Rachanda Pickle

On 10 July 1990, 13-year-old Rachanda Pickle was last seen inside her mother and stepfather's home in Santiam Junction, Oregon. While tipsters would report sightings of the missing teen all along the west coast, investigators have been unable to locate Rachanda after more than three decades…

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On the morning of December 24th, 1978, Kaye Jean Turner left a cabin she had been renting near Camp Sherman, a tourist hotspot in central Oregon, about 40 miles northwest of Bend.

Turner, a 35-year-old that typically lived in Eugene, worked for the Lane County Office of Community Health and Social Services, but had previously worked for the area's Planned Parenthood Association and also happened to be a rather well-known runner.

That winter, Kaye and her husband, Noel, had decided to head up to a cabin in the Camp Sherman area. They ended up staying at Lake Creek Lodge with a small group of friends for Christmas, and Kaye Turner - hoping to take advantage of the quiet surroundings on the morning of Christmas Eve - headed out on a six-mile jog through the woods.

Unfortunately, she would never return.

While Kaye and her husband's marriage had been deteriorating, he was incredibly helpful with investigators who attempted to find out what had happened to the missing woman (and provided a definitive alibi). Sadly, searches of the area would be unable to come up with any answers; whatever had happened to Kaye Turner, she seemed to have disappeared into thin air. A few witnesses would recall having seen her during her multi-mile jog, but their statements were unable to provide the missing piece of this puzzle.

Eight months would pass before investigators discovered what had happened to the missing woman.

In August of 1979, a man that lived in the region - named John Arthur Ackroyd - came forward with information. The young man, who worked as a mechanic for Oregon's Highway Division, lived at a maintenance company about twenty miles west of Camp Sherman. Ackroyd had actually been one of the few witnesses who claimed to have seen Kaye Turner jogging on the morning of Christmas Eve, on what would have been mile four of a planned six-mile jog. For that reason, he had been on the shortlist for suspects, but police had no additional evidence to suspect Ackroyd's involvement in what was still listed as a missing persons case... not a murder (yet).

These many months later, John Arthur Ackroyd claimed to have discovered bone fragments while walking his dog in a wooded area nearby. He would lead police to this scene - which he had discovered by mere chance, as he told it - and investigators would later identify the remains as Kaye Jean Turner's. In addition to some bone fragments, police were able to uncover the underpants, running shoes, and wristwatch she had been wearing at the time of her disappearance, in addition to pieces of her sweatshirt (which appeared to have been partially destroyed).

John Arthur Ackroyd would remain one of investigators' top suspects in this case, and as a result, would be questioned several times alongside a friend of his (whom police considered a potential accomplice). Unfortunately, any additional evidence would be hard to come by in this case, and it would remain stagnant for more than a decade... until it was revived years later, in the most unlikely of ways.

This is the story of Rachanda Pickle.

Born on March 15th, 1977, Rachanda Lea Pickle (commonly called "Chandy" by her loved ones) was the second child born to her parents, Steven and Linda, who split up and divorced when the children were quite young. Rachanda had one older brother named Byron, who was a little more than a year older than her, and the two would grow up with their mother, Linda, but would remain close to their father, whom they visited regularly.

When Rachanda was about seven years old, her mother would remarry. Her new husband, John, lived in Santiam Junction, at a state Highway Division maintenance complex at the junction of highways 20 and 22, close to Santiam Pass (an approx. 5,000-foot mountain pass in the southern reaches of the Cascade Mountains). This is about 150 miles southeast of Portland and about 80 miles northeast of Eugene. There, Rachanda would live alongside her mother, brother, and stepfather in a trailer at the junction, surrounded by dozens of miles of vast wilderness, becoming just one of a dozen or so families that called this mountain pass 'home.'

Rachanda's new stepfather, John, worked as a mechanic for the Oregon Highway Division and had already been living at this maintenance complex for over a decade by the time Linda, Byron, and Rachanda moved in. While his marriage to Linda was rather unusual - the couple divorced after a year, but continued to live together and were still technically a "couple" in every sense of the word - the family seemed to have become accustomed to this quiet little corner of the world. Later speaking to the number of travelers that drove by daily, he recalled to the Albany Democrat-Herald:

"We do get a lot of strangers stopping here. A lot of them are awful weird, but a lot are as nice as you can imagine."

While the family's home was surrounded by dense wilderness, Rachanda quickly picked up on the area around them. However, as recounted by family members, later on, she never ventured too far out into the woods unless she had her big brother Byron with her.

Rachanda was incredibly close with her mother, Linda, and her aunt JoAnn Serdy would later recall to the Albany Democrat-Herald:

"You could almost set your clock by her. Within 30 minutes of her mom getting home from work, she'd be right there, hanging on her mom's shirttail..."

During the summer of 1990, when Rachanda was thirteen years old, she and her brother Byron had gone to spend a couple of weeks with their father, Steve, in Medford. They would end up attending a family reunion along the Oregon coast, but in the middle of July, Rachanda started to feel a bit homesick. She would end up making the decision to be driven back to her mother's home in Santiam Junction, while her older brother, Byron, decided to stay behind with his father.

To this day, this remains one of the few decisions in Bryon's life that he wishes he could change. But at the time, he was just fourteen years old, and couldn't have foreseen what was going to happen just days later.

On Tuesday, July 10th, 1990 - just two days after returning home - Rachanda was woken up at about 5:00 AM by her mother. Linda was getting ready to head to work at Black Butte - near Sisters, about thirty miles east - and asked for some help doing her hair. While Rachanda would ask her mother not to go to work that morning, Linda - focused on getting ready for work - didn't really take notice of the request, later recalling to the Statesman Journal:

"I woke her up at about ten after five to have her french-brain my hair. When I left, she was laying on the couch watching TV, and I kissed her, and I hugged her and said 'I love you, Channy, and I'll see you later.'"

Linda would last see Rachanda when she left for work just after 6:00 AM. While Rachanda was home alone during this period, someone else would claim to see her a few hours after this.

John, Rachanda's stepfather, came home during a break from work, at around 9:30 AM. An employee of Oregon's Highway Division, John had been away at a job that morning in Bend but had decided to come home during a break. He recalled that Rachanda was on the living room couch in her pajamas, watching cartoons, at the time. He asked her if she wanted to go for a drive with him to go and take some pictures of deer in the nearby woods, but that she said no, claiming to have some chores to do around the house. However, she agreed to go with him later to pick up Linda from work.

John then reportedly left the home by himself, and wouldn't return until approximately 12:30 PM (roughly three hours later). He later told police that when he did return, the front door was partly open, and a pellet gun he owned was propped up against a camper, with a box of pellets nearby. This was unusual and definitely out of the ordinary, but it wasn't enough for John to take notice at the time, it seems.

John would later pick up Linda from work, and when the two returned home, they discovered that Rachanda was not there waiting for them. None of the chores she had been assigned that day had been accomplished, but none of her clothing or belongings seemed to be missing (indicating that Rachanda had not planned to leave). John and Linda checked around with the other families in the maintenance complex for a little bit and were ultimately unable to find any sign of the missing thirteen-year-old.

Linda would consider calling the police that evening, but John - citing the mistaken belief that you needed to wait 24 hours to file a missing person's report - told her to wait until the following day. She did, and because of this wait, Rachanda wasn't reported missing until Wednesday, July 11th, and the search to find her wouldn't begin until the day after that, Thursday, July 12th.

Before beginning a widespread search of the area, members of the Linn County Sheriff's Office would reach out to Rachanda's father, Steve, who lived outside of the region in Medford. Rachanda had gone to visit him shortly before her disappearance, and it was initially theorized that she might have gone out to see him. However, police were able to quickly eliminate this possibility - that she had run away to her father's home - and would eventually rule out Rachanda as a possible runaway entirely.

One of the major factors in this determination was that if she had run away, Rachanda had done so without any of her belongings. Her bedroom did appear to be a mess, but as Linda would later tell reporters:

"Her bedroom looked like an explosion hit it, but that wasn't unusual. After all, she's a teenage girl."

Despite this, however, almost none of Rachanda's clothing or belongings were missing from her bedroom. If she had run away, she had not done so with any of her clothing or makeup. Even the pajamas she was last seen wearing were found in her bedroom. In fact, the only clothing that seemed to be missing was a pair of black sweatpants and a white New Kids on the Block t-shirt she had been wearing a lot recently, so it was theorized that she had been wearing those items when she went missing.

Later speaking to the Statesman Journal, Rachanda's mother, Linda, would state:

"I can't believe she's a runaway because she was wanting to go school-clothes shopping Sunday night. If she was going to plan to run away, she would have taken her makeup and her clothes, but nothing was missing. She's real fond of her makeup."

At around the same time, Rachanda's stepfather John would tell reporters with the Albany Democrat-Herald:

"At this point, we're hoping that she did run away and that she's safe and sound somewhere. What we're afraid of is that someone came up to the house, found her alone here and took her."

The next several days would see extensive searches in the area around the maintenance complex, where Rachanda lived with her mother, brother, and stepfather. However, the search would be confined to this specific area for the first several days, with the search not extending far beyond the immediate vicinity.

This search effort would be organized and overseen by the Linn County Sheriff's Office, who were augmented by members of neighboring counties over the next several weeks. Uniformed deputies, mounted posses, and members of the Explorer Post (a search and rescue group) would search the ground level of the neighboring woods, while a Linn County helicopter searched above them. Lt. Darrel James would later tell reporters with the Albany Democrat-Herald:

"You think you're going to find some clothing, a shoe. We saw no human movement at all; no tracks, no nothing."

This involved search effort would cease their searches after Friday - three days after Rachanda had last been seen alive - but the Linn County Mounted Posse would carry on, and would be joined by employees from the U.S. Forest Service. From there, the search would be extended outside of the area around the maintenance complex that Rachanda lived in, to a roughly 50-square-mile area near Lost Lake, Hoodoo Butte, and Potato Hill. Eventually, this small group would be joined by members from neighboring police stations and sheriff's departments, with Linn County Sheriff Art Martinak telling reporters a week after the teenage girl's disappearance:

"We're going back to the area around the residence... We're going to do a pretty extensive search of the roads in the immediate area."

These searches would continue over the next two weeks, but authorities were unable to uncover any trace of the missing 13-year-old. Rachanda was noted as standing about four feet tall and weighing approximately 90 pounds at the time of her disappearance, with curly brown hair and brown eyes. Because of the time she had been gone - weeks, almost a month now - authorities were fairly certain that even if she was out in the woods somewhere, they were unlikely to save her.

Lt. Darrel James, who had coordinated the search efforts, told reporters during a press briefing:

"There's no reason to think she ran away, and no information that she just walked off playing around. There's certainly the possibility that we've got a crime committed here. We think the greatest likely scenario... is that she's probably out there not of her own volition and is deceased either by violence or nature.

"I think we've come to the conclusion that we're probably not looking for a live individual."

Early on, police looked into the possibility of Rachanda Pickle running away from home. Despite them ruling out the theory pretty definitively within a day or so of her disappearance, investigators would be plagued by rumors of potential sightings throughout the area. They would follow up on these reported sightings - and even talk to people that had been visited campgrounds or hiking trails in the area - but were unable to find any clue pointing to the teenage girl's whereabouts.

Based on the information being given to them by Rachanda's family members, investigators began to believe that the 13-year-old might have been abducted from her home. Her mother, Linda, would add fuel to this fire by telling reporters with the Statesman Journal a week after her disappearance:

"I really fully believe that she was taken without her will."

Linda cited their home's proximity to Highway 20, as their home was the closest to the highway out of all of them at the maintenance complex. She also believed that a commonly-used payphone, which was just about forty yards away from their home, might have played a part, stating in that same interview:

"It's really a good access and if anybody had come up and asked her directions and asked if her mother was home, she would have said no. She wouldn't lie."

Eleven days after Rachanda's disappearance, a pair of hikers found a pair of dark sweatpants along a hiking trail near Big Lake, about five miles away from where the teenager had last been seen. It was believed that the sweatpants might be hers, sparking another set of searches in that area, but would fail to come up with any additional evidence. A forensic examination of the sweatpants would later reveal that they likely did not belong to Rachanda.

As police continued their search of the area around Rachanda's family's home, they would also continue an investigation of the people inside of it. This would lead them to begin to question the statements of her stepfather.

41-year-old John Arthur Ackroyd was suspected of involvement in this case very early on, simply because he was the last person to have seen Rachanda Pickle before she went missing. However, that wasn't the entire reason. Investigators were already familiar with John because of his history; in particular, his connection to the still-unsolved case of Kaye Turner, the jogger that had gone missing on Christmas Eve back in 1978. John had also been one of the last people to see her alive, and - if you recall from the introduction - had led police to her partial remains eight months later (which he claims he discovered through mere happenstance).

While police had always kept John Ackroyd at the top of their suspect list, they never had enough evidence to pursue charges against anyone. And now here he was, more than a decade later, having been the last known person to see his stepdaughter alive. What were the odds of that?

John Arthur Ackroyd was questioned extensively in the days and weeks after Rachanda's disappearance and would be asked to perform a polygraph test by authorities early on. They would also spend hours going through the Ackroyd home, taking photographs and looking for any evidence that pointed to a struggle having taken place inside.

Investigators had learned that while John had gone to work on the day of Rachanda's disappearance, driving out to Bend, he had only been there for about an hour before deciding to take the rest of the day off. We can surmise that this is when he returned home and encountered Rachanda at around 9:30 AM. When questioned about why he had taken the day off, he explained it away, claiming that he wanted to check in at home and see if some car parts he needed had arrived, having been delivered to the home.

The more that investigators spoke with John Ackroyd, the more troubled they became. While John had been married to and/or living with Rachanda's mother for approximately six years, he seemed to know very little personal information about the missing girl: he was unable to recall her birthday or other details like that. However, the information that he was able to recall - such as her weight and bra size, as well as when she had started getting periods - didn't paint him in the most flattering light.

Police would begin to reach out to those close to Rachanda and learned that John had been abusive to Rachanda and her brother in the past. The two often went to school with bruises, which they attributed to John's abuse. It was even discovered that Rachanda was sometimes afraid to go home after school, taking additional clothes with her every day in case she was able to stay the night at a friend's house. It was even alleged that John had been molesting Rachanda, although that remains mostly-unconfirmed years later.

Despite having a rather low libido, John - as recounted by the great "Ghosts of Highway 20" project, this caused a great deal of stress on his relationship with Linda - had decided to initiate sex with Rachanda's mother on the night of the teenage girl's disappearance. This fact alone made investigators suspicious, but paired together with all of the other red flags in John Ackroyd's past, put him at the very top of their suspect list.

Linda, meanwhile, would attempt to defend her husband from accusations that she deemed unfounded, telling reporters that:

"John ain't a violent man; he don't even beat the kids. He's never went out of hand or spanked my kids against my will. He's too much of a calm man."

Weeks later, Linda would claim that investigators were attempting to railroad John Ackroyd, stating:

"It almost seems like the investigators just want to pinpoint it on John and give up or something because he was the last to see her."

Making matters even more complicated was Rachanda's father, Steven Pickle, casting doubt on investigators' statements towards the end of July. When speaking to news station KRWQ, Steven would state that he believed Rachanda had run away from home, citing some missing clothing from her bedroom. He stated that a black duffel bag filled with clothes - which he had seen with Rachanda just days before her disappearance - was missing from her belongings at the time. To him, this gave credence to the notion that she had intentionally run away, and had not been abducted, as originally theorized.

A spokesman with the Linn County Sheriff's Office would dispute this allegation, claiming that there was no evidence indicating Rachanda had run away from home and had likely become a victim of foul play. Unfortunately, police had been unable to uncover any evidence of the teenager's current whereabouts, so they couldn't speak beyond these generalities without mucking up their ongoing investigation.

Officials with the Linn County Sheriff's Office would continue to routinely check in on the case over the next several months; typically, whenever they received reports of sightings of Rachanda. These sporadic sightings extended not only through Oregon, but throughout a large chunk of the country; in particular, along the west coast, ranging as far south as California and as far north as Vancouver.

Searches would also be conducted in the area on occasion but were primarily limited to recertification time that local officials needed to continue operating as part of the state's search-and-rescue apparatus. As had been the case beforehand, nothing of any significance was found during these searches.

The sheriff's office would eventually reach out to the FBI the following January (1991), asking for the Criminal Investigative Analysis Team from Portland to help. This team would be called in to not only help reinvigorate the investigation itself but work up a profile for a potential suspect in this unsolved disappearance.

Approximately two months later, Rachanda's 14th birthday would pass by without any celebration or fanfare. Each March 16th from this point forward would mark another year gone, in which the girl's loved ones didn't get to experience what she would have been like as a teenager, and then eventually, as an adult.

In the months after Rachanda's disappearance, Rachanda's mother Linda would officially separate from her stepfather John, moving away to Portland. She would eventually remarry and move down to California, where she resides today. Her marriage to John had already deteriorated by the point Rachanda went missing, but her disappearance would prove to be the official break in the relationship... despite him continuing to assert, both privately and publicly, that he had no idea what had happened to the missing girl.

Rachanda's brother, Byron, would move to the nearby town of Sweet Home to live with some relatives, while her father, Steve, would eventually move away to Alaska to rid himself of the area. He would eventually move back, however, to be closer to family.

Despite the disappearance of Rachanda Pickle causing massive changes in the lives of those that had known her, her case would remain unshakeable over the next several years. Detectives refused to name this a cold case, continuing to work on it regularly, but would have very little to show for it after several months. Detective Jim Salsbery, who oversaw the case, later said that he believed he knew what happened to the missing girl, but he just didn't have the evidence to prove it. Speaking to the Albany Democrat-Herald, in a few words, he stated:

"I think she's dead."

John Arthur Ackroyd, Rachanda's stepfather, had been the last person to see her on the morning of July 10th, 1990.

Following his separation from Linda, Rachanda's mother, months later, he would continue to work for the Oregon Highway Division as a mechanic. However, he would transfer away from the Santiam Junction location - where he had worked and lived for more than a decade - to a state highway shop near Corvallis. He would live nearby with his mother in Sweet Home.

Despite no information being published in the disappearance of Rachanda Pickle following the developments from early in 1991 (when the FBI was brought in to develop a suspect profile), the case was still being actively worked on by members of the Linn County Sheriff's Office. They continued to believe that Ackroyd was involved in his stepdaughter's disappearance, and began to go through his statements with a fine-toothed comb.

It was during this period - the two years following Rachanda's disappearance - that investigators made a realization. While they had never discovered what had happened to the missing teenager, there was another unsolved case that John Ackroyd was attached to...

On June 12th, 1992, John Arthur Ackroyd was arrested while at work in Corvallis, Oregon. He would be charged with two counts of aggravated murder and three counts of murder, accused of conspiring to kidnap, rape, and murder Kaye Jean Turner nearly two decades prior. He would be charged alongside his longtime friend, Roger Dale Beck, who was living in Porterville, California at the time. Despite only being charged with one murder, they were being charged with five different counts; each symbolizing a different possible theory in the case.

If you recall, John Ackroyd had been one of the last people to see Kaye Turner alive and had also led police to her clothing and skull approximately eight months after her disappearance. While he had always been a suspect for investigators, suspicion into him had seemed to wane after police came up empty-handed. However, following the disappearance of John's stepdaughter, investigators had begun looking into the dormant case of Kaye Turner. Prosecutors stated that information obtained during the investigation into Rachanda Pickle's disappearance had ultimately led to these charges being filed approximately two years later.

During the ensuing court case, defense attorneys would argue that John Arthur Ackroyd was slow-witted and mentally deficient, to the point of him being unaware of specific questions asked by investigators. But prosecutors argued that not only had John given contradictory statements to questions he fully understood, but he had also lied about certain details to deflect suspicion from himself. This is what had led to him leading police to the body of Kaye Turner eight months after her death... because, as prosecutors noted, he wanted to try and obtain the reward money being offered at the time.

During interviews, John had also told investigators that Kaye Turner had likely been stabbed and shot to death, which was later confirmed by tests conducted years after her murder. A forensic examination of Turner's clothing revealed that's exactly what had happened, in the exact way described by John Arthur Ackroyd.

Also, it was determined that John's accomplice, Roger Dale Beck, had told friends and family about the killing and had threatened them never to tell or they would suffer the same fate. After so many years, though, the edge of that threat had begun to grow dull, and these witnesses were no longer intimidated by a couple of doughy, middle-aged men.

After a four-week trial which took place in the latter half of 1993, John Arthur Ackroyd was convicted for Kaye Turner's death and was later given five life sentences without the possibility of parole. Bill Hanlon, the D.A. for Oregon's Jefferson County, would tell reporters that November:

"He was trying to go for the reward money. If he could have kept his mouth shut, this case would have gone nowhere."

John's accomplice, Roger Dale Beck, was convicted on almost identical grounds and continues to be housed in the Oregon State Penitentiary.

The resolution, in this case, would allow closure for the loved ones of Kaye Turner but was little solace for the friends and family of Rachanda Pickle, who had been missing for approximately four years at the time of sentencing. Police had still not uncovered any sign of her whereabouts, and this conviction seemed to essentially slam the door on any likelihood of her being found alive.

Looking over their notes from years earlier, investigators were disturbed by how close Ackroyd's involvement in Kaye Turner's case mirrored his involvement in Rachanda Pickle's disappearance. He was the last person to see both, exhibited troubling behavior at the time of their disappearance, provided investigators with both conflicting and troubling information, involved himself in the search parties and investigation, and then - when questioned - offered up troubling guesses for the victim's fate.

In the case of Kaye Turner, he had guessed that the woman had been shot and stabbed to death. A forensic examination of the available evidence proved that's actually what happened, and that Ackroyd - who had little in the way of an imagination - had basically confessed to investigators when he expressed these guesses. In the case of Rachanda, however, he told investigators that she had been, as recounted by the Oregonian in their "Ghosts of Highway 20" project:

"... dumped and buried in the woods or threatened with a knife, tied up and gagged, her body rolled in plastic..."

The investigation into Rachanda Pickle's disappearance would continue years later, with police having little evidence to operate with. There had still been no sign of the girl - who would have been a woman at this point - since July of 1990.

In March of 1996, police would investigate the origins of a partial skull recovered near Crawfordsville, about fifty miles east of where Rachanda had last been seen alive. This had originally been discovered by a dog, but the dog's owner called police to the scene, leading to a full-scale dig of the area where the skull had been found, which uncovered some additional fragments of bone.

It appeared like this skull had belonged to a smaller person - likely a young female - which had a small hole behind the right ear. This skull would be sent off for analysis in May of 1996, but months would pass before it was announced that scientists from Pennsylvania State University had been unable to extract DNA from the partial pieces of bone.

These bones very well could have been Rachanda's, but they also could have belonged to any other young woman that had been killed in the area. They also might have belonged to an indigenous person that lived in the area centuries beforehand. At the time, there was unfortunately no way to tell.

Over the next few years, investigators would continue to receive reports of potential sightings from the area, including a rather high-profile sighting from August of 1999. A tipster had claimed that Rachanda was still alive, and residing in eastern Linn County. Police investigating this rumor discovered that the young woman identified by the tipster was actually a relative of Rachanda's, but was not her.

This sighting would help kick up some interest in the case, nearly a decade later, but that excitement was relatively short-lived.

For years, John Arthur Ackroyd - serving five life sentences at the Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem - would continue to assert that he had no involvement in the disappearance of his stepdaughter, Rachanda Pickle. John would tell investigators, loved ones... anyone interested, really, that he didn't know what had happened to the missing girl. He would continue to plead his innocence in both cases, including the murder of Kaye Turner, which he had already been found guilty of.

However, on Wednesday, April 3rd, 2013 - nearly 23 years after his stepdaughter's disappearance - John Arthur Ackroyd would be charged with her murder by Linn County prosecutors. When asked what had inspired this change, after so many years of inactivity, officials would state that advancements in DNA testing led to this decision, although they would not speak in any specifics ahead of the expected trial date.

Since investigators had not yet uncovered any physical trace of Rachanda, they (along with prosecutors) were prepared to seek a case centered around a "no-body" homicide, which would require proof that the victim was no longer alive. Detective Mike Harmon with the Linn County Sheriff's Office told reporters:

"It's difficult to prove that a 13-year-old doesn't exist. An adult would have a database trail associated with credit cards, utility bills, driver's licenses and property transactions. Rachanda did not have a cell-phone, no internet connection. She didn't even have a telephone in their home."

Over the next several months, several court hearings would be adjourned to get rolling on the trial itself. John Ackroyd would not appear during any of these hearings, due to some health-related issues that kept him confined to the state penitentiary in Salem. However, these hearings came to an abrupt end after October 4th, 2013. On that date, Ackroyd had asked, through his attorneys, for an expedited trial date because of some lingering health concerns.

Three years would pass, in which this case seemed to just fade from the headlines. While the case would remain registered as open and/or unsolved in the Oregon state database, there was no movement to proceed with Ackroyd's trial for the murder of Rachanda Pickle.

Then, in the waning days of December 2016, it was announced that 67-year-old John Arthur Ackroyd, who had long been suffering from numerous health issues, had passed away from heart disease inside of his prison cell. This seemed to leave the case in an unusual spot moving forward since the victim's body had never been found, and now the only suspect had died without the case going to trial.

At the time, journalists with the Oregonian and Oregon Live were investigating this story for their amazing "Ghosts of Highway 20" project (which I honestly can't recommend enough, it's an amazing piece of journalism that you all should check out). During their digging into this case, they would uncover a plea deal agreed upon by both prosecutors and John Ackroyd, which had been agreed upon back in 2013, after charges had been filed in Rachanda's murder. For some reason, however, the agreement had been kept confidential for over three years, until after Ackroyd's death.

In signing onto this plea deal, John Ackroyd pleaded no contest to Rachanda's murder and agreed to not seek parole for Kaye Turner's murder and decline release even if he were to become eligible. This would usually lead to him being sentenced for the crime, but the attorneys involved agreed to suspend sentencing for an indefinite period... meaning that he received no actual sentence for this crime. At the time of his death in December of 2016, this case was still suspended, and the murder charges filed more than three years earlier (2013) were permanently dismissed.

While this plea deal provided some kind of closure in the case, John Arthur Ackroyd was not required to provide any kind of proof in the murder case of Rachanda Pickle. He wasn't required to provide the location of Rachanda's remains or anything like that; nor, it's believed, any specific details of the crime itself. It wasn't even really a confirmation of him committing the crime, but seemed to be more of a refusal to deny it (if that makes sense).

While this seems like more of an empty gesture than anything to me personally, prosecutors claimed that this deal - agreed upon in 2013 - would have kept John Arthur Ackroyd behind bars for the rest of his life. While I'd like to point out that he was already serving five life sentences without the possibility of parole, and was already in poor health at the time charges were filed, it is worth pointing out that this plea deal was agreed upon by Rachanda's living family members... primarily, her brother Byron, who had struggled to come to grips with his sister's loss for decades.

It wasn't until Oregonian reporters began digging into this case - following Ackroyd's death - that details of this plea deal would be released to the world at large. The reason for it remaining confidential for over three years has never been determined and is only known by the people in the courtroom that fateful day in 2013.

Sadly, this is where the story just kind of... ends.

The whereabouts of Rachanda Pickle have never been determined, with none of her friends, family members, or acquaintances having seen her after July 10th, 1990. For more than three decades, these loved ones have only been able to guess where Rachanda is... or, if she's dead, what her final minutes must have been like.

However, most are reasonably certain that the man who caused her disappearance - her stepfather, John Arthur Ackroyd - was thankfully taken off the streets a short time after her disappearance. He was arrested a little less than two years later for his involvement in the murder of Kaye Turner, and spent the rest of his shitty, miserable life behind bars. Despite that, however, reporters with Oregon Live and the Oregonian have uncovered information that points to a long reign of terror for this one man, which extended far beyond his two known crimes.

As part of their "Ghosts of Highway 20" project, these journalists have uncovered evidence linking him to several other crimes. This includes the 1977 rape of Marlene Gabrielsen, who identified Ackroyd as her attacker at the time, but police chose not to pursue rape charges; instead, taking John at his word when he simply said their encounter was consensual. If she had been believed, all of these crimes might have been avoided.

Then there are the 1992 murders of Sheila Swanson and Melissa Sanders, teenagers whose bodies were found months after their initial disappearance. Both had been seen with John a short time before their deaths, and it's believed that he had taken a liking to them. He remains just one suspect of many in that case, but a strong one nonetheless.

John Arthur Ackroyd is also implicated in several other similar crimes from the area, dating back to the mid-1970s. Sadly, for all of these cases - as was the case with his stepdaughter's disappearance - Ackroyd went to the grave with whatever answers he may have had.

Speaking to the Albany Democrat-Herald in March of 1996, Rachanda's aunt, JoAnn Serdy would state:

"Everything's hanging in limbo. If we could find her remains, we could say our final goodbye, but at this point, we don't have anything... We still think about her. We still search for her. We just don't want people to forget that she's gone."

Twenty-five years have passed since Rachanda's aunt made those remarks, and they remain just as true. Despite the case officially being "solved", the loved ones of Rachanda are left with just as many unanswered questions today as they had back in 1990. Due to the three decades that have passed since, however, there are fewer people left to ask those questions... many of Rachanda's relatives have passed on, and the ones that live on only have faded memories and mementos to remember her by.

Until she is brought home and put to rest by her loved ones, the story of Rachanda Pickle will remain unresolved.

Episode Information

Writing, research, hosting, and production by Micheal Whelan

Published on on March 28th, 2021

Producers: Roberta Janson, Ben Krokum, Gabriella Bromley, Steven Wilson, Quil Carter, Travis Scsepko, Laura Hannan, Bryan Hall, Damion Moore, Scott Meesey, Amy Hampton, Scott Patzold, Marie Vanglund, Astrid Kneier, Aimee McGregor, Jo Wong, Sara Moscaritolo, Sydney Scotton, Thomas Ahearn, Marion Welsh, Patrick Laakso, Rebecca O'Sullivan, Meadow Landry, Tatum Bautista, Sally Ranford, Kevin McCracken, Ruth Durbin, Michele Watson, Jared Midwood, Teunia Elzinga, Ryan Green, Jacinda C., Stephanie Joyner, Cherish Brady, and Lauren