By then, Ackroyd was dead; he had died in prison in late 2016. The home showed no signs of foul play. Kaye Turner's killing became a faded memory. "That was something that he wanted," said George Eder, chief deputy district attorney for Linn County. Once, when a clock fell off a shelf, he beat her with a homemade paddle. He knew it was Ackroyd who had eventually led police to her remains. Word that Ackroyds stepdaughter had vanished spread quickly to neighboring Jefferson County, where Kaye Turner had been killed more than a decade earlier. In interviews, Ackroyd dwelled on how the teen had gotten her period and had begun to develop. In 2012, Linn County authorities took another look at her disappearance. 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 said he came home during a break from work and asked Rachanda if she wanted to go for a ride with him. 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. Rachanda Lea "Chandy" Pickle was a girl who went missing in 1990 in Oregon. My children know they did have an Aunt Rachanda.. Ackroyd spun the same story from then on. To this day, this remains one of the few decisions in Bryon's life that he wishes he could change. #MISSING: Rachanda Pickle, Linn County, Oregon DOB: 03/15/77 Missing since: July 10, 1990 NAMUS #6529 Linn County Sheriff's Office Case Case Investigator: Detective Mike Harmon (541) 917-6654 When it snapped, he smacked her repeatedly with his open hand. (ALBANY, OR) - Linn County detectives arrested a man for murder related to the 1990 disappearance of Rachanda Leah Pickle. The investigation into Rachanda Pickle's disappearance would continue years later, with police having little evidence to operate with. Noelle Crombie | The Oregonian/OregonLive. Rachanda Pickle didn't want to be alone with her stepfather, John Ackroyd. She was afraid to go home from school; as a . Seiber, 41, said Rachanda and her older brother, Byron, came to school with bruises. John Ackroyd. 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. The morning she disappeared, Pickles mother, Linda, had gone to work at Black Butte. 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. She introduced the women to him and they climbed in. Authorities stated current technology made it possible to test old evidence and come up with the information necessary to make a case against Ackroyd. In 1978, Kaye Turner disappeared while on a morning run during a Christmas visit to isolated Camp Sherman. The family lived at the state highway division compound at Santiam Junction, where U.S. 20 and Oregon 22 meet. John Ackroyd killed Kaye Turner, he replied. 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". After Rachandas disappearance, Ackroyd was transferred out of Santiam Junction, where his connection to the case and his behavior made women uncomfortable. We just don't want people to forget that she's gone.". 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. Rachanda Lea "Chandy" Pickle (1977-1990) - Find a It was definitely in the middle of nowhere, said her brother, Byron. They werent expected back until afternoon. 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. One of Rachanda's dolls sits atop a shelf in the tidy manufactured home in California where her mother now lives. His friends became sick at the sight and left. Current Sheriff Tim Mueller was a deputy involved with the search and rescue team in 1990. 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). 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. 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. 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. 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. 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). (From this AMA with the Oregonian journalists who investigated the serial killings by Rachanda's stepfather . At the time, there was unfortunately no way to tell. She said he threatened to do to me exactly what they did to Kaye Turner., REMEMBERING RACHANDA (Photo 1 of 4): Byron Pickle is 42 and lives in Aumsville with his wife and two children. Ackroyd stopped. The interview sputtered to a halt. Rachanda Pickle, the 13-year-old daughter of his ex-wife Linda, went missing from her Santiam Junction home. I asked her what happened, Cook said, and she said, My stepdad did this. Cook is shown here with her two daughters. That winter, Kaye and her husband, Noel, had decided to head up to a cabin in the Camp Sherman area. Missing person Rachanda Lea Pickle missingpersonpsychic.com The men drove by Santiam Junction, slowing as they passed the eastern edge of the highway compound where Ackroyds manufactured home backed up to the woods. In the case of Kaye Turner, he had guessed that the woman had been shot and stabbed to death. She's real fond of her makeup.". Three years would pass, in which this case seemed to just fade from the headlines. We spent several days up there several times. The first time it was almost like he didnt want to be seen and the second time he was flamboyant, snapping pictures and waving, the coworker said. he officers assigned to interrogate Ackroyd were direct. 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. The television was on. Rachanda Lea Pickle Rachanda, approximately 1990; Age when reported missing: 41 (approximately 2018); John Arthur Ackroyd, approximately 1990; Ackroyd, approximately 2013 . 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. The first time he stared ahead as Corinna Strouse waved hello. 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. If that would have happened, I would not have any of my kids stay there any longer. But Rachandas distress was clear. Rachanda stuck close to her mother and rarely strayed from the family home at Santiam Junction. Could trucks be to blame for killing more pedestrians? 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. Murder suspect Ackroyd found dead in Salem prison cell Ackroyds low libido was the source of such open conflict that Lindas teenage son, Byron, knew of their troubles. 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. When the couple pulled into the compound that evening, Rachanda wasnt hanging around outside like she had the day before. He said he returned home to find his stepdaughter under a blanket on the couch. But according to the series, investigators always suspected he was also responsible. She had double pierced ears and a scar on her forehead. 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. Somebody could have just come in, he said, knocked her over the head, throw her over the shoulders and just walk out without anybody seeing her. Detectives dug into Kayes killing once more and soon stumbled on their biggest breakthrough. As had been the case beforehand, nothing of any significance was found during these searches. The Oregon Department of Justice has additional information and resources for survivors of sexual violence. 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. She has never been heard from again. No, what do you think I am? Ackroyd said, his voice rising in rare agitation. While the family's home was surrounded by dense wilderness, Rachanda quickly picked up on the area around them. 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. 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. He said he came home during a break from work and asked Rachanda if she wanted to go for a ride with him. 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. In 2013, he was charged with murder related to the 1990 disappearance of 13-year-old Rachanda Pickle, his stepdaughter. You could win the lottery four or five times before something like that would happen, Salsbery said. As Noelle Crombie writes in Part III of the Oregonian/OregonLive's five-part series. She was a young teenage girl with hopes and dreams, he said. "The settlement reached a point where we were able to have the certainty. Where is she? Linda asked Ackroyd as darkness enveloped the highway compound. Rachanda and her brother regularly went to school with bruises, and Rachanda told her friends Ackroyd had caused the injuries. He even pretended to aid in the fruitless search for the girl. The couple married in the mid-1980s but divorced after a year. ", Rachanda and Byron Pickle were close. 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. When Rachanda was about seven years old, her mother would remarry. Bill Hanlon, the D.A. 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. On 10 July 1990, 13-year-old Rachanda Pickle was last seen inside her mother and stepfather's home in Santiam Junction, Oregon. Both had been seen with John a short time before their deaths, and it's believed that he had taken a liking to them. Such a move is typically reserved for a national security-related case or oneinvolving sexual assault victims. And now here he was, more than a decade later, having been the last known person to see his stepdaughter alive. At the wrong place at the right time.. Use of and/or registration on any portion of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement (updated 4/4/2023), Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement, and Your Privacy Choices and Rights (updated 1/26/2023). Dec 31, 2016. Rachanda was described as being your typical teenage girl. Details of plea deal in 1990 cold case killing finally revealed Twenty-five years have passed since Rachanda's aunt made those remarks, and they remain just as true. Rachanda's mother, Linda Monville, 62, left Oregon 26 years ago and remarried. 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. Rachanda Lea Pickle was born on March 15, 1977. Hed pored over Ackroyds police interviews from 1979 when the highway worker admitted he was the last person to see Kaye Turner. NKOTB shirt: Asha Degree & Rachanda Pickle However, following the disappearance of John's stepdaughter, investigators had begun looking into the dormant case of Kaye Turner. Her mother and stepfather didn't report her missing until the next day. Her stepfather was charged with her murder in 2013 but died three years later without revealing Chandy's whereabouts. Rachanda Pickles mother and stepfather waited 24 hours to report the girls disappearance to 911. He is also a suspect in the deaths of two other young women. Maybe they just walked in, seen an opportunity and grasped at it.. 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. 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. 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 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. 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. In class, she counted down the minutes, a sense of dread rising as the end of the school day approached. Distinguishing Characteristics Caucasian female. 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. SALEM John Arthur Ackroyd, who in 2013 was charged with the 1990 murder of his stepdaughter Rachanda Pickle, has died of natural causes at the Oregon State Penitentiary in . At times, the effort included more than 100 deputies and volunteers from Linn, Lane, Benton, Marion, Douglas, Deschutes and Jefferson counties. A grand jury would hear the case. "Rachanda was. 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. Time had fogged her memory, but on one point she was clear: The men ordered her to lie if police asked where they were that morning. The girl who was good about leaving notes if she headed out to play Nintendo at a neighbors house hadnt left one. Two hours later, he was back, but this time he made sure she saw him. 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. "We asked the brother what his desire was and his desire to take this deal and . The Oregonian/OregonLive filed a motion in February asking that all documents in the case be unsealed. 'The most difficult part is keeping it in people's minds' | KVAL John would tell investigators, loved ones anyone interested, really, that he didn't know what had happened to the missing girl. When parent conferences rolled around, no one showed up. Linda Monville's response was matter of fact. Police investigating this rumor discovered that the young woman identified by the tipster was actually a relative of Rachanda's, but was not her. 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.'". Ackroyd didnt seem bothered that Rachanda was gone and spoke about his missing stepdaughter in a way no panicked parent ever would. At the time, Ackroyd also was a suspect in a cold case killing - the 1978 death of Kaye Turner, 35, who disappeared while jogging in Camp Sherman on Christmas Eve morning. If you purchase a product or register for an account through one of the links on our site, we may receive compensation. Cookie Settings/Do Not Sell My Personal Information. Within 30 minutes of her mom getting home from work, she'd be right there, hanging on her mom's shirttail". He said he came home during a break from work and asked Rachanda if she wanted to go for a ride with him. 541-967-3911. Facebook His partner, Detective Will McAnulty, sat nearby. Rachanda was a good kid, helping around the house and taking care not to stray far. Deceased/Not Found - OR - Rachanda Pickle, 13, Santiam Junction, 10 Oregonian/OregonLive fought to unseal secret deal in Rachanda Pickle's 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. The men spent hours talking to Ackroyd. While he had always been a suspect for investigators, suspicion into him had seemed to wane after police came up empty-handed. Who was the last person that saw her, do you know?the dispatcher asked the girl's mother. Ackroyd worked out of Corvallis and continued to roam the highway. 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. 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. Ackroyd did little to look for her and later picked up Linda from work. Ackroyd is eligible for parole, but according to the Linn County Sheriffs Tim Mueller, he has not submitted paperwork to do so. Rachanda Lea Pickle - The Charley Project Rachanda declined, citing the chores her mother expected her to finish, he said. John would later pick up Linda from work, and when the two returned home, they discovered that Rachanda was not there waiting for them. Middle Name: Lea. The prime suspect in the disappearance of a 13-year-old Linn County girl pleaded no contest to murder three years ago as part of an unusual agreement unsealed Wednesday by a Linn County Circuit Court judge. If he could have kept his mouth shut, this case would have gone nowhere.". In 1990, Rachanda Pickle lived with her mother, brother and stepfather, John Ackroyd. Her body has never been found. 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. He wondered aloud if Rachanda had been dumped and buried in the woods or threatened with a knife, tied up and gagged, her body rolled in plastic. She was a young teenage girl with hopes and dreams, he said. On July 10, 1990, Rachanda disappeared from her home in Sweet Home, Oregon. 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. Circumstances: Rachanda was last seen at her home on July 10, 1990. While police had always kept John Ackroyd at the top of their suspect list, they never had enough evidence to pursue charges against anyone. Six Degrees of WTF | Kaye Turner, Rachanda Pickle, The Ashland Tragedy What were the odds of that? The home showed no signs of foul play. Early on, police looked into the possibility of Rachanda Pickle running away from home. After his stepdaughter went missing, investigators reopened the Turner case and charged Ackroyd. 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. Rachanda Pickle Unresolved Her mother was at work at the time of her disappearance. SALEM John Arthur Ackroyd, who in 2013 was charged with the 1990 murder of his stepdaughter Rachanda Pickle, has died of natural causes at the Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem. After Rachanda disappeared, he and her mother separated, and her mother moved to California and remarried. Russell Barnett, a Portland criminal defense lawyer who represented Ackroyd along with Elizabeth Baker, declined to say why Ackroyd wanted the deal to remain secret. Sign up for our newsletter to keep reading. He was drawn to Melissa and Sheila, making a point to chat them up. 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. It just didnt add up., John Arthur Ackroyd is accused of killing his stepdaughter, Rachanda Pickle, who vanished in 1990. John Ackroyd, a longtime state highway worker, died alone in his prison celllate last year while serving a life sentence in another murder. 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. If you have experienced sexual violence and need support, please call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE. The next several days would see extensive searches in the area around the maintenance complex, where Rachanda lived with her mother, brother, and stepfather. In fall 2013, according to the unsealed court records, Ackroyd agreed not to seek parole and to decline release even if he became eligible in exchange for his no contest plea in his stepdaughter's death. My children know they did have an Aunt Rachanda.. Linda Ackroyd and her young children moved around Springfield and Sweet Home before she settled down with Ackroyd in the 1980s. In August of 1979, a man that lived in the region - named John Arthur Ackroyd - came forward with information. Detectives moved on. Their clothes were spattered with so much blood that she got rid of Becks jeans and shirt. (Mark Ylen/Democrat-Herald). The familys kittens were curled up on the girls lap, he said. Pickle,Rachanda L.missing July 10,1990 - Porchlight International for You know, he said, both of you sitting there pointing your fingers at me, and I didnt do nothing.. Linda Monville said she believes her daughter is dead, but shes still not convinced her former husband is responsible. 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. He thought she was pretty, he said, and noticed that shed begun to develop. 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.