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Resources and contacts also are listed at the end of the story. Im not sure what the reader gains from reading a detailed description of a rape. Those footnotes helped me sleep at night. Then a confession by a convicted murderer sidetracked detectives before they determined he was lying. Then it was time to go. The couple ate; then they had sex, significant because they almost never did. Her case remained unsolved. What was your greatest writing challenge? It was so essential to the chronology that the cash-strapped county that tried Ackroyd years later flew in a Timex exec from the East Coast to testify about the watch and its timekeeping. A Forest Service rangers account of seeing Ackroyd that day in a sno-park near Santiam Junction hours later than Ackroyd claimed blew a hole in the highway workers alibi. They looked for similarities how none of the victims had been buried, for example. Ackroyd was spotted there at least three times after they went missing. We had a lot of discussion about the ending. It is . How did you reconstruct the details included in this long section about Marlenes rape and the aftermath? But what if the case turned on that clue? US Highway 20, 1976-1992. 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. We had multiple victims across a large swath of rural Oregon and crimes that covered a long period of time. Sometimes they would drive away and turn back to get her. He even pretended to aid in the fruitless search for the girl. Read Full Profile . Once, when a clock fell off a shelf, he beat her with a homemade paddle. Later that night, Marlene and her husband argued when he said he wanted to head off with a couple of friends. He enlisted in the Army after having been accused of felony theft. The investigators glanced at each other, stunned by the damning account all these years later. John Arthur Ackroyd (October 3, 1949 - December 30, 2016) . Load the dishwasher. Some suspect he was but no evidence links him to these cases. In 1992 he was sentenced to five life terms in prison for the abduction and murder of Kaye Turner. Once, he invited neighbors over to watch horror movies, becoming so animated over scenes of women being chopped up that hed hit rewind again and again. So you dont know where shes at, he asked. All these years later, the Turner trial would be the first step in bringing the killer to justice. Ackroyd was raised in the small logging town of Sweet Home, Oregon. Biography . Over time, Ackroyd added incriminating details to his account. Polygraph "test" of Marlene K. Gabrielsen conducted by Sergeant Phil R. Ensminger of the Lane County Sheriff's Office . He was caught trying to steal equipment and supplies. At the hospital, an officer noted scratches on Marlenes back. In 1992 he was sentenced to five life terms in prison for the abduction and murder of Kaye Turner. 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. She was nude. Span of crimes. What lay behind that decision? There was stuff I wanted to say about them that didnt really fit in elsewhere so this seemed like a good spot for that. You dont describe the rape, instead skipping over graphic details. It was dark, around midnight. 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. Tagged: The Oregonian. She thinks those factors played a role in their handling of the investigation. In late December, as the case wrapped up, the investigators read the news: Ackroyd was dead. Some of these details were included in police reports. Why was it important to do so? The circumstantial case rested on a basic theory: It was unlikely that anyone but Ackroyd, now a convicted killer, had harmed the girl. We were smacked by paddles and a lot of people who are are like, Oh big deal, a paddle. No, there was paddles that were designed with holes drilled in them and stuff and they would brag about it helps cuts through the air and you get a harder spanking. Ackroyd was very predominant in discipline. The testing, unavailable at the time of her killing, showed shed been shot and stabbed. In a 7,000-word series, its important at the start to clearly establish who and what readers will encounter as they stay with an unfolding narrative. 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. Or go back to the people left behind, particularly Marlene, who had lived to tell her story and felt heard for the first time. The prime suspect all along, Ackroyd wasnt charged in the case. First thing I thought of was: How can you be hurt in this kind of beauty?" This is a dramatic scene Ackroyd walks into the Sweet Home shop spattered with blood and offers a strange explanation. He and his wife walked out of the county courthouse, where he paced and wept. The process compounded his grief. You end this section by withholding what happened with the grand jury. He was the middle child between two sisters. Their stories. An acquaintance told a detective how he once watched in horror as Ackroyd, then a young man, hacked up puppies using a machete, saying the dogs were his and nobody else could have them. Janes heart raced as she crouched over her handlebars and sped toward the nearby country store, listening for the sound of the truck behind her. The breadth of his crimes has never been revealed until now. Harmon wondered if time had softened the old highway worker. The girls mother eventually moved to California and remarried. Then he started swinging at her with his hand.. When cops went back to her years later, she apparently felt more at ease talking about what really happened. Yes, youre right. He died in prison in 2016.[6][7]. She hadnt been out since her daughter was born three months earlier. Several thousand when all was said and done. Yes and it was something I struggled with. Call the police, Marlene said. Her description provided a distinct sense of place. On one of our many reporting trips along Highway 20, the three of us tracked down the approximate location of the attack based on Marlenes account and police reports. Find books like John Arthur Ackroyd, Serial Killer: A collection of True Crime from the world's largest community of readers. How could they forget? Amazon.com: Agatha Christie: Books, Biography, Blog The Murder of Roger Ackroyd Questions and Answers. Google says its about a half-hour to Sisters, the nearest town where the family would have bought groceries. Kelley Benham French read one of those footnoted drafts and suggested that we publish them all. The cops cheered. And a lot of time in the woods together and that bonded us to one another. Her breast had been punctured by a bullet, he said, and her throat was slashed. But, worried about the possibility of parole in the Turner case, they took their chances. I wanted the reader to feel rooted in that time and place. Kayes final hours remained a mystery. Didnt do anything to Kaye Jean Turner? McAnulty asked, his voice cool. It was as close to a breakthrough as theyd get. Marlene, dizzy from alcohol, watched as he reached through the open window to unlatch the door from the outside. It took 14 years to . Yet neither man confessed to police. He married Emma Richardson on 30 July 1927, in Clayton, Yorkshire, England, United Kingdom. They were there because they were investigating the killing of Kaye Turner, the woman who is the subject of Day 2. Decades later, their cold case murders were tied to suspected serial killer John Ackroyd. Also, Ackroyd was a local guy whose mother worked at the police department as an office worker. He was convicted of a sex crime in Minnesota, served seven months in prison, and moved to California. How much was revision involved in accomplishing this? A sadistic killer goes around killing people, taking girls off somewhere? Laront didnt think of it again until that fall when he heard the news on the radio. When you have one you really hang tight to them. What role did she play? The Life Summary of John Arthur. He runs in Kayes memory every Christmas Eve. In a 7,000-word series, its important at the start to clearly establish who and what readers will encounter as they stay with an unfolding narrative. John Arthur Ackroyd (October 3, 1949 December 30, 2016) was an American murderer and suspected serial killer. Most of what I came up with centered on Ackroyd. They simply felt they had enough. Were other approaches considered? I dont know that its the theme. Other highway workers lived there, but there were few children. Why? And so the case reached a quiet end in the fall of 2013. Anyone who is reporter, you said, knows that a good editor is hard to come by. She recounted the attack in detail, how the man cut off her underwear and boots. Over the course of hours of interviews with The Oregonian/OregonLive, she unburdened herself of every ugly detail. In 1992, he was sentenced to five life terms in prison for the abduction and murder of Kaye Turner. He married a local woman named Linda and they lived with her young kids, Byron and Rachanda. Its got humanity and poignancy but it also lets readers know that ultimately some questions about the Turner murder were never answered. She once showed up at Sheilas with bruises on her face and asked if she could stay. His confidants were a pair of child molesters serving long prison sentences. The judge didnt remember the circumstances and the lawyers for each side pointed fingers at one another. Its amazing how much serendipity plays a role in this story, isnt it? Like Kayes watch and her hair in the birds nest, this Fireball detail is one I knew I would use. I listened to them all, some multiple times. I asked him for an interview. The deputy ran at a steady pace, the thrum of the truck approaching her from behind. If you have experienced sexual violence and need support, contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE. We had a lot of discussion about the ending. Its not a transcript. It was the last time any cop talked to Ackroyd. Finding no sign of her, he panicked and called police. Why do you suppose that was the case? 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]. I had his work, schooling and military records. The trackers noticed two sets of footprints preserved in the frozen ground. Had Ackroyd left a note telling them where to find her? John Arthur Ackroyd, 1902 - 1997. I spoke with his coworkers and friends. I knew this would be an essential scene. Your lead is a classic roundup that focuses on several people or events. Those contradictions, discrepancies and outright lies had led him to this moment. High in the lush canopy, he noticed a birds nest perched on a branch. When he returned to the house at approximately 12:45 p.m., Rachanda had vanished. His wife, Pam, said the two men were around the trailer for most of the morning, which helped give Ackroyd an alibi. That beating she got was over, over the top. The annotated version that ran online was a much shorter version of my own footnoted drafts of this story. What happened?. One of the victims, Terri Jentz, wrote a book about what happened and her search for her assailant. It was there that witnesses heard Ackroyd try to lure Melissa and Sheila to a party he said hed planned to host in Newport just down the road from where they would be camping. 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. Her head slammed into the door frame. I think the local DA wanted to take another look at this cluster of unsolved cases involving young women, and Melissa and Sheila were among them. Biography. Thats when it got broken, over her rear. The report was a summary of what he told police. For a long time, the lead was a scene from his cell immediately after his death. Reporting on this series was emotionally grueling. Overseas, he was investigated for selling marijuana and going AWOL. Would is a conditional verb indicating the consequence of an imagined event or situation. She felt the cool blade of Ackroyds hunting knife against her neck. She admitted it could have been her. When it snapped, he smacked her repeatedly with his open hand. I tried to give quick references to time to guide without distracting the reader. Why did you write it and place it here? 25 November 2021. Hed returned to Sweet Home to live with his mother and split for good with Linda. They assumed the two had gotten a ride from friends. Interviews with Rachanda Pickles brother, Byron, and one of her childhood friends. Beth Nakamura/ The Oregonian/OregonLive. I would describe it as unsatisfying and extraordinary. His name was John Arthur Ackroyd, who would join the ranks of Ted Bundy, Green River Killer Gary Ridgway, and other notorious predators who have trolled the Pacific Northwest for vulnerable and marginalized women. It took weeks the woman had changed her name since the early 1990s but she remembered the men and their names. She talked about how it was late spring. Kaye had been raped and shot, Beck told Pam. This is another of the few times when we read extended dialogue, a hallmark of classic narrative. Kids. Extraordinary because the court sealed the plea and effectively silenced Rachandas brother. And, most significantly, the teens friends confirmed what investigators had long suspected: Ackroyd had been sexually abusing the girl before she vanished. The clue bore a chilling similarity to two of Ackroyds earlier assaults: Rape victim Marlene Gabrielsens boots and underwear were sliced and so was the waistband on Kaye Turners yellow jogging shorts. Most of the narrative was constructed looking back. No, what do you think I am? Ackroyd said, his voice rising in rare agitation. Most nights, the pair could be found at Sharis in Lebanon, where teens and adults gathered to talk on CB radios and drink coffee. Why did you choose to end the narrative with Marlene Gabrielson? His father worked as a truck driver and his mother was a homemaker. The highway worker had hurt Rachanda, stuffed her into a garbage bag and hauled her away, Linn County Sheriffs Detective Jim Salsbery said during one of their interviews. Faryion Wardrip. That late summer day, Ackroyd headed straight for Weston. There was so much information to move through. Their stories have another connection: One man - John Arthur Ackroyd - is linked to all five crimes. He was convicted in the 1978 murder of a woman who never returned from a holiday jog and the prime suspect in the 1990 disappearance . You know, he said, both of you sitting there pointing your fingers at me, and I didnt do nothing.. How and why did you settle on that approach? It was so essential to the chronology that the cash-strapped county that tried Ackroyd years later flew in a Timex exec from the East Coast to testify about the watch and its timekeeping. The couple married in the mid-1980s but divorced after a year. The hearing lasted about seven minutes. 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. Here is the . Then Linda tells her that Rachanda has been gone for 24 hours and the dispatcher stumbles a bit. The young mother managed to survive. How did you find out she tied her hair back and that the couple couldnt afford the buckskin boots she wore, and what she told her daughter? I hired a high school student to come in and Bates stamp them. We encourage you to research and examine . 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. This is a such a powerful, almost poetic detail. I also wanted to touch on the idea that this story served as a form of justice for Marlene. What was your reaction when you discovered it? His relationship with Linda ended and he moved in with his mother in Sweet Home. 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. Will McAnulty, one of the detectives, suggested they run through the scene one more time. We needed to say that. How did you reconstruct the details included in this long section about Marlenes rape and the aftermath? There were days when we were depleted after doing interviews or looking at these files and crime scene photos. When the couple pulled into the compound that evening, Rachanda wasnt hanging around outside like she had the day before. Court and police files contained several references to Jane. Disgusted, Weston went to find her husband, but Ackroyd was gone by the time the couple returned to confront him. Cops did a thorough timeline of Kayes morning so that detail came from those records. Kaye Turner vanished 40 years ago while running along an empty road in a rustic central Oregon retreat. They complemented each other: Benson, a veteran cop whod had a hand in investigating some of Lincoln Countys most memorable and notorious crimes, and Snow, a quick study with an impressive memory and a knack for spinning a mountain of clues into theories. Hes a grandfather now. . I can hear him on the recording that the detective made. Did you discover Jane Morris in the trial transcript? I knew from the time Id spent with her that shes a strong person, and Day 1 of this series didnt capture that. The next day, Hanlon hopped in a car with a Jefferson County deputy for a briefing on the search for Rachanda. Yes, we saw Highway 20 as its own theme and character. Within days of the discovery of Melissa and Sheilas bodies, police zeroed in once again on the highway worker. He said he gave her a pair of pants because she had torn hers while taking them off. She had been drinking and her husband was known to local cops in their small town. McAnulty wondered if an ex-wife might see the events of the distant past in a different light. He said he was with his friend and hunting companion, Roger Dale Beck. Months later, I wrote him another letter. You could win the lottery four or five times before something like that would happen, Salsbery said. What triggered the new investigation? So I went back to Marlene and slow-walked her through her preparations for going out that night. janne. Was the passage longer and, if so, how did you revise it? This is a woman who has suffered in silence, alone, for decades, and here she was getting this kind of delayed justice. Benson made a four-hour trek to a courthouse three counties away, where a metal filing cabinet held Kaye Turners case. He claimed hed reached down to touch the slain womans arm and hair. Karens case and the others from that era were all but forgotten. Their stories have another connection: John Arthur Ackroyd.A highway mechanic who targeted women on the long stretch of highway that he know so well from endless trips.Calm and collected on the exterior, his personality hid the predator that raged within. I was working with a massive amount of information, a long span of years and a huge slice of Oregon geography. He was willing to talk. The cold case investigation was current and provided real-time detective work that was an aspect of the story that we hadnt yet explored. He ripped off her jeans with such force, the pants split from the waist to the ankle along the inseam. The state police detective assigned to investigate the killers death found Ackroyd on the floor of his cell, his sleep apnea machine still whirring and the breathing tube stuck in his throat, left over from last-ditch efforts to save him. Take hot dogs out of the freezer. A few days later, I received a handwritten letter from Noel. She clearly is trying to process why a mother would wait so long to report that her child has disappeared from a remote highway compound. Once in a while, Bart Swanson makes his way to the isolated logging road where Sheilas body was found just feet from her friend, Melissa Sanders. John Ackroyd ended up dying in prison in 2016. Ackroyd told police that Marlene had seduced him in the front seat of his dirty truck. He took off a couple days the week Melissa and Sheila had gone camping. The extraordinary arrangement meant Ackroyd would die in prison. How were you able to describe his breathing? Faryion Wardrip born March 6, 1959, was an American murderer who raped and killed a total of five . Christine and Kim discuss the excellent documenatry--"Ghosts of Highway 20" regarding John Arthur Ackroyd, a state highway worker who had access to roam the state. I moved my desk next to Daves. You end this section by withholding what happened with the grand jury. 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. Local police didnt put much stock in the accuracy of the trackers findings. I listened to them all, some multiple times. He struggles to breathe and its clear he takes time to move around. The unglamorous task fell to Ron Benson, an investigator for the district attorney, and Linda Snow, a retired legal assistant. 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. No, the bewildered dispatcher said, thats not true, not with children. Was there ever a concern about libeling Ackroyd before he died and rendered the question moot? One of the best investigative reporters in the state had written episodically about it, but nobody had put it all together. 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. This time you dramatize the action instead of summarizing it. What was your reaction when you discovered it? Also, Ackroyd was a local guy whose mother worked at the police department as an office worker. How do we create a person's profile? Do you or any of the detectives have any suspicions why it was sealed? The focus seemed wrong. No evidence, physical or otherwise, ever linked Ackroyd to any of them, but their timing and proximity to Highway 20 prompted investigators to wonder if the mechanic had a hand in them. For faster navigation, this Iframe is preloading the Wikiwand page for John Arthur Ackroyd . Ackroyd wasnt sure. Ran into a deer, Ackroyd said. Was it important to use it here? Shes finally believed and theres satisfaction that comes with that. So instead of hundreds of footnotes, we ran about 150 in a separate version of the story that also links to original source material. Prosecutors didnt have a body. The men at first said theyd hunted coyotes but later changed their stories to say they were poaching deer. She often wore a black leather jacket that her parents paid for on installments. Ackroyd heaved his body out of the chair. I have a baby thats not even a year old, she pleaded. Annie was born on August 28 1876, in Ashfield Farnley Yorkshire. How do we create a person's profile? If a jury acquitted Ackroyd, it could clear the way for him to seek parole. He worked overseas as a mechanic and was caught stealing equipment. Just as before, police turned up no physical evidence linking him to Melissa and Sheila. Why? He pointed a handgun at her and ordered her to stop. The freelancers anniversary story, she realized, opened the door to more; he agreed to take a substantial kill fee so The Oregonian could pursue that more complicated piece. He mentioned it only after a pair of state police troopers approached him a couple of weeks later. Our overarching purpose was to hold their rapist/killer accountable in public for the first time. Police had done extensive interviews with his supervisors and friends as well. Marlene suspects it was rooted in their bias against Native Americans. The conference room where we met to discuss this story features a wall-sized whiteboard. The beginning because you have to engage and explain but not overpromise, all the while getting the tone right. They began walking along U.S. 101, covering more than six miles to the turnoff to Highway 20, then headed east. I work for Channy, he told Ackroyd. This time Ackroyds lawyer responded. I asked him for an interview. She told them how Ackroyd had once offered the young women a ride. The prosecutor, Bill Hanlon, and newspaper accounts. Ackroyd returned to the periphery. The editing and revisions were often focused on fleshing out an idea and switching up styles so it wasnt all spare and lean if that makes sense.
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