A Note of Credit and Thanks

I want to take a moment and thank at least 4 people whose work has made this search possible. Without them, and those who assisted them, this project would not have been remotely feasible. The research conducted for this had it’s start with a series of Oregonian articles first published in 2018.

The Ghosts of Highway 20 was a long form journalism project written by Noelle Crombie, with major contributions from photojournalist Beth Nakamura and videographer Dave Killen. In particular, I want to thank Noelle Crombie for uploading and making available hundreds of pages of police reports, interrogation transcripts, archived news articles and other source materials as part of the project. That trove of materials directly informed this search.

The documentary below is by the Oregonian team and is an excellent film on the subject. I highly recommend it.

I would be remiss with only crediting Noelle for making the source material available. The reporting and narrative helped frame and make sense of often conflicting or incomplete primary sources. By way of example, if one was to try to make sense of the Lee and Grissom disappearance from the primary sources alone, you would spend a great deal of time chasing yourself in circles. Thank you Noelle, Beth and Dave for your hard work and dedication to the memory of the Ghosts of Highway 20.

I need to thank now retired Linn County Sheriff’s Detective Mike Harmon. His reopening of the Rachanda Pickle investigation in 2010 eventually led to John Ackroyd pleading no contest in the disappearance of his step-daughter. Mike Harmon also reviewed decades worth of unsolved homicides and disappearances as part of his investigation into John Ackroyd, of which the Lee and Grissom case is but one. His participation in the reporting project shined a light on dusty cases concerning marginalized or otherwise forgotten people. Thank you Sir.

Most importantly, Marlene Gabrielsen’s original police report and subsequent interviews with Noelle Crombie are invaluable to me. She is the only known survivor of John Ackroyd, and her attack, occurring only 3 weeks after Karen and Rodney vanished directly informed my search. Thank you for your bravery in coming forward at the time and in the years since.