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The Finely Ghost and The Disappearance of Toni Rae
20 Plays18 days ago
In this episode, we uncover one of the Tri Cities’ most terrifying legends, the mysterious Finley Ghost said to wander the dark roads and riverbanks outside of Kennewick. But this story becomes even more chilling as we investigate the real life disappearance of Toni Rae Atchley, a 54 year old woman who vanished without a trace in July 2022. Her abandoned 2017 Toyota Corolla was discovered near the Hanford Site along SR 240 with her phone, backpack, and wallet still inside, yet Toni herself was gone.
⚠️ Content Warning: This episode includes references to abuse, trauma, and death. Listener discretion is advised.
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Transcript
Introduction and Episode Overview
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to Beneath the Evergreens, where murder, mysteries, and mayhem lurk in the shadows of the Pacific Northwest. I'm Jess. And I'm Anna. From haunted forests and unsolved disappearances, to true crime cases very deep in the moss and the mist, we're digging into the dark secrets hiding under the evergreens.
00:00:19
Speaker
Each episode will explore real cases, eerie encounters, and the legends that keep the Pacific Northwest up at night. So grab your flashlight, lock your doors, and join us beneath the evergreen.
00:00:32
Speaker
Welcome everyone.
00:00:52
Speaker
everyone Welcome, welcome.
Personal Moments and Mother's Day Plans
00:00:55
Speaker
Fun fact, Jess and I record that intro live every single time. And this was the first time that I was like, you know what i think i don't think I need to look at our our sheet. Like, I think I just know it by heart now.
00:01:06
Speaker
That is good. I forget it immediately. um
00:01:11
Speaker
And that's all you need to know about us. yeah ah We are both having a week. So we are excited to be here, talk about some true crime, but also like keep it a little bit later. Keep it a little fun.
00:01:24
Speaker
Yes. And then ah happy happy Mother's Day. Yes. Happy Mother's Day all the moms out there. Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there. I hope you have the best day ever because you deserve it. Absolutely. Absolutely. Stoked. We are getting all of the all of the mothers in my life.
00:01:40
Speaker
Mother, grandmother, mother-in-law, everyone for brunch on Sunday. So I'm super stoked. That'd be awesome. Is it at a restaurant or is that at someone's house? You don't have to say whose house, but know're we're going out. That's our treat. So no one has to clean up afterwards.
00:01:54
Speaker
That is smart. I love that so much. You're having a like a multi-generational Mother's Day too, right? I am having a multi-generational situation. It's gonna be me and my mom and her mom, and we're gonna be playing some Scrabble. I'm gonna get my butt whooped by my daughter, which is crazy.
00:02:11
Speaker
But... imagine it's a very like humbling experience. Oh, it very much is. But it's also like rewarding too because it's like I'm raising her okay if she can whip me at some Scrabble.
00:02:24
Speaker
I remember the first time I beat my dad at like of word game like Bananagrams is really big in our house and I gloated so much. he was pissed yes because we are one in the same there's like a little bit of an was kind of proud like i'm proud of you but i'm also like how dare you beat me i want ring your neck but like great job i raised you so well that is actually parenting just that analogy is for all of parenting
00:02:57
Speaker
Oh, man. Well, happy as the Fridays, happy as with Mother's Day. And I'm excited to get into your story because I could really use a cool little distraction to lead me into my weekend.
The Finley Ghost Story
00:03:09
Speaker
All right. So our story today actually it takes place in the Tri-Cities in southeastern Washington. Oh, actually, hold up. I literally was just thinking about this the other day. I know a ghost story that's just outside of Kennewick.
00:03:24
Speaker
Ooh. Tell me, tell me, tell me. Should we start with this? Yeah. yeah In Finley, which is right outside of Kennewick, there's a ghost story that actually has to do with the Columbia River.
00:03:36
Speaker
Oh. And I'm wondering, that all of these things are going together. Anyways, it's called the Finley Ghost. And essentially... What you do to see this Finley ghost is you, there's a levee that's across the Columbia river around U street. And there's a pump house that's near this levee essentially. okay And the legend goes, let me see if I can remember it correctly. um The legend goes that there was a young boy.
00:04:07
Speaker
Actually, i think there's two legends, but i'm go to tell you this one. There was a young boy and his name was Adam and he drowned along the Columbia river near this levee. Oh man. His parents were devastated and they, every year on his birthday would go and sit by where he drowned and talk to him and just say how much they missed him. And, you know, just, you know, catching up, reminiscing, doing what someone does when the, when they lose someone.
00:04:33
Speaker
Well, then strange things started happening. So it sounded, they would talk to their son and the river would like suddenly explode in a splash or sound like something was trying to come out of the water or there'd be this weird chumming sound that wasn't the normal river sound. Oh, what the heck?
00:04:56
Speaker
And the agreement, like the parents reported, like they thought it was their son answering them. I don't know when that story started, but that has been part of the Tri-Cities lore forever.
00:05:12
Speaker
Interesting. And so now when you're a teenager and I may or may not have taken partook in this, but you essentially climb up or you climb down this, this rock embankment, it's like 20 feet and you go to the river and you throw rocks into the river.
00:05:32
Speaker
And Adam or who they think is Adam will throw the rock back at you or try to from underwater. And you'll hear this like crazy splash type situation. Have you experienced that?
00:05:44
Speaker
i I threw the rocks in, but I didn't hear anything. But I will tell you it is dark, like pitch black. um In that area. And so when you're driving up to this place, it's creepy. And then you're hearing this story about like, you know, these grieving parents and this poor boy and you're like all in your feels about it. And then you get out of your car and you're walking down the thing. You're like, it's very dark.
00:06:08
Speaker
Oh my gosh. And then you're trying to throw stuff in. You're like, is it a ghost or is it something else? And it's very scary. That sounds horrifying. It is. Then I've also heard about a woman in that same area. So I don't know if this story is just diverged as local legends do but there's also this story about a woman or some old team, like older woman or or a woman of some sort who was by the river at some point and someone did her a mischief.
00:06:40
Speaker
Why did I say it like that? Did her mischief? Yeah.
00:06:44
Speaker
I don't even know what you're insinuating with that. Like 50 things popped into my head. That is, i think the point is that no one knows truly what happened, but she perished. They don't know if it was like a suicide. They don't know if someone did this to her. Like it's, it's lost. But for some reason, there's this woman that people see.
00:07:05
Speaker
Standing near the edge of the river in the same generalized place. And when you see her, you start to hear like these strange water situations going on. Like something is trying to come out of the water to her. So maybe it's Adam's mom or something along those lines. But there is this ghost story that when you go to this river, you'll see this woman who, who appears And just kind of stands there and watches you. And then around her, the river makes weird noises and like there's sp weird splashing and stuff like that.
00:07:38
Speaker
Oh my God. That's crazy.
Hanford Site History and Mysteries
00:07:40
Speaker
Isn't that weird? That is weird. What? Back to like we're talking about the weird stuff from Hanford going into the Columbia River. What time frame are we talking about here?
00:07:51
Speaker
a I mean, probably from that original, like World War two I don't know how long it goes back there. I'm not really from the area. I just happened to have a friend that lived there.
00:08:03
Speaker
And so it's probably, it probably stems from like World War II. I wonder if it is like the fish or something and the water got poisoned and they started acting erratically. And then someone made up these stories to scare people and hand hand. Yeah, exactly.
00:08:21
Speaker
Do you know, for I don't know why this just popped into my head, but did you ever watch Kim Possible when you were little? ah I think kind of. We don't have cable. Do you remember that like, that like swamp monster from summer camp?
00:08:35
Speaker
He like swam in contaminated water and became a monster? Wait, I think I do. And it was like all green and like, but yes. Yeah. That's what I'm imagining. I mean, I wouldn't doubt it. I mean, it is just downriver from upriver. I don't know where it is in relation to Hanford, but it wouldn't surprise me.
00:08:54
Speaker
Right? Right? Weird stuff going on. All right. It's our story today. Actually, it takes place in the Tri-Cities. little little but little warning this is a shorter story there's just not a ton of information but it's still super interesting so I really wanted to to talk about it kind of go into some of the details and then also open it up for if anyone has any information on this after the case um I'll have some phone numbers listed so if you have additional information please make sure to to call the the police department okay oh Oh, there's a police. I thought you going to put our numbers on there. And I was like, whoa, I feel like you could ran that by me. Nope.
00:09:35
Speaker
Notice, please, before I start getting weird numbers. But thank you. Who do you think I am? Anyways. Oh, goodness.
00:09:45
Speaker
On to the story. Let's get right
Toni Ray Ashley's Disappearance
00:09:47
Speaker
into it. So today we're going to talk about the disappearance of Tony Ray Ashley. I hadn't heard much about this case until, um well, in my true crime boredom. I like to go through like missing persons cases in Washington just like, oh, look at this, look at this. And it's really actually unsettling how little of the time it's like there's an update. This person's been found and like even rarer that this person's been found safe and they're OK. So I try to limit how much of this hobby, if you will, that I do. But I ran across this case and it was super fascinating.
00:10:20
Speaker
So the last time anyone heard from Tony was on July 2022 in Kennewick, Washington. So for those of you that aren't from Washington, Kennewick is one of our tri-cities, one of the tri-cities is what we call it. So it's what Pasco, Richland, and Kennewick. They're all right next to each other. They form this like tri-city conglomerate, but they're all basically like one big city. And outside of Kennewick, there's not too much, not too much outside of the tri-cities really. It's in Eastern Washington. i would say the biggest thing of note is the old Hanford nuclear site is right around there.
00:10:54
Speaker
So again, for those of you that that don't know, The plutonium for the the atomic bombs back in World War II, all of that was mined and created in Hanford. so That's crazy. Yeah. So it was an instrumental part of Manhattan Project that feel like a lot of people don't know about. But there's been some like interesting occurrences around Hanford. like my so my mom is from eastern Washington. a lot of bunch of old wives tales that like she heard that she would tell us like – I don't know, people getting sick, things not being quite right around Hanford and the Tri-Cities.
00:11:28
Speaker
But, I mean, you have this massive nuclear site right next to the Columbia River. that and the Columbia River gets water, you know, from to the Pacific. um It also is used to imagine water, a bunch of crops that are in that area because, you know, farming is really huge over there. So...
00:11:46
Speaker
Also, World War II. we not I don't think the EPA was really not alive and well then. Definitely not like it is now. yeah Some quick research i did, there was actually talks there was like there was concern over contamination having Hanford so close to the the river. However, the decision was kind of made like, and we can care about the environment when we're not actively in war and at risk all being bombed. Sure.
00:12:13
Speaker
Sure, sure. Which, I mean, given the circumstances I kind of get, obviously hindsight's going to be 2020 and probably shouldn't have done that. But hey, we did what we had to do, i suppose. not And I'm not saying that as like a justification of an atomic bomb or anything like that. But the circumstances, given the information, kind of like COVID, right? Looking back, like with the information we had, we seemed to make the best choices we could. Mm-hmm.
00:12:41
Speaker
With what information we had at the time. yeah that makes sense. No. and it Anyways, back to our story. So we're in Kennewick, Washington, and Toni had not been seen since July 22nd. Reports indicated that she had she been kind of in the midst of like a mental health crisis. I don't have a ton of details on what kind of mental health crisis and like the severity or anything like that. But it didn't sound like she was in a great place. And she'd kind of alluded to disappearing before this time.
00:13:07
Speaker
So three days after anyone last saw her, her car, her Toyota Corolla was found near the Hanford site off highway 240. So in her car, there was Tony's phone, her backpack, her wallet and other personal belongings.
00:13:25
Speaker
Unfortunately, even her dog, like her dog was left in the car in July in Eastern Washington. By the time police found the car, he had already perished because it was like, when it was over a hundred degrees. Oh, that's so sad. Yeah.
00:13:36
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's so horrible. It's so horrible. Excuse me. Let me correct this. I said Toyota Corolla. She actually had a Toyota Camry. But her Camry seemed to be fully functional. it had enough gas in it. Like, there wasn't anything wrong with it. There wasn't any reason...
00:13:51
Speaker
But they could see mechanically about why she stopped where she did. because It's pretty desolate. Like I pulled up a Google Maps image and there is an exit off the highway. it is just one long kind of road in the i not quite the desert, but, you know, like Eastern Washington is like a cornfield, things like that. oh Yeah, pretty desolate. And this road only went kind of like it started. at You got off the highway and it ended at Hanford. Like there wasn't any other reason to go out there, really.
00:14:17
Speaker
interesting okay yeah so when investigators found her car they immediately began searching the area trying to see if they could find her because they're again it's pretty desolate there's like not any really many places you could go you could hide like yes Hanford's there but like it's all fenced off and it's not open for for visitors think the only way you can get there is if you're part of like cleanup effort engineering groups or chemical like chemical groups that are there interesting okay um but no one could find her They searched for a couple days and like said, it was it was i mean it was a sunny day.
00:14:48
Speaker
So you would think that like you would find her at some point, right? Like she would she wouldn't be able to make it that far in that and like the desolate conditions and that kind of heat. Yikes. wonder if she just had to pee.
00:14:59
Speaker
Right? And then someone just happened to like come along the road. But I guess if it's so desolate... Exactly. Like there was nothing. It sounds like maybe they found some clothes like four miles away.
00:15:10
Speaker
But again, how would she get that? Clothes four miles away? Yes. Bro, that sounds like an abduction. Right? But then when... No, like UFO abduction. oh gosh. Go ahead.
00:15:21
Speaker
Continue. I'll elaborate later. oh my gosh. Okay. come But when investigators, since I then got her phone from her car, they were looking into it a little bit more. And it sounds like so one of the last people she called was a mental health crisis center.
00:15:39
Speaker
Oh, that's The question then becomes, like, did she do did she harm herself? But if she was going to harm herself, why would she drive all the way out there? And why would she take her to like oh stagger we dog? Leave her dog.
00:15:51
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, or at least you should have let the dog out of the car. You would think. And where is she? It's four years later, and no one no one's found her, and there's been nothing. so if Did she have, like, a medical – did they ever release anything that was, like, her – what her medical emergency was, was like unaliving yourself or was it? I don't have any details about that. Okay. No, the only reporting that I could find, which I mean, there was very little reporting about this case in general, just broadly a mental health crisis of some capacity.
00:16:22
Speaker
That's crazy. Yeah. I wonder, I mean, I'm just speculating here, but I wonder if it's one of those situations where she like knew she was having a mental health crisis, but then i don't it was like schizophrenia or something that took over. And then she just thought someone someone was following her. So she just ran into the, didn't even think about her dog being in the car and just ran.
00:16:39
Speaker
Yeah. And where is she now? like What time of year was it? This was July. Okay, so it wasn't cold, so you wouldn't get like hypothermia and take your clothes off. No, but it's i mean it's hot, though.
00:16:53
Speaker
is hot. It's really hot over there in the summertime. So that's wild jury's kind of still out. Like, is she, I mean, one, is she still alive? Is she out there somewhere? Did something happen to her? Did she hurt herself?
00:17:07
Speaker
Was it just happenstance? Like, was she having some kind of, you know, mental health crisis and someone found her and took her somewhere else? Really? No one knows. And that's kind of the end of the story. Unfortunately, that's all the information that we have.
00:17:21
Speaker
Yeah. There's a very odd occurrence and a lot of questions that the family has, but there's just been no answers. That's wild. i Well, it definitely wasn't a burglary. Burglary. Because, i mean, all of her stuff's in the car.
00:17:36
Speaker
Exactly. Her dog's still there.
00:17:40
Speaker
I don't know. That sounds so weird. And then her clothes were just found. Okay. So it reminds me vaguely, like, I don't know how her clothes were found, but there's a story out there. I'm not sure where it took place, but I know it did happen. Cause I've heard it like 16,000 times.
00:17:53
Speaker
There was a hiker that went on a hike. Hiker that went on hike. Yeah. And they're in the woods and a very experienced hiker.
00:18:05
Speaker
They disappear just like out of the blue. Just they were there one minute second, the next second they were gone. There was no trace except for their clothes were folded up on a rock perfectly.
00:18:19
Speaker
All of their clothes? Mm-hmm. that was like patriot And there was no footprints around there. There was like, it was just the clothes and they disappeared and then they were never found again. Was there like a body of water nearby?
00:18:31
Speaker
No. That's horrifying. It was like they were picked up with no clothes and never seen again. ah I don't like that that's that. That sounds like an an alien abduction. Yeah. And I'm, well, it's the same. I wonder how her clothes were. Were they like,
00:18:49
Speaker
folded really nicely was it like something weird i mean you could say they both maybe had the same mental health health crisis but did she have any family does her family have any clues i'm guessing they didn't report on it no the only thing i can see is her sister talking about how you know she did tell people that she was going to disappear so maybe it does tie back to the mental health crisis yeah but she just wants answers more than anything else and she just wants like wants to know what happened to her sister off That makes breaks my heart. Right?
00:19:22
Speaker
So all that to say, at her time of disappearance, Toni was 54 years old. She was Caucasian with dark hair. She was about 5'5 and approximately 140 pounds.
00:19:33
Speaker
If you have any information on Toni or her disappearance, please call the Kennewick Police Department at 509-585-4208 or the Benton County Sheriff's Office
00:19:49
Speaker
That's so sad. No information is too small. Even if, like, you saw her from afar that day. at least it's some kind of information that police can use and some kind of closure for her family. Or if you were on that road and saw something weird.
00:20:02
Speaker
Exactly. Her car was found at about 11 a.m. on July 25th. So we don't know exactly when it went out there, but if you saw anything around that time, yeah, just just let someone know.
00:20:14
Speaker
And what year was it? 2022. 2022. twenty twenty two twenty twenty two Yeah, it's almost like close to almost close to four years ago. o but I think there's nothing worse than a family member going missing.
00:20:28
Speaker
Because you don't know. Like, are they still alive? Did they choose to leave on their own free will? So you just like do what you need to do. Like, it breaks my heart.
Episode Wrap-Up and Subscription Reminder
00:20:37
Speaker
That's it for today's dive into the dark corners of the Pacific Northwest.
00:20:42
Speaker
If you love the stories or shivered a little, be sure to subscribe and follow so you don't miss what's lurking beneath the evergreens next time. Thanks for joining us on Beneath the Evergreens. We appreciate you diving into the mysteries with us.
00:20:54
Speaker
Until next time, keep your eyes open and your doors locked.