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from the late '70s to the early '90s there was a man in Oregon killing young women they knew it was him but they
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never had enough to prove it how did he get away with murder let me tell you welcome to Crime
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junkie hi crime junkies I'm your host Ashley flowers and I'm Brit and the story I have for you today will have you
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screaming there was this guy out in the Pacific Northwest because of course it's
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a Pacific Northwest and he keeps popping up at the center of these mysterious disappearances but over and over again
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police say there just isn't enough so he's let out let off just to be out there out there to strike again first a
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jogger who goes missing on Christmas Eve he's the last to see her then his stepdaughter goes missing he's the last
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to see her and then two teens stop at a diner before they go on a camping trip and who is the last to interact with
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them this guy and I think that is just the tip of the iceberg there could be many more cases he's responsible for and
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how he got away with this for so long is a story you won't believe this is the story of the mysteries of Highway 20
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[Music] it's around 10:00 a.m. when NL Turner realizes his 35-year-old wife Kay hasn't
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returned from her run now she had left around 8:00 a.m. and planned to be gone for about an hour but to make it home
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for breakfast well that's now come and gone times two and NL is getting a little worried so he hops in his truck
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to see if he can go find her probably just hoping that she maybe sprained an ankle or got lost or something cuz
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though she's an avid Runner she is kind of an unfamiliar terrain right now because this is Sunday Christmas Eve
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actually of 1978 and null and Kay are vacationing in this remote area of Oregon called Camp Sherman which is
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right off of this um big Main Road known as Highway 20 and they took this little
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trip as a holiday getaway with some friends exchanging gifts sitting by the fire like singing carols it was supposed
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to be this magical time like doing all the christmy things but that wouldn't stop Kay from getting her workout in
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again Avid Runner and what should have been Kay's time to recharge and clear her head is quickly becoming now her
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family and friends's Nightmare because there is no sign of Kay as her husband is driving around everywhere and by 1:30
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no is Thoroughly panicked enough that now he needs to call police so NL and others are eager to get searching right
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away but they're told by police to wait which is just at this point burning precious daylight hours in their mind So
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eventually Sheriff deputies arrive and they along with the locals and the Turner's friends finally do start
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searching for K even when it gets dark they search through the night but there isn't a single sign of her not even on
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Christmas Day or the day after despite the searches getting bigger and bigger like these are extensive land searches
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and I assume they talked to all the friends and stuff and we're sure she actually even made it on the run like
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nothing happened to her wherever it is they're all staying yeah according to Noel cromby who wrote extensively about
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this for The Oregonian Kay even asked one of their friends to go jogging with her but they declined and they do
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eventually find a couple of witnesses this pair of Highway workers who like they talked to separately they were like
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said they saw her again separately like running solo in the morning that she vanished so she went on the run
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everything seemed fine and they must not have seemed all that suspicious or suspicious at all because police didn't
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seem to dig deeper into either of these like Highway worker guys and there's something else that they didn't dig
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deeper into either this one to me is far more baffling so on day three this is December 26th the deputy in charge of
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the search gets a radio call from a couple of trackers who had been helping authorities out and they tell the deputy
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that they've discovered two sets of Frozen Footprints in this clearing over by the woods like near where she was
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seen running I don't know it sounds like it was close I I'm not totally clear on
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exactly where this was but according to these trackers one set of prints could have been from Kay's running shoes they
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knew that she'd been wearing this specific type of Nike shoe ones with like the old school waffle soul that we
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know but the other set of prints appeared to be from a larger shoe and so right away it's clear that these are not
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the prints of two people out for a stroll in the woods more alarmingly The Trackers say seems like there was some
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kind of struggle and that the larger person dragged away the smaller person did they follow these prints they did
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but then it got dark and they couldn't go any further which is something that to me like is you follow up on after but
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it seems like this Deputy didn't believe them or he didn't seem as interested because that appears to be as far as
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this went how does it even happen this is like the best and kind of the only lead that they have dude I don't know I
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mean maybe authorities did look further into it and there's just no record reporting of it and maybe there wasn't
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anything more to learn or they decided they weren't like from the people or k whatever but I don't know I feel like we
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should have at least closed the loop on that like yeah especially if they're not
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related at all but that doesn't happen so we're here left guessing and as more days pass without any sign of K police
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start looking inward a little more examining Kay's life to see if there would be any reason for her to leave on
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her own according to the the limited docu series Lost women of Highway 20 when investigators look at her and her
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husband's life back in Eugene Oregon where they live they discover this calendar that belonged to Kay at her
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office and in it there is evidence to suggest that she had actually been seeing people outside of her marriage
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and at the time that police are learning this this is news to null who they obviously like ask about this and they
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know or like believe that he's not lying about not knowing because they do end up
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asking him to take a gra about this and he ends up passing but he does admit that he knew k wasn't happy in their
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marriage and we can assume police looked more into any possible Affairs that Kay
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was having but there's nothing in the source material to suggest that Kay did take off with someone and again they
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have witnesses like putting her out running so logistically like that might not even make sense right like you're
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not going to be like putting on your running shoes while you're on vacation with your husband to like away with so
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before they knew it it was spring and then summer and it takes a full eight months before the first sign of K pops
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up and in a really chilling way so one day in August the owner of this little general store in Camp Sherman is just
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like going about their usual day when this local guy rolls in now the guy is known to her the owner but not in the
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best way he had been in a couple of times and really sked her out when she caught him touching himself in the store
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while looking at some adult magazine so like the second shees walk in she's like oh hell no and she goes into the
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and gets her husband when he comes out the guy tells him he found some clothes while he was out rabbit hunting that he
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thinks might belong to that missing jogger from back at Christmas and so he asked the shop owner if there is some
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kind of reward which there was like a $1,000 reward at the time but the shop owner is all kinds of suspicious of his
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story because he knows at the time there are no rabbits in the area but before this guy can wise up the shop
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owner phones police and is like hey you probably should get here and like don't waste any time get here now and if
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police aren't tripping over themselves to get to the general store already they are when the store owner calls them back
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because since he'd hung up with them the guy has said something else he admits that he might have been the last person
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to see K Turner alive now it's unclear exactly when authorities put two and two together but they soon realized that
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this local this stranger who might have stumbled across K's clothes isn't some random guy they already knew him they
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had interviewed him early in the investigation his name is John akroy and he was one of the highway workers who
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admitted to seeing Kay running the day she disappeared okay I mean there's suspicious and then there's this there's
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this right so they go meet John and he leads police out into the woods about a mile and a half from Camp Sherman where
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they find several pieces of clothing there is a yellow pair of shorts underwear a broken watch Nike running
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shoes and then there among the clothing they find a lower Jawbone with teeth still intact oh my God and sure enough a
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medical examiner will later confirm those teeth belonged to Kay do they find the rest of her mm not at the time so I
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mean it has been in this area her body I mean in the elements for some eight months now like you've got Critters to
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deal with I mean a perfect example is one of the officers actually who's on the scene they notice a piece of K's
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blonde hair like Tangled Up in a bird's nest so so evidence is literally flying away scattered everywhere but even
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though they won't be able to determine how she died just based on the little that they have and the way that her
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remains were left they do find Clues as to when so K's broken watch reads 9:27 December 24th
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it's a mechanical watch not digital just to be clear and the stem had been knocked out so like it stopped the time
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though there's like some conflicting reporting that maybe it read 9:05 but either way if it was am that means that
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it would have broken about an hour or so into her dog that morning right around the time nol was expecting her to be
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home so now that they know Kay's fate they bring their first and only person of interest in for questioning and JN
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tells police much like he did the store owners that he would was just hunting rabbits with his dog when he stumbled
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across the remains the clothes whatever and police are also suspicious of this because again there wasn't a lot of
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rabbits in this area so they ask JN if he's willing to take a polygraph which he agrees to he ends up failing but he
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still denies any involvement in Kay's death but here's the thing his story does begin to shift
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two branches of the same tree two pieces of a soul where one sister goes the other will be for she is but
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half of the whole the missing half pre-order your copy at Ashley flowers.com so initially when John told Poli he saw
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Kay running on the day she disappeared there had been nothing else to that story well now all this time later he
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says actually I stopped and talked to Kay now it's nothing wild he just like we exchanged holiday pleasantries or
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whatever but it's significant enough like enough of a change to make everybody be on high alert so police ask
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him if he ever touched Kay because that was one of the polygraph questions he failed and yet again all of a sudden the
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story shifts he says well yeah no I did touch K but he says bizarrely that he touched her in February two months after
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her disappearance she goes missing in December right and take a seat buckle up cuz the ride is Shifting again now he
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tells police that he actually found her body first in February so not in August and he says he didn't report discovering
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her remains because he was afraid that he might get accused of killing her and when he found her in February he like
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touched her arm or something and what exactly does he think is going to happen now Brett the red flags on this guy are
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like piled so high you can't see over them and it doesn't get any better John claims that when he found Kay's body in
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February she was nude and partially covered in snow and he said it looked like her throat had been cut and that
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she was also shot in the chest so he's giving pretty precise details that I don't know maybe only the killer would
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know yeah specific but still even though this is super weird police can't prove that John is the killer because even
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though he's giving this weird specific story they can't prove that that is a right story or a wrong story either way
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because they have no physical evidence to work with right and to complicate things John sort of has an alibi he says
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that he spent most of Christmas Eve with a buddy named Roger Dale Beck was this the other Highway worker witness no
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these are two totally different guys um again Jon and that other guy weren't even together when they saw K I don't
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even know if they like work together like two separate things anyways so this Roger guy confirms that he was with John
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but it's unclear if he was with him before or after JN would have seen Kay we just know that he says he went
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hunting with John at some point that afternoon and then nothing weird stood out to him certainly nothing that would
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suggest to him that like his hunting buddy had killed a woman or was planning to kill a woman and Roger's wife this
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woman named Pam she kind of chimes in at some point giving both of these guys Alibi saying that they were at their
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house most of the morning but John can't be there or with them right when he sees
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Kay which he's already admitted to like a couple of times that feels like the only window that really matters here yes
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and I'd love to drill in on that but by this point Jon has wised up and he now gets a lawyer so no more talking and the
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police have to let him walk but that doesn't mean that they stop digging into him so they learned that in 1977 the
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year before Kay disappeared a woman named Marlene gabrielson told police that JN had sexually assaulted her after
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he picked her up when she was hitchhiking along Highway 20 and her story is horrifying she said that she
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fell asleep in the car on the way home and she woke up to Jon dragging her out of his truck by her legs and she said
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that he ripped off her pants even cut her underwear and boots off with a knife and then sexually assaulted her at some
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point later she said Jon seemed to contemplate what to do next with her like it sounds like he was concerned
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about letting her go but she pleaded with him pointing out that she had a new baby John relented gave her a pair of
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his pants to wear and they just like resumed their drive and despite everything she had just gone through
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before Jon finally dropped her off marleene convinced him to give her his phone number by like pretending that she
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liked him Marlin's a Smart Cookie very not and not she's not doing this just so he like thinks everything's fine she's
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doing it so she can identify him later like she wanted to see John punish for what he did to her and I can only assume
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that's what police used that number to track Jon down after she'd gone to the hospital and had done a sexual assault
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cat so they had brought Jon in for questioning at that time but this is where Marlene's tragic story got even
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more tragic and infuriating Jon told police that Marlene came on to him and despite the bruises
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and the scratches that Marlene suffered and everything else she did to prove her
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story to basically hand them the evidence they need on a silver platter because he said it wasn't a sexual
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assault they believed him and he was never prosecuted unbelievable even worse the police seem
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to suggest that maybe it was Marlene's fault they question her drug use her drinking if she was being flirty with
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John maybe coming onto him sexually in Lost women of Highway 20 marleene talks about how police made her feel like a
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liar was there ever a polygraph for John then because I feel like we would have learned he was a liar like a year
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earlier BR they did and somehow he passed which probably just helped fuel the police's belief that Marlene was
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lying and it also points to the thing we've said so many times like the there were flaws there are problems with this
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kind of testing and there are problems with not believing victims like that has very big very real life-threatening
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consequences and the police are learning that but even if they see that incident
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in a whole new life now it doesn't change the fact that they still don't have anything to tie him to Kay's murder
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and so her case starts to go cold according to the Oregon journal in October they end up finding Kay's skull
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about 3/4 of a mile from where her clothes and her lower Jawbone were found but again like it doesn't give them much
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of anything the investigators don't glean anything new from this so all Kay's husband and her friends can do is
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wait and that weight becomes excruciatingly long I mean over a decade passes and in
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that time letting John akroy slip through their fingers has dire consequences once again so this time
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it's midm morning on July 11th 1990 when a 911 dispatcher with the Lynn County Sheriff's Office gets a call from a
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concerned mother named Linda she tells them that her 13-year-old daughter Randa pickle is missing has been since the day
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before and she is worried sick is sure something is wrong and it's now been 24 hours so she's calling to make the
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report Linda says that she thought she needed to wait the 24 hours to report her daughter missing and it has to break
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her heart when the dispatcher corrects her and tells her that like in the cases of children that's not true but they're
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here now so the dispatcher starts asking questions who was the last to see her daughter Linda tells them that it was
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her stepfather and of course Brit do you want to take a wild guess at who her father was John akroy isn't it it is
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John akroy for the second time John is about to become the main suspect in a disappearance now John had married Linda
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in the mid 80s but divorced soon after despite this though it sounds like they stayed together anyway and according to
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Noel's piece in The Oregonian they are living together in 1990 and raising Linda's children from her previous
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relationship Randa and her brother Byron now home for them was this remote Community known as Santiam Junction
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which is where Highway 20 Oregon Route 126 and Oregon Route 22 like all intersect B all these big highways John
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worked as a highway mechanic so it made sense for the family to live in this is it essentially was like a compound where
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other Highway workers lived as well and how far was this from Camp Sherman about
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30 minutes so police descend on this area they bring in search resources to find Randa and it's clear that police
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early on n think that she didn't just run away like nothing in her room was missing none of her close friends had
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any idea where she was and Randa wasn't known to just wander off into the woods in the Lost women of Highway 20 dock her
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brother Byron points to the fact that she was actually scared to go into the woods alone and Linda tells police that
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the last time she saw her daughter was the morning of the 10th so the day before Randa was up early even helped
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Linda do her hair and before Linda left for work she gave her daughter a list of
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chores to do that day but then when Linda got home no chores had been done and Randa wasn't there and if she went
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somewhere she would usually leave a note that's not there either so what's John's
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story through all this well he said that he dropped Linda off at work that morning and then he went to go work in
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Bend Oregon John is still a mechanic for the state at that point but he says that
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when he got there he found that some parts that he was waiting for like didn't come in so he ended up just
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taking the day off so so he's off of work the day she disappears correct even more than that supervisors of his would
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later say that there was no reason for him to take off like just cuz whatever parts weren't there like there's plenty
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of other work that he could have been doing that day so he was off but he was supposed to be at work yes then where
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was he home he tells police that when he got home richanda was there he saw her on the couch watching cartoons he asked
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her if she wanted to take pictures of deer on some like back roads or something something but she didn't want
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to go with him cuz she's a teenage girl and that sounds awful so he says he left
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to go take pictures on his own noticed richanda wasn't home by the time he got back he said when he noticed she wasn't
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there he like looked around a little bit then he left to go pick Linda up from work and then when they got home
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together Rando still wasn't home now in an eerie like deja vu type thing Jon is adamant that he's got nothing to do with
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randa's disappearance while Jon does help search for his stepdaughter I mean he kind of leads the charge actually
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he's also saying things right and left that are just big like WTF moments like at one point John tells police that on
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the night that Randa disappeared he and Linda had sex despite you know like her daughter being missing he even tells
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police it was great sex like he makes sure to say that and he he said it was notable because JN has he tells them
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alol laido so it's unusual that they even have sex listen I I don't want to take an especially deep dive into the
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mind of sexual predators but I have to wonder like if he did do something to Randa he could have kind of
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gotten off on it like the knowledge of what he did would kind of carry through and arouse him later which would be F
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like in so many words like they kind of point to that in the dock like how messed up it would be for you to have
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like a libido in this situation when you normally don't and then to want to have
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sex with this woman whose young daughter is newly missing like that day like I don't know yeah so John's interview with
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the police and like a lot of things with John it only gets more troubling from there at one point John theorizes how
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someone could have done something to Randa he talks about how someone could have knocked her out with a punch could
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have tied her up or used a knife to threaten her and that her size and weight would have made it easy for
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someone to carry her away and police soon find evidence that could suggest that these aren't just
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theories in the back of Jon's truck police find a rope with randa's hair and blood some blood is also found on the
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doorstep of his truck and I don't think these are massive amounts of blood just like tiny drops but blood nonetheless I
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mean at least they have some physical evidence this time not so fast John claims that Rand used the Rope to play
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with like some kittens or something so he is like maybe that's how her hair got on it he doesn't know how the blood
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would have gotten there but you know kids be kids basically like he's like you know how they are and he kind of
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just like throws up her hands no explanation is a good explanation to him like and it might not be a good
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explanation but it isn't proof again of anything to these police officers obviously John is front and center but
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there is a brief per period where police do look at randa's biological father Steve as a possible suspect too you see
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richanda had just returned from visiting him in fact her brother Byron was still
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visiting him when she went missing and without going into too much detail Steve didn't sound like father of the year by
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any means but the problem is Steve lived 5 hours away so police are confident that he wasn't in the area that the time
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she disappeared so even though they kind of go down this other path they pretty quickly are right back looking at JN and
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are they bringing K up at all when he's in the Hop seat for Randa I don't know how much they actually Grill him on K
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but I think they're at least aware of it even though there's probably been a ton
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of turnover in I mean it's been like a decade and even though Kay disappeared in another County it sounds like the da
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of that County was monitoring the search for Randa I think there's like maybe some hope that if they can't get him on
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K that they'll get him on Randa so I mean they're definitely connecting the dots but outside of law enforcement
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there were others who were less quick to judge JN Byron talks about how his mom would get upset when he would ask about
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Jon's possible involvement in a Statesman Journal article published not long after Randa goes missing Linda
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publicly talks about how she is concerned about the focus on John now why she's responding this way I don't
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know according to the Lost women of Highway 20 doc Randa showed signs apparently of physical abuse and
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according to her friends sexual abuse at the hands of JN like I guess Randa and her friends would talk about it
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sometimes like some of them were dealing with similar things at home and according to her friends she did tell
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another adult but when she did nothing happened and then she was scared that she was going to get in trouble or
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something was going to happen because she told someone that feels like it could be a motive for JN to do something
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though like if he knew that she talked and hadn't been listened to the first time or he was afraid that maybe she
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would again right which makes it very convenient timing for Randa to just disappear and despite one of the most
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extensive searches in Lynn County History police do not find her so now authorities have two cold cases tied to
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John akroy but in the fall of 1991 an investigator looking back into K's case has an idea he discovers that Roger Dale
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Beck so the guy that was supposedly with John on Christmas Eve he found out that
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he had gotten divorced from his wife Pam and this detective he is Will to place a
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beted that now that maybe alliances have changed stories might change as well so
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he tracks down Pam who is now living in California he shows up at her house knocks on her door and when she answers
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and finds out who this guy is it takes almost no convincing at all for Pam to come clean all those years ago she had
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straight up lied about Roger and John Pam tells the detective that Roger and JN went out to poach deer on Christmas
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Eve morning but they didn't return to the house until the next day and when they did they had blood on them and it
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wasn't just like a little dropp or staining here and there Pam literally had to dispose of Roger's jeans and
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shirt it was so bad and they didn't even try to pass it off as deer blood they had told Pam that they had accidentally
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mistaken Kay for a deer and shot her and they were going to need Pam to basically
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be their Alibi if police ever came around asking questions she needed to tell them that they got home around noon
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eventually Roger even admits to her that even that like bull hunting accident story wasn't real he told her that Kay
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had been sexually assaulted and shot and Roger had threatened to do the same to Pam which is probably why she lied for
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him I mean she was terrified but with Pam's new information K's Cas starts ramping back up but the police are in a
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Race Against Time at this point they know Jon is still out there and could strike again though according to the or
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Onan at this time J's basically been booted out of santam Junction the people weren't comfortable with him being there
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so he got moved I assume by his supervisors or maybe like he chose to leave I don't know but he is still at
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the same job working as a mechanic for the state highway department so like your tax dollars hard to work folks
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great so he's apparently not living with Linda anymore and is staying with his mother in Sweet Home where he grew up
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but he's working out of a town called Corvalis and Corvalis unfortunately is a well unfortunately for the people there
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at the time is a thriving little college town and while it sounds like authorities plan to keep tabs on him I'm
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not sure that's as easy as it sounds John's like a roving mechanic that means that he is constantly moving up and down
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Highway 20 but in all of that moving Jon doeses have some usual haunts he becomes
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this like known commodity at this one particular place called Sherry's Diner along Highway 20 in Lebanon Oregon and
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there this is wild all the regulars there knew him by his CB radio handle the Pervert I'm sorry his handle was the
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Pervert what I know and this guy is either the unluckiest man alive or every girl and every woman who crosses his
00:29:15
path is The Unlucky One because in 1992 John finds himself right in the center of another missing person's case
00:29:24
actually this time the case of two young women it's a pair of best friends 17-year-old Melissa Sanders and
00:29:31
19-year-old Sheila Swanson wait wait wait those names sound really familiar because we talked about them before in
00:29:38
the Kelly Disney episode right like it's been a while I'll link to that episode in the show notes for people to have a
00:29:45
little bit of a refresher but here we can actually dive even deeper into the details of their cases so according to
00:29:51
the Lost women of Highway 20 both girls hung out at sher's Diner and they knew the Pervert he would buy food for
00:29:59
Melissa and he was there one of the last days the girls were ever seen when they
00:30:03
had come in and told everyone that they were going to go on a camping trip in Newport which is like along the Oregon
00:30:09
coast so John knew where they were going to be he did and he even mentioned to the girls that he might be in the same
00:30:17
area now the girl's tent ends up being found over that way empty but the girls are never seen alive again now I don't
00:30:26
know how much authorities looking into Kay's case really know about this new case yet part of giving him the boot out
00:30:33
of town meant that it was harder to keep tabs on what was happening in the communities that he was living in ones
00:30:39
that he was working in socializing in and it being the '90s information wasn't exactly super accessible between
00:30:44
jurisdictions so while investigators in one part of the state are looking for their two teens investigators in another
00:30:51
are running a parallel path trying to reignite the K Turner investigation according to the doc the US F and
00:30:58
Wildlife had new or like a new high-tech lab basically so K's clothes are sent off for forensic testing and soon enough
00:31:06
the results come back with some very interesting finds the first is that the waistband of K's shorts appeared to have
00:31:14
been cut or sliced some sources say that her underwear were cut off too which is
00:31:20
like the sexual assault that they let John go on marene marene yes also tears in Kure appear to be from stab wounds
00:31:29
and Lead fragments on the shirt indicate that she was shot so that lines up at least somewhat closely with what JN had
00:31:36
told investigators about like the appearance of Kay's body when he claimed to have found her in February and it
00:31:42
lines up with what Pam said yes so if John couldn't feel the net kind of slowly closing in on him he is about to
00:31:51
on May 31st 1992 police actually arrest not John but his friend Roger for the murder of K Turner why Roger and not
00:32:01
John good question there is no clear answer that I have seen reported on so I'm not sure if it was just because they
00:32:07
had Pam really pinning Roger for it that was like a stronger connection maybe they were also hoping that Roger would
00:32:13
flip on Jon so they wanted him in custody first I don't know but not arresting Jon first or at least at the
00:32:20
same time could have caused valuable evidence to be lost because a little over a week later police discover that
00:32:27
the storage unit that John had rented was completely cleared out the evening of the 31st so the exact day that Roger
00:32:35
was rested no that's not suspicious at all Ashley what are you talking about I know they do they know what was in the
00:32:41
unit at all they don't and unfortunately for them the unit been like I mean it's
00:32:45
been like swept up someone else had moved in right after I know they tried to like send someone into the crime lab
00:32:52
to check the unit out but there's like there's nothing The Source material about what if anything they find so I'm
00:32:56
assuming it was nothing but it's game over for JN almost 2 weeks after Roger's arrest so on June 12th that's when Jon
00:33:04
is finally arrested and this means that Kay's family might finally see some justice all these years later and two
00:33:11
other families might not have to wait nearly as long cuz almost 4 months after his arrest so now we're in October this
00:33:17
is October 10th some Hunters come across the bodies of Melissa and Sheila a few miles off of Highway
00:33:25
20 according to Noel crom's report the medical examiner thinks that the girls were most likely strangled though there
00:33:33
are some conflicting sources that say they were stabbed either way like K the conditions of the bodies make it
00:33:39
difficult to determine precisely what happened and like K there's zero forensic evidence the only possible
00:33:46
piece of evidence police do find at the scene is this like little rivet near one
00:33:51
of the bodies and some kind of beaded seat cushion the speculation being that the rivet which like this little screw
00:33:59
it could be something that John would have been using in his work and the seat cushion is something that Highway
00:34:05
workers often had in their trucks to keep them cool in the summer so Jon's truck is searched he didn't have one of
00:34:12
these cushions in it so maybe that one was his but it was impossible to determine at the time and JN who is now
00:34:18
in custody isn't talking so while police try to connect some of the dots between
00:34:22
the girls and JN ultimately it is this all too familiar song there is no physical evidence connecting Jon to the
00:34:30
girl's murders now sometime later a coworker of John's would claim that around the time that the girls
00:34:36
disappeared JN came into work late one night and his arms and his hands were covered in dry blood John claimed to
00:34:45
have hit a deer and then gutted it but this guy I guess didn't even really believe his story then did he go to
00:34:50
police with the story if he did it wasn't until later like certainly not then it sounds like he maybe mentioned
00:34:55
the story to his boss but then it just kind of like stayed work gossip at the time and then after the news about
00:35:01
Melissa and Sheila's bodies being found like I think this guy began to wonder if
00:35:06
there was a connection to this story but again a little unclear about like when he went to the police or the press or
00:35:12
whatever so in September of 1993 JN goes on trial for Kay's murder and according
00:35:17
to the Statesman Journal people like Roger's wife Pam testify against him they also find more witnesses to
00:35:24
corroborate what a predator the quote pervert is a woman named Jane Morris testifies that one day in 1978 like
00:35:32
months before Kay's disappearance she encountered JN while she was riding a bike along a road in Camp Sherman and
00:35:39
she says that JN pointed a gun at her attempted to get her to stop but thankfully she didn't and then one of
00:35:44
the more critical testimonies comes from a forensic anthropologist who tells the
00:35:48
jury that the only way Jon could have seen wounds like the type of wounds he described seeing on K was if he saw them
00:35:58
in the first few days after K died so him saying even that he saw her in February not August even that separation
00:36:04
wasn't enough to actually make sense it doesn't make sense there like there is no way he could describe the cuts the
00:36:10
shot whatever unless it happened within like days so goodbye John yep on October
00:36:15
6th 1993 just a few days shy of the one-year anniversary of Melissa and Sheila's bodies being discovered over 3
00:36:23
years after his stepdaughter Randa vanished and over 14 years after after police are pointed to K's remains that
00:36:30
is when John akroy is found guilty of K Turner's murder according to an article in The Oregonian he is sentenced to life
00:36:38
with a 20-year minimum which is the maximum under the law when that crime was committed over a month later Roger
00:36:45
Beck is also found guilty and he receives the same sentence authorities seem to believe that Roger was only
00:36:52
involved in Kay's murder and so they really only focus on JN for answers in those cases for Melissa and Sheila and
00:36:58
of course richanda whose case has continued to make headlines occasionally during this time but even though it's
00:37:03
making headlines police aren't much further along on that case but they do keep coming back to her file year after
00:37:11
year they even get desperate enough to ask John to help in the fall of 2012 an investigator with the Lynn County
00:37:17
Sheriff's Office visits Jon in prison hoping maybe he's finally ready to talk or open up and provide some kind of
00:37:24
answers to the questions that have surely haunted the people that he once called family but despite the
00:37:30
investigator's best efforts Jon is not giving up his ghosts according to Oregonian he continues to Spill the same
00:37:39
lies he did in the beginning and it sounds like this is the last time any investigator speaks with Jon by 2013
00:37:46
there is some concern that Jon could eventually get out on parole so despite only having circumstantial evidence and
00:37:54
as we've mentioned like zero body prosecutors do randa's case to a grand jury as sort of like a Hail Mary and the
00:38:02
prosecution does have a solid pitch to throw like logic dictates that Jon is probably the one who could have done
00:38:08
this he was the last one to have seen her alive opportunity there was accusations of him sexually abusing her
00:38:14
which gives motive oh and by the way he has now been convicted of Kate Turner's murder so like we' got this history here
00:38:22
and look I'm all for due process but we we could kind of like probably know who did this apparently the grand jury feels
00:38:29
the same way because they indict on a single count of murder but indicting is different than Prosecuting and
00:38:36
convicting like and can be a lot easier right so the prosecution what they decide to do is they go to randa's
00:38:43
family specifically because they want to offer him a plea deal they're like listen if we go to trial and he's
00:38:48
acquitted like that's it like it's over and he could go on to get parole right so in their minds it's better to focus
00:38:57
on like they want to use this to focus on keeping him behind bars and the family agrees and JN ends up entering a
00:39:03
no contest ple so he's not admitting fault but he's not denying it either and this outcome means that he can never be
00:39:11
paroled and while he receives some punishment for Randa sadly her body still hasn't been found like that wasn't
00:39:19
ever part of the deal that they made with him what about Melissa and Sheila's cases did they ever bring anything
00:39:25
against him there ultimately they decide not to at this point they say they're confident it is Jon who killed them but
00:39:31
Jon at this point is already serving a life sentence like he's never getting out so prosecutors decide not to proceed
00:39:37
with that like knowing he can never see the light of day has to be Justice enough because that same year John
00:39:43
actually dies in prison so they can never prosecute him even in the future and while some might think that that
00:39:50
would bring this story to a close there are still so many questions that remain unanswered including if these are the
00:39:57
only only murders John committed that's honestly what's been in the back of my mind this whole time has he ever been
00:40:02
linked to any other cases yeah so The Oregonian Flags to date five other people that have either gone missing
00:40:12
from or their remains have been found discovered in the general area offer around Highway 20 where John was known
00:40:18
to operate the first is a skull of a Jane do that they found in July of 1976 which predates K by like 2 years it even
00:40:28
predates yeah marleene Sexual Assault The Oregonian calls this Jane Doe um I think they call her swamp Mountain de
00:40:35
and they report that her skull was found a mile off Highway 20 she was believed to be they think younger than 35 and
00:40:42
authorities found a leather coat a belt blue jeans and a sandal with like a white leather strap nearby that could
00:40:48
have belonged to her and then in May of 1977 15-year-old Karen Lee and 14-year-old Rodney Grom went missing
00:40:56
from the town of Lebanon we know that JN would have passed through there regularly I mean that's the same town
00:41:02
where sher's Diner was located where John would hang out in the 9s it's where he encountered Melissa and Sheila Karen
00:41:07
and Rodney were never found but clothing and items of theirs were eventually found in the woods and Karen's jeans
00:41:14
appeared to be cut similarly to how John cut clothing off of marleene and Kay now
00:41:19
what we learned about Karen and Rodney is that the two wanted to run away to California and one of the teens's last
00:41:24
phone calls to a friend indicated that they had found found a ride but who they were getting this ride from is unknown
00:41:31
maybe John maybe not then in August of 1977 22-year-old Elizabeth musler went missing also from Lebanon her father was
00:41:41
the last to see her downtown in February of 1978 her body ended up being found in
00:41:46
a shallow grave in the thistle Creek area of Green Peter Reservoir and also in 1978 another skull of a Jane do was
00:41:53
found by a logging crew in the woods near Snow Creek which is like a quarter mile south of Highway 20 did they ever
00:41:59
ask John about these other cases sort of I don't think he was asked in like great
00:42:05
detail about these cases but he was asked more broadly like hey John what about some of these like other cases in
00:42:11
the area he claimed he didn't know what they were talking about and he had nothing to do with anything so at the
00:42:17
end of the day no other cases have been directly linked to John it's all speculative at this point but it shows
00:42:25
that maybe this story isn't totally over while some of his victim's families can
00:42:30
take some solace in the fact that this man will never harm anyone again it's heartbreaking to think that there could
00:42:36
still be other families who don't have or may not get the same answers but it's never too late I mean that's why we do
00:42:43
this show so I mean if anyone out there knows anything about these cases or about John akroy his life his movements
00:42:51
please call the Lyn County Sheriff's Office tip line at [Music] 9988 you can find all the source
00:43:04
material for this episode on our website crime junky podcast.com you can also follow us on Instagram at
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