Episode Transcript
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The truth is that many of us have never given
our own safety a significant thought when it came to running.
We run during the day and in well populated areas,
doing enough to feel safe. But as more and more
women are murdered while running, the grim truth that the
next one could be one of us stares back at
us in the mirror, and we have to face the
(01:46):
facts we are not safe while doing something we love.
The thing that brings us joy, confidence and a sense
of worth could be the very thing that gets us
murdered or missing. I'm going to tell you these stories
because every runner matters. Every single woman who laced up
her shoes and didn't come back alive deserves to have
(02:07):
her story told. And to every woman still heading out
the door taking extra precautions to try to ensure she
comes home, I see you. I am you. This is
Girl Gone Running, a tragedy with a view series about
murdered and missing runners. I am your host, Kayla. Welcome back, Okay,
(03:08):
welcome back. This is the last Girl Gone Running episode
of this season, and this is a loaded one and
for that reason, I was going to have this be
an exclusive only episode, but I think this one would
be better just being out there. And I promise for
those of you who are subscribers and you were expecting
(03:32):
to get an extra episode, I will get you a
bonus episode this summer at some point. Also on that note,
this particular episode is violent in nature, so please listen
with care and as your general reminder, in June, we
are going to be having a merch launch again. One
(03:53):
hundred percent of the proceeds are either going to the
National Park Foundation, National Forest Foundation, or at the end
of the year if you don't buy like that specific merch,
everything else at the end of the year goes to
a nonprofit of your choosing, which you'll want to join
us either on Patreon or Instagram or Facebook, where I
(04:15):
will be asking for nonprofits that you would like to
support and then providing a poll for you to vote
on those. So just keep that in mind as we
get through this year, that every single dollar that you invest,
every single share, every single review, every single time you
(04:36):
talk about this podcast, every comment, every like on social media,
all of those go and do good and do better.
And again, one hundred percent of the proceeds goes to nonprofits.
I pay myself exactly zero dollars from this podcast, and
so that just feels really good to me. And I
really thank you so much for allowing me to have
(04:59):
the opportunity to do some good in this world. And
moving on from that, for those of you who do
not know the history of K Turner, we are going
to get into this one. And like I said, this
is a loaded episode, so buckle up, we are going
(05:19):
for a ride down Highway twenty. Highway twenty is a
roadway that winds through the thick forests and rugged mountain
terrain from Sisters, Oregon to Lebanon, Oregon. The highway is
eighty seven miles long or one hundred and forty kilometers,
and if you were to drive this entire length, it
would take you somewhere around two hours. There are several
(05:41):
parks and campgrounds and lakes that this highway allows you
access to, and while there are small towns dotted along
the way, the majority of the road is pretty remote.
One of these campgrounds is Camp Sherman. Camp Sherman is
technically an unincorporated community that is located along the Matulis River,
and while not directly on Highway twenty, it is just
(06:05):
north of the highway. Historically, the area was founded when
wheat farmers in the area were looking for a way
to cool down from the blaring summer heat and found
it along the Metulus River and then nailed a sign
to a tree dubbing the location Camp Sherman. In nineteen fifteen,
a small convenience store which is known as the Camp
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Sherman Store was opened and they have operated since and
this store sits about five miles north of Highway twenty.
Here at Camp Sherman, visitors can find the clear and
cold Metulis River, the Wizard Falls Fish Hatchery, trails for
hiking and running, the campground for those wanting to sleep
(06:46):
intents along with lodges for those who want to sleep
in beds, and a community hall for social activities. Surrounding
the area is the Dashoots National Forest, which is filled
with wildlife deer, coyotes and cougar. And on Christmas Eve
of nineteen seventy eight, Kay Turner, her husband Nol and
(07:08):
a few friends were enjoying this time together at Camp Sherman.
Kay was thirty five years old and was a very
active runner, which is mostly unusual for women, especially at
this time now. Something we have not touched on yet
in this series is the history of women's running for
a long time, men, both professionally and not, believed that
(07:31):
women were just too fragile to run. They believed our
uteruses would fall out if we ran too far. But
running in the seventies was a transformative period for women.
The decade marked the first major running boom, with the
recreational running gaining popularity. But still women faced significant barriers
(07:52):
as they were only allowed to register for marathons starting
in nineteen seventy two. The first woman to run the
Boston Marathon was by gil in nineteen sixty six. However,
she ran it unofficially because women were not allowed to
officially register for the race at that time. Bobby had
to hide in bushes near the starting line and then
(08:12):
joined the race after it began, and she completed the
marathon ahead of many of the men she was running against.
And then the first woman to officially register and run
the Boston Marathon was Catherine Sweiser in nineteen sixty seven,
and she entered the race using the initials kV Sweizer
(08:33):
to avoid detection. During the race, and official tried to
physically remove her, but she persisted and finished the marathon.
And I believe that there were actually men who were
running around her and running in the race who helped
block the official from being able to get her. There's
a really popular photo out there of this. And also
(08:56):
I would like to notes for those of you who
are runners, you know the the Boston Marathon is occurring
on Monday, So if you're listening to this on release day,
I hope that anyone who is in the area has
the best time. If you are running Boston now or
at a later date, I hope you have the best
race you've ever run and have so much fun. And
(09:19):
also because my little runner's heart would be really happy,
let me know. I want to know how you did.
I want to cheer you on. That would be so cool.
We're going to go back to the story now. So again,
the seventies was really this transformative period for women and
the introduction of the first SPORTSPRA in nineteen seventy seven
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was a real big game changer for women as athletes
because it provided much needed support and comfort and the
first prototype was actually two jockstraps sewn together, and as
many women know, the proper support can mean the world
of friends between having a really good and solid run
(10:03):
versus just being really distracted and really uncomfortable, and being
uncomfortable can throw everything off, so this was really really
great to have. But again, in the seventies, despite these advancements,
women still had to overcome societal misconceptions about their physical capabilities,
(10:24):
and this period of time laid the foundation for growth
of women participating in running and competitive sports, and Kay
was making her own mark in the running community. At
this point, she had already run a marathon, and on
Christmas Eve, Kay was planning to go for a run
with one of her friends who was camping with her,
but her friend was kind of new to running and
(10:46):
just not very confident and decided not to go. So
Kay set out alone for an eight mile run, which
she anticipated was going to take her about an hour
to get through, and if you are not familiar with running,
running eight miles in one hour is a very fast run.
She had on her bright yellow running shorts, a white shirt,
(11:08):
and running shoes, but when she hadn't returned for about
two hours, Nol and her friends began to get worried
and they started to look for her. At first, they
thought that maybe she got lost or maybe potentially ran away,
but as they continued to find and hear nothing their
worries grew and grew finally when the police were called
(11:32):
and arrived to Camp Sherman and they began to interview
those who were there. This was when two boys mentioned
they saw a construction worker talking to her. This construction
worker was identified as John Arthur Ackroyd. John stated that
he did in fact see her running down Highway twenty,
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but he didn't stop and he didn't talk to her.
He was in the area because he had gotten off
of work at about six forty five am and was
head to his friends, Roger Becks, so that way he
could go deer hunting with him. Because Roger had fallen
on hard times and was in need of a deer
to provide food for his family to eat. John went
(12:13):
to Camp Sherman to look for deer to poach when
he saw K running. As he was driving around, he
noticed that he was really low on fuel and he
had about ten miles away to the closest gas station,
filled his tank back up, and as he started to
head in the direction from which he came, he passed
K again. He was likely among the last to see
(12:36):
her alive. Once back at Camp Sherman area, he was
able to track down a deer, which he successfully shot, gutted,
and cleaned for Roger. But this information didn't help locate k.
All the police knew now was that she was running
along Highway twenty, and as they searched, they found something.
(12:57):
Just off Highway twenty was a small, muddy trail. This
trail appeared to have fresh tracks from running shoes, small
enough to be that of a woman's, and intermingled with
those prints were the large tracks from men's boots along
the way. The tracks seemed to indicate a struggle, with
them winding back and forth and seeming to stumble off
the trail before returning back onto the trail. But when
(13:20):
police reached the end of the trail of prints, nothing
more was found. Looking a little into Kay's personal life,
because of course, when a woman goes missing under suspicious circumstances,
her husband is usually the first to be suspected investigators,
so again they looked into Kay's personal life, and they
found pretty easily that Kay had been having an affair.
(13:43):
Now hear me out, we listen, and we don't judge.
They found out that Kay had been having an affair
with not one, but two different married men. With this
information investigators were convinced that Nol was to blame. He
must have found out about the affair or affairs and
got angry and attacked Kay, killing her somewhere deep in
(14:06):
the forest and then walking out like nothing happened. But
upon questioning, it became very clear that Noel had no
idea that Kay had been having an affair, let alone too.
So then they looked at these two men and their
wives as well as potential suspects, and as those leads
came to a halt, the case of what happened to
(14:29):
Kay was left with a gaping hole. It wasn't until
eight months later, in August of at nineteen seventy nine,
that they got a break in the case, and this
was when a man walked into the camp Sherman's store
and essentially said that he found a body in the woods.
When police arrived, they got more information that the body
was actually just some scattered bones and yellow running shorts.
(14:53):
The man had been out in the woods hunting deer
with his dog, and when he spoke to the police,
he told them something alarming or some things that were alarming.
Before going to the body, the man had made a
comment to the police that the body smelled really bad,
and this is essentially how he found it, or maybe
(15:14):
how his dog found it and led him to this area.
But once arriving on scene, police found that there wasn't
any flesh left and the scene did not smell like
decomposition at all. There was nothing left to make that smell.
All that was found was some hair in a bird's
nest and a lower jawbone. And then this man guessed
(15:38):
that this was probably Kay, that missing runner, And yeah,
that made sense because he had seen her in February,
laying on top of the snow. Back in February. Her
eyes had been gone, her throat had been cut, it
looked like animals had been in the area, and there
was a hole in her chest that looked to be
the exit wound for a gunshot. Yeah, I forgot to
(16:01):
mention this man was John Ackroyd. Upon hearing this, the
police immediately started to suspect John, but he refused to
repeat these statements to anyone else and asked for a lawyer.
And those tracks that investigators found during their initial search
that implied a man and a woman had been struggling,
they were heading to the same location where Ka's remains
(16:24):
were found, though this was confirmed to be Kay, and
the police had strong suspicions that John was to blame
for her disappearance and her death. They had no evidence
and if they tried to go to court now they
knew they would be fighting a losing battle, and with
that Kay's case went cold. Now it makes sense that
John would be in this area because he worked as
(16:46):
a highway maintenance person who spent his days helping to
clean up wrecks, clear stuck cars, help stranded drivers, and
repair equipment in construction zones. Others mentioned that he often
blamed women for the world problems and stated that they
were the cause of all of the world's wars. But
he kind of had this violent nature from a young age.
(17:09):
Growing up, his family had bred their black lab and
when they posted a news ad about the puppies being
for sale, a friend of John's decided that he wanted
to go over and play with the puppies. When he arrived,
I'm going to give you a content warning here. When
he arrived, he found the puppies' bodies had been torn
(17:31):
apart and scattered all over the front yard. John, without emotion,
simply said that they were his and if he couldn't
have them, no one could. Despite this aggressive behavior, most
of the time he just seemed like an average person.
Many liked or at least put up with him, and
(17:51):
sometimes he would make comments that made others uncomfortable, but
for the most part he was seen as a stable
person with a good job, and in addition to that,
iver been arrested. He didn't really have a record, and
while John had this background, he hid it very well,
well enough that in the nineteen eighties, John married Linda,
a single mom with a fourteen year old son, Byron,
(18:14):
and a thirteen year old daughter, Rashonda. They moved in
with him at the Santam Junction, and while things appeared
to be well on the outside, both Byron and Reshonda
would often go to school with black eyes and bruising.
Rashonda even once came to school with chunks of her
hair missing, where John had ripped it out when he
(18:35):
got mad. Linda, while John was good to her and
seemed to be a really good source of stability for
her family, kind of turned a blind eye to these
injuries and this behavior because, from my understanding, she was
kind of scared to go back to being a single
(18:55):
mom and struggling to get food on the table for
her children. And in addition to the stuff that was
happening behind closed doors, to Rashonda, she had friends in
school who were being sexually assaulted by their own family members,
and so she didn't really have a healthy outlet or
a place to go where she was safe. But this
(19:18):
was really only the beginning, and this is partially the
reason that in the summer of nineteen ninety, Byron and
Rashonda begged their mom to let them go live with
their biological father for the summer, and she reluctantly agreed,
but things were tense under his roof as well. Their
father insisted that he knew Rashonda had been sexually assaulted
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by a prior boyfriend of their mothers, and he was
angry about this, and quite honestly, I would be too.
He was so angry, in fact, that he was threatening
to take them away from their mother, But this seemed
to be all threats at the time, and when Rashanda
got mad and left to return home, he didn't stop her.
(20:01):
But she didn't really go home, not really. She began
to stay at her friends' homes because she did not
want to be home alone with John, and when she
was forced to return home, she would throw fits and
kind of like toddler temper tantrums and hide in her
friend's homes. But this wasn't always the case. Sometimes she
(20:24):
was forced to go to her own home. And it
was after this that Rashanda began to mention to her
friends that what was happening to them behind closed doors
was happening to her too, implying that John was sexually
assaulting her. John learned about Byron and Rashanda's dad trying
to take custody of the kids, which by July he
(20:47):
had actually began to act on, and shortly after, on
July tenth, nineteen ninety, no one was able to reach Reshonda.
On this day, Rashanda was supposed to be home alone
between the time that her mom and John had left
for work to the time that they would return home,
but John did not work a full day and returned
(21:09):
home early. Here he asked Rashanda to come with him
for a ride, and when she said no, he left
and left her at home, or so he claims. According
to him, he was going out to look for deer
and wanted her to go with him. When she said no,
he set off on his own. He drove through construction
areas where coworker saw him on his own, and when
(21:31):
he got back home between noon and one, Rashanda was gone.
When John picked Linda up, he told her that Rashonda
was not home, and as the night wore on, Linda
began to get more and more worried. When they called
Byron and their father to let them know. Byron wanted
to call the police ride away, but John said that
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you can't even call until it had been twenty four hours. Finally,
the next day, Linda calls the police to report Rashanda missing,
and even the dispatcher questions the delay. All that Linda
said was that she thought you had to wait for
twenty four hours, and this call ignites a fire. One
(22:13):
hundred searchers from six different counties started looking through the
area for Rashanda. They looked from the air, they searched
on foot, and there was nothing found to lead searchers
to discovering that Rashanda had been there at all. With
investigators already suspecting John due to Kay's murder, they actually
(22:33):
invited John on a search with them, hoping that he
might inadvertently lead them to something, anything, that they could
use to find Reshonda. Like we already know with Kay,
John visited her at least twice before her body was found,
or before John finally told someone that her body had
(22:54):
been found. But in this circumstance they were out of luck.
The only slip he made was that quote, maybe a
log had been placed over top of her body. During
this time, investigators created a special group who were focused
solely on getting John in jail. They had determined at
this point that he was a predator, and so they
(23:16):
had again a special group who were solely focusing on
him and watching him and piecing all of the things
that they could together to get him behind bars. During
this time, a pair of pants was actually found just
shy of two weeks after Rashanda had gone missing. The
deputy who found the pants showed a highway worker who
(23:38):
was nearby, and when he saw them, his reaction was
disturbing to say the least, and while he didn't say
much about them, his body language was telling. As he
looked at the pants, the highway worker, who we can
now say was John, appeared to get an erection and
near the zipper of his pants away spot appeared. Later
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in an interview, Linda would admit that sometimes John would
say things like I just want to kill somebody, and
for their entire relationship, John was just not interested in
sex except for on one occasion, and that occasion happened
to be the night that Reshonda went missing. And this
is indicating because it tells us that something got him
(24:26):
very excited, but with nobody and no clues. While John
was strongly suspected to be involved, this case also went cold.
In the spring of nineteen ninety two, seventeen year old
Melissa Sanders and nineteen year old Sheila Swanson went camping
with Melissa's family at a campground in Beverly Beach State
(24:48):
Park near Newport. They fished and cooked dinner, and then
went to sleep, but at some point during the night,
the girls decided that they did not want to stay
there any longer. Without making the others, they opened their
tent and walked to a payphone to call a friend.
When they were unable to find a ride, they decided
that they would wait until the sun came up and
(25:10):
hitchhike home, but they would never be seen alive. Again.
At this time, John had been transferred to a new
work based location in Sweet Home because he was making
all of his other coworkers uncomfortable, and this was alarming
to the crew manager at this location because John was
not a part of his team, which meant that John
(25:32):
was now going to be able to move around and
come and go almost like a ghost. There was no
one there to watch his movements or keep track of him.
On the morning of May third, nineteen ninety two, the
sun would have just been peeking over the horizon when
Melissa and Sheila started walking down Highway twenty. A short
time later, a truck would pull up next to them,
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driven by none other than John Ackroyd. They recognized him
thanks to meeting him at a local box gathering place
called Sherry's, where witnesses would say that anytime the three
of them were in this place together, John would abandon
whatever it was he was doing and just head directly
towards Melissa and Sheila. John would have been on his
(26:17):
way to work when he passed the girls on Highway twenty.
The following timeline of my events is mostly speculation on
my part because the information I have seen kind of
tells one of two stories. My first theory is that
John picked up Melissa and Sheila and drove them to
a location that was very remote on Highway twenty and
(26:37):
then threatened them. And you know, because they were teenagers
against this big, burly, full grown man who likely had
a gun with him, they did whatever he wanted. Once
to a remote location, he pulled them from the truck,
raped them, and murdered them, maybe one of them, but
probably both. My other theory is supported by some more
(27:00):
unusual experiences with John. When John would hang out at Sherry's,
he was once heard stating that he had a place
near Newport, and he made this comment after he heard
the girls would be camping in that area. My second
theory is that he saw the girls as they were
walking down Highway twenty, probably on purpose. When they recognized him,
(27:22):
they were likely a little nervous, but they were also
glad to see a familiar face. When they asked him
for a ride home, he probably said something along the
lines of ah, shucks, I gotta work, but listen, let
me take you to my place that's nearby. I'll pick
you up when I'm off work, and i'll take you home.
Maybe he murdered them there, or maybe it was elsewhere,
(27:43):
but it wasn't until he got off of work, and
it was at about nine thirty pm when John finally
arrived back to the station that he walked in and
expected to be alone. He had blood all over his hands,
his arms, and chest. It was splattered on his face
and soaked through his clothes. Two workers were there on
a special shift and saw him, and when they asked
(28:05):
him what happened, he just said, I hit a deer
and gut it. But this doesn't make any sense because
he didn't have a deer with him. And it was
after this that the news of the two missing girls
in the area started spreading, not right away though. For
some reason, the parents of the girls were just not
worried that they were missing and expected them to come
home in about a week after running around. They didn't
(28:28):
call the police until almost ten days had passed, and
by this time it was too late. Their bodies were
found on October tenth by hunters who were just off
of Highway twenty near Eddyesville, which is about a twenty
minute drive down a Highway twenty. And again, while John
was strongly suspected, nothing could be proven, and maybe all
(28:52):
of this violence could have been prevented had the police
listened the first time his name was brought up. Now, maybe,
just maybe, but we will never know for sure. This
entire tragic line of women being attacked and murdered by
John it could have been prevented, and this could have
happened when on a cool day in nineteen seventy seven,
(29:14):
a year before Kay was murdered, a rape kit was
performed on Marlene Gabrielson, but the police were skeptical of
the rape and focused instead on the fact that she
had been drinking as a miner. There were some minor
inconsistencies in her story, and because of those two factors,
they decided not to pursue the crime. So what happened
(29:35):
to Marlene and hows is connected to John Well. In
June of nineteen seventy seven, Marlene and her husband dropped
off their baby with Marlene's mom and headed off to
Sisters for a rodeo. Marlene lived a long Route twenty
and so Sisters was an easy place for them to
get to, though it was still about an eighty mile drive.
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But once there, they began to drink and she and
her husband got into a f Marlene at this point
just wanted to go home to her baby, and when
her husband decided that he wasn't leaving, she started to
ask around for a ride. A man overheard her and
offered to take her home that night, and this man
was John Ackroyd. As they drove and talked, Marlene learned
(30:20):
that he had been in the army. When he got
out of the army, he got a job as a welder,
but now he worked as a highway mechanic for the state.
And as they drove down the winding, lightless road, Marlene
was never once bothered about the fact that the truck
had no passenger handle on the inside nor a window crank.
She would be unable to open the door or a
(30:40):
window from the inside on the passenger side of this truck,
and it didn't alarm her at all. Nothing, in fact,
alarmed her until John pulled off to the side of
the road. Without saying much of anything, he made his
way to the passenger side, ripped open the door, grabbed
Marlene by her hair, and threw her against the embankment
on the side of the road. Here he would hold
(31:02):
a knife to her throat and threaten her yank her
pants down so hard they tore from crotched ankles. He
cut off her remaining clothing and raped her. When she
tried to close her eyes and look away, he would
grab her face and force her to face him, and
would threaten her to make her open her eyes and
look at him. Marlene at this point became so desperate
(31:24):
just to survive so she could go home to her
baby that she started to say anything and do anything
to make him happy. When this was done, he gave
her a dirty pair of pants, and while hesitant and
clearly just wanting to get rid of her, he took
her home and let her go. That we know of,
Marlene is John's first victim, and while police just kind
(31:47):
of ignored this, John did not get off completely free,
as Marlene's husband then went and beat him up. Now
Highway twenty has a bit of a history with bodies
and missing people. There are a few things that are
potentially linked to John, but only by timing and circumstance,
(32:09):
and these are In nineteen seventy six, there was a
skull found just off of the highway. In nineteen seventy seven,
the personal items of Rodney Grissom and Karen Lee were found,
but they are still missing today. In nineteen seventy eight,
a second skull was found again just off the highway,
and in nineteen seventy eight, also Elizabeth Mussler was found
(32:32):
in a shallow grave. John either lived or worked near
the location where each of these bodies or clothing were found,
and Karen's pants, which were found, appeared to have been
cut and torn much in the same way that Marlene's
had been torn from her body. It wouldn't be until
(32:53):
years after Kay's death that John would finally get pinned
for it, and it was all thanks to his friend,
the one who he had been deer hunting with, Roger Beck.
John had even said that Roger was walking around bragging
about killing Kay, and while John was trying to pin
the entire thing on Roger, the events that played out
(33:13):
soon became clear with questioning investigators found that Roger had
been telling everyone some version of the same story, which
was that he had been with John when they passed
Ky on the road, that they stopped, abducted her, raped her,
murdered her by stabbing her and then shooting her, much
(33:33):
like John described when he admitted to seeing her laying
on the snow that February. In nineteen seventy eight, John
and Roger's alibi had been that Roger's then wife, Pam
coroborated their story that they had gone deer hunting, but
upon their arrest in June of nineteen ninety two, that
changed to the truth. She was scared of Roger and
(33:56):
so she played along. But the truth was that John
had come to their home at about nine to ten
am and picked up Roger to go deer hunting, but
when they returned without a deer, they were both covered
in blood. She burned their clothes and their brand new
boots at their instruction, and then pretended not to know
that anything was a miss. During the trial, it was
(34:19):
revealed that the Fish and Wildlife Lab had evaluated Kay's
shorts and found that they had been cut off with
a knife rather than torn apart by wild animals, very
similar to what we know now to be John's calling card.
They also found that her shirt had stab marks through it,
and there were lead fragments indicating that she had been
shot exactly like Roger said, exactly like John claimed. While
(34:46):
John and Roger would both be found guilty in nineteen
ninety three, John's attorneys tried to say that John had
actually seen a different runner that day and that he
had simply gotten confused and that he didn't see k
at all. And if he did, I see a Kay,
there's no way he could have killed her. And this
leads us to Jane Morris. Jane was brought into the
(35:07):
courtroom to testify about her experience that same morning. Now,
Jane was running the same morning that Kay was abducted
and murdered. She saw nothing, she heard nothing. And later
that day, when she was riding her bike on her
way to work at Camp Sherman's store, she noticed a
man parked off the side of the road heading to
(35:29):
Camp Sherman, and as she passed him, he stepped out
from behind his truck, pointed a gun at her and
shouted for her to stop. Jane doesn't. She peddles like
crazy to get away from him. He never shoots, he
never follows, but his face is etched in her mind forever.
And that face was that of John Ackroyd's. Jane Morris
(35:52):
was the one who got away. And I hope that
if you are ever in a situation that is like this,
you get away too. We wrap up this season my
hope is that you step onto the trails and roads
to do the thing that you love, that you proceed
with the smarts to get you out of any of
the situations we talked about alive, For there is one
(36:13):
thing that I have learned, and that is if any
of these women were still alive, they would be amazing.
Ky in fact, could have been one of the greats
during a transitional time and running for women instead. She
is an example of why we need to use caution.
But we must never relent, never give up what brings
us joy, for if we do, every single one of
(36:34):
these monsters wins, and I refuse to see that become
the truth. Thank you for listening. I hope that you
are safe and happy on your adventures over the next
few months and years and days and weeks, and we
will talk next time. Bye. What is life without close
calls with disaster? Thank you for listening. Don't forget to
(36:59):
follow the podcast to be the first to hear the
now weekly episodes. Join our subscription on Patreon, Apple or
Spotify today and immerse yourself in the haunting beauty of
the great outdoors. For around four dollars a month. You'll
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and early access to all other episodes showcasing the morbid
(37:20):
and mysterious side of nature. Please reach out with story requests,
and if you have your own story, please email Tragedy
with a View at gmail dot com for a chance
to have your story featured on a later episode. Again,
thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.
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Speaker 3 (01:23):
The truth is that many of us have never given
our own safety a significant thought when it came to running.
We run during the day and in well populated areas,
doing enough to feel safe. But as more and more
women are murdered while running, the grim truth that the
next one could be one of us stares back at
us in the mirror, and we have to face the
(01:46):
facts we are not safe while doing something we love.
The thing that brings us joy, confidence and a sense
of worth could be the very thing that gets us
murdered or missing. I'm going to tell you these stories
because every runner matters. Every single woman who laced up
her shoes and didn't come back alive deserves to have
(02:07):
her story told. And to every woman still heading out
the door taking extra precautions to try to ensure she
comes home, I see you. I am you. This is
Girl Gone Running, a tragedy with a view series about
murdered and missing runners. I am your host, Kayla. Welcome back, Okay,
(03:08):
welcome back. This is the last Girl Gone Running episode
of this season, and this is a loaded one and
for that reason, I was going to have this be
an exclusive only episode, but I think this one would
be better just being out there. And I promise for
those of you who are subscribers and you were expecting
(03:32):
to get an extra episode, I will get you a
bonus episode this summer at some point. Also on that note,
this particular episode is violent in nature, so please listen
with care and as your general reminder, in June, we
are going to be having a merch launch again. One
(03:53):
hundred percent of the proceeds are either going to the
National Park Foundation, National Forest Foundation, or at the end
of the year if you don't buy like that specific merch,
everything else at the end of the year goes to
a nonprofit of your choosing, which you'll want to join
us either on Patreon or Instagram or Facebook, where I
(04:15):
will be asking for nonprofits that you would like to
support and then providing a poll for you to vote
on those. So just keep that in mind as we
get through this year, that every single dollar that you invest,
every single share, every single review, every single time you
(04:36):
talk about this podcast, every comment, every like on social media,
all of those go and do good and do better.
And again, one hundred percent of the proceeds goes to nonprofits.
I pay myself exactly zero dollars from this podcast, and
so that just feels really good to me. And I
really thank you so much for allowing me to have
(04:59):
the opportunity to do some good in this world. And
moving on from that, for those of you who do
not know the history of K Turner, we are going
to get into this one. And like I said, this
is a loaded episode, so buckle up, we are going
(05:19):
for a ride down Highway twenty. Highway twenty is a
roadway that winds through the thick forests and rugged mountain
terrain from Sisters, Oregon to Lebanon, Oregon. The highway is
eighty seven miles long or one hundred and forty kilometers,
and if you were to drive this entire length, it
would take you somewhere around two hours. There are several
(05:41):
parks and campgrounds and lakes that this highway allows you
access to, and while there are small towns dotted along
the way, the majority of the road is pretty remote.
One of these campgrounds is Camp Sherman. Camp Sherman is
technically an unincorporated community that is located along the Matulis River,
and while not directly on Highway twenty, it is just
(06:05):
north of the highway. Historically, the area was founded when
wheat farmers in the area were looking for a way
to cool down from the blaring summer heat and found
it along the Metulus River and then nailed a sign
to a tree dubbing the location Camp Sherman. In nineteen fifteen,
a small convenience store which is known as the Camp
(06:25):
Sherman Store was opened and they have operated since and
this store sits about five miles north of Highway twenty.
Here at Camp Sherman, visitors can find the clear and
cold Metulis River, the Wizard Falls Fish Hatchery, trails for
hiking and running, the campground for those wanting to sleep
(06:46):
intents along with lodges for those who want to sleep
in beds, and a community hall for social activities. Surrounding
the area is the Dashoots National Forest, which is filled
with wildlife deer, coyotes and cougar. And on Christmas Eve
of nineteen seventy eight, Kay Turner, her husband Nol and
(07:08):
a few friends were enjoying this time together at Camp Sherman.
Kay was thirty five years old and was a very
active runner, which is mostly unusual for women, especially at
this time now. Something we have not touched on yet
in this series is the history of women's running for
a long time, men, both professionally and not, believed that
(07:31):
women were just too fragile to run. They believed our
uteruses would fall out if we ran too far. But
running in the seventies was a transformative period for women.
The decade marked the first major running boom, with the
recreational running gaining popularity. But still women faced significant barriers
(07:52):
as they were only allowed to register for marathons starting
in nineteen seventy two. The first woman to run the
Boston Marathon was by gil in nineteen sixty six. However,
she ran it unofficially because women were not allowed to
officially register for the race at that time. Bobby had
to hide in bushes near the starting line and then
(08:12):
joined the race after it began, and she completed the
marathon ahead of many of the men she was running against.
And then the first woman to officially register and run
the Boston Marathon was Catherine Sweiser in nineteen sixty seven,
and she entered the race using the initials kV Sweizer
(08:33):
to avoid detection. During the race, and official tried to
physically remove her, but she persisted and finished the marathon.
And I believe that there were actually men who were
running around her and running in the race who helped
block the official from being able to get her. There's
a really popular photo out there of this. And also
(08:56):
I would like to notes for those of you who
are runners, you know the the Boston Marathon is occurring
on Monday, So if you're listening to this on release day,
I hope that anyone who is in the area has
the best time. If you are running Boston now or
at a later date, I hope you have the best
race you've ever run and have so much fun. And
(09:19):
also because my little runner's heart would be really happy,
let me know. I want to know how you did.
I want to cheer you on. That would be so cool.
We're going to go back to the story now. So again,
the seventies was really this transformative period for women and
the introduction of the first SPORTSPRA in nineteen seventy seven
(09:40):
was a real big game changer for women as athletes
because it provided much needed support and comfort and the
first prototype was actually two jockstraps sewn together, and as
many women know, the proper support can mean the world
of friends between having a really good and solid run
(10:03):
versus just being really distracted and really uncomfortable, and being
uncomfortable can throw everything off, so this was really really
great to have. But again, in the seventies, despite these advancements,
women still had to overcome societal misconceptions about their physical capabilities,
(10:24):
and this period of time laid the foundation for growth
of women participating in running and competitive sports, and Kay
was making her own mark in the running community. At
this point, she had already run a marathon, and on
Christmas Eve, Kay was planning to go for a run
with one of her friends who was camping with her,
but her friend was kind of new to running and
(10:46):
just not very confident and decided not to go. So
Kay set out alone for an eight mile run, which
she anticipated was going to take her about an hour
to get through, and if you are not familiar with running,
running eight miles in one hour is a very fast run.
She had on her bright yellow running shorts, a white shirt,
(11:08):
and running shoes, but when she hadn't returned for about
two hours, Nol and her friends began to get worried
and they started to look for her. At first, they
thought that maybe she got lost or maybe potentially ran away,
but as they continued to find and hear nothing their
worries grew and grew finally when the police were called
(11:32):
and arrived to Camp Sherman and they began to interview
those who were there. This was when two boys mentioned
they saw a construction worker talking to her. This construction
worker was identified as John Arthur Ackroyd. John stated that
he did in fact see her running down Highway twenty,
(11:52):
but he didn't stop and he didn't talk to her.
He was in the area because he had gotten off
of work at about six forty five am and was
head to his friends, Roger Becks, so that way he
could go deer hunting with him. Because Roger had fallen
on hard times and was in need of a deer
to provide food for his family to eat. John went
(12:13):
to Camp Sherman to look for deer to poach when
he saw K running. As he was driving around, he
noticed that he was really low on fuel and he
had about ten miles away to the closest gas station,
filled his tank back up, and as he started to
head in the direction from which he came, he passed
K again. He was likely among the last to see
(12:36):
her alive. Once back at Camp Sherman area, he was
able to track down a deer, which he successfully shot, gutted,
and cleaned for Roger. But this information didn't help locate k.
All the police knew now was that she was running
along Highway twenty, and as they searched, they found something.
(12:57):
Just off Highway twenty was a small, muddy trail. This
trail appeared to have fresh tracks from running shoes, small
enough to be that of a woman's, and intermingled with
those prints were the large tracks from men's boots along
the way. The tracks seemed to indicate a struggle, with
them winding back and forth and seeming to stumble off
the trail before returning back onto the trail. But when
(13:20):
police reached the end of the trail of prints, nothing
more was found. Looking a little into Kay's personal life,
because of course, when a woman goes missing under suspicious circumstances,
her husband is usually the first to be suspected investigators,
so again they looked into Kay's personal life, and they
found pretty easily that Kay had been having an affair.
(13:43):
Now hear me out, we listen, and we don't judge.
They found out that Kay had been having an affair
with not one, but two different married men. With this
information investigators were convinced that Nol was to blame. He
must have found out about the affair or affairs and
got angry and attacked Kay, killing her somewhere deep in
(14:06):
the forest and then walking out like nothing happened. But
upon questioning, it became very clear that Noel had no
idea that Kay had been having an affair, let alone too.
So then they looked at these two men and their
wives as well as potential suspects, and as those leads
came to a halt, the case of what happened to
(14:29):
Kay was left with a gaping hole. It wasn't until
eight months later, in August of at nineteen seventy nine,
that they got a break in the case, and this
was when a man walked into the camp Sherman's store
and essentially said that he found a body in the woods.
When police arrived, they got more information that the body
was actually just some scattered bones and yellow running shorts.
(14:53):
The man had been out in the woods hunting deer
with his dog, and when he spoke to the police,
he told them something alarming or some things that were alarming.
Before going to the body, the man had made a
comment to the police that the body smelled really bad,
and this is essentially how he found it, or maybe
(15:14):
how his dog found it and led him to this area.
But once arriving on scene, police found that there wasn't
any flesh left and the scene did not smell like
decomposition at all. There was nothing left to make that smell.
All that was found was some hair in a bird's
nest and a lower jawbone. And then this man guessed
(15:38):
that this was probably Kay, that missing runner, And yeah,
that made sense because he had seen her in February,
laying on top of the snow. Back in February. Her
eyes had been gone, her throat had been cut, it
looked like animals had been in the area, and there
was a hole in her chest that looked to be
the exit wound for a gunshot. Yeah, I forgot to
(16:01):
mention this man was John Ackroyd. Upon hearing this, the
police immediately started to suspect John, but he refused to
repeat these statements to anyone else and asked for a lawyer.
And those tracks that investigators found during their initial search
that implied a man and a woman had been struggling,
they were heading to the same location where Ka's remains
(16:24):
were found, though this was confirmed to be Kay, and
the police had strong suspicions that John was to blame
for her disappearance and her death. They had no evidence
and if they tried to go to court now they
knew they would be fighting a losing battle, and with
that Kay's case went cold. Now it makes sense that
John would be in this area because he worked as
(16:46):
a highway maintenance person who spent his days helping to
clean up wrecks, clear stuck cars, help stranded drivers, and
repair equipment in construction zones. Others mentioned that he often
blamed women for the world problems and stated that they
were the cause of all of the world's wars. But
he kind of had this violent nature from a young age.
(17:09):
Growing up, his family had bred their black lab and
when they posted a news ad about the puppies being
for sale, a friend of John's decided that he wanted
to go over and play with the puppies. When he arrived,
I'm going to give you a content warning here. When
he arrived, he found the puppies' bodies had been torn
(17:31):
apart and scattered all over the front yard. John, without emotion,
simply said that they were his and if he couldn't
have them, no one could. Despite this aggressive behavior, most
of the time he just seemed like an average person.
Many liked or at least put up with him, and
(17:51):
sometimes he would make comments that made others uncomfortable, but
for the most part he was seen as a stable
person with a good job, and in addition to that,
iver been arrested. He didn't really have a record, and
while John had this background, he hid it very well,
well enough that in the nineteen eighties, John married Linda,
a single mom with a fourteen year old son, Byron,
(18:14):
and a thirteen year old daughter, Rashonda. They moved in
with him at the Santam Junction, and while things appeared
to be well on the outside, both Byron and Reshonda
would often go to school with black eyes and bruising.
Rashonda even once came to school with chunks of her
hair missing, where John had ripped it out when he
(18:35):
got mad. Linda, while John was good to her and
seemed to be a really good source of stability for
her family, kind of turned a blind eye to these
injuries and this behavior because, from my understanding, she was
kind of scared to go back to being a single
(18:55):
mom and struggling to get food on the table for
her children. And in addition to the stuff that was
happening behind closed doors, to Rashonda, she had friends in
school who were being sexually assaulted by their own family members,
and so she didn't really have a healthy outlet or
a place to go where she was safe. But this
(19:18):
was really only the beginning, and this is partially the
reason that in the summer of nineteen ninety, Byron and
Rashonda begged their mom to let them go live with
their biological father for the summer, and she reluctantly agreed,
but things were tense under his roof as well. Their
father insisted that he knew Rashonda had been sexually assaulted
(19:39):
by a prior boyfriend of their mothers, and he was
angry about this, and quite honestly, I would be too.
He was so angry, in fact, that he was threatening
to take them away from their mother, But this seemed
to be all threats at the time, and when Rashanda
got mad and left to return home, he didn't stop her.
(20:01):
But she didn't really go home, not really. She began
to stay at her friends' homes because she did not
want to be home alone with John, and when she
was forced to return home, she would throw fits and
kind of like toddler temper tantrums and hide in her
friend's homes. But this wasn't always the case. Sometimes she
(20:24):
was forced to go to her own home. And it
was after this that Rashanda began to mention to her
friends that what was happening to them behind closed doors
was happening to her too, implying that John was sexually
assaulting her. John learned about Byron and Rashanda's dad trying
to take custody of the kids, which by July he
(20:47):
had actually began to act on, and shortly after, on
July tenth, nineteen ninety, no one was able to reach Reshonda.
On this day, Rashanda was supposed to be home alone
between the time that her mom and John had left
for work to the time that they would return home,
but John did not work a full day and returned
(21:09):
home early. Here he asked Rashanda to come with him
for a ride, and when she said no, he left
and left her at home, or so he claims. According
to him, he was going out to look for deer
and wanted her to go with him. When she said no,
he set off on his own. He drove through construction
areas where coworker saw him on his own, and when
(21:31):
he got back home between noon and one, Rashanda was gone.
When John picked Linda up, he told her that Rashonda
was not home, and as the night wore on, Linda
began to get more and more worried. When they called
Byron and their father to let them know. Byron wanted
to call the police ride away, but John said that
(21:52):
you can't even call until it had been twenty four hours. Finally,
the next day, Linda calls the police to report Rashanda missing,
and even the dispatcher questions the delay. All that Linda
said was that she thought you had to wait for
twenty four hours, and this call ignites a fire. One
(22:13):
hundred searchers from six different counties started looking through the
area for Rashanda. They looked from the air, they searched
on foot, and there was nothing found to lead searchers
to discovering that Rashanda had been there at all. With
investigators already suspecting John due to Kay's murder, they actually
(22:33):
invited John on a search with them, hoping that he
might inadvertently lead them to something, anything, that they could
use to find Reshonda. Like we already know with Kay,
John visited her at least twice before her body was found,
or before John finally told someone that her body had
(22:54):
been found. But in this circumstance they were out of luck.
The only slip he made was that quote, maybe a
log had been placed over top of her body. During
this time, investigators created a special group who were focused
solely on getting John in jail. They had determined at
this point that he was a predator, and so they
(23:16):
had again a special group who were solely focusing on
him and watching him and piecing all of the things
that they could together to get him behind bars. During
this time, a pair of pants was actually found just
shy of two weeks after Rashanda had gone missing. The
deputy who found the pants showed a highway worker who
(23:38):
was nearby, and when he saw them, his reaction was
disturbing to say the least, and while he didn't say
much about them, his body language was telling. As he
looked at the pants, the highway worker, who we can
now say was John, appeared to get an erection and
near the zipper of his pants away spot appeared. Later
(24:02):
in an interview, Linda would admit that sometimes John would
say things like I just want to kill somebody, and
for their entire relationship, John was just not interested in
sex except for on one occasion, and that occasion happened
to be the night that Reshonda went missing. And this
is indicating because it tells us that something got him
(24:26):
very excited, but with nobody and no clues. While John
was strongly suspected to be involved, this case also went cold.
In the spring of nineteen ninety two, seventeen year old
Melissa Sanders and nineteen year old Sheila Swanson went camping
with Melissa's family at a campground in Beverly Beach State
(24:48):
Park near Newport. They fished and cooked dinner, and then
went to sleep, but at some point during the night,
the girls decided that they did not want to stay
there any longer. Without making the others, they opened their
tent and walked to a payphone to call a friend.
When they were unable to find a ride, they decided
that they would wait until the sun came up and
(25:10):
hitchhike home, but they would never be seen alive. Again.
At this time, John had been transferred to a new
work based location in Sweet Home because he was making
all of his other coworkers uncomfortable, and this was alarming
to the crew manager at this location because John was
not a part of his team, which meant that John
(25:32):
was now going to be able to move around and
come and go almost like a ghost. There was no
one there to watch his movements or keep track of him.
On the morning of May third, nineteen ninety two, the
sun would have just been peeking over the horizon when
Melissa and Sheila started walking down Highway twenty. A short
time later, a truck would pull up next to them,
(25:53):
driven by none other than John Ackroyd. They recognized him
thanks to meeting him at a local box gathering place
called Sherry's, where witnesses would say that anytime the three
of them were in this place together, John would abandon
whatever it was he was doing and just head directly
towards Melissa and Sheila. John would have been on his
(26:17):
way to work when he passed the girls on Highway twenty.
The following timeline of my events is mostly speculation on
my part because the information I have seen kind of
tells one of two stories. My first theory is that
John picked up Melissa and Sheila and drove them to
a location that was very remote on Highway twenty and
(26:37):
then threatened them. And you know, because they were teenagers
against this big, burly, full grown man who likely had
a gun with him, they did whatever he wanted. Once
to a remote location, he pulled them from the truck,
raped them, and murdered them, maybe one of them, but
probably both. My other theory is supported by some more
(27:00):
unusual experiences with John. When John would hang out at Sherry's,
he was once heard stating that he had a place
near Newport, and he made this comment after he heard
the girls would be camping in that area. My second
theory is that he saw the girls as they were
walking down Highway twenty, probably on purpose. When they recognized him,
(27:22):
they were likely a little nervous, but they were also
glad to see a familiar face. When they asked him
for a ride home, he probably said something along the
lines of ah, shucks, I gotta work, but listen, let
me take you to my place that's nearby. I'll pick
you up when I'm off work, and i'll take you home.
Maybe he murdered them there, or maybe it was elsewhere,
(27:43):
but it wasn't until he got off of work, and
it was at about nine thirty pm when John finally
arrived back to the station that he walked in and
expected to be alone. He had blood all over his hands,
his arms, and chest. It was splattered on his face
and soaked through his clothes. Two workers were there on
a special shift and saw him, and when they asked
(28:05):
him what happened, he just said, I hit a deer
and gut it. But this doesn't make any sense because
he didn't have a deer with him. And it was
after this that the news of the two missing girls
in the area started spreading, not right away though. For
some reason, the parents of the girls were just not
worried that they were missing and expected them to come
home in about a week after running around. They didn't
(28:28):
call the police until almost ten days had passed, and
by this time it was too late. Their bodies were
found on October tenth by hunters who were just off
of Highway twenty near Eddyesville, which is about a twenty
minute drive down a Highway twenty. And again, while John
was strongly suspected, nothing could be proven, and maybe all
(28:52):
of this violence could have been prevented had the police
listened the first time his name was brought up. Now, maybe,
just maybe, but we will never know for sure. This
entire tragic line of women being attacked and murdered by
John it could have been prevented, and this could have
happened when on a cool day in nineteen seventy seven,
(29:14):
a year before Kay was murdered, a rape kit was
performed on Marlene Gabrielson, but the police were skeptical of
the rape and focused instead on the fact that she
had been drinking as a miner. There were some minor
inconsistencies in her story, and because of those two factors,
they decided not to pursue the crime. So what happened
(29:35):
to Marlene and hows is connected to John Well. In
June of nineteen seventy seven, Marlene and her husband dropped
off their baby with Marlene's mom and headed off to
Sisters for a rodeo. Marlene lived a long Route twenty
and so Sisters was an easy place for them to
get to, though it was still about an eighty mile drive.
(29:55):
But once there, they began to drink and she and
her husband got into a f Marlene at this point
just wanted to go home to her baby, and when
her husband decided that he wasn't leaving, she started to
ask around for a ride. A man overheard her and
offered to take her home that night, and this man
was John Ackroyd. As they drove and talked, Marlene learned
(30:20):
that he had been in the army. When he got
out of the army, he got a job as a welder,
but now he worked as a highway mechanic for the state.
And as they drove down the winding, lightless road, Marlene
was never once bothered about the fact that the truck
had no passenger handle on the inside nor a window crank.
She would be unable to open the door or a
(30:40):
window from the inside on the passenger side of this truck,
and it didn't alarm her at all. Nothing, in fact,
alarmed her until John pulled off to the side of
the road. Without saying much of anything, he made his
way to the passenger side, ripped open the door, grabbed
Marlene by her hair, and threw her against the embankment
on the side of the road. Here he would hold
(31:02):
a knife to her throat and threaten her yank her
pants down so hard they tore from crotched ankles. He
cut off her remaining clothing and raped her. When she
tried to close her eyes and look away, he would
grab her face and force her to face him, and
would threaten her to make her open her eyes and
look at him. Marlene at this point became so desperate
(31:24):
just to survive so she could go home to her
baby that she started to say anything and do anything
to make him happy. When this was done, he gave
her a dirty pair of pants, and while hesitant and
clearly just wanting to get rid of her, he took
her home and let her go. That we know of,
Marlene is John's first victim, and while police just kind
(31:47):
of ignored this, John did not get off completely free,
as Marlene's husband then went and beat him up. Now
Highway twenty has a bit of a history with bodies
and missing people. There are a few things that are
potentially linked to John, but only by timing and circumstance,
(32:09):
and these are In nineteen seventy six, there was a
skull found just off of the highway. In nineteen seventy seven,
the personal items of Rodney Grissom and Karen Lee were found,
but they are still missing today. In nineteen seventy eight,
a second skull was found again just off the highway,
and in nineteen seventy eight, also Elizabeth Mussler was found
(32:32):
in a shallow grave. John either lived or worked near
the location where each of these bodies or clothing were found,
and Karen's pants, which were found, appeared to have been
cut and torn much in the same way that Marlene's
had been torn from her body. It wouldn't be until
(32:53):
years after Kay's death that John would finally get pinned
for it, and it was all thanks to his friend,
the one who he had been deer hunting with, Roger Beck.
John had even said that Roger was walking around bragging
about killing Kay, and while John was trying to pin
the entire thing on Roger, the events that played out
(33:13):
soon became clear with questioning investigators found that Roger had
been telling everyone some version of the same story, which
was that he had been with John when they passed
Ky on the road, that they stopped, abducted her, raped her,
murdered her by stabbing her and then shooting her, much
(33:33):
like John described when he admitted to seeing her laying
on the snow that February. In nineteen seventy eight, John
and Roger's alibi had been that Roger's then wife, Pam
coroborated their story that they had gone deer hunting, but
upon their arrest in June of nineteen ninety two, that
changed to the truth. She was scared of Roger and
(33:56):
so she played along. But the truth was that John
had come to their home at about nine to ten
am and picked up Roger to go deer hunting, but
when they returned without a deer, they were both covered
in blood. She burned their clothes and their brand new
boots at their instruction, and then pretended not to know
that anything was a miss. During the trial, it was
(34:19):
revealed that the Fish and Wildlife Lab had evaluated Kay's
shorts and found that they had been cut off with
a knife rather than torn apart by wild animals, very
similar to what we know now to be John's calling card.
They also found that her shirt had stab marks through it,
and there were lead fragments indicating that she had been
shot exactly like Roger said, exactly like John claimed. While
(34:46):
John and Roger would both be found guilty in nineteen
ninety three, John's attorneys tried to say that John had
actually seen a different runner that day and that he
had simply gotten confused and that he didn't see k
at all. And if he did, I see a Kay,
there's no way he could have killed her. And this
leads us to Jane Morris. Jane was brought into the
(35:07):
courtroom to testify about her experience that same morning. Now,
Jane was running the same morning that Kay was abducted
and murdered. She saw nothing, she heard nothing. And later
that day, when she was riding her bike on her
way to work at Camp Sherman's store, she noticed a
man parked off the side of the road heading to
(35:29):
Camp Sherman, and as she passed him, he stepped out
from behind his truck, pointed a gun at her and
shouted for her to stop. Jane doesn't. She peddles like
crazy to get away from him. He never shoots, he
never follows, but his face is etched in her mind forever.
And that face was that of John Ackroyd's. Jane Morris
(35:52):
was the one who got away. And I hope that
if you are ever in a situation that is like this,
you get away too. We wrap up this season my
hope is that you step onto the trails and roads
to do the thing that you love, that you proceed
with the smarts to get you out of any of
the situations we talked about alive, For there is one
(36:13):
thing that I have learned, and that is if any
of these women were still alive, they would be amazing.
Ky in fact, could have been one of the greats
during a transitional time and running for women instead. She
is an example of why we need to use caution.
But we must never relent, never give up what brings
us joy, for if we do, every single one of
(36:34):
these monsters wins, and I refuse to see that become
the truth. Thank you for listening. I hope that you
are safe and happy on your adventures over the next
few months and years and days and weeks, and we
will talk next time. Bye. What is life without close
calls with disaster? Thank you for listening. Don't forget to
(36:59):
follow the podcast to be the first to hear the
now weekly episodes. Join our subscription on Patreon, Apple or
Spotify today and immerse yourself in the haunting beauty of
the great outdoors. For around four dollars a month. You'll
get exclusive access to the first episode of each month
and early access to all other episodes showcasing the morbid
(37:20):
and mysterious side of nature. Please reach out with story requests,
and if you have your own story, please email Tragedy
with a View at gmail dot com for a chance
to have your story featured on a later episode. Again,
thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.
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