ID’s three-part documentary Lost Women of Highway 20 revisits strange occurrences and killings along Oregon’s rural highway. These events included the disappearance and murder of Kaye Turner, Rachanda Pickle, Melissa Sanders, Sheila Swanson, and survivor Marlene Gabrielsen. John Arthur Ackroyd and his friend Roger Dale Beck were found responsible for at least two of these killings.
State highway mechanic Ackroyd was a long-time suspect in the string of murders that occurred between the late 1970s and early 1990s. Police could only link Ackroyd to Kaye Turner’s 1978 murder 12 years later when his stepdaughter Rachanda Pickle vanished. They named his friend Beck a second suspect in the case. In 1993, the state convicted both the accused of 35-year-old Turner’s murder, handing them respective life sentences.
Octavia Spencer narrates the documentary, which airs on Investigation Discovery this Sunday, November 5, 2023, at 9 p.m. ET.
Where are Kaye Turner’s killers John Arthur Ackroyd & Roger Dale Beck now?
According to The Oregonian, John Arthur Ackroyd, who was serving a life sentence at the Oregan State Penitentiary, reportedly died of natural causes in December 2016. Prison authorities found the convicted murderer and suspected serial killer unresponsive in his cell. Meanwhile, Roger Dale Beck continues to serve his life sentence at the same facility, as per the Oregon Department of Corrections.
The Bulletin reported that, in 1978, Kaye Turner of Eugene went missing the day before Christmas while running along a remote Camp Sherman road. She was spending the holidays with her husband and friends at the time. That morning, she left for a run and never returned. The 35-year-old’s remains and some of her clothes were found in the woods the next year.
Authorities narrowed in on John Ackroyd, a state highway mechanic, and his friend Roger Beck over a dozen years later. However, they failed to produce any physical evidence linking both suspects to Turner’s killing. Despite not having concrete evidence, they managed to secure two convictions in 1993. However, both Ackroyd and Beck maintained their innocence.
The Oregonian stated that Ackroyd implicated himself when he admitted that he saw Turner on the day she went missing. Investigators zeroed in on him in 1990 after the disappearance of his stepdaughter, Rachanda Pickle. The 13-year-old disappeared from their house. They never found the girl’s body.
Furthermore, Survivor Marlene Gabrielsen, who hitchhiked a ride with Ackroyd in the summer of 1977 on Highway 20, claimed that the mechanic raped her at knifepoint. However, when Gabrielsen, a young mother-of-one at the time, reported the incident to police, they refused to believe her. Both took polygraph tests. While Gabrielsen failed her test, Ackroyd passed his. He did not face any charges.
Reportedly, Ackroyd’s arraignment in Pickle’s death came in 2013 while already serving a life sentence in prison. Authorities claimed that DNA advancement helped them bring the decades-old case to a close. The case was still pending when he died three years later. Meanwhile, Beck has filed multiple pleas for parole and has faced rejection each time.
Lost Women of Highway 20 airs on ID this Sunday, November 5, at 9 p.m. ET.
