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Oregon Road Conditions & Cams Email Story to a Friend March 18, 2005 Death sentence upheld for lesbian couple’s killer By CHARLES E. BEGGS Associated Press Writer SALEM, — The Oregon Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the murder convictions and death sentence of Robert Acremant, who admitted killing a lesbian couple in 1995 for money prosecutors say he wanted to use to rekindle a relationship with a Las Vegas stripper. Acremant pleaded guilty to aggravated murder, kidnapping and robbery in the Dec. 4, 1995, slayings of Roxanne Ellis, 53, and Michelle Abdill, 42, after they refused to give him money from their property management business. Prosecutors said Acremant killed the women in a desperate attempt to rob them of money he wanted to spend on a stripper whom he called his girlfriend. Acremant made conflicting statements about why he killed the women. He told police at one point that, while he did not like lesbians, he killed the women for money. Advertisement The murders alarmed the gay community because Ellis and Abdill had worked on the campaign that defeated a statewide measure to limit the rights of homosexuals. Acremant lured the women to a Medford duplex apartment, where he tied and gagged them with duct tape. He shot them twice in the head after forcing them to lie in the back of a pickup truck, which was discovered with the bodies in a Medford parking lot three days later. Acremant also was convicted of murder in California for the 1995 slaying of Scott George of Visalia, the son of a friend of Acremant’s mother. The Oregon Supreme Court rejected various claims by Acremant in the appeal, including that he should be granted a new sentencing trial because a court reporter accidentally erased 90 minutes of the tape of his trial. He claimed that made an insufficient record for the appeal. The Supreme Court said the erased part of the tape accounted for only a very short part of the trial and that the lower court was able to reconstruct much of the missing record from affidavits and other materials. Acremant "fails to make a persuasive argument that the missing transcript will prevent review by this court of any error or miscarriage of justice," the Supreme Court said. Death sentences by law are automatically reviewed by the Supreme Court. Acremant left his $50,000-a-year job with a trucking company to start his own software business, which failed, according to evidence in the case. Prosecutors said his downfall began with his interest in the stripper. Managers at the Rodeway Express trucking company testified they were impressed with Acremant, who became a district operations manager working on efficiency improvements. Alla Kosova, the Las Vegas stripper whom Acremant said was his girlfriend, testified that their relationship was based only on money. She said he spent about $3,000 a weekend on her at the strip joint, gave her diamond earrings and took her out to an occasional movie or dinner but that they never had sex. Acremant wrote a letter to his hometown newspaper, The Record of Stockton, Calif., several weeks before he pleaded guilty to the murders, saying that he killed the women out of hate for homosexuals. He said he invented the robbery motive because he was nervous about how other jail inmates would react "in that, they were hate crimes against bi- and homosexuals. "Now I just don’t care what people think, including the jury," the letter said. "They can kill me for all I care. I’ve never liked life anyway." A prosecutor said he believed Acremant was "grandstanding" and "publicity hungry." Mail Tribune Home | Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life | Opinion AP News | Archives | Site Map | Community | Classified Copyright © 1997-2005 Mail Tribune, Inc. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions | Website Feedback Free Music Downloads Conference Calls - $50/Month Home Security Systems Trunks, Footlocker, Trunk, Footlockers dvd-r helzberg diamonds Distance Education Diamonds Online Poker Computer Security Home Equity Loans Slippers Student Loans tcg student loan consolidation Canadian Pharmacy Website Design & Marketing Memory Foam Mattress w2 forms Mortgage Calculator Free Home-Loan Referrals Online Casino News Air Purifiers Advertisement s