achanda Pickles stepfather could turn angry in a flash. 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. He pleaded no contest in her death and agreed not to seek parole for Turner's murder and to decline release even if he became eligible. 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. It appeared like this skull had belonged to a smaller person - likely a young female - which had a small hole behind the right ear. Rachanda has a scar on her forehead. 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. 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. There are lots of nooks and crannies that you cant see by air, Martinak said, adding that a helicopter search was especially useful for steep areas where someone on foot or horseback couldnt effectively search. Rachanda was last seen watching television at her family's residence on the Santiam Pass in Sweet Home, Oregon at 10:00 a.m. on July 10, 1990. We always believed Ackroyd had something to do with his stepdaughters murder, said Salsbery, who retired in 1996. 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. Seiber, 41, said Rachanda and her older brother, Byron, came to school with bruises. SWEET HOME Rachanda Pickle was wearing a T-shirt, black sweat pants and tennis shoes when the 13-year-old on vanished on July 10, 1990 from her home at the state highway maintenance compound near the Santiam Junction. He was convicted of a sex crime in Minnesota, served seven months in prison, and moved to California. Her disappearance triggered one of the larger searches in the Linn Countys history. Prior to her disappearance, Rachanda and her brother regularly went to school with bruises, and Rachanda told her friends Ackroyd had caused the injuries. At times, the effort included more than 100 deputies and volunteers from Linn, Lane, Benton, Marion, Douglas, Deschutes and Jefferson counties. Ackroyd did little to look for her and later picked up Linda from work. 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. It just didnt add up., John Arthur Ackroyd is accused of killing his stepdaughter, Rachanda Pickle, who vanished in 1990. Her son, Byron, described Ackroyd as a violent man who once beat Rachanda over a broken clock. Both had been seen with John a short time before their deaths, and it's believed that he had taken a liking to them. This time, the DA -- and the cops who believed Ackroyd had gotten away with Kaye Turners killing -- were determined to get the highway worker off the street for good. Kaye Turner's killing became a faded memory. Rachanda was a good kid, helping around the house and taking care not to stray far. One of the major factors in this determination was that if she had run away, Rachanda had done so without any of her belongings. The morning she disappeared, Pickles mother, Linda, had gone to work at Black Butte. Ackroyd was the last person to see the girl alive the morning she vanished in July 1990. He would be charged alongside his longtime friend, Roger Dale Beck, who was living in Porterville, California at the time. He said he returned home to find his stepdaughter under a blanket on the couch. Another man was also convicted in Turner's death. Within months, without a body or physical evidence implicating Ackroyd, so did the investigation. 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. Linn County Sheriffs detectives Mike Harmon, left, and Paul Timm talk about the arrest of John Akroyd on murder charges. The two often went to school with bruises, which they attributed to John's abuse. To him, this gave credence to the notion that she had intentionally run away, and had not been abducted, as originally theorized. Early on, police looked into the possibility of Rachanda Pickle running away from home. 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. 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. Linda would last see Rachanda when she left for work just after 6:00 AM. She feared him and often asked friends if she could spend the night. 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. In 1992, Ackroyd was sentenced to five life terms in prison for the unrelated murder of Kaye Jean Turner, who was abducted and murdered in 1978. She's never been seen again. She has double pierced ears and a scar on her forehead. It was the kind of menial task you might give a rookie detective. When the dispatcher asked why she hadnt called sooner, Linda said she assumed she had to wait 24 hours to report a missing person. You have permission to edit this article. Load the dishwasher. He would continue to plead his innocence in both cases, including the murder of Kaye Turner, which he had already been found guilty of. He's never went out of hand or spanked my kids against my will. Community Rules apply to all content you upload or otherwise submit to this site. He said he came home during a break from work and asked Rachanda if she wanted to go for a ride with him. Then Rachanda Pickle, Ackroyd's 13-year-old stepdaughter, disappeared. 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. They werent expected back until afternoon. But at the time, he was just fourteen years old, and couldn't have foreseen what was going to happen just days later. We saw no human movement at all; no tracks, no nothing.". 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.'". Over time, the story took on even darker tones. Teams were assigned to 60 subsections and also also searched dozens of dirt roads in the rural, sparsely populated area. 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). She lives in San Bernardino, California, where she works at a medical supply company. John Arthur Ackroyd, the longtime suspect in 13-year-old Rachanda Lea Pickle's disappearance, has been arrested and charged with her murder. He offered stability and helped provide for her two children. 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. The home showed no signs of foul play. 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. Distinguishing Characteristics Caucasian female. 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. Within 30 minutes of her mom getting home from work, she'd be right there, hanging on her mom's shirttail". John's accomplice, Roger Dale Beck, was convicted on almost identical grounds and continues to be housed in the Oregon State Penitentiary. We can surmise that this is when he returned home and encountered Rachanda at around 9:30 AM. 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. However, that wasn't the entire reason. When it snapped, he smacked her repeatedly with his open hand. One time, she made a scene when it was time to go. Wasnt it strange that he was the last person to see Kaye and Rachanda alive? 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. In the months after Rachanda's disappearance, Rachanda's mother Linda would officially separate from her stepfather John, moving away to Portland. 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. I know that my daughters dead, Steve Pickle said in a 2003 newspaper interview. "Ensuring that Mr. Ackroyd was never released from prison has been a primary objective this office has pursued for a number of years," said Linn County District Attorney Doug Marteeny. He is also a suspect in the deaths of two other young women. Photos of Ackroyd are posted with this case summary. 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. She was 13. Rachanda Pickles mother and stepfather waited 24 hours to report the girls disappearance to 911. 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 Monville said she believes her daughter is dead, but shes still not convinced her former husband is responsible. 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. 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. When parent conferences rolled around, no one showed up. Rachanda's stepfather, John Arthur Ackroyd, is the last person known to have seen her. Rachanda's stepfather, John Arthur Ackroyd, is the last person known to have seen her. Donations are accepted but not expected; the site remains free-access to all. She was a young teenage girl with hopes and dreams, he said. John, Rachanda's stepfather, came home during a break from work, at around 9:30 AM. The family lived at the state highway division compound at Santiam Junction, where U.S. 20 and Oregon 22 meet. The following spring, a grand jury heard testimony from 17 witnesses, most of them people who knew the girl and Ackroyd. He didn't seem upset that Rachanda was missing, and police were suspicious because he knew her weight and her bra size but not her birthday. These many months later, John Arthur Ackroyd claimed to have discovered bone fragments while walking his dog in a wooded area nearby. Weeks after his death, prosecutors publicly acknowledged for the first time that Ackroyd had entered a plea in 2013 in the disappearance and presumed murder of Rachanda Pickle, his stepdaughter. Rachanda Lea "Chandy" Pickle was a girl who went missing in 1990 in Oregon. The couple ate; then they had sex, significant because they almost never did. 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. There was Ackroyd, standing at the back of his Ford pickup. She didn't even have a telephone in their home.". Maybe they just walked in, seen an opportunity and grasped at it.. 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. Once, he invited neighbors over to watch horror movies, becoming so animated over scenes of women being chopped up that hed hit rewind again and again. Rachanda nicknamed Chandy and her brother, Byron, had gone to live with their biological father, Steve Pickle, in Medford. While Rachanda was home alone during this period, someone else would claim to see her a few hours after this. Linn County Circuit Judge David Delsman granted the request. I did not do nothing. 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. Maybe it was the girls development, he told police, that drew a predator to the junction. By now, investigators knew who they were dealing with. It was during this period - the two years following Rachanda's disappearance - that investigators made a realization. He told Linda to wait until the next day to call police. 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. 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. Few kids lived there andthe ones who didwerent Rachandas age. 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. 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. 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. Sometime after he moved, Ackroyd was in his truck with the daughter of an old friend. 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. She said no and he left. Her mother left behind a short list of chores. He had his sisters image tattooed on his arm last year. Another time, they snuck her into their bedroom closet. Please subscribe to keep reading. Ackroyds low libido was the source of such open conflict that Lindas teenage son, Byron, knew of their troubles. In class, she counted down the minutes, a sense of dread rising as the end of the school day approached. "That was something that he wanted," said George Eder, chief deputy district attorney for Linn County. 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. 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. "The settlement reached a point where we were able to have the certainty that he would be in prison forever," Marteeny told The Oregonian/OregonLive. This was unusual and definitely out of the ordinary, but it wasn't enough for John to take notice at the time, it seems. "He said, 'I will give a plea but I want the case to stop at this point and it not be announced that I have entered the plea and in return I won't ever try to get out of prison.'". 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. Rachanda's photo is shown age-progressed to 41 years. In 2013, he was charged with murder related to the 1990 disappearance of 13-year-old Rachanda Pickle, his stepdaughter. No, what do you think I am? Ackroyd said, his voice rising in rare agitation. She was calm as she told the dispatcher that her daughter, a homebody, had gone missing. "We asked the brother what his desire was and his desire to take this deal and . Ackroyd was a prime suspect and he knew it. Plows stood ready to rumble onto the mountain pass during winter storms. However, following the disappearance of John's stepdaughter, investigators had begun looking into the dormant case of Kaye Turner. A lot of them are awful weird, but a lot are as nice as you can imagine.". She confided in two girls who were sisters. John Ackroyd was her third husband. The interview sputtered to a halt. On July 10, 1990, Rachanda disappeared from her home in Sweet Home, Oregon. Her mother was at work at the time of her disappearance. Within weeks, Melissa and Sheila were dead. What were the odds of that? A public records request by The Oregonian/OregonLive led a judge to order the release details of the agreement and other documents in the court file. He remains just one suspect of many in that case, but a strong one nonetheless. As had been the case beforehand, nothing of any significance was found during these searches. McAnulty, whod been promoted to detective just 10 days earlier, dutifully examined old newspaper articles and reports. One of Rachanda's dolls sits atop a shelf in the tidy manufactured home in California where her mother now lives. He recalled that Rachanda was on the living room couch in her pajamas, watching cartoons, at the time. Linda Monville's response was matter of fact. Although her body never has been found, Pickles stepfather, John Arthur Ackroyd, 63, was charged Wednesday with her murder. That friend was Roger Dale Beck. Sheriff Art Martinak supervised the search operation over a rugged 50-square-mile area in the Lost Lake, Hoodoo Butte and Potato Hill areas that are lined with jagged lava beds. You were here with her.. Cops went to search a storage unit Ackroyd had rented the year before, only to find hed cleared it out days earlier. Her parents reported her missing the next day.
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