back at Christmas. And so he asked the shop owner if there is some kind of reward, which there was, like a thousand dollar reward at the time. But the shop owner is all kinds of suspicious of his story because he knows at the time there are no rabbits in the area. But before this guy can wise up, the shop owner phones police and is like, hey, you

probably should get here and like, don't waste any time, get here now. And if police aren't tripping over themselves to get to the general store already, they are when the store owner calls them back because since he'd hung up with them, the guy has said something else. He admits that he might have been the last person

to see Kay Turner alive. Now, it's unclear exactly when authorities put two and two together, but they soon realized that this local, this stranger who might have stumbled across Kay's clothes isn't some random guy. They already knew him. They had interviewed him early in the investigation. His name is John Ackroyd, and he was one of the highway workers who admitted to seeing Kay running the day she disappeared.

I mean, they're suspicious, and then there's this. Right. So they go meet John, and he leads police out into the woods about a mile and a half from Camp Sherman, where they find several pieces of clothing. There is a yellow pair of shorts, underwear, a broken watch, Nike running shoes, and then there among the clothing, they find a lower jawbone with teeth still intact. Oh my God. And sure enough, a medical examiner will later confirm those teeth belonged to Kay. Do they find the rest of her?

Not at the time. So, I mean, it has been in this area, her body, I mean, in the elements for like some eight months now, like you've got critters to deal with. I mean, a perfect example is one of the officers actually who's on the scene, they notice a piece of Kay's blonde hair like tangled up in a bird's nest. So evidence is literally flying away. Scattered everywhere. But even though they won't be able to determine how she died, just based on the little that they have and the way that her remains were left,

they do find clues as to when. So Kay's broken watch reads 9-27, December 24th. It's a mechanical watch, not digital, just to be clear. And the stem had been knocked out, so like it stopped the time. Though there's like some conflicting reporting that maybe it read 905. But either way, if it was AM, that means that it would have broken about an hour or so into her dog that morning, right around the time Noel was expecting her to be home.

So now that they know Kay's fate, they bring their first and only person of interest in for questioning. And John tells police, much like he did the store owners, that he was just hunting rabbits with his dog when he stumbled across the remains, the clothes, whatever. And police are also suspicious of this because, again, there wasn't a lot of rabbits in this area. So they ask John if he's willing to take a polygraph, which he agrees to. He ends up failing, but he still denies any involvement in Kay's death. But here's the thing, his story does begin to shift. So initially when John told police he saw Kay running on the day she disappeared, there had been nothing else to that story.

Well, now, all this time later, he says, actually, I stopped and talked to Kay. Now, it's nothing wild. He just, like, we exchanged holiday pleasantries or whatever. But it's significant enough, like, enough of a change to make everybody be on high alert. So police ask him if he ever touched Kay, because that was one of the polygraph questions he failed. And yet again, all of a sudden the story shifts.

He says, well, yeah, no, I did touch Kay, but he says bizarrely that he touched her in February. Two months after her disappearance. She goes missing in December, right. And take a seat, buckle up, because the ride is shifting again. Now he tells police that he actually found her body first in February, so not in August.

And he says he didn't report discovering her remains because he was afraid that he might get accused of killing her. And when he found her in February, he like touched her arm or something. And what exactly does he think is going to happen now? Brit, the red flags on this guy are like piled so high you can't see over them.

Yeah. And it doesn't get any better. John claims that when he found Kay's body in February, she was nude and partially covered in snow. And he said it looked like her throat had been cut and that she was also shot in the chest. So he's giving pretty precise details that, I don't know, maybe only the killer would know? Specific the killer would know.

Yeah, specific. But still, even though this is super weird, police can't prove that John is the killer. Because even though he's giving this weird specific story, they can't prove that that is a right story or a wrong story either way because they have no physical evidence to work with. And to complicate things, John sort of has an alibi.

He says that he spent most of Christmas Eve with a buddy named Roger Dale Beck. Was this the other highway worker witness? No, these are two totally different guys. Again, John and that other guy weren't even together when they saw Kay. I don't even know if they like worked together, like two separate things. Anyways, so this Roger guy confirms that he was with John, but it's unclear if he was with him before or after John would have seen Kay.

We just know that he says he went hunting with John at some point that afternoon, and then nothing weird stood out to him. Certainly nothing that would suggest to him that like his hunting buddy had killed a woman or was planning to kill a woman. And Roger's wife, this woman named Pam, she kind of chimes in at some point,

giving both of these guys alibis, saying that they were at their house most of the morning. But John can't be there or with them right when he sees Kay, which he's already admitted to like a couple of times. That feels like the only window that really matters here. Yes, and I'd love to drill in on that, but by this point, John has wised up and he now gets a lawyer.

So no more talking and the police have to let him walk. That doesn't mean that they stopped digging into him. They learned that in 1977, the year before Kay disappeared, a woman named Marlene Gabrielson told police that John had sexually assaulted her after he picked her up when she was hitchhiking along Highway 20. And her story is horrifying. She said that she fell asleep in the car on the way home,

and she woke up to John dragging her out of his truck by her legs, and she said that he ripped off her pants, even cut her underwear and boots off with a knife, and then sexually assaulted her. At some point later, she said John seemed to contemplate what to do next with her. It sounds like he was concerned about letting her go, but she pleaded with him, pointing out that she had a new baby. John relented, gave her a pair of his pants to wear, and they just resumed their drive.

Despite everything she had just gone through, before John finally dropped her off, Marlene convinced him to give her his phone number by like pretending that she liked him. Marlene's a smart cookie. Very. And not, she's not doing this just so he like thinks everything's fine. She's doing it so she can identify him later. Like she wanted to see John punished for what he did to her. And I can only assume police use that number to track John down for what he did to her. And I can only assume police used that number

to track John down after she'd gone to the hospital and had done a sexual assault kit. So they had brought John in for questioning at that time. But this is where Marlene's tragic story got even more tragic and infuriating. John told police that Marlene came on to him. And despite the bruises and the scratches that Marlene suffered and everything else she did to prove her story, to basically hand

them the evidence they need on a silver platter, because he said it wasn't a sexual assault, they believed him, and he was never prosecuted. Unbelievable. Even worse, the police seemed to suggest that maybe it was Marlene's fault. They question her drug use, her drinking, if she was being flirty with John, maybe coming onto him sexually. In Lost Women of Highway 20, Marlene talks about how police made her feel like a liar. Was there ever a polygraph for John then?

Because I feel like we would have learned he was a liar like a year earlier. Right. But they did and somehow he passed, which probably just helped fuel the police's belief that Marlene was lying. And it also points to the thing we've said so many times, like there are flaws, there are problems with this kind of testing. And there are problems with not believing victims. Like that has very big, very real life-threatening consequences. And the police are learning that. But even if they see that incident in a whole new light now, it doesn't change the fact that they still don't have anything to tie him to Kay's murder.

And so her case starts to go cold. According to the Oregon Journal, in October, they end up finding Kay's skull about three quarters of a mile from where her clothes and her lower jawbone were found. But again, it doesn't give them much of anything. The investigators don't glean anything new from this. So all Kay's husband and her friends can do is wait. And that wait becomes excruciatingly long.

I mean, over a decade passes. And in that time, letting John Ackroyd slip through their fingers has dire consequences once again. This time, it's mid-morning on July 11th, 1990, when a 911 dispatcher with the Lynn County Sheriff's Office gets a call from a concerned mother named Linda. She tells them that her 13-year-old daughter, Rachanda Pickle, is missing, has been since the day before,

and she is worried sick, is sure something is wrong, and it's now been 24 hours, so she's calling to make the report. Linda says that she thought she needed to wait the 24 hours to report her daughter missing, and it has to break her heart when the dispatcher corrects her and tells her that like in the cases of children, that's not true. They're here now. So the dispatcher starts asking questions. Who was the last

to see her daughter? Linda tells them that it was her stepfather. And of course, Britt, do you want to take a wild guess at who her stepfather was? It's fucking John Ackroyd, isn't it? It is fucking John Ackroyd. For the second time, John is about to become the main suspect in a disappearance. Now, John had married Linda in the mid-80s, but divorced soon after. Despite this, though, it sounds like they stayed together anyway. And according to Noelle's piece in The Oregonian, they are living together in 1990 and

raising Linda's children from her previous relationship, Rachanda and her brother Byron. Now home for them was this remote community known as Santiam Junction, which is where Highway 20, Oregon Route 126 and Oregon Route 22, like all intersect, basically all these big highways. John worked as a highway mechanic, so it made sense for the family to live in this... It essentially was like a compound where other highway workers lived as well. And how far was this from Camp Sherman?

About 30 minutes. So police descend on this area, they bring in massive, like, search resources to find Rachanda. And it's clear that police early on think that she didn't just run away. Like nothing in her room was missing. None of her close friends had any idea where she was. And Rachanda wasn't known to just wander off into the woods.

In the Lost Women of Highway 20 doc, her brother Byron points to the fact that she was actually scared to go into the woods alone. And Linda tells police that the last time she saw her daughter was the morning of the 10th, so the day before. Rachanda was up early, even helped Linda do her hair, and before Linda left for work,

she gave her daughter a list of chores to do that day. But then when Linda got home, no chores had been done, and Rachanda wasn't there. And if she went somewhere, she would usually leave a note, that's not there either. So what's John's story through all this? Well, he said that he dropped Linda off at work that morning and then he went to go work in Bend, Oregon. John is still a mechanic for the state at that point.

But he says that when he got there, he found that some parts that he was waiting for like didn't come in, so he ended up just taking the day off. So he's off of work the day she disappears. Correct. Even more than that supervisors of his would later say that there was no reason for him to take off. Like just because whatever parts weren't there, like there's plenty of other work that he could have been doing that day.

So he was off, but he was supposed to be at work. Yes. Then where was he? Home. He tells police that when he got home, Richanda was there. He saw her on the couch watching cartoons. He asked her if she wanted to take pictures of deer

on some back roads or something, but she didn't want to go with him because she's a teenage girl and that sounds awful. So he says he left to go take pictures on his own, noticed Richanda wasn't home by the time he got back. He said when he noticed she wasn't't home by the time he got back. He said when he noticed she wasn't there, he like looked around a little bit, then he left to go pick Linda up from work,

and then when they got home together, Richanda still wasn't home. Now, in a moment that would eventually feel like deja vu for some, John is adamant that he's got nothing to do with Richanda's disappearance. While John does help search for his stepdaughter, he kind of leads the charge, actually, he's also saying things right and left that are just big WTF moments.

At one point, John tells police that on the night that Rachanda disappeared, he and Linda had sex, despite her daughter being missing. He even tells police it was great sex, like, he makes sure to say that, and he said it was notable because John has, he tells them, a low libido, so it's unusual that they even have sex. LILIANA did do something to Rachanda, he could have kind of gotten off on it. Like the knowledge of what he did would kind of carry through and arouse him later. Which would be fucked. Like in so many words, like they kind of point to that in the doc,

like how messed up it would be for you to have like a libido in this situation when you normally don't. And then to want to have sex with this woman whose young daughter is newly missing. Like, that day, like, I don't know. Yeah. So, John's interview with the police, and like a lot of things with John, it only gets more troubling from there.

At one point, John theorizes how someone could have done something to Rachanda. He talks about how someone could have knocked her out with a punch, could have tied her up, or used a knife to Rachanda. He talks about how someone could have knocked her out with a punch, could have tied her up or used a knife to threaten her, and that her size and weight would have made it easy for someone to carry her away. And police soon find evidence that could suggest that these aren't just theories. In the back of John's truck, police find a rope with Rachanda's hair and blood. Some blood is also found on the doorstep of his truck.

And I don't think these are massive amounts of blood, just like tiny drops, but blood nonetheless. I mean, at least they have some physical evidence this time. Not so fast. John claims that Rachanda used the rope to play with like some kittens or something. So he is like, maybe that's how her hair got on it. He doesn't know how the blood would have gotten there, but you know, kids be kids basically.

Like, he's like, you know how they are. And he kind of just like throws up her hands. No explanation is a good explanation to him. Like, and it might not be a good explanation, but it isn't proof, again, of anything to these police officers. Obviously, John is front and center, but there is a brief period where police do look at Rachanda's biological father, Steve, as a possible suspect too. You see, Rachanda had just returned from visiting him.

In fact, her brother Byron was still visiting him when she went missing. And without going into too much detail, Steve didn't sound like Father of the Year by any means. But the problem is, Steve lived five hours away, so police are confident that he wasn't in the area at the time she disappeared. So even though they kind of go down this other path, they pretty quickly are right back looking at John. And are they bringing Kay up at all when he's in the hop seat for Richanda?

I don't know how much they actually grill him on Kay, but I think they're at least aware of it, even though there's probably been a ton of turnover in, I mean, it's been like a decade. And even though Kay disappeared in another county, it sounds like the DA of that county was monitoring the search for Richanda. I think there's like maybe some hope that if they can't get him on Kay that they'll get him on Rachanda. So I mean

they're definitely connecting the dots. But outside of law enforcement there were others who were less quick to judge John. Byron talks about how his mom would get upset when he would ask about John's possible involvement. In a Statesman Journal article published not long after Rachanda goes missing, Linda publicly talks about how she is concerned about the focus on John. Now, why she's responding this way, I don't know. According to the Lost Women of Highway 20 doc, Rachanda showed signs apparently of physical abuse, and according to her friends, sexual abuse at the hands of John.

Like, I guess Rachanda and her friends would talk about it sometimes. Like, some of them were dealing with similar things at home. And according to her friends, she did tell another adult, but when she did, nothing happened. And then she was scared that, like, she was gonna get in trouble or something was gonna happen because she told someone. That feels like it could be a motive for John to do something though like if he knew that she talked and hadn't been listened to the first time or he was afraid that maybe she would again. Right, which makes it very convenient timing for Richanda to just disappear.

And despite one of the most extensive searches in Lynn County history, police do not find her. So now, authorities have two cold cases tied to John Ackroyd. But in the fall of 1991, an investigator looking back into Kay's case has an idea. He discovers that Roger Dale Beck, so the guy that was supposedly with John on Christmas Eve, he found out that he had gotten divorced from his wife, Pam. And this detective, he is willing to place a bet that now that maybe alliances have changed, stories might change as well.

So he tracks down Pam, who is now living in California. He shows up at her house, knocks on her door, and when she answers and finds out who this guy is, it takes almost no convincing at all for Pam to come clean. All those years ago, she had straight-up lied about Roger and John. Pam tells the detective that Roger and John went out to poach deer on Christmas Eve morning, but they didn't return to the house until the next day. And when they did, they had blood on them. And it wasn't just like a little drop or stain here and there. Pam literally had to dispose of Roger's jeans and shirt.

It was so bad. And they didn't even try to pass it off as deer blood. They had told Pam that they had accidentally mistaken Kay for a deer and shot her, and they were going to need Pam to basically be their alibi. If police ever came around asking questions, she needed to tell them that they got home around noon. Eventually, Roger even admits to her that even that like, bullsh-t hunting accident

story wasn't real. He told her that Kay had been sexually assaulted and shot. And Roger had threatened to do the same to Pam, which is probably why she lied for him. I mean, she was terrified. But with Pam's new information, Kay's case starts ramping back up. But the police are in a race against time at this point. They know John is still out there and could strike again. Though, according to the Oregonian, at this time,

John's basically been booted out of Santiam Junction. The people weren't comfortable with him being there. So he got moved, I assume by his supervisors, or maybe like he chose to leave, I don't know, but he is still at the same job working as a mechanic for the State Highway Department. So like, your tax dollars hard at work, folks. So he's apparently not living with Linda anymore and is staying with his mother in Sweet Home

where he grew up. But he's working out of a town called Corvallis. And Corvallis, unfortunately, is a well, unfortunately for the people there at the time is a thriving little college town. And while it sounds like authorities plan to keep tabs on him, I'm not sure that's as easy as it sounds like authorities plan to keep tabs on him, I'm not sure that's as easy as it sounds. John's like a roving mechanic. That means that he is constantly moving up and down Highway 20. But in all of that moving, John does have some usual haunts. He becomes this like known commodity at this one

particular place called Sherry's Diner along Highway 20 in Lebanon, Oregon. And there, this is wild to me, all the regulars there knew him by his CB radio handle, the pervert. I'm sorry, his handle was... The pervert. I know. And this guy is either the unluckiest man alive, or every girl and every woman who crosses his path is the unlucky one.

Because in 1992, John finds himself right in the center of another missing persons case. Actually this time the case of two young women. It's a pair of best friends, 17 year old Melissa Sanders and 19 year old Sheila Swanson. Wait, wait, those names sound really familiar. Because we talked about them before. In the Kelly Disney episode, right? Like, it's been a while, but... It is. I'll link to that episode in the show notes for people to have a little bit of a refresher. But here we can actually dive even deeper into the details of their cases.

So, according to the Lost Women of Highway 20, both girls hung out at Sherry's Diner and they knew the pervert. He would buy food for Melissa and he was there one of the last days the girls were ever seen when they had come in and told everyone that they were gonna go on a camping trip in Newport, which is like along the Oregon coast. So John knew where they were going to be.

He did. And he even mentioned to the girls that he might be in the same area. Now, the girls' tent ends up being found over that way, empty. But the girls are never seen alive again. I don't know how much authorities looking into Kay's case really know about this new case yet. Part of giving him the boot out of town meant that it was harder to keep tabs on what was happening in the communities that he was living in, ones that he was working in, socializing in. And it being the 90s, information wasn't exactly super accessible between jurisdictions. So while investigators in one part of the state are looking for their two

teens, investigators in another are running a parallel path, trying to reignite the Kay Turner investigation. According to the doc, the US Fish and Wildlife had a new high-tech lab, basically. So Kay's clothes are sent off for forensic testing. And soon enough, the results come back with some very interesting finds. The first is that the waistband of Kay's shorts

appear to have been cut or sliced. Some sources say that her underwear were cut off too. Which is like the sexual assault that they let John go on. On Marlene. Marlene, yeah. Yes. Also, tears in Kay's shirt appear to be from stab wounds, and lead fragments on the shirt indicate that she was shot. So that lines up at least somewhat closely with what John had told investigators about

like the appearance of Kay's body when he claimed to have found her in February. And it lines up with what Pam said. Yes. So if John couldn't feel the net kind of slowly closing in on him, He is about to. On May 31st, 1992, police actually arrest, not John, but his friend Roger for the murder of Kay Turner. Well, why Roger and not John? Good question. There is no clear answer that I have seen reported on. So I'm not sure if it was just because they had Pam really pinning Roger for it.

That was like a stronger connection. Maybe they were also hoping that Roger would flip on John, so they wanted him in custody first. I don't know. But not arresting John first, or at least at the same time, could have caused valuable evidence to be lost. Because a little over a week later, police discover that a storage unit that John had rented

was completely cleared out the evening of the 31st. So the exact day that Roger was arrested. No, that's not suspicious at all. Ashley, what are you talking about? I know they... Do they know what was in the unit at all? They don't. And unfortunately for them, the unit's been like, I mean, it's been like swept up, someone else had moved in right after. I know they tried to like send someone into the crime lab to check the unit out, but there's like, there's nothing the source material about what, had moved in right after. I know they tried to like send someone into the crime lab

to check the unit out, but there's like, there's nothing in the source material about what if anything they find. So I'm assuming it was nothing. Either way, again, they lost their opportunity for that, but it's game over for John almost two weeks after Roger's arrest. So on June 12th, that's when John is finally arrested.

And this means that Kay's family might finally see some justice all these years later. And two other families might not have to wait nearly as long, because almost four months after his arrest, so now we're in October, this is October 10th, some hunters come across the bodies of Melissa and Sheila, a few miles off of Highway 20. According to Noelle Crombie's reporting, the medical examiner thinks that the girls were most likely strangled, though there are some conflicting sources that say they were stabbed.

Either way, like Kay, the conditions of the bodies make it difficult to determine precisely what happened. And like Kay, there's zero forensic evidence. The only possible piece of evidence police do find at the scene is this little rivet near one of the bodies and some kind of beaded seat cushion. The speculation being that the rivet, which is like this little screw,

it could be something that John would have been using in his work. And the seat cushion is something that highway workers often had in their trucks to keep them cool in the summer. So John's truck is searched. He didn't have one of these cushions in it, so maybe that one was his, but it was impossible to determine at the time. And John, who is now in custody, isn't talking.

So while police try to connect some of the dots between the girls and John, who is now in custody, isn't talking. So while police try to connect some of the dots between the girls and John, ultimately it is this all too familiar song. There is no physical evidence connecting John to the girls' murders. Now some time later, a coworker of John's would claim that around the time that the girls disappeared, John came into work late one night and his arms and his hands were covered in dry blood. John claimed to have hit a deer and then gutted it, but this guy, I guess, didn't even really believe his story then. Did he go to police with the story?

If he did, it wasn't until later, like certainly not then. It sounds like he maybe mentioned the story to his boss, but then it just kind of like stayed work gossip at the time. And then after the news about Melissa and Sheila's bodies being found, like, I think this guy began to wonder if there was a connection to this story. But again, a little unclear about like when he went to the police or the press or whatever. So in September of 1993, John goes on trial for Kay's murder. And according to the Statesman Journal, people like Roger's wife Pam testify against him. They also find more witnesses to corroborate what a predator the quote, pervert is.

A woman named Jane Morris testifies that one day in 1978, like months before Kay's disappearance, she encountered John while she was riding a bike along a road in Camp Sherman. And she says that John pointed a gun at her, attempted to get her to stop, but thankfully she didn't. And then one of the more critical testimonies comes from a forensic anthropologist

who tells the jury that the only way John could have seen wounds, like the type of wounds he described seeing on Kay, was if he saw them in the first few days after Kay died. So him saying even that he saw her in February, not August. Even that separation wasn't enough to actually make sense. It doesn't make sense. They're like, there is no way he could describe the cuts, the shot, whatever, unless it happened within days. So goodbye, John.

Yep. On October 6, 1993, just a few days shy of the one-year anniversary of Melissa and Sheila's bodies being discovered, over three years after his stepdaughter, Rachanda, vanished, and over 14 years after police are pointed to Kay's remains. That is when John Ackroyd is found guilty of Kay Turner's murder.

According to an article in The Oregonian, he is sentenced to life with a 20-year minimum, which is the maximum under the law when that crime was committed. Over a month later, Roger Beck is also found guilty, and he receives the same sentence. Authorities seem to believe that Roger was only involved in Kay's murder, and so they really focused

their sole attention on John for answers in those cases for Melissa and Sheila and of course, Richanda, whose case has continued to make headlines occasionally during this time. But even though it's making headlines, police aren't much further along on that case. But they do keep coming back to her file year after year. They even get desperate enough to ask John to help. In the fall of 2012, an investigator with the Lynn County Sheriff's Office visits John in prison, hoping maybe he's finally ready to talk or open up and provide some

kind of answers to the questions that have surely haunted the people that he once called family. But despite the investigators' best efforts, John is not giving up his ghosts. According to the Oregonian, he continues to spill the same lies he did in the beginning. And it sounds like this is the last time any investigator speaks with John. By 2013, there is some concern

that John could eventually get out on parole. So despite only having circumstantial evidence, and as we've mentioned, like zero body, prosecutors do bring Richanda's case to a grand jury as sort of like a Hail Mary. And the prosecution does have a solid pitch to throw. Like logic dictates that John is probably the one who could have done this. He was the last one to have seen her alive. Opportunity. There was accusations of him sexually abusing

her. Which gives motive. Oh, and by the way, he has now been convicted of Kate Turner's murder. So like, we've got this history here. And look, I'm all for due process, but we, we can kind of like, probably know who did this. And apparently, the grand jury feels the same way because they indict John on a single count of murder. But, indicting is different than prosecuting and convicting. And can be a lot easier. Right, so the prosecution,

what they decide to do is they go to Rachanda's family specifically because they want to offer him a plea deal. They're like, listen, if we go to trial and he's acquitted, like that's it,, it's over. And he could go on to get paroled. Right. So in their minds, it's better to focus on, like, they want to use this to focus on keeping him behind bars. And the family agrees. And John ends up entering a no contest plea. So he's not admitting fault, but he's not denying it either. And this outcome

means that he can never be paroled. And while he receives some punishment for Rachanda, sadly, her body still hasn't been found. Like that wasn't ever part of the deal that they made with him. What about Melissa and Sheila's cases? Did they ever bring anything against him there? Ultimately, they decide not to. At this point, they say they're confident it is John who killed them. But John, at this point, is already serving a life sentence. He's never getting out. So prosecutors decide not to proceed with that. Knowing he can never see the light of day has to be justice enough because that same

year John actually dies in prison. So they can never prosecute him even in the future. And while some might think that that would bring this story to a close, there are still so many questions that remain unanswered, including if these are the only murders John committed. That's honestly what's been in the back of my mind this whole time.

Has he ever been linked to any other cases? Yeah, so the Oregonian flags to date, five other people that have either gone missing from or their remains have been found discovered in the general area off or around Highway 20 where John was known to operate. The first is a skull of a Jane Doe that they found in July of 1976. Which predates Kay by like two years. It even predates, yeah, Marlene's sexual assault. The Oregonian calls this Jane Doe, I think they call her Swamp Mountain Doe,

and they report that her skull was found a mile off Highway 20. She was believed to be, they think younger than 35, and authorities found a leather coat, a belt, blue jeans, and a sandal, like a white leather strap nearby that could have belonged to her. And then in May of 1977, 15-year-old Karen Lee and 14-year-old Rodney Grissom went missing

from the town of Lebanon. We know that John would have passed through there regularly. I mean, that's the same town where Sheri's Diner was located, where John would hang out in the 90. I mean, that's the same town where Sherry's Diner was located, where John would hang out in the 90s. It's where he encountered Melissa and Sheila. Karen and Rodney were never found, but clothing and items of theirs were eventually found in the woods.

And Karen's jeans appeared to be cut similarly to how John cut clothing off of Marlene and Kay. Now, what we learned about Karen and Rodney is that the two wanted to run away to California. And one of the teen's last phone calls to a friend indicated that they had found a ride, but who they were getting this ride from is unknown. Maybe John, maybe not. Then in August of 1977, 22-year-old Elizabeth Musler went missing, also from Lebanon.

Her father was the last to see her downtown. In February of 1978, her body ended up being found in a shallow grave in the Thistle Creek area of Green Peter Reservoir. And also in 1978, another skull of a Jane Doe was found by a logging crew in the woods near Snow Creek, which is like a quarter mile south of Highway 20. Do they ever ask John about these other cases? Sort of. I don't think he was asked in like great detail about these cases, but he was asked more broadly

like, hey, John, what about some of these like other cases in the area? He claimed he didn't know what they were talking about and he had nothing to do with anything. So at the end of the day, no other cases have been directly linked to John. It's all speculative at this point, but it shows that maybe this story isn't totally over. And while some of his victims' families can take some solace in the fact that this man will never harm anyone again, it's heartbreaking to think that there could still be other families who don't have or

may not get the same answers. But it's never too late, and that's why we do this show. So if anyone out there knows anything about these cases or about John Aykroyd and his life and his movements, please call the Lynn County Sheriff's Office tip line at 866-557-9988. You can find all the source material for this episode on our website, crimejunkiepodcast.com. And you can follow us on Instagram at crimejunkiepodcast. We'll be back next week with a brand new episode. The Crime Junkie is an AudioChuck production. So what do you think, Chuck?

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