This is a weekly Q&A focused on the Oregon Public Employees Retirement System. Got a question? Submit it to politics@oregonian.com.

Q: How was John Ackroyd, a longtime state highway mechanic who is linked to four killings and one rape near Highway 20, allowed to collect a public employee pension even while in prison for aggravated murder?

Ackroyd was convicted of one crime, the aggravated murder of Kaye Turner in 1978. His trial took place in late 1993 in Jefferson County. He was sentenced to life and died in 2016 at the Oregon State Penitentiary.

The lives of his victims, Marlene Gabrielsen, Kaye Turner, Rachanda Pickle, Melissa Sanders and Sheila Swanson, were the subject of “Ghosts of Highway 20,” an Oregonian/OregonLive series published last week.

Ackroyd had 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.

While incarcerated, he continued to collect an annual $43,488 pension from the Oregon Public Employees Retirement System.

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.

-- Noelle Crombie

ncrombie@oregonian.com

503-276-7184