Forensic Files - Season 12, Episode 25 - Printed Proof - Full Episode | Forensic Files

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

When two women went missing and were later found brutally murdered, police wondered if they were victims of a hate crime.

Forensic Files is the longest-running true crime series in television history. Evidence and interviews with experts help solve real crimes, disease outbreaks and accidents around the world.

Brief Summary

Roxanne Ellis and Michelle Abdel were murdered in Oregon; Robert Acromont confessed, motivated by financial desperation and obsession with a stripper.

Key points

Obsession with Love. A man spends a fortune on an exotic dancer, leading to dark consequences.
The Confession. The killer admits to the murders, revealing his twisted motives and mindset.
The Disappearance. Two women go missing under mysterious circumstances, sparking panic and investigation.
Brutal Discovery. The bodies of the missing women are found in a shocking and violent scene.
Conviction and Consequences. The killer is sentenced to death, leaving a chilling legacy behind.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

It must have been pretty bad that he had to buy love.

Reflection on the killer's obsession with a dancer.

0:13WatchJan 28, 2022

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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