00:00:06
he was obsessed with an exotic dancer he
00:00:09
indicated that he spent approximately a
00:00:10
hundred thousand dollars over the course
00:00:12
of several months it must have been
00:00:13
pretty bad that he had to buy love but
00:00:16
the money couldn't last forever thus he
00:00:18
hatched a plot and he didn't care what
00:00:21
price he paid to get it
00:00:23
when i said did you plan to kill him oh
00:00:25
yeah oh yeah i planned to kill him but i
00:00:27
wasn't going to let them know that he
00:00:29
just wanted to see what it felt like
00:00:32
to kill someone
00:00:34
[Music]
00:00:41
residential real estate in medford
00:00:43
oregon is an extremely competitive
00:00:46
business
00:00:47
so when roxanne ellis got a last-minute
00:00:49
appointment to show a vacant apartment
00:00:51
she was happy to oblige
00:00:53
i did not know who
00:00:56
she was showing the property to
00:00:58
she just wrote 11 o'clock and then the
00:01:00
address usually our routine would be to
00:01:02
write down you know who it's with the
00:01:04
phone number and the address but that
00:01:06
day it just it didn't get done
00:01:09
a few hours later
00:01:11
roxanne called her business partner
00:01:13
michelle abdel and asked her to come
00:01:15
pick her up she said her car battery was
00:01:18
dead
00:01:19
in response to to the call and
00:01:22
not knowing exactly what was said but
00:01:24
i'm sure
00:01:25
you know something the fact that i need
00:01:26
you and that's all it took and
00:01:29
she was on her way
00:01:31
no one heard from either woman
00:01:34
after that call
00:01:35
i probably called 30 times on her cell
00:01:38
phone she had a cell phone and a pager
00:01:40
and i paged her probably about the same
00:01:42
amount of times
00:01:44
friends and family called police to
00:01:46
report the two women missing
00:01:48
police found michelle abdel's car in the
00:01:50
parking lot of the apartment complex
00:01:52
where she went to pick up roxanne
00:01:55
i knew something awful had happened
00:01:57
she always locked her car and to have it
00:02:00
open and a nice leather coat laying
00:02:02
there on the seat you know camcorder in
00:02:04
the car
00:02:05
repurse
00:02:06
i knew something something was
00:02:08
definitely wrong
00:02:10
the whole thing just stunk it stunk big
00:02:12
time and we actually put detectives on
00:02:14
this case that night
00:02:16
roxanne ellis's vehicle a silver toyota
00:02:19
pickup truck was nowhere to be found
00:02:23
inside the rental property police found
00:02:25
no signs of a struggle and no evidence
00:02:27
of violence
00:02:29
there was no biological evidence there
00:02:31
was no blood there wasn't anything to
00:02:33
the visible eye that we really had to go
00:02:35
on
00:02:36
several days passed without any word
00:02:38
from either woman
00:02:40
their church held a vigil to keep
00:02:42
attention focused on the case
00:02:44
it all
00:02:45
started to be almost surreal they were
00:02:48
gone very unlike them so it was panic i
00:02:51
guess you know it started to feel a
00:02:52
little bit panicky
00:02:55
to know
00:02:56
where they were
00:02:58
they're out there somewhere
00:03:00
if they're out there
00:03:01
and they're safe
00:03:03
somebody to call
00:03:05
and let us know you know we don't know
00:03:07
where they are
00:03:09
the two women were not just business
00:03:11
partners
00:03:12
roxanne ellis and michelle abdel also
00:03:15
had a personal relationship which led
00:03:17
police to consider
00:03:19
another possibility
00:03:20
they were domestic partners they were
00:03:24
outspoken about
00:03:26
gay issues they were active in that area
00:03:29
trying to make changes
00:03:30
that would positively impact
00:03:33
gay rights issues
00:03:35
was it possible that their disappearance
00:03:38
had something to do with their lifestyle
00:03:40
or political views
00:03:43
three days after they went missing a
00:03:46
cable tv repairman found roxanne ellis's
00:03:49
truck in a parking lot about three miles
00:03:51
from the rental property
00:03:54
when i went on my first service call at
00:03:56
mariposa
00:03:57
on state street i just happened to see
00:03:58
the vehicle we realized that there was
00:04:01
blood dripping out of the bottom of the
00:04:03
undercarriage of the vehicle we could
00:04:05
see a head of one of the victims up near
00:04:07
the front cab area of the pickup bed
00:04:10
the bodies of both women were found
00:04:13
inside covered with some cardboard boxes
00:04:17
it was an extremely brutal way to die
00:04:19
they both
00:04:20
had two gunshot wounds to the head
00:04:23
they both were bound and gagged and
00:04:24
hog-tied their eyes were covered their
00:04:27
mouths were covered their hands were
00:04:30
duct taped behind their backs and their
00:04:31
ankles were duct taped
00:04:33
but who would not only kill these two
00:04:36
women but execute them
00:04:38
and what message was the killer sending
00:04:44
[Music]
00:04:48
no one knew why roxanne ellis and
00:04:50
michelle abdill were murdered the motive
00:04:53
didn't appear to be robbery
00:04:56
blood patterns indicated the women had
00:04:58
been shot inside the truck
00:05:01
four shell casings from a 25 caliber
00:05:04
pistol were found near the bodies there
00:05:07
were no foreign fingerprints in the
00:05:09
truck but
00:05:10
there were several overlapping shoe
00:05:13
prints
00:05:14
from a man's shoe
00:05:17
this was on a kind of a chrome-plated
00:05:19
bumper area that had kind of a a dirty
00:05:22
grime kind of oxidized layer on it and
00:05:25
when the individual stepped on the
00:05:27
bumper he left a negative impression
00:05:30
the autopsies revealed
00:05:32
the women were killed the day they went
00:05:34
missing
00:05:35
and there were no signs of sexual
00:05:37
assault
00:05:39
the medical examiner found bluish green
00:05:42
polyester fibers in and around the fatal
00:05:45
wounds
00:05:47
either the gun was fired through an item
00:05:49
like a blanket or some intermediate
00:05:51
object
00:05:52
or an intermediate target and then fired
00:05:55
into the victim's heads
00:05:56
and there was a gash
00:05:58
in roxanne's calf near the tape bindings
00:06:03
which suggested the killer bound the
00:06:05
women inside the apartment
00:06:07
led them down to the garage then
00:06:10
cut the binding so they could get into
00:06:13
the truck
00:06:14
this really was something really out of
00:06:16
the ordinary this really was something
00:06:17
that
00:06:18
that we didn't know the whole story yet
00:06:20
but now we're thinking
00:06:22
you know we're thinking this was
00:06:23
kidnapped this was almost torture-like
00:06:26
this was something really out there
00:06:28
on the day of the murders roxanne ellis
00:06:31
had an 11 a.m appointment to show a
00:06:33
rental property to a man whose name was
00:06:36
not listed in her appointment book
00:06:39
residents of the building saw a man
00:06:41
going in and out of the vacant apartment
00:06:44
and were able to provide a general
00:06:47
description detailed enough for police
00:06:49
to create a composite sketch
00:06:53
incredibly
00:06:55
the sketch resembled the man who found
00:06:57
roxanne's truck
00:06:59
when we started interviewing the cable
00:07:01
man and we had seen the composite sketch
00:07:04
all of us started talking you know this
00:07:06
guy looks a lot like the composite
00:07:09
investigators suspected that the killer
00:07:11
might have left fingerprints on the duct
00:07:14
tape he used to bind the murder victims
00:07:17
it's difficult to handle tape without
00:07:19
touching the sticky side
00:07:24
so analysts treated the tape with
00:07:25
genetician violet
00:07:27
a chemical dye
00:07:29
when the tape is immersed in the
00:07:31
genetician violet the
00:07:33
dead skin cells that are pulled from the
00:07:36
fingers or palms of and
00:07:38
will then
00:07:39
react with the genetician violet and
00:07:42
you'll get a nice dark image of the
00:07:44
layton prince
00:07:46
just as they suspected
00:07:48
the killer left behind
00:07:50
two clear prints
00:07:52
when he was
00:07:54
binding the ladies
00:07:56
he was touching the sticky side of the
00:07:58
tape
00:07:59
the prince did not match the cable
00:08:01
repairman and he was eliminated as a
00:08:03
suspect
00:08:05
next
00:08:06
investigators tried to identify
00:08:08
roxanne's 11am appointment
00:08:11
they checked the caller log on her
00:08:13
office phone
00:08:14
and traced the call
00:08:16
to the tiki lodge
00:08:18
a low rent motel in downtown medford
00:08:21
oregon
00:08:22
i entertained the thought that maybe one
00:08:24
of the tenants could be in town looking
00:08:26
for an apartment to rent or something
00:08:27
like that
00:08:29
but finding that tenant
00:08:31
would be a problem
00:08:33
they couldn't track
00:08:34
the room calls at this time because they
00:08:37
were having problems with their phone
00:08:38
equipment so i've got a phone call from
00:08:40
the tiki lodge i can't identify what
00:08:42
room it came from
00:08:44
the motel had 30 rooms
00:08:46
almost all were occupied on the day of
00:08:48
the murders
00:08:50
detectives began the painstaking task of
00:08:53
trying to identify all of the tenants
00:08:57
for the most part it was people just
00:08:59
passing through the the registration
00:09:02
cards didn't have data bursts so
00:09:04
you know you're looking at very common
00:09:06
names and most of the hotel guests paid
00:09:10
in cash another dead end
00:09:13
so investigators had to return to the
00:09:15
scene of the crime in the hopes they
00:09:17
might have missed something
00:09:21
[Music]
00:09:23
based on the evidence
00:09:24
police suspected that their killer
00:09:27
called real estate agent roxanne alice
00:09:29
from the tiki lodge motel
00:09:33
and asked her to show him the vacant
00:09:35
unit at the sheraton court apartments
00:09:39
this meant the killer was familiar with
00:09:42
the building and knew the apartment was
00:09:44
vacant
00:09:47
he didn't give his name
00:09:48
and roxanne either knew him or didn't
00:09:51
ask for it
00:09:54
around 11 a.m
00:09:56
roxanne showed the apartment to the
00:09:58
killer
00:09:59
what happened during that time was
00:10:02
unclear
00:10:09
but roxanne was still alive at 5 p.m
00:10:13
when she called her domestic partner
00:10:15
michelle abdel probably at gunpoint with
00:10:18
the false story that her car battery was
00:10:20
dead and that she needed a ride home
00:10:39
both women were probably in the
00:10:41
apartment where they were bound with
00:10:43
duct tape
00:10:44
the killer left his prince on the sticky
00:10:47
side of the tape
00:10:50
the garage was attached to the living
00:10:52
area so the killer could have put them
00:10:54
into the truck without being seen
00:10:56
there was a gash on the calf of roxanne
00:10:59
ellis's leg suggesting the killer cut
00:11:01
her binding so she could get into the
00:11:04
truck
00:11:05
he most likely killed them in the garage
00:11:08
with a 25 caliber weapon using something
00:11:11
with bluish green fibers as a silencer
00:11:25
he also left his shoe impressions on the
00:11:27
bumper
00:11:29
he left roxanne's truck in a parking lot
00:11:31
about three miles away
00:11:33
and it wasn't found until three days
00:11:35
later
00:11:37
all police had with the killer's
00:11:39
fingerprints his shoe impression and the
00:11:41
composite sketch
00:11:44
several days passed with no leads
00:11:47
then a woman called police to say the
00:11:50
composite sketch looked remarkably
00:11:53
similar to
00:11:54
her son
00:11:56
it makes me ill
00:11:58
and i can't believe my son would do
00:12:01
anything like this she makes the call we
00:12:03
get that information she's got an
00:12:05
address that is very close
00:12:07
to where the truck was recovered so
00:12:10
we're convinced that she's not
00:12:12
she's not leading us down the wrong road
00:12:15
the woman's 29 year old son
00:12:17
robert acromont had just moved to oregon
00:12:21
she said her son was familiar with the
00:12:23
vacant department where the murders took
00:12:25
place
00:12:26
she had been to that sheraton court
00:12:29
address previously with her son and that
00:12:32
was shown to them by roxanne ellis
00:12:35
and there was another possible
00:12:37
connection to the murders
00:12:40
robert achraman's brother was the
00:12:42
manager of the tiki lodge motel
00:12:45
the call made to roxanne ellis before
00:12:47
her murder originated from the tiki
00:12:50
lodge
00:12:52
however
00:12:53
robert achramont had no motive to kill
00:12:55
roxanne ellis or her partner michelle
00:12:59
and he had no criminal record
00:13:01
he'd never been charged with any
00:13:03
criminal activity in fact he ended up
00:13:06
going into the air force he served
00:13:08
honorably in the air force he went on to
00:13:10
get a master's degree
00:13:12
and he had a good job really working for
00:13:15
roadway trucking in california
00:13:19
a credit card check revealed that
00:13:21
acromont had been spending a lot of time
00:13:24
and money
00:13:25
at a strip club in las vegas
00:13:28
he had some money he headed to vegas and
00:13:30
fell for the stripper who he envisioned
00:13:33
as his girlfriend he had run himself
00:13:35
into debt obviously had an addiction to
00:13:38
her into that lifestyle
00:13:41
the stripper's stage name
00:13:43
was ecstasy
00:13:45
she said that he was spending up to 3
00:13:47
000 bucks on a weekend he ended up
00:13:50
running through
00:13:51
i think it was about 80 000 worth of
00:13:54
credit card debt he had a retirement
00:13:56
fund that he managed to max out so he
00:13:59
spent a ton of money on that woman the
00:14:02
stripper said acromont was obsessed with
00:14:04
her and insisted on calling her his
00:14:08
girlfriend
00:14:10
his family reportedly encouraged him to
00:14:12
break off this relationship because they
00:14:14
felt that that he was being used
00:14:17
eventually
00:14:18
the money ran out
00:14:20
well then she dumps them you can't pay
00:14:22
for what you're asking me to do and
00:14:25
therefore we're done
00:14:26
but robbery didn't appear to be the
00:14:28
motive in roxanne ellis and michelle
00:14:31
abdill's murders
00:14:33
robert acrimon's mother said
00:14:36
he left oregon after the murders and was
00:14:38
headed to california but she didn't know
00:14:41
where
00:14:42
fortunately police knew exactly how to
00:14:46
find out
00:14:50
the prime suspect in the murders of real
00:14:52
estate agents roxanne ellis and michelle
00:14:55
abdill was 29 year old robert pakrimont
00:14:59
whose own mother called police to say
00:15:02
he resembled the composite drawing of
00:15:05
the killer
00:15:06
i'm so sorry
00:15:08
that's all i can say
00:15:10
i'm so sorry she probably had made the
00:15:13
hardest phone call a person can make in
00:15:15
their life because she suspected that he
00:15:17
was involved in these horrible crimes
00:15:19
and i believe it really took some moral
00:15:21
fiber for her
00:15:23
in order to step up and make that phone
00:15:25
call lieutenant tim doney left oregon
00:15:28
and followed bob achramont through his
00:15:30
credit card activity to stockton
00:15:33
california
00:15:34
we felt he was desperate we felt that
00:15:36
his behavior was escalating
00:15:39
and we thought he was a danger to the
00:15:40
public
00:15:41
a swat team
00:15:43
apprehended accremont in a motel room in
00:15:45
stockton without incident
00:15:48
in the motel room he had a canvas bag
00:15:51
with books about murder a taser
00:15:54
handcuffs a roll of duct tape and a 25
00:15:58
caliber handgun with the homemade
00:16:00
silencer with bluish green fibers
00:16:04
like those found on roxanne and michelle
00:16:08
there was blood on the interior portion
00:16:10
of it right at the muzzle end of where
00:16:12
the bullet would come out
00:16:13
heavily kicked blood
00:16:15
dna analysis showed this was a
00:16:18
combination of blood from both roxanne
00:16:20
ellis and michelle abdel
00:16:24
eckremont's fingerprints
00:16:26
matched the fingerprints on the duct
00:16:28
tape used to bind the victims
00:16:31
his shoes were compared to the
00:16:34
impressions found on the bumper of
00:16:36
roxanne's truck
00:16:37
and were consistent
00:16:39
we had the eyewitness evidence placing
00:16:42
him at the scene
00:16:43
we clearly felt that we had plenty of
00:16:46
evidence to try this case a very solid
00:16:49
case as soon as i got caught i knew
00:16:52
with all the evidence they got
00:16:54
any we're fighting this one
00:16:56
[Music]
00:16:57
it's over
00:16:59
game done
00:17:00
acromont not only confessed to the
00:17:03
murders but he confirmed that the motive
00:17:06
was robbery
00:17:08
he said he spent all of his money on the
00:17:10
las vegas stripper and needed more
00:17:13
and
00:17:14
thus he hatched a plot to obtain more
00:17:17
money
00:17:18
so he could have that contact again
00:17:20
this was so ridiculous
00:17:23
that i mean it must have been pretty bad
00:17:26
that he had to buy love
00:17:28
you know it's too bad for him that he
00:17:29
didn't ever experience a love that my
00:17:31
mom had
00:17:33
you know
00:17:35
he said he met roxanne ellis a few days
00:17:38
before the murders when roxanne showed
00:17:40
his mother the sheridan court apartment
00:17:46
acromon said he planned to force roxanne
00:17:49
to write him a business check for fifty
00:17:52
thousand dollars
00:17:54
he had roxanne lure her partner michelle
00:17:57
abdul over to the apartment too
00:18:00
because a business check that size
00:18:03
requires both of their signatures
00:18:06
[Music]
00:18:12
eventually acromont realized that he
00:18:15
wouldn't get away with it and didn't go
00:18:18
to the bank
00:18:19
he didn't really have a very good plan
00:18:20
you walk in with a check for fifty
00:18:22
thousand dollars yeah i think the bank
00:18:24
teller is going to be a little the few
00:18:26
flags are going to go up robert's trying
00:18:28
to
00:18:29
rectify and fix the situation that's
00:18:31
just getting worse and worse and worse
00:18:41
[Music]
00:18:47
hates a lot of things he hates a lot of
00:18:48
people he i think he hates himself and i
00:18:51
think that's about as close to the devil
00:18:53
as you're going to get as bob ackerman
00:18:56
while talking to police
00:18:58
ecremont also admitted killing a friend
00:19:00
of his
00:19:01
scott george
00:19:03
seven weeks earlier
00:19:05
what he said about that was that he just
00:19:08
wanted to see what it felt like to kill
00:19:11
someone i'm not a psychotic in any means
00:19:13
maybe a sociopath i would admit that 100
00:19:17
during our interviews he he would joke
00:19:19
he would laugh in reference to his
00:19:21
victims
00:19:23
and really showed no sense of feeling
00:19:25
sorry or remorseful for what he had done
00:19:27
i think probably the only thing he was
00:19:29
sorry for is the fact he got caught
00:19:31
he also confessed during a telephone
00:19:33
interview with reporter libby dowsett
00:19:37
it was an experience i'll never forget
00:19:39
that's for sure he came off like he was
00:19:41
talking about a football game because i
00:19:43
told him
00:19:44
i never told him about the intent to
00:19:46
kill him i see the perfect murder has no
00:19:48
bodies no evidence
00:19:50
that i got all fouled up because
00:19:51
michelle told a co-worker where she was
00:19:53
going so that's why i left the bodies
00:19:55
otherwise they'd be down that mine shaft
00:19:57
with that other guy down here
00:20:00
you know just
00:20:01
laughing and joking and
00:20:04
talking about you know when i said did
00:20:06
you plan to kill him oh yeah oh yeah i
00:20:09
planned to kill him but i wasn't going
00:20:10
to let them know that i just told him i
00:20:12
was after the money and i was going to
00:20:13
leave him both tied up and
00:20:15
in a day or two and somebody would have
00:20:17
found him there at the apartment he was
00:20:19
disturbing
00:20:21
just to sit in the audio booth alone
00:20:23
talking to him was frightening
00:20:26
in october of 1997
00:20:28
robert achramat was convicted of two
00:20:31
counts of aggravated murder first degree
00:20:33
kidnapping and robbery
00:20:35
and was sentenced to death
00:20:38
you better believe
00:20:39
when he
00:20:41
gets that needle put in his arm i'm
00:20:42
going to be right there
00:20:44
the forensic evidence in this case was
00:20:46
important in
00:20:47
securing his identity and
00:20:51
and making this case and the forensic
00:20:53
evidence also helped us prove the
00:20:56
enormity
00:20:57
of the horrible crimes that he committed
00:21:01
robert ackerman still sits on death row
00:21:04
but apparently
00:21:06
drew impatient for that day to come
00:21:09
he
00:21:10
didn't settle down once he
00:21:12
got to jail
00:21:13
tried to kill himself they found a
00:21:15
weapon under his mattress
00:21:17
he had to be cut down when he had a
00:21:20
sheet around his neck
00:21:22
well one of the jurors that heard the
00:21:24
case
00:21:26
spoke to the medford paper after the
00:21:29
after the trial was done and
00:21:31
he said that he thought ackerman was the
00:21:34
personification of evil and that really
00:21:37
struck home to me in a nutshell
00:21:44
you
