The answer was no. It was Marlene Gabrielsens first night away from her baby girl. Detectives moved on. She remembered looking up to see small flowers in bloom. They were scrappy and streetwise high school dropouts. This spectral photograph opens Ghosts of Highway 20, a stunning multimedia narrative series published last December by The Oregonian/OregonianLive. Why did you choose to end the narrative with Marlene Gabrielson? In it, he thanked me for telling the stories of Ackroyds other victims. Those contradictions, discrepancies and outright lies had led him to this moment. In all, five teens disappeared on or around highways in the county from 1984 through 1995. His high school diploma indicated that he had been a "special education" student. Despite all the tantalizing coincidences and Ackroyds apparent eagerness to place himself at the scene of the crime, investigators could find no physical evidence definitively linking him to the killing. He listened quietly and wept. On one reporting trip to the Oregon Coast, I walked the campground and stood in the area where the women made their final call. Help advance the Nieman Foundations mission to promote and elevate the standards of journalism by making a donation. He went inside to get a soda and use the bathroom. He said hed gone to photograph wildlife when Rachanda went missing. Kaye and husband, Noel, had joined friends on a holiday getaway at Camp Sherman, a vacation and fly-fishing retreat along the pristine Metolius River off Highway 20 with a two-room school, country store and 200 year-round residents. The watch played a key role in helping to pin down when she was killed. Once home from the Army, he got a state job, where he earned generally positive reviews, though supervisors noted his occasional laziness and frequent time off. She introduced the women to him and they climbed in. It was earlier in the year, though he couldnt recall the date. Rachanda's stepfather, John Arthur Ackroyd, is the last person known to have seen her. Ackroyd obviously is the catalyst of destruction. Her case remained unsolved. Her jeans appeared to have been cut. The sisters knew why she was afraid. A couple of weeks later, Marlene sat in the back of an unmarked police car as two officers drove her to the lie detector test. Her head slammed into the door frame. These particular details are important as circumstantial evidence. Though they had grown apart in their marriage, he remembers Kaye with fondness. This let us quickly introduce the five women we write about but also put them first in the mind of the reader. The couple married in the mid-1980s but divorced after a year. 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. The police detective who originally investigated the rape was long dead, so we couldnt ask him. Google says its about a half-hour to Sisters, the nearest town where the family would have bought groceries. The interview sputtered to a halt. But what if the case turned on that clue? The judge didnt remember the circumstances and the lawyers for each side pointed fingers at one another. The state had continued to pay out Ackroyds $3,624 monthly public employee pension even while he was in prison. Ackroyd was incarcerated in Oregon State Penitentiary. What they didnt know: The teens likely were already dead. Its not a transcript. Why? Raised in southern Oregon, she was an only child who remained close to her parents and had recently returned from a visit. This detail is so specific. Then he said he left. You dont describe the rape, instead skipping over graphic details. We chose to go with the legacy of the investigation. Im not sure what the reader gains from reading a detailed description of a rape. Bottomly teamed up Crombie with Killen and Nakamura to run the mystery to ground. John Arthur Ackroyd - YouTube How can you say with certainty that he would have heard the river? When the men turned them down, Melissa and Sheila said theyd hitchhike instead. You aim to anticipate the next question theyll have. Harmon kept the tone conversational as he directed Ackroyd back to Rachanda. He was painting the tailgate. Linda and John Ackroyd left for work, she as a housekeeper at Black Butte Ranch, a resort community about 30 minutes away, and he as a highway mechanic. The reporting team pored over thousands of police reports and court records, interviewed dozens of witnesses, survivors and investigators and traveled out of state to confront a critical source who hadnt responded to their requests for information. The details throughout are extraordinarily vivid. John Arthur Ackroyd Free Company Director Check What followed likely altered the path of Ackroyds life, along with those of at least five young women and everyone who loved them. George was born on March 29 1875, in East Bierley, Yorkshire. The girl who was good about leaving notes if she headed out to play Nintendo at a neighbors house hadnt left one. Looking for John Ackroyd online? The nut graf is: One woman was raped, four others disappeared. Rachanda declined, citing the chores her mother expected her to finish, he said. Just as before, police turned up no physical evidence linking him to Melissa and Sheila. He has won the Whitbread Biography Award, the Royal . Kaye headed out alone, her feet pounding a two-lane camp road tinged red from volcanic ash. It was just a hell of a story. She was calm as she told the dispatcher that her daughter, a homebody, had gone missing. Later, Ackroyd would drive back roads, shooting squirrels and cutting off their tails. He got creative: What if cops and prison officials arranged for Ackroyd to share a Christmas or Thanksgiving meal with his family on the outside? This is the area where Marlene Gabrielsen was raped off Highway 20 by John Ackroyd. Some of the most important sources never appear in the print component of this project. Was it difficult to learn about Kaye Turners husband since her murder? He appeared to become sexually aroused when shown a pair of pants that police had found in the woods and initially suspected belonged to Rachanda. 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. I was taken aback by how much emotion and support there was for Marlene in the room. Two were Jane Does. Kayes remains sat forgotten in the Jefferson County Courthouse until three years ago when court staff came across them. He claimed he invited her to join him on a drive to photograph deer on back roads near the junction. Marlene flew out of the pickup, a blur moving toward the house. Just like with Kaye, detectives would never know what had happened to Ackroyds stepdaughter, Rachanda Pickle. Where did it and the other information about Kayes run come from? Some of these details were included in police reports. Gillmore knew Ackroyd had abducted a runner near Highway 20. 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. Ackroyd has three brothers and one sister. How could they forget? There was the rivet found near Sheila and a beaded seat cushion used at the time in cars and trucks. Biography. Pretty bleak. Ackroyd was abusive to both Byron and Rachanda. It was shocking. Kayes husband Noel remarried. That day, she tied her hair back and pulled on her green Levis. 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. Yes and it was something I struggled with. He was responsible for clearing wrecks, helping people whose cars broke down on the highway, and maintenance. Is that what youre saying? For faster navigation, this Iframe is preloading the Wikiwand page for John Arthur Ackroyd . Ackroyd knew, too, the dirt spurs that led off the highway and into the forest. But detectives long suspected Ackroyd preyed on women who disappeared along or around Highway 20 from the late 1970s through the early 1990s. Some suspect he was but no evidence links him to these cases. john arthur ackroyd childhood. A state police sergeant and a lieutenant from a local sheriffs office tracked down Marlene at home. Her breast had been punctured by a bullet, he said, and her throat was slashed. Theyd noticed that Ackroyds truck was still parked outside and his work rig wasnt there. A cinnamon candy? His wife sat by his side. This is a messy story that jumps around in time. Her case remained unsolved. Why did choose to organize by chronologically, by victim? Hed pored over Ackroyds police interviews from 1979 when the highway worker admitted he was the last person to see Kaye Turner. Most nights, the pair could be found at Sharis in Lebanon, where teens and adults gathered to talk on CB radios and drink coffee. Load the dishwasher. I listened to them all, some multiple times. Rachanda was so uneasy living at Santiam Junction that she routinely brought a change of clothes to school hoping to stay with friends. So instead of hundreds of footnotes, we ran about 150 in a separate version of the story that also links to original source material. So Dave and I drove a couple hours south to the Turner home Noel had remarried in the years after Kayes death and knocked on the door. It felt clunky to me to stop and quote a source. He spent Christmas patrolling Camp Sherman, quietly marking Kayes disappearance decades earlier. I was working with a massive amount of information, a long span of years and a huge slice of Oregon geography. Over two decades, four women disappeared and one was raped on the same stretch of road in rural Oregon. Did you use an outline or timeline to keep things straight in this convoluted case? Sheila often slept away from home but stayed in touch with her mother. He drove off as she banged frantically on the door. Most of what I came up with centered on Ackroyd. The beginning because you have to engage and explain but not overpromise, all the while getting the tone right. I knew from his coworkers that his truck likely didnt have AC. Sense of smell is so evocative, yet writers rarely take advantage of its power. Another, a young woman from Lebanon named Elizabeth Mussler who disappeared when she was 22, was discovered in a shallow grave. I burned through so many leads before landing on this one. Didnt do anything to Channy? the cop pressed. They looked for similarities how none of the victims had been buried, for example. John Arthur Ackroyd, Serial Killer by Ruth Canton is available in these His friends became sick at the sight and left. Something bad happened to her. Arthur Ackroyd (1882-1929) | WikiTree FREE Family Tree Actually, the beginning and the ending were the most rewritten parts of the series, as we knew they would be. She often wore a black leather jacket that her parents paid for on installments. Investigators suspicions deepened as his story began to shift. Court and police files contained several references to Jane. If you had to characterize the way the system worked in the Rachanda Pickle case, what words would you use? I looked for ways to make that as seamless as possible. Another time, they snuck her into their bedroom closet. John Ackroyd had an unusual arrangement with Rachandas mother, Linda. The trackers noticed two sets of footprints preserved in the frozen ground. It provided readers with a sense of place but also helped propel the story along. In our meetings early on, I filled every square inch of the board with dates, victims, themes, etc. It made sense to make Highway 20 a central theme and to tell the story chronologically, using the highway as a guide. Ending with her in this way allowed me to highlight her resilience. Melissa had a turbulent life, too. And so the case reached a quiet end in the fall of 2013. 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. Our overarching purpose was to hold their rapist/killer accountable in public for the first time. No one listened all those years ago. Ackroyd was charged with Rachanda's murder in 2013, and pleaded no contest. Beth Nakamura/ The Oregonian/OregonLive. Marlene K. Gabrielsen wants you to remember her name. Did you have to listen to them to be able to write that sentence? She was alone with Ackroyd, a big man who reeked of sweat and freshly cut wood. Were other approaches considered? Talking about some other people that are dead up in that area., Oh, said Ackroyd, now youre trying to lay some others on me?, No, Im just asking you, the detective said. For his novels about English history and culture and his biographies of, among others, William Blake , Charles Dickens , T. S. Eliot , Charlie Chaplin and Sir Thomas More , he won the Somerset Maugham Award and two Whitbread Awards . Plus, in an era of smartphones, a Timex wrist watch gives readers the sense that this crime happened in another era. He runs in Kayes memory every Christmas Eve. How did you locate her? To some, she seemed lost, almost invisible. When he returned to the house at approximately 12:45 p.m., Rachanda had vanished. Its dramatic and I wanted to draw it out for the reader. I asked my colleagues if they thought readers would know about Fireballs and the consensus was yes. Great details, especially the belt. Court and police files contained several references to Jane. I wanted him to know that the reporting was continuing and that a story would likely appear sometime in the coming months. It was my way of acknowledging to the reader that this has been an epic tale that wont have a Hollywood ending. I wanted the reader to hear Ackroyds reaction when confronted with the detectives suspicions. So I shifted to the women he encountered. It was the kind of menial task you might give a rookie detective. 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. "I remember it was beautiful because it was all green and little flowers blooming, little tiny ones. I read. It seemed like decent shorthand for conveying the remoteness of this area. Investigators talked to Marlenes mother-in-law, too. I knew from the time Id spent with her that shes a strong person, and Day 1 of this series didnt capture that. This time, he drove them up a logging road and into the woods. It was a poignant detail in a horrifying account. Their stories have another connection: John. Published March 23, 2020. Maybe they just walked in, seen an opportunity and grasped at it.. Read "John Arthur Ackroyd, Serial Killer" by Ruth Canton available from Rakuten Kobo. Why after two decades? bridal shower wording sample for guests not invited to wedding; family life resurrection eggs story printable. I would imagine there were several possible structures for the series. [1] He married Linda Pickle in the mid-1980s. The grand jury returned an indictment on a single count: murder. John Arthur Ackroyd was an American murderer and suspected serial killer. I did not have any models in mind. Youre going to do what I tell you, Ackroyd said, speaking for the first time, his low, raspy voice laced with a bit of a drawl. Ackroyd was spotted there at least three times after they went missing. Even today parts of the road are so narrow and quiet the highway has the feel of a country lane. The girls mother eventually moved to California and remarried. Then 29, Ackroyd had worked for the highway department for nearly a year. She planned an 8-mile run. You were able, one wrote, to give voice to so many people who have largely gone unheard (until now). The time and date stood still: 9:27 a.m. on Dec. 24. 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. We have found 138 people in the UK with the name John Ackroyd. I wanted the reader to hear Ackroyds reaction when confronted with the detectives suspicions. She thinks those factors played a role in their handling of the investigation. Was that a conscious decision? He said he came home during a break from work and asked Rachanda if she wanted to go for a ride with him. The jurors listened attentively and scribbled notes. Their deaths exposed Ackroyd as a serial killer and raised the possibility of other killings. Did she feel shed been raped? Kaye Turners killing became a faded memory. This is what we heard at the Youth Club in the early 1970's through to the late 1980's, when most nights were party nights, men were men and girls were girls and you met on the dance floor. Where is she? Linda asked Ackroyd as darkness enveloped the highway compound. Over the course of hours of interviews with The Oregonian/OregonLive, she unburdened herself of every ugly detail. When she was 12, Ackroyd tattooed his initials on her arm. John Ackroyd ended up dying in prison in 2016. I found her through Nexis, I think. Ages 3-5 Ages 6-8 Ages 9-12 See All. Ackroyd worked out of Corvallis and continued to roam the highway. You could, I assume, have used sources to describe this scene. john arthur ackroyd childhood john arthur ackroyd childhood I dont know that its the theme. I asked him for an interview. I tried to picture this scene. In fact, when she didnt feel I was doing enough on the project, she made that clear. The next day, Hanlon hopped in a car with a Jefferson County deputy for a briefing on the search for Rachanda. [4] Ackroyd's step-daughter Rachanda Pickle went missing in 1990. He showed signs of a disturbed mind. Account & Lists Returns & Orders. He hadnt told his wife the full story of Rachandas life and how he remained tormented that he hadnt hugged his kid sister the last time he saw her. 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. Wikizero - John Arthur Ackroyd He was raised in Sweet Home, a modest logging town along Highway 20.