01x03 - Tip of the Iceberg

[bunniefuu]

John Ackroyd left

a trail of devastation

in his wake.

They know him,

what he did to Kaye Turner,

to Rachanda.

And now, 80 miles to the west,

on Highway 20,

he is on the move

to new hunting grounds.

I never got

anything more

than "John Ackroyd's gonna

start reporting to your shop,

and you can't tell anybody

why he's here."

But Rachanda

having disappeared

under very

weird circumstances,

everybody were starting

to then get

pretty concerned about John

being around.

They were all saying

the same thing,

"Why is he here?"

But the police want him

somewhere where they can

monitor his behaviors.

I thought,

"This is the most stupid thing

I ever heard."

He was made, what they call,

a roving field mechanic.

He could be driving

130 miles a day,

and you're gonna monitor him?

Give me a break.

There were weeks on in

that I never even saw him.

He was on the road.

He was gone.

And John wasn't stupid.

He knew why he was there.

He was just like,

"Yeah, go ahead.

Try and catch me."

Lebanon and Sweet Home

are 13 miles apart.

It's a big straight stretch

of nothing.

We call it The Narrows.

There is nothing to do

in Lebanon,

literally nothing,

except for go to Shari's.

That was a hangout

on Highway 20.

I mean, that was the thing

to do.

It was someplace to go.

It was a safe place to go.

We could just laugh

and be ourselves

and spend time together.

We played CB tag,

talked on the CB radios.

All the cars had CB radios.

You could talk to somebody

in another car,

kind of, like,

a moving cell phone

but attached to your car.

Kind of like

a chat room,

just randomly talking

to people.

We'd get on there

and say their CB handle.

Mine was Okey-1.

Say, "Hey, Okey-1,

are you out there?"

I'd say,

"Hi, I'm Lady Know-It-All."

That was my handle,

Lady Know-It-All.

Because I knew everything.

Speed Demon, Speed Wagon.

Bunny.

Night Rider.

General Public, GP.

I don't know why

she called herself that.

It's so weird.

And that's when,

at Shari's,

I first met John Ackroyd.

When he

introduced himself,

he said, "I'm The Pervert."

That was his CB radio handle.

The Pervert.

And immediately,

phew, something goes off

in my brain

and I'm like, "Why would you

say that so loud

in front of a bunch of women?"

Right?

"There's something up

with this guy."

I knew that

there was something not right.

People would say,

"Give him a chance.

Give him a chance."

"Oh, you're always

so suspicious of people."

I'm like, "Yeah.

No fooling.

This guy says

he's The Pervert."

But after that, he didn't talk

to any of us, really.

The only people he really

ever talked to

were Melissa and Sheila.

They were just kids.

Both were really cute girls.

They were funny.

They were normal

teenage girls,

laughing and joking.

You would've thought

they were sisters.

You know that song,

"Girls Just Like To Have Fun"?

That reminds me of Melissa.

Yeah.

She just wanted to have fun.

Just so full of life

-and she bounced into a room.

-Oh, yeah.

She didn't walk into a room.

She was just bouncing

all the time, you know?

- A lot of energy.

- Yeah.

She was like,

a little bit of country

and a little bit

of rock and roll.

When two teenage girls

sometimes get together,

you know, they start being

a little rebellious.

I don't think either one

of them had

a real structured upbringing.

Not that I'm saying anything

negative about their parents.

I just think that, um

there wasn't structure,

so they were

all over the place.

They didn't have a nickel.

So they

they couldn't buy food.

They couldn't buy drinks.

They didn't have anything.

We'd be at Shari's,

and one of them would whisper

in my ear,

"Will you take us

to your house

so we can take a shower?

Or can you take us

to your house

so we can put on makeup?"

I don't want people

to have the misconception

that Melissa and Sheila

were bad.

They weren't out looking

for trouble.

They were looking

to get their needs met.

Melissa, especially,

that's what I think

she needed most,

food, shelter,

love, companionship

from somebody who cared.

That's how Ackroyd would,

you know,

get her to pay attention

to him.

He was, like,

obsessed with her.

But once he got her attention,

then he became possessive.

He never bought anything

for Sheila, only Melissa.

And he would buy her nachos,

and he would, like,

lean over against her,

put his hand on her leg,

you know.

She would get sour cream

on her face

and he'd wipe it off and then

lick it on his

Blech.

Just weird stuff, you know?

Always trying to touch her.

So I said to Melissa,

"It seems creepy,

like he's wanting

something more from you."

And she goes, "Tut, oh, Kim,

he's like my dad."

But you could just tell

by the way he groomed Melissa

that he had done this before.

Finally,

people see John

for the monster he truly is.

Soon, others will join

the fight to stop him.

Thirty-six-year-old

Bill Hanlon

was recently appointed

to the office

of Jefferson County DA

by Governor Neil Goldschmidt.

When I took over

the office,

my secretary had a

had a note,

"Call Linn County

district attorney."

So I called him up.

He says,

"Hey, have you heard

Ever heard of John Ackroyd?"

And I said, "Yeah,

John Ackroyd k*lled

Kaye Turner,

but nobody could prove it."

And he said, "Well,

his stepdaughter disappeared,

and we're having a meeting

tomorrow in Sweet Home PD,

and we'd like you to come

and bring everything you know

about John Ackroyd."

That's where

it all started for me.

I was just

a new detective.

I was the baby, the rookie,

you know, the gofer guy.

I says, "What can I do

to help?"

My lieutenant, he says,

"Keep track of them case files

for us

and we'll let you know

if we need any help."

But I realize that none

of those reports

had ever been

gathered into one place.

They were scattered around

in different agencies.

But from the reports

that I read,

they reached a point

in Kaye Turner case

where they were sure

that Ackroyd's the guy.

But John had an alibi.

John Ackroyd was

with his friend,

and hunting partner,

Roger Dale Beck.

Roger Beck was married

to my dad's sister, Pam.

John, my dad and Pam

grew up together.

Pam told the cops

that John and Roger

were at home

and attested to the certain

hours that they were there.

She alibied them.

Roger could get

mean and violent.

And when he got drunk,

he would be even worse.

We heard that

Pam divorced Roger,

and she had moved

to California.

An ex-wife not covering

for some dirtbag anymore

is really a great source

of information.

So I went to California,

walked up to her front door,

knocked on the door.

And there were two things

that really surprised me.

She told me, "I knew

you were coming," and

"I lied like hell back then."

There's some times

you run across events

that, kind of, lead you

to believe

that you're right

in the middle,

right at the center.

When I talked to Pam,

yeah, that was

one of those times.

She was telling me

that she had lied

for John and Roger.

At the time

of the disappearance

of Kaye Turner,

they had come in

with blood on them,

and they made statements

to her

about accidentally k*lling

a jogger.

I could feel the hair on

the back of my neck stand up

as I spoke with her,

because I realized

at that point

that the hunch I had

had worked out

the way it should.

I came back to Oregon

and I met with Bill Hanlon.

That was

the turning point in the case.

She told us that they were

talking about knives and g*ns,

and they had blood

all over 'em

and how to get rid

of the evidence.

At that point, Roger Beck

wasn't a suspect at all.

So that refocused the case

on two defendants.

At that point,

things really got busy.

From then on, it was like,

"Go back to California,

ask this and this and this.

See if you can find out

more about this."

Let's go find that truck.

Where's the evidence at now?"

Ackroyd was roaming

around our county.

And if we weren't successful,

we could continue to find

dead women around our county

for the rest

of Ackroyd's life.

So we had to make sure

we did it right.

If we lost, we could've never

prosecuted that again.

Double jeopardy means

you can't be held accountable

for a crime twice.

Prosecution has one shot

at you.

That's why I was willing

to work evenings and weekends

for all those years.

That's why Mark dedicated

so much time.

I became the local volunteer

deputy of Camp Sherman.

It's a labor of love.

You don't get paid.

We never wanna give up

on solving a case.

The detectives know

their time is running out.

And in May, 1992, it does.

Melissa came to me

one day

and she said, "I'm going

camping with my family,

and it should be lots of fun,

and I get to take

Sheila with me.

I'm gonna put on

my bathing suit

and I'm gonna try to work

on my tan."

-We rented five camp spots

over at the coast

-Mmm-hmm.

for a family reunion.

We had that all week,

fishing and crabbing,

making clam chowder.

But that day

when they came in and said,

"Oh, we're going camping,"

The Perv was there.

And he said,

"Oh, where are you

camping at?"

And they said,

"Oh, we don't know exactly

where we're camping at

but somewhere in Newport."

And he says,

"Well, I'm throwing a party

in Newport on Saturday night."

So they were

gonna go camping, right?

And he's gonna miraculously

throw a party in Newport

on this Saturday night.

And I remember telling

Melissa and Sheila,

"Do not hook up

with The Perv."

They were like,

"Why would we do that?"

But I could tell

on Melissa's face

that something was up.

And I said,

"Melissa, I'm not kidding."

Melissa and Sheila

were supposed to spend

the whole weekend there,

but I don't

You know how

teenage girls are.

They're just

Ants in their pants.

"Gotta go, gotta go."

And I guess they were

at the phonebooth

at the campsite,

calling everybody

they can think of

to come and get 'em or get

a ride back to Sweet Home.

It was like

two weeks after

when I first heard that

they never showed back up.

We just figured

they ran away

'cause let's be honest,

they were always

running around.

So we just figured

they ran away,

they'll be back.

They'll show up.

Melissa would call.

She would call

and let us know where she was.

And when she come up

missing that time,

no calls, nothing.

Melissa's parents,

they knew something was wrong,

so did Sheila's parents.

Sheila's parents said

she'd always call.

The police said, "Well, why

didn't you call us sooner?"

"Well, because it's not

abnormal for her to go,

but it's abnormal

for her not to call."

And the police just put it

on the back-burner.

- Her parents called repeatedly.

- -Yeah.

But they felt ignored,

-like the police wasn't taking

anything seriously.

-Yeah.

They were viewed as runaways

by the police.

They asked a couple

of questions

over couple of people

and then it was like, "Mmm,

we ain't nothing to go on."

In the case

of Kaye Turner,

there was no smoking g*n,

there was

no forensic evidence,

but there were

little bits and pieces

that added

to the circumstantial evidence

linking Ackroyd to the crime.

Eventually we felt like

we had enough

to charge John Ackroyd.

So we wanted to talk

to the judge.

And he said,

"That's not strong enough

for the grand jury."

So we backed up and

got together again.

And that's when

the US Fish and Wildlife Lab

got involved.

They had a new

high-tech forensic lab.

So we took down

Kaye's clothes.

And it took them a long time

but they found

a lot of great stuff.

They determined that

the tears in the shirt

were a stab wound.

They found lead fragments

on her shirt

that they determined

were shots or b*llet holes.

He knew we were after him.

But he was more than happy

to get the news media story.

They're trying to tie me in

because I went down

We went out there at morning

and poached a deer.

Would you be

willing to take

a lie detector test

if questions we asked you

about Kaye Turner's m*rder?

Already did.

How'd it go?

I don't know.

That was 14 years ago.

And with all the stuff

that went down about that,

I don't think if I ever

found another body

in the woods

that I'd say anything

about it.

He is depicting this

as wild coincidences,

and these are misfortunes

that have befallen him.

John talked about the wounds

on Kaye Turner's body

when he had found her

in February.

And then we found

this forensic anthropologist

who was able to testify for us

that Ackroyd's description

of that scene

had to have been within

two or three days of

the moment that he k*lled her.

What do you think

of the charges

against you, Mr. Ackroyd?

I don't know all of 'em.

Ackroyd

and another man, Roger Beck,

are charged with kidnapping,

raping

and k*lling Kaye Turner.

Everybody knew

about my sister.

It's the most exciting thing

that's happened in that town

in a while,

you know, that's front page.

I started getting

tormented at school and stuff,

you know, bullied

and picked on.

"I heard your stepdad

k*lled your sister."

When my mom

and I would be alone,

I'd ask my mom,

"You think John could've

done it?"

And she'd get upset.

She'd get upset, you know,

how dare I even

ask that question?

And then, I think,

one of the last times

when I asked my mom,

"Do you think

John could do it?" And she

I think she was

cooking breakfast,

and she threw down the spatula

and she's like,

"I don't know, Byron,

you tell me.

Did John do it?

'Cause I want to know, too."

Somebody said,

"Did you see The Perv?"

And I'm like, "No."

They're like, "That's the guy

that m*rder*d that girl."

And I'm like, "What?

What do you mean?"

So that's when I found out

John Ackroyd and The Perv

were the same person.

At last,

after decades,

the monster has been caught.

But he leaves

one final heartbreak

for his pursuers to find.

It was just

five months

after the girls went missing

when they found the bodies.

That was devastating.

You know, you wonder

how much they suffered.

How could I have helped her?

How could I have stopped it?

This whole thing still

I mean, it hurts

and it angers me

after all this time.

And I just

It's sad and I'm never gonna

be at peace with it

because it's not okay.

I have nightmares to this day.

I can hear her voice

calling to me.

And it's hard.

Sorry.

It's affected me my

whole life, as a mom.

I mean, their moms will

never be the same.

I knew exactly that it

was him.

It fit all the patterns.

He worked on that route.

So I went and talked to

the Lincoln County

and said, "Hey, you really

need to take a look at

this cat,

he's done this and this

and this and we're at this

point in our investigation."

And you can't say, "Hey, now,

listen damn it, this is the

only way.

We're right, you're wrong."

It doesn't work that way.

Two more women,

eternally silenced.

Will the monster ever

be stopped?

Will they finally trap him?

One of the most significant

moments was when we played

the interview

that Ackroyd did.

He told this TV guy, he said,

"Yeah, they know who k*lled

Kaye."

What's his name?

Roger.

Roger?

I think Beck.

Friend of your?

Not really. He's a friend of

friends of mine.

It's his best friend,

you know.

His ex-wife and Ackroyd had

been main squeeze

in high school.

It just shows that he

was just totally.

Totally trying to avoid

any culpability.

Good evening, it's October the

5th, a Tuesday, 1993. I'm

Mike Smith.

And I'm Carrie Gilman.

John Ackroyd is accused

of k*lling Kaye Jean Turner

almost 15 years ago, as Turner

was jogging on Christmas eve

in Camp Sherman.

This afternoon both

prosecution and defense gave

their closing arguments,

and now, will await a verdict.

His job is to put doubt in

the mind of the jury.

And if he can create enough

doubt, they'll find him

not guilty.

I didn't watch the jury.

When they walked in, I didn't

have any indication from them

what they were gonna do.

If we weren't successful,

he was gonna k*ll other women.

A jury tonight has reached its

decision in the trial of John

Arthur Ackroyd.

Ackroyd was convicted this

evening of k*lling Kaye Jean

Turner.

Another man charged into

the death of Turner will have

a separate trial,

beginning on April 18th.

He buried himself.

His lies throughout

all the way to the end,

all of those lies just

just aggregated to bury him.

Kaye's husband Noel Turner

thought the sense of relief

would be much greater

than it is.

You know, I feel like justice

has been served.

But it's not like the total

weight's off your back.

I mean, maybe it's just gonna

be there.

Mom got off the phone and

stuff and I was, like,

"What's up?"

And she's, like, "John got

convicted of the m*rder of

Kaye Turner."

I'm like, "Whoa."

'Cause at that time that's

when I'm starting to, kind of,

shift.

Like, "I don't think this

guy is innocent."

My mom was trying to

justify it.

When we talked with her and

tell her that we thought John

was probably responsible

for Rachanda's death.

She would get on board with it

then drift back to whatever

her basic default was,

supporting John or just doing

what he said.

I don't think it took very

much for John Ackroyd to

control Linda Ackroyd.

For 20 years,

Ackroyd rots in prison.

20 years, questions

go unanswered.

John Ackroyd had been in

prison for, you know, several

years.

We get word there was some

possibility that he would get

paroled.

They say, "In cold cases, time

is your friend."

People's opinions change.

I was hoping I would go

talk to John and he would

have a change of heart.

How can I get John Arthur

Ackroyd to actually

talk to me

without giving me a

line of crap?

It was getting close to

Christmas time.

I proposed to him, "How about

you tell me where she is,

we find her, you take

us there,

and we'll let you have

Christmas dinner with

your family?"

He just, he wouldn't

take the bait, if you will.

So we wanted to bring

John Arthur Ackroyd to

trial on Rachanda's case.

My hope was that through

plea negotiations,

that he would tell us

where she was.

Walking up the stairs into

the court room,

my anxiety started going up.

I mean, there was once

I thought, "Man, can I even

do this?"

Do we take it to trial or

do we allow John to plead

it out?

This is kind of like, "What do

I do? My mom ain't here and my

dad's in prison."

The two people who should

be here because this is their

child.

You know, and I'm like, "What

what is going to be the

difference

if we get a conviction or

if he pleads to this?" And

they're like, "Nothing."

Ackroyd cut a deal with

Linn County authorities to

enter a no-contest plea for

Rachanda's death

in an exchange, he would not

seek parole.

But as a part of the plea,

he's not giving up the

location of Byron's sister.

I had two goals,

Ackroyd would stay in prison.

And two, Byron will get

justice. Then we would

get Rachanda's body back.

And, I think for me,

it's kind of a failure.

Byron deserves a little bit

of justice,

closure.

Ackroyd made

the plea in open court,

but then the judge immediately

signed an order to seal

the records.

It was highly unusual, because

pleas, typically, are a

matter of public record.

Attorneys with extensive

experience in Oregon's

criminal courts

told The Oregonian that

they've never heard of

such a thing.

So it was extraordinary.

It protected Ackroyd to have

it sealed?

Does it serve the

prosecution?

I don't know.

It took me a lot of

years to actually get to

the point where

I realized that John is the

one that k*lled my sister.

'Cause you would have to admit

that

someone that you cared about,

someone that you thought loved

you,

someone that you loved

yourself, would do something

that heinous and hurtful.

But hearing him actually plead

no contest to the charges,

to me that was just every

ounce of me knowing that

John k*lled my sister.

If you were accused of m*rder,

are you gonna take that

no-contest plea?

No.

John Ackroyd

is guilty.

Kaye Turner's k*ller is

behind bars.

But what about the

other victims?

Who will speak for

those who have never been

found,

who's deaths remain unsolved?

They were silenced in life.

Can they be heard now?

I was retired from the

DA's office,

and I missed a large portion

of my job,

I read that the previous DA

had opened up three cold

cases.

And that he was forming a

task force to investigate

them.

And so in May of 2009, I said

I would love to help your

cold case task force.

We started looking into the

Melissa Sanders and Sheila

Swanson case.

What I wanted for Melissa and

Sheila was to have someone

held accountable.

I wanted to solve it for the

girls and for their families

and for the community.

I mean, this community has had

this black cloud hanging over

them of these m*rder*d girls.

At the crime scene, Sheila and

Melissa were found about 50

feet off of Hayes Creek road.

I'm thinking that the one body

was over in this area,

and the other was about

50 feet away, just on the

other side of that stump.

The medical examiner could not

determine cause of death.

But he did note that there

were several large fissures

in one of them's abdomen and

one of them's chest area,

that could be indicative of

a knife wound.

They found near

Sheila's body part of a rivet.

- The girls wouldn't have a rivet.

- -Right.

Why would they have a rivet?

But a mechanic would.

One of the things they also

found was a beaded

seat cushion

and that was something almost

all of the ODOT coworkers had

and that was missing out of

Ackroyd's truck when it

was searched.

Around the time the girls were

reported missing,

one of the few ODOT workers

that worked after hours.

-They couldn't say the exact

time.

-Right.

Somewhere between ten

to midnight.

They heard the door bang.

And so they went out to see

who it was.

And there was Ackroyd getting

out of his truck,

and his arms are covered in

dried blood from the tip of

his fingers to his elbows,

on both arms.

Wow, man,

what happened to you?

You're afraid when you see

something like that.

The first reaction is that

they got hurt.

Second reaction

from what they said, "That was

way too much blood to be his."

And he told them, "You know, I

was coming back from Newport,

and some guy had hit a

deer and I helped him salvage

some meat."

And they didn't think anything

of it until John gets

arrested

and they found the bodies in

the area where John had been

working.

We were building a really good

circumstantial case.

We really were gaining

momentum

and moving forward.

And then all of a sudden,

Ackroyd dies.

I was really taken aback

by that.

Because it kind of stopped

what we were trying so hard

to do.

We failed because he died,

so we didn't get there

fast enough, you know.

We just didn't get there

fast enough.

The thing that was the most

disturbing was that Sheila and

Melissa go missing

the night of May 3rd, 1992.

John Ackroyd is arrested on

June 12th, 1992.

They came so close to

missing him.

When the two

young girls died,

I felt like we failed.

Completely.

Because we left the guy on

the street,

and he did it again.

In order to be

considered a serial k*ller,

you have to have k*lled

three or more people.

So finding out that John

Ackroyd m*rder*d Sheila

and Melissa,

put him in that category.

There were a cluster of

disappearances that occurred

in the late 70's

off of Highway-20.

John Ackroyd started working

for the Oregon Department of

Transportation

in January 1978.

In his position as an ODO

driver, I'm sure he's coming

across women who were stranded

and need road-side assistance.

And they would trust him.

I mean, he's a state worker,

driving a state truck.

They're out on the side of

the road, you know, probably

in the middle of the night,

who else were they gonna trust

to get them to a safe place?

It's just

an eerie thing to think about

a serial k*ller roaming up and

down Highway-20

in a state truck, abducting

and murdering women.

I wonder how many more women

are m*rder*d and missing that

we just don't know about,

because of all the years that

he was driving up and down

that highway.

Melissa and Sheila,

they were found on Highway-20

towards the coast.

So,

we'll go over here,

a little bit farther up,

one of the unidentified

skeletons we have is

Swamp Mountain Doe.

We don't know her story.

Because we don't know who

she is. We know she was

under 30.

Then you go up the road about

10 miles and that's where

Snow Creek Doe was found,

which is another skeletal

remains.

And this area here, is where

Elizabeth Mussler was found

at Thistle Creek Boat Ramp.

Mussler lived in the

Jolly Roger Apartments

on Highway-20.

John Ackroyd's younger

sister lived in that same

apartment complex.

So one day, she leaves her

apartment and she's standing

in the parking lot

waiting for her dad to pick

her up to take her to an

eye appointment,

and she's never seen again.

Another few miles was

Karen Lee and Rodney Grissom.

They were two, I think,

runaways.

They were last seen in

Sweet Home.

Karen Lee was talking on

the phone and she said,

"I gotta go, my ride's here."

Logging crew found clothing

in 1978, that belonged

to Karen.

And then about four years

later, just about a

1/4-mile away,

that's where Rodney's clothing

and some other articles were

found.

These are victims whose either

their possessions or their

remains were found

in the same, kind of, broad

swath off of Highway-20,

where Ackroyd would've worked

and lived and hunted

and fished.

These are the areas that

he knew very well. So these

cases have long been, kind of,

associated with John Ackroyd.

You know, in the case of Kaye,

her case was solved,

and ended with a conviction of

two men who k*lled her,

and they went to prison

for a long period of time.

But that wasn't the case for

the other people.

It certainly wasn't the case

for Rachanda,

whose case was sealed and

received no attention from

the press.

And it definitely wasn't the

case either for Melissa

Sanders and Sheila Swanson,

who were overlooked in life

as they were in death.

Their families were with none

of whatever healing may come

from a trial.

It wasn't the case

for Marlene,

who's report of a r*pe just

sat in a file drawer

for years.

She suffered quietly,

never being able to find any

kind of peace or healing,

being ignored by a system.

And the cost for that was

extraordinary for other women

he would encounter.

So this is actually about what

happens when you ignore women.

If they would've believed one

iota of my story,

this would never have ever

happened, ever.

Those poor women would

still be alive.

I took my own power back,

I had too. No one else was

gonna give it to me.

I want women to know that

they don't have to cower

back down.

Stay strong.

Stand your ground.

We give life.

We should be a force

to be reckoned with.

When people say, "The best

days of your life are when you

get married

and have your children,"

they're not joking, man.

Greatest moments in time.

And to know that my sister

didn't get that opportunity,

is very difficult.

I knew when I had kids,

it was gonna be way different.

Just thinking about that day,

like what Rachanda might have

had to go through,

it was preventable.

Well, listen to your children.

If a child comes to you and

they're telling you

something's happening,

just go look, just go

investigate, just talk to

them.

I will take care of my

children, I will take care of

any child around me.

And I will fight for them.

I would fight for them until

I absolutely have no breath

left in me.

If Rachanda was able to be

a mama, she would've done the

same thing.

Her children would've been the

most loved and well-cared for.

She would've broke the cycle.

Because we broke the cycle.