Wisconsin 2003 cold case solved — arrest shocks community

Dec 2, 2025
In August 2003, 17-year-old Ashley Turner left her home on a sunny summer morning for a bicycle ride along the quiet roads of Sheboygan, Wisconsin. Her pink-bell bicycle was her favorite, a birthday gift from her mother — but Ashley never came home. Her cell phone went silent near County Road HH, and despite massive search efforts involving hundreds of volunteers, no trace of Ashley or her bicycle was ever found. For 18 years, the Turner family lived with unanswered questions and a painful void that never healed.
In June 2021, a forest cleanup crew discovered a rusted bicycle buried in roadside bushes — and on its handlebars and brake levers, forensic technicians found perfectly preserved fingerprints. Those prints didn't belong to Ashley. They belonged to Richard Hayes, a trusted neighbor who had lived three houses down from the Turners, joined search parties, brought food to the grieving family, and prayed with them at church while hiding a terrible secret about what happened on that forest road 18 years ago.
This is the complete story of a neighbor's dark impulse, a family's 18-year search for truth, and how a single pink bell on a forgotten bicycle finally brought justice to a girl who was silenced far too soon.