On December 4, 1995, Michelle Abdill, 42, and her partner Roxanne Ellis, 53, were found murdered in Medford, Oregon. Ellis had gone to show an apartment to 27-year-old Robert Acremant; she reportedly called her daughter at 4:00 p.m. saying she was going shopping, a statement investigators believe was a ruse. Abdill left her office at 5:00 p.m., telling coworkers she would help Ellis jump start her car. When Ellis’s daughter reached the apartment complex she saw her mother’s pickup but could not follow it as it pulled away. That was the last time either woman was seen alive.

Their bodies were discovered on December 8, 1995, in the back of Ellis’s pickup truck parked in a nearby lot. Both had been bound and gagged with duct tape, wrapped in drapes, covered by cardboard boxes, and shot in the head execution-style. Acremant’s mother identified him from a police composite and provided matching moving-box labels that linked her son to boxes covering the bodies. Acremant was arrested December 13, 1995, in Stockton, California; he confessed and later was convicted of aggravated murder, receiving a death sentence. Questions remain about motive, since valuables were left at the scene despite Acremant’s claim the killings were robbery-driven.