They also worked as activists, fighting two Oregon state ballot initiatives in 1992 and 1993; Measure 9 intended to amend the state constitution to declare homosexuality "abnormal, wrong, unnatural and perverse," and Measure 19 intended to restrict library access for materials related to homosexuality.
The couple's activism on gay rights issues, and records of an earlier threat against them, roused suspicion that they had fallen victim to a hate crime.
The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force wrote to Attorney General Janet Reno to request that the United States Department of Justice assist local authorities in their investigation.
Police publicized a composite sketch of the suspect based on a description of a witness who had seen a man — Acremant — park Ellis's truck and walk away.
[6] The media coverage of the murders reached Acremant's mother, who had moved to Medford three weeks earlier with her son.
[6] Acremant also confessed to killing Scott George of Visalia, California, on October 3, 1995, and dumping his body down a mine shaft located outside his father's ranch near Stockton.
[10] On December 18, 1995, after Acremant told his father where he had disposed of the body, police discovered George's remains at the bottom of an abandoned mine shaft in Calaveras County, California.
[11] Acremant (May 1968 – October 2018) served in the Air Force and earned a master's degree in Business Administration from San Francisco's Golden Gate University, in half the time usually required.
However, the district attorney in the case noted that some of the evidence undermines robbery as the only motive, as Acremant left the victims' purses, wallets, jewelry, cell phones, and money at the scene.
[8] In August 1996, Acremant wrote a letter to his hometown newspaper the Stockton Record stating that he had intended to rob Ellis and Abdill and that knowing they were lesbians made it easier to kill them.
[10] In his three-page letter, Acremant claimed he invented the robbery motive because he feared reactions from inmates who might learn that his murders were "hate crimes against bi- and homosexuals."
Kosova said he spent up to $3,000 a weekend on her at the club where she danced, had bought her two pairs of diamond earrings, and occasionally took her out to dinner.
When he called her and claimed that a man in New York City had stolen his money and he had none left, Kosova said she changed her number and severed ties with him.
After his arrest, however, the television program Inside Edition paid for Kosova to visit Acremant in the Jackson County jail, for what she told him was "the final time.
One month later he entered a not guilty plea and his lawyers filed motions to overturn Oregon's death penalty.
On October 27, 1997, an Oregon jury sentenced Acremant to death by lethal injection for the murders of Roxanne Ellis and Michelle Abdill.
[20] In April 2001, Sen. Gordon H. Smith (R-OR) cited the murders when arguing in the U.S. Senate on behalf of a hate crimes provision proposed for inclusion in the Local Law Enforcement Act of 2001.
[22] The murder of Ellis and Abdill was featured on the series Very Bad Men, on the Investigation Discovery channel that first aired in August 2012.