Suspect In Murders Of Lesbian Couple Says It Was Hate Crime ‘I Think He’s Grandstanding,’ Prosecutor Says Of Letter

The man accused of killing a lesbian couple has written a letter claiming for the first time that it was a hate crime.

But a Jackson County prosecutor, John Bondurant, said he would not seek any new hate crime charges against Robert James Acremant on the basis of the letter.

“I think he is grandstanding, publicity hungry, and I frankly don’t know how much of what he says in here I believe,” Bondurant said. “I’m very skeptical.”

However, the letter could provide evidence for an aggravated murder trial scheduled to begin Feb. 4, he said.

Previously, Acremant said he shot and killed the women during a robbery that went awry. The fact they were homosexuals made it easier, he said.

“Originally, I was nervous about inmate reactions to my reason for killing, in that, they were hate crimes against bi- and homosexuals; so, I invented the money motive,” Acremant wrote in a letter to his hometown newspaper, The Record of Stockton, Calif.

“Now, I just don’t care what people think, including the jury. They can kill me for all I care. I’ve never liked life anyway.”

Following the slayings last December of Roxanne Ellis and Michelle Abdill, gay community leaders had expressed fears the couple was killed because they were outspoken champions of homosexual rights.

In the Aug. 8 letter, Acremant also wrote he killed a Visalia, Calif., man, Scott George, last October in a drunken rage after the man made a homosexual pass.

Acremant wrote that he decided to kill Ellis, 53, and Abdill, 42, after he deduced Ellis was a lesbian while she showed him an apartment in Medford. The women were partners in a property management business.

The women’s bodies were found bound and gagged in the back of a pickup truck. They had been shot in the head.

In a copy of the letter obtained by The Associated Press, Acremant, 27, claimed his father, Stockton bartender and cattle rancher Kenneth Acremant, sexually abused him as a child. The allegation was not carried in The Record but was included in accounts in The Oregonian.

Acremant’s father told The Associated Press on Wednesday that the letter was a lie intended to hurt him. It was written after the two had a falling out in a telephone conversation, Kenneth Acremant said.

In a telephone interview, Kenneth Acremant said he felt his son made up the statements in the three-page letter because he was angry that his father had not passed on some of his personal belongings to his younger brother. Kenneth Acremant wouldn’t identify what those things were.

Kenneth Acremant said Robert wrote him the same day as the letter to the newspaper.

“You had better hope I die in here,” Kenneth Acremant read from his son’s letter. “Because if I get out, not only will I kill you, I will kill Diane (that’s my wife) first to make you suffer.

“And I will find subtle ways like burning your home, business, ranch, etc., executing your dog and cat, or just taking your possessions.

“I know of many ways to make life miserable, and will give you first priority. If I don’t because I die in here, at least you’ll remember your favorite son’s last thoughts and feelings toward you. I hate you from the bottom of my heart and always have. Bob.”

Brenda Brown, board member of the Abdill-Ellis Lambda Community Association Center in Ashland, said she was skeptical about Acremant’s latest statements.

“It’s a strong possibility that his story is based on trying to develop a defense for himself,” she said.