Roxanne Ellis and Michelle Abdill, lesbian activists and property managers, were brutally murdered in what most consider a hate crime. GLBT rights organizations subsequently demanded a U.S. Justice Department inquiry into the link between hate crimes and antigay ballot initiatives, which had been proliferating in the state of Oregon, where the murders occurred. Furthermore, there was a national push to have sexual orientation covered by federal hate-crime legislation.
Roxanne Ellis and Michelle Abdill, along with Ellis’s daughter and granddaughter, had left Colorado Springs, Colorado, in 1990 to relocate to Medford, Oregon.
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The mother of Robert Acremant, the convicted killer of Ellis and Abdill, had contacted police after hearing about the case, saying she believed her son was involved in the murders. Police tracked Acremant and found him in Stockton, California, and arrested him there on December 13, 1995. Acremant had worked as a trucking company efficiency expert and in computer software development, and had served in the U.S. Air Force for four years.
Acremant told police first that he had intended to rob Ellis and Abdill and win back his estranged former girlfriend with the money. Acremant claimed that when the women refused to write him a $50,000 check, he tied them up, put them in the truck, and shot them. In this first account, Acremant said that since he knew the two women were lesbians, it was easier to kill them.
While awaiting trial, Acremant sent a letter to the Stockton Record, his hometown newspaper, claiming he killed Ellis and Abdill because he hated homosexuals. He admitted to making up the robbery story because he was afraid he would be mistreated by fellow inmates if he were sent to prison. Despite this admission, much of the news media maintained the robbery story, mostly neglecting to mention Acremant’s reaction to Ellis’s and Abdill’s sexual orientation. The women’s purses, wallets, jewelry, cell phones, and money were all found with their bodies in the truck.
On October 27, 1997, Robert Acremant was sentenced to death for the murders of Roxanne Ellis and Michelle Abdill. Acremant then stood trial in California for the murder of his twenty-three-year-old friend, Scott George. On October 4, 2002, Acremant was given a second death sentence. He is on death row at Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem. He has appealed his death sentence for Ellis’s and Abdill’s murders and is awaiting trial.
Nationally, the women’s murders came at a time when hate crimes against lesbians and gays—and those perceived to be lesbian or gay—were on the rise. According to the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, there were 151 murders between 1992 and 1994 of persons assumed to be lesbian or gay. The same time period saw antigay ballot initiatives surfacing in Oregon, Colorado, Idaho, and Maine. Lesbian and gay rights organizations asserted that the push to limit legal protections for lesbians and gays had caused a surge in antigay violence.
The murder of Ellis and Abdill impelled GLBT rights organizations to demand a U.S. Justice Department inquiry into the link between the rise in hate crimes and antigay ballot initiatives. There also was a national push to have sexuality covered by federal hate-crime legislation. In 1999, the Hate Crimes Prevention Act
Locally, Oregon’s lesbian and gay community and its supporters were outraged and terrified by the murders of Ellis and Abdill. In both 1992 and 1994, the community narrowly defeated two statewide ballot measures prohibiting legal protections for lesbian, gay, and bisexual residents of the state. Ellis and Abdill were very active in helping to defeat these statewide measures, and their murders came as a blow to the entire community.
Additionally, Medford is home to several ultraconservative hate groups, including the Aryan Nations, Christian Identity, and the Ku Klux Klan, as well as two citizens’ militias. Two years before the murders, Medford and surrounding counties approved local antigay rights ordinances. The murders sparked a split and debate within the local community. Some voiced their concerns about what they saw as growing violence directed toward lesbian and gay people, while others insisted that the murders were not in any way motivated by the women’s sexual orientation.
In 1996, community members opened the Abdill-Ellis Lambda Community Center, which offers programs that range from support groups to HIV education to a hotline. The center, always seeking funds and other support, remains a vital local resource, and it serves as a memorial to Abdill and Ellis. Their deaths—and their lives—have left an everlasting impression, both locally and nationally.
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Abdill-Ellis Lambda Community Center. http://www.abdellis.org. -
Bright, Susie. Susie Bright’s Sexual State of the Union. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997. -
Murphy, Kim. “No Place to Rest.” Los Angeles Times, December 20, 1995, p. E1. -
Neff, Lisa. “When Lesbians Are Targets.” The Advocate, September 12, 2000, 36-37. -
“Suspect Says He Killed Couple Because They Were Homosexual.” Associated Press, August 21, 1996. -
Tuller, David. “An End to Innocence: Killing of Lesbians Rattles Oregon Town.” San Francisco Chronicle, December 11, 1995, p. A1.
November 27, 1978: White Murders Politicians Moscone and Milk
1981: Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays Is Founded
November 8, 1988: Oregon Repeals Ban on Antigay Job Discrimination
November 3, 1992: Oregon and Colorado Attempt Antigay Initiatives
December 24, 1993-December 31, 1993: Transgender Man Brandon Teena Raped and Murdered
October 6-7, 1998: Gay College Student Shepard Is Beaten and Murdered
October 4, 2002: Transgender Teen Gwen Araujo Is Murdered in California