Robert Acremant: Murders, Death Sentences, and Final Years

Robert Acremant was an American man who murdered three people in late 1995 — a California acquaintance named Scott George and a lesbian couple, Roxanne Ellis and Michelle Abdill, in Medford, Oregon. He was sentenced to death in both states and died of natural causes at the Oregon State Penitentiary on October 26, 2018, at age 50.¹

Who He Was Before the Killings

Acremant had no criminal record before the murders. He held a master’s degree and worked as an efficiency expert for a California trucking company.² He had also become infatuated with a Las Vegas stripper named Alla Kosova, who performed as “Ecstasy” at the Palomino Club. Acremant spent between $500 and $1,500 per evening on her company.³ Prosecutors later argued that this obsession drove him to attempt the robberies that ended in murder. He was 27 at the time of his arrest.

The Murder of Scott George

On October 3, 1995, Acremant killed Scott George, a 23-year-old friend, in Visalia, California. Prosecutors said Acremant shot George on impulse after a night of drinking as the two drove around Visalia, then shot him four more times after realizing the killing had wrecked his plan to rob George’s father.⁴ His account shifted. He told his father he killed George “in a fit of rage after a night of drinking,”⁵ and told investigators at another point that he did it “just to see what it felt like to kill.”⁶ Afterward, Acremant moved to Medford, Oregon, with his mother.

The Murders of Roxanne Ellis and Michelle Abdill

Roxanne Ellis, 53, and Michelle Abdill, 42, had moved to Medford from Colorado in 1990 and built a successful property management business. They served on the board of their church, lectured at local schools, appeared on television advocating for gay rights, and cared daily for friends dying of AIDS.⁷ They were also prominent opponents of the Oregon Citizens Alliance, which had sponsored anti-gay ballot measures earlier in the decade.⁸

On the morning of December 4, 1995, Acremant used a phone at the Tiki Lodge, his brother’s workplace, to set up an 11:00 a.m. appointment with Ellis to view a duplex apartment on Sheraton Court in northeast Medford. He had toured the same unit with her two weeks earlier.⁹ His plan was robbery; he believed Ellis’s work in property management gave her access to large sums of cash.

When Ellis arrived, Acremant handcuffed her and spent the day trying to extract money. He had brought duct tape, a .25-caliber pistol, and a homemade silencer. When he realized Ellis could not make immediate withdrawals from her credit cards or the company’s bank accounts, he forced her to call Abdill to the apartment. He then bound and gagged both women with duct tape, forced them into the back of a pickup truck, and executed each by shooting her twice in the head.⁶ Their bodies were discovered three days later in a nearby parking lot. The morning after the killings, Acremant had returned to the lot to cover the bodies with additional cardboard boxes.⁹

Motive and the Hate-Crime Question

Acremant gave shifting explanations. He initially cited hatred of lesbians, telling investigators that knowing the women were lesbians “made it easier” to kill them because he reasoned they would have no family to miss them.¹⁰ He later called the murders a “botched robbery” motivated by his need for money to spend on Alla Kosova.⁶ Prosecutors built their case on the robbery theory, arguing Acremant had targeted Ellis’s business specifically for the money and that his obsession with the stripper was the underlying driver.¹¹

Early in the investigation, Medford Police Chief Ray Shipley declined to publicly discuss motive, and investigators said nothing in the first evidence indicated Acremant knew the women were lesbians before the crime.¹² Later court records, however, showed Acremant had asked about the couple’s relationship during earlier apartment viewings and was aware of their orientation.⁸ Regardless of the primary motive, the case sent fear through Oregon’s LGBTQ community, and activists publicly linked the killings to the climate of anti-gay rhetoric that had dominated state politics in the early 1990s.¹³

Arrest and Evidence

Acremant was identified after his own mother alerted police upon seeing a composite sketch, drawn by Medford police artist Chuck Steinberg, circulated in the media.⁶ Police tracked him to a motel near Stockton, California, where he was arrested early on December 14, 1995, and surrendered without incident.¹²

In custody, he confessed to the murders of Ellis and Abdill and to the earlier killing of Scott George. Investigators recovered the .25-caliber pistol and homemade silencer from his motel room, and forensic analysis confirmed it as the murder weapon. DNA from both Ellis and Abdill was found on the silencer. Acremant’s fingerprints appeared on the duct tape wrapped around the victims’ bodies, a footprint on the truck bumper matched his shoes, and address labels from his moving boxes were found with the bodies.⁹ He reportedly told police he had planned to kill additional people.¹⁰

Two Death Sentences

Acremant was tried first in Jackson County Circuit Court, Oregon, in 1997, on four counts of aggravated murder, two counts of first-degree kidnapping, and one count of first-degree robbery. He pleaded guilty, and the case moved straight to a penalty phase before a 12-person jury. Prosecutor John Bondurant called him “evil and greedy” and introduced evidence of a “death kit” of guns, disguises, and instructional books. Defense attorney Mark Rader urged life without parole. On October 27, 1997, the jury unanimously sentenced Acremant to death after about four hours of deliberation. Former District Attorney Mark Huddleston said he was the first and only person from Jackson County ever sentenced to death.⁶¹¹

He was then extradited to Tulare County, California, for the murder of Scott George. A jury convicted him of first-degree murder, burglary, and attempted robbery. Alla Wartenberg (formerly Kosova) testified against him, describing an encounter in which he had pulled a gun on her, and his father, Ken Acremant, also testified against him.² On October 30, 2002, a Tulare County judge sentenced him to death a second time, along with 16 years for first-degree burglary with the use of a firearm.⁴ He returned to Oregon custody to serve both sentences while his appeals proceeded.¹

Why He Was Never Executed

The Oregon Supreme Court affirmed Acremant’s death sentences on direct appeal in 2005, rejecting arguments that included an ex post facto challenge to jury instructions and a claim that his confession should have been suppressed because detectives kept questioning him after he asked for a lawyer. The court acknowledged “irregularities” by detectives but found Acremant had voluntarily reinitiated contact and knowingly waived his right to counsel.⁹

In 2011, his Oregon death sentence was reduced to life in prison without parole. Prison psychiatrists had diagnosed him as mentally ill beginning in 2003, reporting that he experienced auditory hallucinations and delusions involving a “transmitter in his head that allows others to control him.” He was deemed unable to aid in his own appeals, implicating the constitutional bar on executing mentally incompetent prisoners set in Ford v. Wainwright (1986).¹⁴ His California death sentence stayed in effect.¹⁵

Acremant died in his cell at the Oregon State Penitentiary on October 26, 2018. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation confirmed the cause as natural while he was in the custody of the Oregon Department of Corrections.¹ Oregon State Police investigated as standard procedure for in-custody deaths.¹⁵

What Ellis and Abdill Left Behind

On August 9, 1996, the Abdill-Ellis Lambda Community Center opened in Ashland, Oregon, as an LGBT advocacy and education center named for the couple. It offers support groups, HIV education, and a hotline, and has continued as a local resource.¹⁶ In 2013, Ellis and Abdill were recognized as “Queer Heroes NW” by the Gay and Lesbian Archives of the Pacific Northwest.⁸

1
California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Condemned Inmate Robert Acremant Dies of Natural Causes
2
Fresno Bee. Death Row Inmate Dies
3
Alamy. Alla Wartenberg and Robert Acremant
4
Visalia Times-Delta. Death Penalty Expected Affirmed
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The Spokesman-Review. Murder Suspect May Also Have Killed Aunt
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KTVL. Abdill-Ellis Murderer Acremant Dies on Death Row
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Los Angeles Times. Murdered for Being Lesbians
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GLAPN. Roxanne Ellis and Michelle Abdill
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FindLaw. State v. Acremant
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Feminist Majority Foundation. Lesbians’ Killer Gets Death Penalty
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The Spokesman-Review. Lesbian Couple’s Murderer Gets Death Penalty
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New York Times. Suspect Held in Killing of 2 Oregon Lesbians
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SF Gate. Murdered for Being Lesbians
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Death Penalty Information Center. Death Sentences Vacated for Two With Severe Mental Illness
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Statesman Journal. Death Row Inmate Dies at Oregon State Penitentiary
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EBSCO Research Starters. Lesbian Couple Murdered in Oregon