Last week, The Oregonian/OregonLive published a series of stories and documentary videos about four women and a 13-year-old girl whose assaults, disappearances or deaths are linked to the same man, a state highway mechanic named John Ackroyd.

“Ghosts of Highway 20” told the stories of Marlene Gabrielsen, Kaye Turner, Rachanda Pickle, Melissa Sanders and Sheila Swanson.

The series prompted questions from readers. Here are answers to the most common ones:

Where is Roger Dale Beck, the man Ackroyd was with on the day Kaye Turner was abducted and killed in 1978?

Beck, a hunting partner and friend of Ackroyd’s, is serving a life sentence for aggravated murder in Kaye’s killing. Kaye was running the day before Christmas in Camp Sherman when she encountered the men. Beck is at the Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem. Ackroyd died in the same prison at the end of 2016.

Beck became eligible for parole in 2007, but according to Sid Thompson, chairman of the Oregon Board of Parole and Post-Prison Supervision, he didn’t petition for what is known as a “murder review hearing” until 2012.

During those hearings, the board considers whether an inmate is likely to be rehabilitated in a “reasonable period of time,” Thompson said. If the panel finds that to be the case, the state begins a series of exit interviews with the inmate as part of the parole process.

Beck first appeared before the board in 2013. The board deferred a decision for 24 months.

He returned in 2015 and 2017 and both times the board deferred a decision.

Thompson said the board considers a range of criteria in making its decision, including a person’s empathy and remorse, disciplinary record in prison and participation in prison programs.

Rachanda Pickle’s cousin, Jennifer Persinger-Turner, appears in the video series. In one interview, she describes being alone in a truck with Ackroyd. She said he once pulled off to the side of U.S. 20 and disappeared into the woods for what seemed like a long time. Did investigators ever return to that area to search for Rachanda?

Yes, but many years later. Rachanda was Ackroyd’s 13-year-old stepdaughter who vanished in 1990 from the family home at the Santiam Junction highway compound. Her body has never been found.

In 2010, Linn County sheriff’s Detective Mike Harmon returned to the location with three other investigators. They searched the area, which is near milepost 82.2 in Jefferson County. They used two cadaver dogs and metal detectors. They found nothing.

How was Ackroyd able to collect an annual pension of $43,488 from the Oregon Public Employees Retirement System while in prison?

The state pays pension benefits to anyone who has applied for them and qualifies, said Marjorie Taylor, senior policy director for PERS.

That goes for convicted murderers serving life in prison because criminal convictions don’t affect a retirees’ eligibility.

“He was due a benefit, he earned a benefit and we had to pay it,” Taylor said.

Ackroyd worked as a state employee from Jan. 13, 1978 through July 31, 1992, when he was fired by the Oregon Department of Transportation. The agency terminated him after he was indicted on murder charges. Ackroyd had worked as a mechanic for the agency’s Highway Division.

Were court fees imposed on Ackroyd after his 1993 murder trial?

According to the state court administrator, Ackroyd owed a total of $49,000 in court fines and fees for the trial in the murder of Kaye Turner. The trial lasted more than a month.

In 1994, the court imposed a $43,000 fine. Then another $6,400 in collection fees was added to that in 2004.

Phillip Lemman, a spokesman for the court administrator, said state records show that one of Ackroyd’s sisters called at one point to arrange payments. The state then received its first payment in 2005 and continued to get monthly payments until 2007, when the debt was paid off.

Lemman said records show that Ackroyd’s sister, Linda, made the payments on his behalf.

What’s the status of the five cold cases mentioned in “Ghosts of Highway 20”?

The cases include the disappearances of Rodney Grissom and Karen Lee, the killing of Elizabeth Mussler and the discovery of the partial remains of two unidentified women.

The cases fall under the jurisdiction of the Linn County Sheriff’s Office and they remain unsolved.

Karen and Rodney’s belongings remain in evidence storage at the agency in Albany. They have not undergone forensic testing. The teens’ bodies were never found.

Karen, 15, and Rodney, 14, were friends who ran away from home with plans to make it to California in the spring of 1977. Their final call came shortly after they left home. It came from a pay phone in Lebanon. Later, Karen’s jeans, pages of her journal and the blouse she’d sewn for a school project were found off a logging road. Her jeans appeared to have been cut. Some of Rodney’s things were found years later, not far from the area where Lee’s belongings were recovered.

Mussler’s remains were discovered in 1978, a time when DNA testing wasn’t available. Her remains were turned over to her family.

DNA testing was performed on the partial remains of one of the unidentified women; no match was found. Testing on the unidentified remains of the other woman was not done.

-- Noelle Crombie

ncrombie@oregonian.com

503-276-7184