How were you able to describe the dispatcher as bewildered? The DA knew Ackroyd had changed his story and admitted he had talked to Kaye the morning he encountered her on a run. Had Ackroyd left a note telling them where to find her? Ackroyds low libido was the source of such open conflict that Lindas teenage son, Byron, knew of their troubles. In other scenes, Beck grabbed her as Ackroyd looked on. Shed need evidence so police could find him later. Kayes killing serves as the cliffhanger at the end of Day 1. In class, she counted down the minutes, a sense of dread rising as the end of the school day approached. There was something really hinky about it. This is heartbreaking. At one point, Kelley Benham French was a consultant on the series. Dried blood covered his arms and hands. It was Marlene Gabrielsens first night away from her baby girl. Ending with her in this way allowed me to highlight her resilience. In that way, the story feels unresolved. You felt a tremendous obligation to the victims and their loved ones in telling this story. Beth Nakamura / The Oregonian/OregonLive. I knew all along I wanted to make a passing reference to this crime because it was such a horrible act that touched on some of the same themes as Ackroyds crimes. Sandy Turner, Noels wife, answered and greeted us warmly. Book details & editions He lies down in the dirt and stares up: Is this what his sister saw before she died? Yes and it was something I struggled with. This scene has a cinematic quality cops gathering on an empty road days before Christmas reenacting an abduction using a woman deputy and then deciding to give the story their own happy ending. You know, he said, both of you sitting there pointing your fingers at me, and I didnt do nothing.. In one stunning development, he revealed that hed seen Kayes decomposing remains two months after her disappearance but never thought to call police. And Harmon hadn't uncovered any physical evidence linking Ackroyd to Rachanda's disappearance. Its also a newspaper story, not a book. He was the only son of an office worker at the local police department and a maintenance man. Structurally, what was your intention? He eluded police even as their suspicions about him deepened. She said he threatened to do to me exactly what they did to Kaye Turner.. Karens case and the others from that era were all but forgotten. Her jeans appeared to have been cut. I also wanted to touch on the idea that this story served as a form of justice for Marlene. They simply felt they had enough. While recordings from his earlier police interrogations on the Kaye Turner and Rachanda Pickle cases filled hours of tape, Ackroyd was silent on Melissa and Sheila. Her mother noticed the girls hairbrush, makeup and earrings were still there. . The men at first said theyd hunted coyotes but later changed their stories to say they were poaching deer. Pronunciation of John Arthur Ackroyd with 1 audio pronunciation and more for John Arthur Ackroyd. It started when a supervisor in the Linn County Sheriffs Office assigned McAnulty to organize press clippings from the early days of the investigation. 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. This time, the DA and the cops who believed Ackroyd had gotten away with Kaye Turners killing were determined to get the highway worker off the street for good. What triggered the new investigation? Their childhoods had been nightmarish under Ackroyds roof. This time, the DA says come on down and I met with him and his chief deputy and they basically walked me through the grand jury presentation. Hed planned to fix snowplows but decided to take the day off after learning parts hadnt arrived, a claim that baffled his supervisor, who said there was plenty of work to keep Ackroyd busy. Im not sure what the reader gains from reading a detailed description of a rape. To read the story without annotations, click the Hide all annotations button, which youll find just below the social media buttons in the top right-hand menu, or at the top of your mobile screen. . She went missing in 1990 12 years after Kayes killing and just down the highway. The process compounded his grief. But what if the case turned on that clue? What are the chances that two serial killers were active during the same time and place? These are key characters in this story. Secondary trauma from reporting stories like this is real. Ackroyd worked out of Corvallis and continued to roam the highway. It moved around a bit until it landed here. Over time, Ackroyd added incriminating details to his account. She felt the cool blade of Ackroyds hunting knife against her neck. You end this section by withholding what happened with the grand jury. Noel Turner drove through Camp Sherman to look for his wife. Guilty. 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. Cops did a thorough timeline of Kayes morning so that detail came from those records. So here: Whos responsible for this carnage? I asked my colleagues if they thought readers would know about Fireballs and the consensus was yes. Ackroyd returned to the periphery. In it, he thanked me for telling the stories of Ackroyds other victims. There was so much information to move through. Rachanda was so uneasy living at Santiam Junction that she routinely brought a change of clothes to school hoping to stay with friends. Why dont you quote directly from his statement? Police photos showed her watch in the woods near where her partial remains were found. In 1992, he was sentenced to five life terms in prison for the abduction and murder of Kaye Turner. An examiner asked a series of questions: Did she tell the truth about being raped? A thought skittered The last time the two saw each other, Rachanda was in the backseat of a Chevy Blazer headed home. The details throughout are extraordinarily vivid. I asked my colleagues if they thought readers would know about Fireballs and the consensus was yes. For years, only those in the room would know what had happened. This is a crucial moment where Ackroyd is confronted with one of these crimes, in this case Rachandas disappearance. The family lived at the state highway division compound at Santiam Junction, where U.S. 20 and Oregon 22 meet. Kelley Benham French read one of those footnoted drafts and suggested that we publish them all. Will McAnulty, one of the detectives, suggested they run through the scene one more time. Lucinda Williams The Ghosts of Highway 20, One of the victims, Terri Jentz, wrote a book. We coped with it in our own ways, but we relied on each other. A few days later, I received a handwritten letter from Noel. By this point, it was time to flesh him out. It was a sensational crime that remains unsolved. A sadistic killer goes around killing people, taking girls off somewhere? He had already raped a young mother by the time he happened upon Kaye the day before Christmas in 1978. Source? Ackroyd knew, too, the dirt spurs that led off the highway and into the forest. The report was a summary of what he told police. They were there because they were investigating the killing of Kaye Turner, the woman who is the subject of Day 2. Now, a woman had gone missing, triggering a massive search that made headlines clear to Portland: Husband fears kidnap: Turner searchers losing hope, one read in The Oregonian four days later. Ackroyd has three brothers and one sister. A used rivet was discovered near her body. Both reports are attached to this post. Sometime after he moved, Ackroyd was in his truck with the daughter of an old friend. Shes finally believed and theres satisfaction that comes with that. He offered no explanation. Over two decades, four women disappeared and one was raped along the same stretch of road in rural Oregon. In fact, when she didnt feel I was doing enough on the project, she made that clear. They were there because they were investigating the killing of Kaye Turner, the woman who is the subject of Day 2. He said he was with his friend and hunting companion, Roger Dale Beck. He was raised in Sweet Home, a modest logging town along Highway 20. But they heard about forensic testing on Kayes clothing. Structurally, why did you decide to break here for a biography of Ackroyd? He had an older and younger sister. Its amazing how much serendipity plays a role in this story, isnt it? She told them how Ackroyd had once offered the young women a ride. But these are long stories and I didnt want to lose readers, so it was a question of using scenes and descriptions that were most telling. During the course of my reporting, I heard several references to this infamous Cline Falls attack, which took place around the time of Marlenes rape and Kayes murder. 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. Died 20 JAN 1929. After the rape, Ackroyd slapped the knife against his grimy jeans held up by orange suspenders. That may have also played a role in their response. The state didnt take the case to a grand jury. You aim to anticipate the next question theyll have. Buy John Arthur Ackroyd, Serial Killer by Ruth Canton at Mighty Ape Australia. 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. It was my way of saying the state felt they had enough to prove this case and thats as close as this case would get to justice. Marlene suspects it was rooted in their bias against Native Americans. Kaye Turner vanished 40 years ago while running along an empty road in a rustic central Oregon retreat. Detectives moved on. They didnt hear from Ackroyd, who had decided not to testify. Gillmore knew Ackroyd had abducted a runner near Highway 20. For a long time, the lead was a scene from his cell immediately after his death. How were you able to describe his breathing? Then, two decades later, in 2010, another detective picked up the file. You handle time very effectively, jumping from minute to minute, day to day, month to month and year to year, eliding what came between without the reader feeling a sense of having missed something. Armed with an ax or hatchet, he attacked the women, both students at Yale University. In 1992, he was sentenced to five life terms in prison for the abduction and murder of Kaye Turner. Read "John Arthur Ackroyd, Serial Killer" by Ruth Canton available from Rakuten Kobo. How did you decide which characters to include in the epilogue? The girl who was good about leaving notes if she headed out to play Nintendo at a neighbors house hadnt left one. 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. Why did Pam Ramirez lie when first interviewed by the cops? She wanted to make sure he knew what was coming. June 12, 2022 / 1 / 0 / 1 / 0 He seemed almost relieved to be able to talk about what hed seen. The time and date stood still: 9:27 a.m. on Dec. 24. bridal shower wording sample for guests not invited to wedding; family life resurrection eggs story printable. From the outside, Ackroyd seemed to lead an ordinary life: Raised in small-town Oregon, he hunted and fished, held a steady job and married a woman with a couple of young kids. One of the best investigative reporters in the state had written episodically about it, but nobody had put it all together. Why was it important to do so? She cried as she told one of them that she was terrified of returning to the junction alone. Later that morning, the door to the house opened unexpectedly. They had to be named first it should be a shock to the conscience that women were vanishing like this and someone was getting away with it. A sergeants conclusion went into a typed report, which was placed in a file: Marlene was lying. She hadnt been out long when a state highway worker named Thomas Hanna spotted her, running south, alone. Rachanda declined, citing the chores her mother expected her to finish, he said. After Rachandas disappearance, Ackroyd was transferred out of Santiam Junction, where his connection to the case and his behavior made women uncomfortable. My editor tells me I usually write with economy and directness, so it was also more of my natural style to hone and hone some more. She confided in two girls who were sisters. Did you discover Jane Morris in the trial transcript? Im just asking you., I have never killed anybody in my life, Ackroyd said. Now, two years after Rachanda went missing without a trace from the family home, the young women who left a camping trip were dead. Trigger warning: This story includes details of a rape. Now the district attorney could use his sisters death to keep Ackroyd from hurting anyone else. Help advance the Nieman Foundations mission to promote and elevate the standards of journalism by making a donation. The killer was dead. Her face and name are tattooed onto his left bicep, a memorial to the aunt his children never knew. Why did you decide to tell it in the omniscient third person as you do so much of the story? Beth Nakamura / The Oregonian/OregonLive. Two more young women disappeared about a month before Ackroyd was arrested and charged in Kayes death. Each of the multimedia elements in powerful in its own right. She understood how ambitious we were trying to be and was really supportive of that. Marlene found a friend to care for her baby, pumped breast milk and wrote out a napping schedule. John Arthur Ackroyd was an American murderer and suspected serial killer. It meant losing me in the rotation. janne. She wanted to go home to her baby. I knew from the time Id spent with her that shes a strong person, and Day 1 of this series didnt capture that. She admitted it could have been her. It seems clear that for many of those involved, including most importantly the victims and their families, the system (and to a larger extent society) failed them. They simply felt they had enough. This story is complicated and confusing. From a writers perspective, the story behind the story is almost as fascinating. The project was a true collaboration. They wrote down his habit of taking time off around the disappearances, as hed done with Kaye and Rachanda. Ackroyd had indeed come across Kaye but didnt go to police, even though he saw posters with her picture at the nearby Santiam Junction highway compound, where he lived. 1977-1992. Trauma had seared these details into her memory. How can you say with certainty that he would have heard the river? The couple married in the mid-1980s but divorced after a year. Somebody could have just come in, he said, knocked her over the head, throw her over the shoulders and just walk out without anybody seeing her. He drew an orange grid, each column dedicated to a victim assaulted or killed, likely by Ackroyd. Yet Ackroyd went on working for the state, responding to broken down cars, clearing wrecks and fixing state rigs along the highway, alone. When parent conferences rolled around, no one showed up. Over the course of hours of interviews with The Oregonian/OregonLive, she unburdened herself of every ugly detail. This detail is so specific. Its definitely hard to read but written, I hope its seen, with deliberation and circumspection. Why the shift? Over time, the story took on even darker tones. Then a confession by a convicted murderer sidetracked detectives before they determined he was lying. She hadnt been out since her daughter was born three months earlier. Why? I wanted the reader to hear Ackroyds reaction when confronted with the detectives suspicions. I know from watching Dave Killens powerful documentary that much of what you summarize in the story, especially peoples voices, appears there instead of the print narrative. He struggles to breathe and its clear he takes time to move around. 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. His wife sat by his side. He announced that hed found Kayes remains in the nearby woods while hunting rabbits with his dog, though as a seasoned hunter, he must have known the area was an unlikely choice for spotting rabbits. The larger person had dragged the smaller person away. Harmon tried to nudge Ackroyd. At one point before the trials, investigators had returned to Camp Sherman to re-enact theories of what had happened. Another Oregon courthouse provided the backdrop for Ackroyds second prosecution.