Subject: Man Admits Killing Lesbians Because They Were Gay
From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 22 Aug 1996 13:33:13 -0400

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National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
PRESS RELEASE
contact:   Robert Bray       rbray @ngltf.org   415-552-6448
              Tracey Conaty    [email-masked]  202-332-6483
               pager 800/757-6476  

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MAN ADMITS KILLING LESBIANS IN OREGON BECAUSE THEY WERE HOMOSEXUAL

STATEMENT CALLS NEW ATTENTION TO 
POSSIBLE HATE CRIME CASE

Washington, D.C., Aug. 21, 1996...The man charged with the killing of Roxanne
Ellis and Michelle Abdill of Medford, Oregon, has said he killed them because
he hates homosexuals and bisexuals.  The recent development in the case has
been reported in the Associated Press and local Oregon media today.  The
statements by the alleged killer, Robert Acremant, have refocused attention
on the case and reopened wounds in the Medford community.

 Ellis and Abdill, an openly lesbian couple and local activists, were
murdered "execution style" last December in Medford.  Their bodies were found
bound and gagged in a pick-up truck.  Soon after his arrest, Acremant made a
variety of statements regarding the killings, including at first that it was
a botched robbery.  Later he said he knew the women were lesbians and that it
made it "easier" for him to kill them.  

 Although Medford law enforcement has always kept open the possibility of a
hate crime motivation for the killings, debate has ensued, especially in some
gay and lesbian media and other parts of the community, around the actual
motive for the murders.

 Following is a statement by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF),
attributable to Melinda Paras, executive director.  Soon after the bodies
were discovered, NGLTF appealed to the Department of Justice for a federal
response to the possible hate crime.

***
The recent statement by Robert Acremant indicating he killed Roxanne Ellis
and Michelle Abdill because they were lesbians refocuses the spotlight on
this
troubled case and the possible hate crime motivation behind the murders.
  Regardless of Mr. Acremant's rantings and attention-getting tactics,
Murders, page 2

numerous facts in the case have all along informed our suspicions of the
anti-gay bias motivation for the murders.

 The facts include:  Ellis and Abdill were proud and highly visible activists
in the local gay, lesbian and bisexual community.  The accused killer knew
they were lesbians.  This made it "easier," in his own words, to kill them.
 He killed them because, in his own words, they were homosexual.  He has
admitted to inventing the robbery motive for fear of reprisal.

 This story is not about Robert Acremant and his demons.  It is about Roxanne
and Michelle and their deaths.  They were intentionally and methodically
executed by a killer who admits to destroying them because they were
lesbians.  The evidence in this case and the larger social and political
climate for gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people speaks to the
constant threat of hate-motivated violence perpetrated against all of us. 

  New confessions of the murders being a hate crime and not a "botched
robbery" are not a surprise to us.  This has been a primary suspicion since
the first hour the bodies were found.  

 In fact, the recent developments in this case point to concerns around
another case now being investigated by the Department of Justice.  NGLTF has
asked the DOJ to consider anti-lesbian bias as a possible motivation in the
slayings of Julianne Williams and Lollie Winans.  The two women were found
murdered in Virginia's Shenandoah National Park on June 1, 1996.  Although
the Medford case and the Virginia case are not connected, activists fear
homophobia as a motivation for both tragedies.

 Last December we asked Janet Reno, U.S. Attorney General, to monitor the
situation in Oregon and lend assistance to local law enforcement in assuring
the collection of all information necessary to determine whether or not this
was a hate crime.  To reinforce our sense of urgency in this case, and to
call attention to the constant threat of violence gay people must live under,
we have again notified the DOJ of these recent developments as a follow-up to
our previous request for a federal response.

 We still may not have all the facts in the deaths of Roxanne and Michelle,
and we may never have all the facts.  We can not bring back Michelle and
Roxanne, but we can keep the legacy of their work alive.  We call on people
of conscious, community leaders and the media to affirm a community in which
acts of intolerance, big or small, will be condemned.

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Note:  For additional information  and local contacts, call Marcy Westerling
of the Oregon Rural Organizing Project, (503)397-5453.