The Jenner Beach Murders - Solved?
On the 14th of August 2004 an engaged couple set off on a romantic road trip through Northern California. Twenty two year old Lindsay Cutshall and her twenty six year old fiancé Jason S. Allen had met two years earlier in 2002 while Lindsay was at university. The pair bonded over their faith and soon began a romantic relationship. They were both Christians from small religious towns and both worked as councilors at an adventure camp for Christian children called “Rock n’ Water” based in El Dorado County, California in the Sierra Nevada foothills.
The couple loved their jobs, so when they neglected to show up for work the following Monday, their employers contacted their families. Cutshall and Allen were officially reported missing and their loved ones began an investigation of their own. With the help of one of Lindsay’s friends who worked at a bank, they were able to follow the route the missing couple took along their road trip. A purchase made on Lindsay’s credit card lead her loved ones to a beach near Jenner, California, named “Fish head beach”.
Fish head beach had its own visitor book in which both Cutshall and Allen had penned entries. Both thanked God for creating such an amazing world and Jason expressed thanks for his fiancée.
It is unknown whether or not the pair had planned to sleep out on the beach that night, but they did, in separate sleeping bags under the stars. It has been speculated that they were turned away from a local motel called “The rivers end” due to lack of vacancies and decided to spend a night on the beach. After all, they were two people who enjoyed adventure and were likely no stranger to camping. Whatever happened that night turned their romantic get-away into a nightmare- their slain bodies were discovered three or four days later after being spotted by a police helicopter that had been issued to search for a man stranded on top of a cliff near the beach.
Both Cutshall and Allen had been executed in their sleep. They had been shot in the head at point blank range with what is reported to be a .45 caliber Marlin rifle. The expelled shells were not recovered from the crime scene and it is believed that whoever killed the couple retrieved them before leaving the scene. Investigators quickly dismissed murder-suicide.
None of the couple’s personal possessions had been taken, including Lindsay’s silver necklace and their vehicle. Neither of them had been sexually assaulted.
Locals and Sleuths speculated about the double homicide, spinning theories that maybe the couple had witnessed a crime and been executed to keep them quiet. Maybe they had preached to the wrong person and suffered the wrath of an angry civilian?
One person of interest mentioned in reports about the case was a drifter who was around the area during the time of crime. When interviewed, he passed a lie detector test and was ruled out as a suspect. With no leads the case quickly went cold and it stayed cold for over a decade until police issued a statement in 2017. In the statement they point an accusatory finger in the direction of a thirty eight year old man named Shaun Gallon who lived in an apartment on River Road in Forestville, Sonoma County, California.
Gallon has been a resident at Sonoma county jail since mid-2017. He was arrested for the murder of his own brother, Shamus Gallon, whom he murdered with an AR-15 in their own home. He became a suspect in the slaying of Lindsay Cutshall and Jason Allen when he revealed details of the crime to police that nobody but the killer could know. He allegedly passed a note to one of the guards incriminating himself.
Correlating evidence obtained from information provided by Gannon himself supported the suspicion that Gallon was indeed responsible for taking the lives of the young couple back in 2004.
Shockingly, just two months before he murdered the couple, he had attempted to kill another civilian in Monte Rio. He purposely planted a package bomb on the roof of a woman’s Honda Accord and waited for her to approach it. Although the package did explode when the woman made contact with it, she did not die as a result, but sustained injuries to her hand and arm. Monte Rio is just 10 miles from Jenner, California, where Cutshall and Allen would later meet a tragic end.
Five years later Gallon tried to kill again when he took a shot at a man with a DIY bow and arrow he had fashioned by hand. The man was sitting outside of Gallon’s apartment in his car at the time when he was suddenly struck by an arrow. Gallon did time for the assault in 2010.
So who exactly is Shaun Gallon?
Gallons Facebook profile, which is now filled with comments calling him a psychopath as well as various other colorful names, has a lot of senseless status updates.
If we look at the posts from the 24th of March, 2017 (the same day he allegedly killed his own brother) there is a series of odd text updates- 11 to be precise. They are all short sentences, for example:
“WRITES SEX WITH ME”, “WRITES SEX WITH YOUR PLACCIES”, “LIKES SEX FOR FREE”, “SAY RIGHTS SEX WITH YOUR PLACCIES (WRITES) SEX WITH ME”, “WRITES SEX WITH YOUR MOTHER” and so on. His final update says: “SAY MEGA MOTHER DUTHERT”.
His publicly uploaded photos showcase his handmade weapons such as spears and a bow and arrow uploaded in 2015, as well drawings of what seem to be UFOs and spaceships with design notes. Links to YouTube and live leak videos covering wars around the world as well as prophecies for the end of time fill up Gallons profile as well as clips of street wars in Kiev, articles on ISIS, warnings of radioactive particles floating in the air, combat footage, fighting techniques, religion and so on. It’s no surprise that the media describes Gallon as a doomsday prepper and survivalist obsessed with weapons.
Shaun Gallon is currently being held in a unit suitable for those suffering with mental illness and has been formally charged. Police are confident they have the Jenner beach killer and hopefully this is another cold case that can be finally put to rest.
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