Who Were Lindsay Cutshall and Jason Allen?
The couple met in 2002 when Lindsay was attending Appalachian Bible College in West Virginia and Jason was living and working in the state, according to Ohio newspaper the Zanesville Times Recorder.
Jason, originally from Zeeland, Mich., “was a very accomplished white water rafting guide," Lindsay’s mother, Kathy Cutshall, told the Times Recorder. While working at West Virginia’s New River Gorge, Jason rented a room from Lindsay’s sister and her husband and met Lindsay, Kathy said.
The couple were engaged to be married in September 2004. The summer before their expected wedding day, they worked as counselors at Rock-N-Water, a Christian youth adventure camp in California’s El Dorado County, near Sacramento. Jason and Lindsay, an Ohio native, were outdoors enthusiasts and took campers rock climbing, whitewater rafting and hiking.
During a weekend break, Lindsay and Jason stopped in Jenner on a three-day road trip to the San Francisco area and were expected to return by late afternoon Sunday. It would have been their final weekend away before returning home to prepare for their wedding, the Times Recorder reported.
Bodies Discovered on Fish Head Beach
Lindsay’s mother had just mailed the couple’s wedding invitations when she received a devastating call from Rock-N-Water on a Monday morning. Jason and Lindsay, she learned, were missing after failing to return from their long weekend off.
“My heart dropped,” Kathy later told Sonoma Magazine. “I knew something was wrong.”
Kathy and her husband, Chris, traced Lindsay’s credit card receipts to the San Francisco Bay area, the magazine reported. Two days later, investigators who were searching by helicopter for a stranded hiker spotted two sleeping bags on Fish Head Beach. A state park ranger found Lindsay’s car nearby and discovered a gruesome scene.
“Sure enough, he sees what looks to be two people in a sleeping bag down there,” detective Joey Horseman of the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office recalled on Final Moments. “It was immediately clear that they were deceased.”
Both were shot in the head at close range with a .45-caliber Marlin rifle, police found. But detectives struggled to develop a motive. None of the victims’ valuables were stolen and there were no signs of sexual assault. The couple was apparently killed in their sleep, and a Bible was found nearby on the beach.
Tiny Jenner Is Shaken by the Beach Killings
News of the killings rattled Jenner, but it wasn’t the tiny community’s first brush with tragedy. In 1991, elderly Jenner ranchers Oscar and Betty Mann were fatally shot in their home by attacker Alan Adams, 19, who demanded their credit cards and fired 40 shots. He was later arrested, convicted and sentenced to life in prison.
Thomas Yeates, a longtime Jenner resident, tells A&E Crime + Investigation via email that “Jenner is a beautiful oasis, but sometimes the ugly of the world comes calling.”
“Jenner had to steel itself again with the beach murders,” he says.
Police soon identified 25-year-old Shaun Gallon, a resident of nearby Forestville, Calif., as a person of interest after Gallon’s then-girlfriend gave a tip suggesting he may have been responsible, according to Final Moments. Investigators found bulletproof vests, firearms and a spear at Gallon’s home but didn’t have enough evidence to connect him to the crime.
“He had frozen animals in his apartment; he was definitely living on the fringes, [an] alternate lifestyle,” Sonoma County Chief Deputy District Attorney Spencer Brady said. “He was somewhat savvy with weapons, and he was—I would say it’s fair to say—a bit antisocial.”
A Confession Emerges 13 Years Later
Soon after the double homicide, Gallon asked his father to get rid of his guns and burned the sandals he had worn during the killings, according to California's Press Democrat newspaper.
Over the next 13 years, Gallon was arrested for various crimes but denied involvement in the deaths of Allen and Cutshall, even after failing a polygraph test on questions related to the scene.
In 2015, Gallon was arrested on charges of murdering his 36-year-old brother, Shamus, at their family home. During that investigation, authorities reportedly obtained a search warrant for Gallon's Facebook account and, in 2017, discovered a message from Gallon’s former girlfriend.
“Maybe I should just go turn you in for that 50 grand reward,” she wrote. “Why don’t you go shoot some more people and try to get away with it?”
At the time, the murders of Allen and Cutshall were the only crime in the United States with a $50,000 reward. Before police could interview his former girlfriend, Gallon issued a jailhouse confession and told investigators where to find shell casings, hidden on his dad’s property, that he collected on the beach after shooting the couple.
A Guilty Verdict—and Lost Lives Remembered
Police learned that Gallon was hunting at Fish Head Beach and went to retrieve his gun after he saw Jason and Lindsay sleeping, despite a sign prohibiting people from camping there. That's when Gallon “snapped,” he told investigators in 2017.
“I was like ‘Oh my god, I’m just going to start killing people,’” Gallon said in the interview with police.
To avoid the death penalty, Gallon pleaded no contest to all charges in June 2019 and was sentenced to three consecutive life prison terms without parole—for the murders of Jason and Lindsay, the killing of his brother and the attempted killing of a California man in June 2004.
As Gallon serves his sentence, Allen and Cutshall are remembered as a peaceful and free-spirited duo.
“Knowing how happy they were is comforting. Very comforting,” family friend Donna Croy said on Final Moments. “And knowing that they fell asleep that night on the beach and they woke up in heaven.”
