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Shadows on Highway 20: The John Ackroyd Case Files · Crime Night

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to today's deep dive into our source material. And
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: I want you to picture this. It is December 24th, 1978. Okay.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: You are standing in the remote, snow-dusted woods of Camp Sherman, Oregon.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: The air is so frigid, it physically burns your lungs.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: And out there, the silence of the forest is just,
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: it's absolute. It's incredibly eerie. Right.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: It's heavy. So a man named Noel Turner is sitting
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: inside a nearby cabin, just waiting. His 35-year-old wife, Kay,
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: who is this avid runner, laced up her shoes a
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: couple of hours ago for a quick holiday jog.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: And she promised to be back in time for breakfast, right?
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: It's Christmas Eve.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Exactly. But the coffee is getting cold, the morning light
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: is slipping away, and as he stares out at the
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: frost clinging to the trees along Oregon's Highway 20, the
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: sinking realization hits him. Kay never comes back.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: And her disappearance, well, it exposes something terrifying. The evidence
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: we're looking at today reveals this isn't just about a
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: monster hiding in the shadows of the Pacific Northwest.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: No, it's really not.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: It is a masterclass in how a predator can weaponize
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: the physical landscape and the blind spots of the justice
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: system to operate completely unchecked for decades.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, if you have ever driven down a lonely, isolated
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: stretch of highway at night, seeing nothing but passing headlights
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: in the impenetrable dark of the woods... This case is
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: going to permanently change how you view that drive.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: You would think that the pristine, untouched snow of Camp
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: Sherman would give investigators an immediate advantage. But the initial
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: response just feels maddeningly inadequate.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: It is deeply frustrating to look back on. I mean,
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: massive search parties hit the woods. Police, locals, friends. But
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: three full days pass before civilian trackers finally find a
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: critical clue.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Three days in the snow.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: Right. They locate a clearing deep in the trees with
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: two distinct sets of frozen footprints. One set belongs to
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: a classic Nike running shoe featuring that iconic waffle sole.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: The other is a much larger heavy work boot.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: And the spatial relationship between those prints, that is what
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: haunts me. They aren't just, you know, walking side by
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: side having a friendly conversation. No, not at all.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: The trackers read the snow like a topographical map of
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: a crime. They document clear signs of a violent struggle.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: And then, leading away from the struggle, there's a set
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: of deep, continuous drag marks. The physical weight of the
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: tracks basically indicates the person in the heavier boots dragged
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: the smaller person directly into the dense tree line.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: But the trackers are forced to stop when the sun
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: goes down. And inexplicably, the deputy in charge of the
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: scene fails to secure it or follow up aggressively the
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: next morning.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: It's a massive gaping void in the investigation.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: The trail literally goes cold. Until eight months later, it
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: is now August. A local state highway worker walks into
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: a general store in Camp Sherman. He casually leans on
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: the counter and says he was out rabbit hunting and
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: thinks he stumbled across some clothing belonging to that missing jogger.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: He even asks if there's a cash reward, which is
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: just wild. But the store owner is instantly alarmed by
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: this for a very specific geographical reason.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: There are absolutely no rabbits in the terrain where this
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: man claims to have been hunting. It is the wrong
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: environment entirely.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: So the store owner alerts the police and this highway
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: worker says, leads investigators deep into the woods. He points
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: directly to a chilling scene. He shows them Kay's yellow shorts,
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: her Nike running shoes, a broken mechanical watch stopped at
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: exactly 9.27 and laying nearby her lower jawbone.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: And the man pointing to these items is John Aykroyd,
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: a name investigators already had lingering in their files.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: Why was he in the files?
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: Because he was one of the highway workers who originally
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: claimed to have seen Kay running the very morning she vanished.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: When you look at the case file, This is where
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: the alarm bell should be deafening. The police bring Ackroyd in.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: They hook him up to a polygraph. And he failed it.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: And the moment he is told he failed, his story
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: dramatically shifts. He suddenly remembers, oh, actually, he did touch
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: the clothing.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: He claims he actually found her body months earlier, back
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: in February.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: Which is insane. He describes her nude, partially covered in
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: a snowbank, and notes that it looked like her throat
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: had been deeply cut and she had suffered a gunshot wound.
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: And his excuse. He claims he simply didn't report it
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: because he was scared the police would blame him, which
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: is just a classic predatory deflection.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: I mean, I am struggling to understand how that doesn't
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: immediately result in handcuffs. If a guy changes his story
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: from I was hunting rabbits to I actually found her
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: brutally murdered corpse months ago, how on earth is he
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: allowed to walk out of that police station?
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: Well, because investigators are bound by the rigid mechanics of
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: physical evidence... Knowing someone is sitting in an interrogation room
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: lying to your face, it's entirely different from legally proving
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: to a jury that they committed a homicide.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: I guess, but it's like an arsonist returning to help
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: put out the fire.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Aykroyd was feeding them incredibly specific, gruesome details that
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: only the killer would logically know. But without the rest
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: of her body, without a murder weapon, and without a confession,
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: the police hit a legal brick wall.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: And he had an alibi, right?
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, a highly convenient one. He claimed he spent the
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: majority of that Christmas Eve hunting with his close friend,
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: a man named Roger Dale Beck.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: So the district attorney refuses to take the bait on
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: a circumstantial case and Ackroyd just walks free. But to
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: truly comprehend how Ackroyd was even in a position to
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: be driving that road in 1978, we have to look
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: at what happened a year prior.
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, 1977. This right here is the anatomy of a
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: systemic failure. It shows exactly how a system inadvertently trains
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: a predator to be better at his crimes.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: It's sickening. A young woman named Marlene Gabrielson is hitchhiking
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: along Highway 20. She is picked up by John Aykroyd
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: in his truck. Exhausted, she falls asleep in the passenger seat.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: And she wakes up to a literal nightmare.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: She does. Aykroyd is pulled over in the middle of
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: nowhere and is dragging her out of the truck by
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: her legs. He pulls out a hunting knife, uses it
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: to physically cut off her pants, her boots, and her underwear...
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: And then brutally sexually assaults her.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: What Marlene does next is, it's one of the most
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: astonishing acts of psychological survival you will ever hear about.
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: She is isolated in the wilderness with a man holding
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: a knife. She instantly recognizes that physically fighting back might
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: result in her death. So she shifts her strategy entirely.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: What does she do?
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: She appeals to his humanity, pleading with him and explaining
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: she is a new mother. When that doesn't stop him,
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: she does something extraordinary. She pretends to enjoy the encounter.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah. She de-escalates his aggression so effectively that she actually
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: convinces Ackroyd to give her his home phone number under
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: the guise of wanting to see him again for a date.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: She is playing three-dimensional chess while fighting for her life.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: She is leaving a breadcrumb trail for law enforcement. Because
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: she escapes, goes straight to a hospital, undergoes a grueling
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: rape kit examination, and hands the police the predator's phone
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  Speaker 1: number on a silver platter.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: And they bring Ackroyd in. He admits they had sex,
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: but claims it was entirely consensual.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: Of course he does.
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: He volunteers to take a polygraph test, and he passes.
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: So the police let him go.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: Not only did they let him go, but they turned
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: the investigative lens onto Marlene. This is the part that
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: is so hard to digest.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: Oh, it's infuriating.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: They victim blame her. They question her choice to hitchhike.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: They interrogate her about whether she was drinking or using drugs,
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: or if she was being overly flirty. We see this
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: so often in older cases. How did law enforcement in
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: the 1970s allow a piece of unreliable machinery like a
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: polygraph to override physical evidence like sliced up boots and
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: physical bruising?
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: To understand that, you really have to look at the
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: psychological environment of criminal justice in the 1970s. There was
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: an intense, almost mythological reverence for the polygraph machine.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: Like it was magic.
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Investigators treated it as an infallible scientific truth teller.
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: But if you look at the actual mechanism of a polygraph,
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: it does not detect lies. It detects physiological stress spikes
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: and heart rate, galvanic skin response, perspiration.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: So if a predator is a true psychopath, if they
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: feel absolutely no guilt, anxiety, or internal conflict about the
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: violence they have committed, they simply won't trigger the machine's sensors.
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  Speaker 1: So the machine validates the sociopath.
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: Precisely. And meanwhile, the trauma of the victim is sidelined
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: by systemic bias. The investigators looked at Marlene... saw a
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: young hitchhiking woman in the 1970s, and their own cultural
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: prejudices allowed them to dismiss her entirely.
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  Speaker 1: It's devastating.
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  Speaker 2: The devastating consequence of that bias isn't just that justice
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: is denied, it's that the predator is emboldened. Aykroyd learned
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: a vital lesson that day. If you play the game,
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: if you act calm, the system will actively protect you.
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  Speaker 1: He learned he was untouchable. And because he learned he
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: could manipulate the system on the open highway, he eventually
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: brings that same predatory isolation back. directly into his own home.
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: This is where it gets incredibly dark.
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  Speaker 1: Twelve years pass. We are now in 1990. Aykroyd is
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: living at Santiam Junction.
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: And for context, Santiam Junction is a highly remote, isolated compound.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: It was specifically built for state highway workers where the
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: major mountain passes intersect. It is miles and miles away
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: from civilization.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: Very isolated.
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: He is working as a mechanic there. He is married
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: to a woman named Linda, and he is living with
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: her 13-year-old daughter, Richanda Pickle.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: It's essentially a captive environment. The timeline of what happens
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: next is chilling. On the morning of July 10th, Ackroyd
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: inexplicably takes the day off from work. His excuse to
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: his supervisors is that he is waiting for missing parts
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: to fix a vehicle.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: Even though those supervisors later confirmed there was plenty of
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: other maintenance work he could have been doing. Right.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: Instead, he claims he went home, left 13-year-old Richanda sitting
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: on the living room couch watching morning cartoons... and drove
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: off to photograph deer on some deserted back roads. And
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: when Linda comes home from work, Richanda is gone.
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: In Akrid's behavior, during the immediate aftermath is deeply disturbing.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: Oh, completely.
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: While police are desperately scouring the woods for this missing child,
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: Ackroyd is casually bragging to investigators about having what he
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: called great sex with Linda the very night Richanda disappeared.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: He goes completely out of his way to highlight his
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: high libido to the police. It's so gross.
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: Furthermore, investigators discover that Richanda's friends had previously reported allegations
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: that Ackroyd was sexually and physically abusing her. Richanda had
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: bravely tried to tell another adult, but nothing was ever
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: done to remove her from the home.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: She was trapped with a monster and knew no one
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: was coming to help her. And when police search Ackroyd's truck,
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: they find a length of rope. On that rope, forensics
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: identify Richanda's hair, along with small, distinct drops of human blood.
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: And when confronted with this bloodstained rope, Ackroyd just shrugs.
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: He tells investigators, oh, she was probably just playing with
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: kittens with that rope.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: It is infuriating.
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: It's like the ultimate locked room mystery. But the monster
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: is the one holding the keys. He controls the physical environment.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: He controls the timeline. He establishes the alibis.
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: Investigating him means essentially asking him for permission to look around.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah. How could authorities just shrug that off?
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: It brings up the massive legal hurdle of circumstantial evidence
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: in 1990. Without a body, prosecutors were facing what they
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: call the no body, no crime dilemma.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: How does that actually work in a case like this?
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: I mean, if you have a suspect with a violent history,
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: inconsistent alibis, and the victim's blood in his truck, why
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: is a district attorney so hesitant to press charges?
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: It comes down to the mechanism of double jeopardy. Imagine
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: you are sitting on a jury in 1990. You hear
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: the defendant is a bad guy and there is a
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: speck of blood on a rope. Okay. But the defense
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: attorney stands up and says, ladies and gentlemen, Richanda was
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: an unhappy teenager. She simply ran away. She's living in
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: California right now. Aykroyd was an expert at muddying the waters.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: He really was.
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: He offered theories to police about how strangers could have
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: abducted her. He even managed to briefly shift suspicion onto
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: Richanda's biological father who lived five hours away. If a
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: jury believes for even one second that the girl might
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: just be missing... They have to acquit based on reasonable doubt.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: And if they acquit Aykroyd, double jeopardy attaches. Meaning even
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: if they find her body the very next day, he
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: can never, ever be tried for her murder again.
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: Precisely. The district attorney knew they only had one shot.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: They could not risk a trial and lose. So Aykroyd
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: remains free.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: The caution of the justice system basically becomes his ultimate shield.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: But finally, in 1991, that shield begins to fracture.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: A long time coming. Yeah.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: A cold case investigator decides to revisit the 1978 murder
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: of Kay Turner. He does what seasoned investigators do when
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: physical evidence is lacking. He looks at the human element.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: He looks at how allegiances change over a decade. He
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: tracks down Pam, the ex-wife of Ackroyd's alibi, Roger Dale Beck.
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: And this is the moment the house of cards finally collapses.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: Pam reveals a horrifying secret she has been carrying for
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: 13 years. She tells the investigator that on Christmas Eve
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: in 1978, Roger and John didn't just go hunting. They
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: returned to the house completely covered in blood.
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: They openly admitted to sexually assaulting and shooting Kay Turner.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: And they forced a terrified Pam to destroy their bloody
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: clothes and act as their false alibi.
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: It is a massive breakthrough, but it simultaneously highlights another
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: catastrophic systemic failure, speed of information and jurisdictional isolation.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: Because just as the net is finally closing on Aykroyd
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: for the 1978 murder, he is transferred away from the
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: Santiam Junction compound. He moves to Corvallis, Oregon. and he
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: finds a brand new hunting ground.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: Right on Highway 20 again?
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah. He becomes a fixture at a place called Cherrier's Diner.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: And the detail that stopped me cold in the case files,
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: he is literally known to the regulars and the young
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: female waitstaff there by his CD radio handle. They call
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: him the pervert.
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: The fact that he adopted that moniker so openly in
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: a public space demonstrates a profound level of predatory arrogance.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: He genuinely believes he is operating with total impunity.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: And in 1992... Two teenage girls, 17-year-old Melissa and 19-year-old Sheila,
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: are regulars at that diner. They make the fatal mistake
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: of telling Aykroyd about an upcoming camping trip they are
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: taking to the coast.
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: Which is just heartbreaking.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: He casually mentions he might be in the same area.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: Shortly after, both girls turn up dead, strangled and brutally
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: stabbed in the woods.
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: This is where we have to talk about a concept
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: in law enforcement called linkage blindness. Serial predators specifically rely
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: on invisible county lines.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: What do you mean by that?
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: Well, in the early 1990s, different sheriff's departments literally did
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: not communicate with one another. There were no shared digital databases.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: Everything was kept in physical paper files.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: So you have investigators in one county quietly building a
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: historical cold case against Aykroyd for Kay Turner, while investigators
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: in a neighboring county are scrambling from scratch to solve
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: the fresh double homicide of Melissa and Sheila.
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: And they are completely unaware of each other's investigations. On
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: May 31st, 1992, Police finally move in and arrest Roger
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: Dale Beck for Kay's murder. But they don't have quite
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: enough to arrest Aykroyd that same day.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: And somehow, on that exact same day, Aykroyd manages to
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: completely empty out his rented storage unit. How does a
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: leak like that happen? Is he tapping police scanners?
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: It is a combination of monitoring police radio frequencies and
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: exploiting small-town gossip networks. Predators like Aykroyd are hyper-vigilant.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: He was watching everything.
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The moment Roger was taken into custody, word spread.
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: By the time police finally arrest Aykroyd two weeks later,
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: whatever was hidden in that storage unit, whatever physical trophies
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: he kept from his victims, whatever bloody clothing remained, is
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: gone forever.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: It is a devastating loss of potential evidence. But despite that,
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: they finally have him behind bars. Which brings us to
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: the 1993 trial for the murder of Kay Turner.
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the trial.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: Aykroyd sits in the courtroom, clinging to his 15-year-old lie.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: He continues to insist that he found Kay's body in February.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: two months after she vanished, and noticed she had a
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: cut throat and a gunshot wound. But this time, science
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: is waiting for him.
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: This is where the mechanism of forensic anthropology corners him.
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: The prosecution brings in an expert who explains the brutal,
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: unyielding reality of human decomposition in that specific forest environment.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: The details on this are fascinating.
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: They really are. The expert articulates to the jury exactly
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: how weather... freezing temperatures, and local scavengers alter human flesh
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: over time. The expert proves scientifically that the specific, pristine
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: flesh wounds Ackroyd described seeing in February would only have
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: been visually identifiable in the first few days after her
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: death in December. Wow. By February, local wildlife and the
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: elements would have completely obliterated those specific visual markers.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: So he didn't find her body months later. The only
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: way he could describe those pristine wounds... was because he
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: was staring at them the moment he inflicted them.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It definitively proved his timeline was a complete fabrication.
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: A tiny detail of forensic biology tore down a 15-year lie.
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: Both Aykroyd and Roger receive life sentences.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: But the story doesn't end there. Because what about Richanda Pickle?
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: Fast forward to 2013. Prosecutors realize, to their horror, that
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: Aykroyd might actually be eligible for parole. So they throw
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: a legal Hail Mary. They officially indict him for the
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: murder of Richanda. even though they still haven't found her body.
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: It was an incredibly strategic maneuver. They sat down with
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: Richanda's family and explained that taking a no-body case to
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: a jury in 2013 was still a massive risk. But
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: if they offered Ackroyd a plea deal, they could guarantee
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: he never took another breath as a free man.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: And Ackroyd accepts what is called a no-contest plea. Can
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: you explain the mechanics of a no-contest plea for someone
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: who might not know? Why would a killer agree to that?
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: A no-contest plea is essentially a psychological compromise. It allows
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: a defendant to accept a criminal conviction without actually admitting guilt.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: So they don't have to say they did it.
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: Right. For a narcissistic predator, it protects their ego. They
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: don't have to confess. But for the state, it operates
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: exactly like a guilty plea. The judge sentences him, the
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: conviction is permanent, and the state secures the victory.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: So he traded away his chance at parole to avoid
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: a trial, ensuring he died in a prison cell, which
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: he did later that same year. But that legal victory...
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: leaves us with an incredibly dark, unknown toll.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: A very dark toll.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: We know about Kay. We know about Richanda. We know
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: he was the last person to speak to Melissa and
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: Sheila before they were found strangled and stabbed. Why wasn't
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: he officially prosecuted for Melissa and Sheila?
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: It exposes the grim calculus of the justice system. Once
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: a serial killer is secured behind bars with a permanent
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: life sentence... The state very rarely authorizes the immense financial
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: and temporal resources required to take another complex case to trial.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: Just because it's too expensive.
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: Essentially, yes. From the state's bureaucratic perspective, the threat to
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: public safety is neutralized. The monster is caged. But for
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: the families of Melissa and Sheila, it means they are
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: forever denied official legal closure.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: And it isn't just them. There are at least five
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: other victims tied to that specific geographical area of Highway 20.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: The case files outline a terrifying list of the missing
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: and murdered. There is a 1976 Jane Doe. There are
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: two missing teenagers, Karen Lee and Rodney Drom.
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: And the physical evidence with Karen Lee is terrifying. It is.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: This is the detail that absolutely chilled me. When investigators
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: finally recovered Karen Lee's jeans in the woods, they had
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: been cut in the exact same, highly distinct manner that
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: Aykroyd had used to cut the clothing of Marlene and Kaye.
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: It is a clear behavioral signature. It is the hallmark
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: of his crimes. But because he died in prison, the
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: legal book is permanently closed. It serves as a stark
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: reminder that true crime isn't just about a monster lurking
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: in the woods.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: No, it's really not.
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: It is fundamentally about the systemic cracks that allow that
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: monster to slip through time and time again. Think about
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: the cascading effect of belief. If law enforcement had simply
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: believed Marlene in 1977, Kate Turner might not have been
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: murdered in 1978.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: Richenda Pickle might have grown up.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: Right. Melissa and Sheila might have returned home from their
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: tamping trip. It highlights the incredible, enduring bravery of women
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: like Marlene, who, despite being dismissed and blamed by the authorities,
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: fought to leave a breadcrumb trail that eventually helped define
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: his pattern and secure future justice.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: It is a harrowing journey through the dark side of
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: the Pacific Northwest. Hmm. A predator utilized the vast, unforgiving
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: isolation of nature and the bureaucratic blind spots of law
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: enforcement to operate for over a decade. And it leaves
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: you with one lingering, deeply unsettling thought to mull over.
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: We so often think of the deep woods as dangerous
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: because of wild animals or getting lost or freezing temperatures.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: But the real danger isn't the isolation of nature. It
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: is the invisible borders of county lines.
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: That is a terrifying thought.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: How many other remote stretches of highway have their own
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: undiscovered ghosts, simply because a predator knew exactly where one
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: police jurisdiction ended and another began? The next time you
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: are driving down a dark, empty highway and you see
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: those passing headlights, you have to wonder who's behind the wheel.