01x01 - Vanished

[bunniefuu]

Her family

hasn't heard from her.

Authorities don't

have any new leads.

State police say

they're gonna continue searching

as long as necessary for her.

The girl's body was found just a

short distance after this growth.

If the police

would have listened to me.

None of this would

have ever happened.

I hear I'm the only

frickin' survivor!

In the wooded

heart of Central Oregon

there's a road that winds through

the pine-studded mountains,

Highway 20.

Picturesque and striking.

Many find comfort here.

But across three decades

hiding in plain sight

a predator

hunts this trail.

Some still think

of this monster,

dragging away the

innocent like prey,

from all that they knew.

But others think of the victims,

who they could have become

if anyone had stopped to listen,

to see them.

For only the woods,

their witnessed

all the lost women.

I'm a long-time

reporter in Oregon,

covering crime.

The editor of The Oregonian

came over to my desk one day

and said, "I have a story

I wanna talk to you about.

"It's about

a serial k*ller."

There's a cluster

of missing girl cases,

you know, unsolved

cases, cold cases,

on and around Highway 20,

a coast-to-coast highway.

It starts in Boston and

ends in Newport, Oregon.

It was very intriguing.

Who is this guy?

How have we never

heard about him?

And who are these women?

I thought, "Well,

I'm gonna start

"with the unsolved disappearance

"of this young girl,

Rachanda Pickle."

On July 10th,

13-year-old Rachanda Lea Pickle

disappeared from her home

near the State Highway

division maintenance complex

just west of Santiam Pass.

She was reported

missing on the 11th.

Santiam

Junction, I think the best way

to describe it would be

put five maybe six houses

with a few people living in

camp trailers out in

the middle of nowhere

and make a community out of it.

If someone wants to look on the

map, look at where Highway 20

and where Highway 22 meet,

and that's where the

Santiam Junction is.

We're probably about

23, maybe 26, miles

from Sisters, Oregon,

which was the nearest town.

Forty-five, to 48 miles

from Sweet Home,

where we went to

elementary school at.

My sister and I, we were

definitely close at a very young age.

We were up there at the

Junction, there was no one else.

It was us against the world.

And then, have you

seen one of these?

- It's been a long time.

- Yeah.

I was in, um, third grade,

when I met Rachanda

at school.

I remember that day.

She looked exactly

like Punky Brewster.

She did.

Literally the first day

on the playground I've seen her,

we clicked.

Before the word

diva, I would express her now

definitely as a diva, as somebody

who was into the latest fashion

pop music and stuff.

Hair

style never changed.

It was always in a little floof,

dangly earrings,

the '90s bangs, um

the bigger they are,

the better they are.

And goofy.

She was funny.

I mean she was

like, truly, truly funny.

She was just a goofball.

She would

make me laugh until I cried.

And she'll do

another little thing

and set me off again.

Start laughing my butt off.

She could be friends

with anybody at school.

Being so little and

just having such that

presence about her, you know

Excuse me.

On July 10th, I remember

getting a call from my mom, you know,

"Hey, has Rachanda

gotten ahold of you?

"Well, she's missing."

I'm like, "Well, did

you look for the note?"

'Cause we'd always leave notes and stuff,

ju if, you know around in the case that

Mom or my stepfather,

John, came home.

"No, there's no note."

I'm like, "Did you go

look for her BB g*n?

"Maybe she's out

sh**ting her BB g*n."

"No, her BB g*n's here."

So, it it just

didn't make sense.

I was trying to

rationalize stuff, you know.

I knew that she wouldn't go

off in the woods alone by herself

Rachanda found the woods

very scary and intimidating.

'Cause the Junction is out

in the middle of nowhere.

And then I was like, "Well,

did you call the cops?"

"They say we got

to wait 24 hours."

The morning of July 11th

is when my mom called

the law enforcement.

My aunt Linda

married Steve Pickle

and she had two kids with him,

Rachanda and Byron.

There's a picture

there of my mom

with my dad Steve, with me,

and I'm, you know, I'm looking

at them now, and I'm like,

"My gosh, you

guys were babies,

"having babies." I mean

Holey-moley, they

were just so young.

My mom had to be either

18 or 19 in the picture

and my dad had to

be 20 or 21, maybe.

They definitely did

not get along well.

I mean, my parents, both of them

were very vindictive

to each other.

As kids, we were definitely

used as their little pawns.

And of course, my mom

would always remind me

how much I did look

like my dad, Steve, so.

They got divorced.

Linda was struggling to

make it on one income.

I think I was seven years old,

when my mom and

John first got together.

John was a mechanic

for the State

Highway Department.

We grew up there in

the Sweet Home area.

John was my favorite uncle.

John would actually

make you feel

special.

My 16th birthday, John

and I, we went to Arby's,

and I must have had four

roast beef and cheddars.

After that, we

went to the drive-in

And he gave me $50.

That was really nice.

A fun fun day.

My mom asked my sister and I

to come talk with her and John.

And they asked what we think

about moving to the Junction.

And at that point, I was like,

"This is getting serious."

Rachanda was six,

I think, when

Linda married John.

Linda ended up

quitting her second job

'cause John was so well off.

From where we

were at to where he was at,

I mean, it was believed

some balance financially.

I remember the first

time that he pulled $5

out of his wallet and handed us,

I was like That

was the most cash

I've ever had in my

hands at that point in time.

I felt like, I mean

That might as well

have been a Benjamin.

Some of the people in the family

couldn't even

read or write well.

And then you have this guy

who graduated high school

He had a great career,

a previous military guy.

This guy was my dad.

Taught me how to hunt.

Taught me how to fish.

Actually spent time with me

Definitely heavy-handed,

but he was a good dad.

You know, my dad,

Steve, wasn't around.

I knew who he was,

but really didn't get

to know who he was.

It was 1990, during

the spring time.

I'm 14, Rachanda is 13.

I can't remember if I came up

with it or it was Rachanda's idea, ,

we wanted to get know

our biological father.

We called up, my grandmother

on the phone,

with the pay phone,

put the quarter in and

called her and said,

"Hey, I wanted to go spend

the summer with my dad.

"Do you have his phone

number, so I can give him a call?"

My mom was like,

"Absolutely not.

"Why would you even

wanna go see that guy?"

I really wanted to

know who he was

so I could form my own opinion.

My dad came and picked

us up from the Junction.

We had the windows open,

you know, standing by and stuff.

And my stepfather,

John, came up.

Looked at me, put

his finger right at me.

He's like, "You

remember what I told you."

I was like, "Yeah, I

remember what you told me."

Never to leave my

sister Rachanda alone

with our biological

father, Steve Pickle.

Members of my

family kept their distance

at an arm's length from Steven.

You give Steve an

inch, he'll take a mile.

And that's saying it loosely.

We drove to Medford.

Big change from

Santiam Junction.

Steve was living in a

manufactured home park.

But the awesome thing about

it was it had the tennis court,

it had the basketball court,

it had the swimming pool.

Had tons of kids to play with

and stuff that were our own age.

We ended up having a blast.

There was a big field with

that tall grass and stuff.

So we were gonna go play hide and

seek with a bunch of other boys and girls.

But my dad thought it was a

ruse, you know, to go have sex.

That's

taking a big jump, man.

Looking back, I think my dad

had some mental illness problems.

Everything was sexual with

my dad. Everything was sexual.

That was not even

a thought to me.

Having sex at

that point, I just

You know, they were just kids.

Then he started

screaming at Rachanda,

which made her cry.

I mean, you got your biological

father basically calling you a wh*re.

And she was like,

"I wanna go home."

She never wanted to

see Steve Pickle again.

My sister went back.

And I stayed there.

In Medford,

with my dad, Steve.

'Cause I figured it was just

only about a week or two

and then we were gonna

see each other again.

I wanted to give her a hug but she

was already in the back of the truck

and I didn't wanna call

her back out of there.

Rachanda came back because her dad

was asking her inappropriate innuendos.

And I said, "Like what?"

And she said, "I don't

wanna talk about it."

My aunt married a pedophile.

She didn't know.

I never said anything

about the sexual as*ault

from

Steve Pickle.

But it happened

numerous times.

I didn't say anything because

who would believe a little girl?

Well, that next morning,

Linda came down

to pick up Rachanda.

And she took Rachanda

up to the Santiam junction.

I waved at her.

And I told her, "I will

see you next weekend."

We were

in a foster home.

And we were

summoned into the house.

And detectives were asking

if we'd heard from Rachanda.

Your friend

Rachanda's gone missing.

I'm like, "What?"

Like, it just It was like

a kick in the stomach.

I'm like, "Missing? What

do you mean missing?"

"Do you know where she is?"

"Have you guys had

any contact with her?"

We're like, "No."

They thought we might

have something to do with it

because we ran away so much.

Maybe that she'd

found her way to us.

"Do you think

she could have run away?"

"No, she's not gonna run away."

Where was she gonna go?

She lived in the

middle of a mountain.

There's nowhere to go.

We knew something

must have happened to her.

I get quiet

until, you know, I cross

over the mountain limits.

It's just a dark place

along Highway 20.

Rachanda has

been missing for 24 hours.

Her disappearance

spurs people to action.

They just hope

it isn't too late.

The day she goes missing,

Rachanda had been at home

with her mom and

stepdad, John Ackroyd.

Linda and John

had left to go work.

Byron was not home at the time.

Rachanda

is told by her mother

"Please, you know,

empty the dishwasher,

"vacuum, and take out the

frozen hot dogs for dinner."

John picked up Linda.

And they came back home.

And Rachanda was not home.

They started getting a little bit

concerned about 10:00, that night.

They believed that they had to

wait 24 hours to report her missing,

so they waited until

the next day to call.

You're just going through

all those basic who, what,

where, when, why, how questions.

"Did she have any

friends in the area?"

"Was she unhappy?"

You wanna kinda check out

what the general

family dynamic is.

She's a young girl. I'm

a dad of four daughters.

When I looked at the

pictures of her bedroom,

nothing was missing.

Her brush, all of her, you

know, hygiene products,

were still in the room.

If a 13-year-old's gonna

run away from home,

she's gonna take

her stuff with her.

Her mom,

Linda, was also convinced

she didn't run away from

her home in Santiam Junction.

Rachanda is a very

responsible little girl.

She wouldn't go

wandering out by herself.

Usually, if she goes off

it's with her brother, Byron.

Byron turns to

his father, Steven Pickle,

and says, "I gotta

go back there.

"You know, we

gotta go look for her."

And the father is like, "No, we're

gonna see how this plays out."

And, you know, Byron, all of 14,

is like, "No, I'm

not gonna do that."

You know, "Something is wrong."

The search

area covers 50 square miles

of rugged, wooded country

near the Hoodoo Ski Area.

This morning, search

and rescue teams

from seven different

counties were here,

to find the teenager.

Everybody was convening

at the shop office.

And some were all like, "Well, I

mean, where should we go look?

"We should start searching."

There is umpteen

million people searching

John was the head

of the search team.

He was telling all the

searchers where to go.

If anybody knows this area,

Ackroyd knows this area.

Stand forward!

John was the greatest

resource that we had.

This was in his backyard.

John knew those woods very well.

Probably one of the

most extensive searches

in Linn County history.

We're gonna go

up to the end of the road,

Linn County is gonna take one

side, we're gonna take the other.

About 10-15 feet apart.

Then we'll come back down here.

There was

multiple agencies.

Multiple man hours

searching for her.

Everywhere.

My mom was convinced

that somebody kidnapped Rachanda.

Somebody parked on the

highway and came down,

see Rachanda, chance of

opportunity, snagged her.

And that was the only

thing that did make sense.

People were accusing others

over the disappearance

of Rachanda.

Yeah, if you're out there,

Rachanda, at least call your mother.

Let 'em know you're alive.

We love you and

miss you very much.

The family situation

wasn't good.

It was a very

dysfunctional situation.

So, we go talk to John

and he's emotionally distraught.

I see tears up in his eyes.

And the first thing that

comes out of his mouth is,

"I'mma k*ll the son of

a b*tch who did this."

As they

search for Rachanda,

Hope turns to resignation.

What they don't know is,

that the rot is more

than a decade old.

Just a few miles away,

in Camp Sherman,

the monster has taken another.

It was a summer's day.

And I was down here,

working at the store.

The news was on.

She's been

missing for a week now.

Her family hasn't

heard from her,

authorities don't

have any new leads.

So, searchers are

resigned to the fact

that they aren't going to

find any good news here.

I wasn't really

paying attention.

And then, on the news on TV,

I hear this voice saying that,

"I was the last one

to see her alive."

Same tone, same

inflection, same everything.

And I thought, "Holy smoke.

"I know that voice."

And it's just like

Christmas Eve of '78.

And I hollered at Chrissy, I said,

"That son-of-a-b*tch did it again."

She went for a jog.

Kaye Turner never returned.

When I said,

you know, to Chrissy,

"The son-of-a-b*tch

did it again,"

I was angry.

We knew the guy that did it

because everybody

knew about the m*rder,

back in '78.

Because he got away with it.

So

Camp Sherman is a

vacation-type resort community,

along Highway 20.

We came in '78.

Such an idyllic spot.

I mean, it's almost

rainbows and unicorns.

I mean, it's that

perfect a place.

The type that

there's just one store.

Back then, we were the pulse if

you need to know what's going on.

And when people were lonely,

or had cabin fever,

they'd head to the store.

So, we see everybody.

So, the penny candy's

always been here.

The folks that had the store

before us had penny candy,

we have penny candy.

Now these are charge accounts.

Most all of these are

summer home people.

But there are locals, too.

And when they'll come

for a weekend, or a week,

rather than pay each

time, we run a tab.

Who else does charge

accounts anymore?

The store was a gathering point.

It's just a perfect

place to grow up,

perfect place to

raise your family.

You know, and up until

the incident, super safe.

You know, so

Christmas

Eve morning, 1978.

35-year-old Kaye

turner of Eugene

was vacationing in this cabin

at Camp Sherman, Oregon.

She went for a jog on this road.

Kaye Turner never returned.

Christmas Eve started

out foggy and cold.

And then the sun came

out and it was super warm.

So, I got up, we

opened the store.

I just walked through and

Chrissy's talking to this guy.

And I came in and she

said, "Did you find her yet?"

And he said, "No."

And I said The way

he said "no", I said

I asked him, "So, what

kind of dog did you lose?"

And he said, "

no, I lost my wife."

I said

"Whoa!"

"When'd you last see her?"

He said, "

between 8:00 and 8:30."

I said, "My God."

He was from Eugene,

he was new to the area.

Didn't really know anybody here.

We didn't have a search and

rescue team in Camp Sherman, at all.

We just never had to have one.

So, I said, "Well, let

me just take a drive."

I just hopped in the Reagan,

made a quick loop,

expecting to find a gal

with an injured ankle.

I never once

suspected foul play.

It never even entered my mind.

This is Camp Sherman.

Nobody dies in Camp Sherman.

Her

husband, Noel, called.

And then And it was

a short conversation.

He wanted to know

if Kaye would be likely, when

we were running together,

to head off into the trees.

"She always stayed on the road.

"She never went bounding off

"into the trees.

"If she went out to run

and she hasn't come back,

"somebody's grabbed her."

I'm sure those were

almost my exact words.

I think, by the time we hung up,

I was already crying.

I called

Jefferson County.

Just told 'em we

had a missing jogger.

And, you know,

"What should we do?"

'Cause we never had

that happen before.

And they said, "Well, get some

people together, we'll be right over."

"Okay."

To kinda show

what community it is,

I made three

calls or four calls,

and yet 15 or 20

four-wheel drives

were in my parking

lot in 20 minutes.

Christmas Eve.

Some people left

diner to come right over.

There was no law enforcement

in Camp Sherman, at the time.

Because the

statistics, the crimes,

didn't add up

We wasted an

hour or so of daylight.

But we were told to wait.

And so they got here and they said,

"Okay, so what do you want us to do?

"We'll just fan out

and drive the roads."

We could have

done that in daylight.

Kaye!

We went until about I think

about 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning.

So, it was Yeah, it was

a difficult Difficult time.

The next day, my husband and I

went up and participated in the search.

I remember calling out her name.

Now wanting to find

what we were looking for.

You didn't wanna find a body.

But at the same

time, you wanted to.

So, it was just

push-pull.

It was so surreal.

The police set

up a command center

in the restaurant

across the river.

At that time,

I remember thinking

everything was so disorganized.

People were just

taking off in the woods.

And every woods looks the same.

It was just chaos.

I stayed away from the

command center, completely.

Because it was chaos.

And it wasn't even organized

chaos. It was just a mess.

"Well, let's do this."

"Well, I know she

must be there."

It was like this, you know.

It was nuts.

Well, the initial thinking

of the initial deputies

who were on that scene,

is that Noel, Kaye

Turner's husband,

did her in and just

dumped her in the woods.

As far as

they were concerned,

the husband was the

last person to see her,

there were signs that the

marriage was on the rocks.

And they spent a lot

of time not searching for her

but questioning him,

expecting he would crack.

They thought that he's come

out to some small community

to do his dirty work.

Figuring that nobody'd

catch him that way.

I met Kaye in college.

We both finished school in 1966.

And decided we

would we'd get married.

We moved to, Eugene.

Kaye grew as a person

as she transitioned from

having taught high school

into becoming

an interim director

of the Planned Parenthood

facility in Eugene.

We met because she was the

director of Planned Parenthood.

And I was in charge of

family planning for the county.

So we worked closely together.

Everybody knew who Kaye

Turner was, it seemed like.

You know, she was independent.

She was a feminist.

As though she cared

But she didn't act like she

cared what other people thought.

She had kind of a Princess

Diana quality about her.

She was like a butterfly

when she kind of

I'm coming up

with all these things.

I never thought of

her that way, but

people really were

attracted to her.

Eugene was really the center of

this new movement around running.

And she was infected by that.

It was almost like

a lifestyle to her.

She was running in in

marathons, in races, and

was really a serious runner.

Nike had just come out with

its first running show for women.

And she had a pair.

Kaye and I

ran, the two of us, a lot.

I didn't think I could ever run

on my own, without stopping.

And she did.

So, i decided, "Well, if

she can do it, I can do it."

She was my mentor, I guess.

We were real busy in

our respective work environments.

There were

There were areas where we

should have communicated better

with one another instead

of maybe assuming

that we were on the same page.

Investigators find, in

her office, her calendar.

Which showed that Kaye had

relationships outside of her marriage.

It was a surprise to Noel

when investigators told him.

He was aware that

she was unhappy.

But unaware that she was, um

You know, that she was seeing

men outside of their of their marriage.

And they asked me

if I'd take a polygraph test.

I didn't have any

qualms about doing it.

But it was not a a

comfortable experience.

I mean, I guess

they have to do that

'cause it's always the

husband and the wife

or the

He's so unlike

I don't know what the

typical k*ller is, but

You know, Noel is one of the

gentlest men I've ever known.

He passed.

There was nothing that linked

him to his wife's disappearance.

And the case just kind of didn't

really Didn't really go anywhere.

Not only had no suspect emerged,

they still had no idea what

had happened to Kaye.

It was like she just vanished.

Sometime in the

week after Christmas,

it was a feeling of hopelessness

for everybody that was

participating in it to

to come to that conclusion.

That they'd

gone over that

area as much as they

thought they

could have. Um

When you've You

know, you gotta

You gotta stop

stop doing this at some point.

And

And so

And I I don't remember

who said talked to me.

And they said

"Until you leave

"none of these people

are gonna leave."

So, then

Then shortly after that,

I said, "Well, I gotta go home."

Months pass.

There are no suspects.

You got the sense

from the friends

that there was this

kind of frustration

about the scope and

scale of the search.

This area was

searched once before, wasn't it?

Parts of it was.

And other parts weren't

searched hard enough.

And we wanna see We

wanna look at it another time.

We were getting frustrated 'cause we

know something must have happened.

So, we thought about a reward

to kinda jumpstart

the situation.

Kaye's friends

put up a $1,000 reward.

Thinking that the suspect would

come out to claim this reward.

And that's exactly

what happened.

A few months later,

I'm doing something in the back.

Chrissy says, "Gary,

there's a guy at the counter

"that wants to use the phones.

"Says that he found

some clothes in the woods."

And I said, "Okay."

So I went out.

He says, "I was out

rabbit-hunting with my dog,

"and I found some

clothes in the woods."

Well, that's a red flag to me

'cause there's really no rabbits here.

And he says, "Well, I found a pair

of short, a shirt and a sweatshirt."

And I say, "You know what?

Probably not our jogger.

"She didn't have a sweatshirt."

And he just looked at me.

He didn't say a word,

he just looked at me.

So I called the State Police.

And I said, "Hey, we got a guy

here that found some clothing."

"He says, "I wonder if I

get any reward for this."

And I say something

like, "Well, it's just clothes,

"you know. No."

So I'm filling up this

propane tank behind the store,

and Chrissy comes back

and tells me, "Gary, this

guy just told me he was

"the last one to see

Kaye Turner alive."

So I didn't even talk to him.

I went back to the phone, I

called the cops and I said,

"Would it make any

difference to you folks

"if I told you he just said he

was the last one to see her alive."

They said, "We're

sending more people."

Boom.

Who says something like that?

The guy that k*lled her.

Right?

The last one to see her alive.

If a tree falls in

the woods, an no one hears it,

does it make a sound?

The real question is

What does it mean to exist?

To be seen?

If the tree is a woman,

like Kaye Turner,

and she screams,

does her voice matter?

Sometimes, a fallen tree can

tell the story of what happened.

But it can also be a warning

of what will happen again.

And in 1990, Santiam Junction,

that is exactly the case

with Rachanda Pickle.

Even with

all the manpower,

authorities say there is just

too much ground to cover here.

They think Rachanda

met with foul play

Her family hasn't

heard from her.

Authorities don't

have any new leads.

So, searchers are

resigned to the fact

that they aren't going to

find any good news here.

It was horrible,

knowing how she'd

get homesick, you know.

And how dependent

she was upon my mom.

I knew

I knew something bad happened.

As bad as it sounds, I was hoping she

got kidnapped and we would find her.

You are hoping for

the best, like, "She's lost."

But mentally, a detective's preparing

himself for worst-case scenario.

Especially if we don't find

the child within 48 hours.

Especially up in the woods

The statistics

show that 88% of the time

the victim knows

their assailant.

So, you look at people

closest around someone

when they disappear.

Sometimes it may

be offensive to parents

when we ask some of

the questions we have

but, you know, the parents

were the last one to see 'em.

We gotta ask certain questions

to rule them out and move on,

or to other people.

We interviewed many people,

including Rachanda's

mother, Linda Ackroyd.

I felt like

Linda was just

laying out what she knew.

And she was very

pen and forthright.

I don't think she

was lying about it.

I think she just really

didn't know what happened.

Some people

in the family thought

maybe Steven

Pickle was to blame.

We know, from court records,

he had sexually

abused another child.

Children are not

safe in his care.

His own daughter didn't

feel safe in his care.

Well, that's kind of what I thought

Rachanda was running away from.

He was not in the area during the

time in which Rachanda went missing.

He was in Medford,

a long ways away,

with his son.

But John could not

account for his time.

Well, she thought that I did

something to Channy

I loved Chandy.

I did not do nothin' to Channy.