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00:1827-year-old Robert Ackermont had everything going for him.
00:21He had a master's degree, a good job, but then something went wrong,
00:25and now his father says his son has confessed to murdering three people.
00:30I don't believe it. It's hard to believe. He's been good.
00:36I've had no indications that anything was wrong with his life.
00:45It's just hard to comprehend what he did, and yet there's still love for him because he was my child.
00:57I can't turn... I can't turn down.
01:25It brings the memories back of what took place in this spot.
01:31The last time I was here was ringing the police in 95 and showing them where Scott's body was
01:39because my son had told me what shaft he put Scott's body in.
01:47I remember everything that took place.
01:51When the body bag came up, there was the smell of death.
01:59The memories there always will be.
02:03But I feel I'm a strong person, and I was taken down...
02:14I was taken down to the weakest point in my life.
02:27I was taken down to the weakest point in my life.
02:29The old murder is mostly fish.
02:32The old murder is the same.
02:35You know what?
02:38The old murder is in this place.
02:39About a year, and he's just getting dead.
02:42When the murder is not dead, he raised his heart.
02:42The old murder is not dead.
02:43The old murder is VOCAL is of the murder.
02:44The murder is the future.
02:44I was a vielen murder.
02:44So the murder is not dead.
02:45So the murder is the murder.
02:48I have to have to kill him with the murder.
03:02I bought this bar in 1997. I came to work here in 89. It's been good to me. Come to
03:12work every
03:12day, 8 o'clock in the morning, seven days a week. To most of the people, your regulars,
03:19do most people here know your story? When all of this happened with the murder and looking for him
03:28and people knowing that it was my son, they were shocked that how could Robert could have done
03:36this. They're in disbelief just like I was. They know him, but more so of how I felt about him,
03:43how he achieved so much, and then to have this tragedy. It was a relief to talk to them. It
03:52was,
03:53you could say, a therapy for me to get it off my chest rather than bottle it and think about
03:58it,
03:59where a normal person wouldn't do what he did. And what his mindset is, when it came about,
04:04I don't have the answer. I was concerned when they arrested him that what did I do wrong
04:12that made him become the person that murdered people. And even today, even though it's all done,
04:20you might say, you still wonder because there's no cut and dried answer.
04:50His mother had that picture taken. He was a cute kid. You know, there were good moments,
04:57you know, the giggles and the laughter and, you know, I mean, still a baby.
05:04To look at the picture and think back when this took place, there's,
05:12I'll say there's not much thought other than
05:17the future part of what could have been that went wrong.
05:26When Robert was born and you seen him and you held him and the baby, well, being a father kicks
05:34in and
05:35yeah, you had love for your child. You wanted to be the father. And then we plan the next child
05:45because we wanted them close together.
06:04As a young child, him and his brother would go with me up to the ranch. They'd play together.
06:12If they worked with me, they'd both work until they got bored and then they'd do what kids do.
06:18You know, they'd play ball together and run and hide and stuff like that.
06:26To me, between Robert and Kenny, Kenny was a little more rebellious, especially down with his mother.
06:34I'll say he was a hell raiser. But it's just between the two of them, Robert, he was a strong
06:40one.
06:41To look at him. If you were there, he was just a nice, easy going kid with no problems.
06:47And just a child that you were proud to have because there were no issues.
07:06Robert was, they say, upset living with his mother. He didn't want to live with her no more.
07:13So I get the phone call, and he wants to come live with us.
07:17He was just a young teenager, even though he's 12 years old.
07:22You know, I was happy that he wanted to come live with us.
07:25We didn't have issues with him.
07:36I feel Robert stood out because he was a smart kid in school, his grades.
07:44It's just everything he did was a positive that when he was with my wife and I, he just didn't
07:53get in trouble.
07:56He'd go in his room to study, and it wasn't I went in to check on him and see if
08:00he needed help or nothing.
08:01He seemed to know what was going on.
08:04You know, later in life, he got a computer and taught himself the computer.
08:09Got the books and learned it and made programs out of it.
08:12He was that smart.
08:14Nobody recognized that he was a genius.
08:16Well, in hindsight, I could look at it and say, you know what?
08:19He was a genius.
08:21He was that smart of a kid.
08:22Not smart-alecky.
08:24He was just a smart, intelligent person.
08:26But you didn't see it.
08:27I could say no more than he was a good kid that I put up on a pedestal.
08:48I wanted to take the chemistry set back because it wasn't right to steal it.
08:52It's not the right thing to do.
08:54And I felt by making him take it back, it would bestow in him that you don't steal.
09:01I called out, talked to the principal, and I said, I want you to do something about it.
09:06Put the fear of God in it.
09:08So the principal talked with him.
09:11He threatened, you know, the police, but he wasn't even going to let it go this time.
09:16But I had hoped that it put some sort of fear into him that you don't do it.
09:21I had no reason to think that he was a bad kid.
09:26Growing up, I learned what was right and wrong, and you think that you're teaching it to your kids.
09:33You discipline them for things that they're doing bad and let them know that they can't do that.
09:37So I felt that in that sense, I was letting them know the difference between right and wrong.
09:46The reason I brought up these issues of the chemistry set, I'm looking for answers of,
09:52why did you do what you did doing these crimes?
09:55You feel like you did something in order to make your son do what he did.
09:59You know, it's just the whole thing is sad, everything.
10:12The ranch, it's a home away from home.
10:16It's peace of mind.
10:18It's hard to describe just how much it does mean to me.
10:22With my son bringing Scott up and disposing of him the way that he did,
10:27he put a cloud, a shadow on this place,
10:31and all the families involved in the harm that he caused them.
10:47What's in this box?
10:50Newspaper clippings that people have given to me,
10:54some of the Stockton records that I've clipped out,
10:58an article that I was given about a, I believe it was a father turned his son in.
11:06I got phone records of my son during the time that he was going back and forth with Scott's body
11:14to bring him up here and dump him in the mine shaft.
11:18My wife and I sat down and put together on a calendar his movements and phone calls.
11:25That's in here.
11:26The police had access to that.
11:29When I got started to dig through this box,
11:32to get the articles and let you know what I had,
11:37it brings up what had happened 30 years ago.
11:41It reminds you of all the bad.
11:46There was no good in this.
11:48You felt bad.
11:49You feel sad.
11:50It brings out the anger again.
11:53In some cases, the doubt.
11:55What's the truth?
11:56What isn't the truth?
11:58Brings back up.
11:59Where's the closure?
12:00What's the answer?
12:02That, why?
12:07But I hang on to it.
12:09I ought to burn it, but I don't wish to.
12:27That's Robert at graduation, and he was a valedictorian and gave a speech.
12:35But there again, Robert was a smart person that achieved things, and this is one of those examples.
12:46I feel Robert was a confident person.
12:49I don't know that he had to get up anywhere to give a speech.
12:53He was the dominant person when he was with his friends.
12:58He was the one that was in charge.
13:00They looked up to him, and it's sort of like they were the followers, and he was the leader.
13:18After Robert graduated, he went to work for Roadway Trucking down south.
13:25Roadway is a major trucking company that delivered freight to different businesses.
13:31But he was in charge over several truck terminal managers.
13:35The impression I got from him was he was happy with his job.
13:40Everything's going well.
13:42And then one day, I find out that he quit.
13:51He tells me he was working on a software program that had to do with trucking.
13:56And that if he had stayed with Roadway, they would have claimed it to be their property.
14:02Because he invented it while he was working for Roadway.
14:09Everything that he had accomplished, the sky is the limit.
14:11You figure he was going places, and it's going to be very successful.
14:34He stopped by, came in and visited.
14:36When it was time for him to leave, he said, I want to show you something.
14:40So he went to his car, and he got the little handgun.
14:43I was at 25, I believe is what it was.
14:49The only thing I knew Robert owning other guns was a pellet gun that I bought him.
14:56I took it, and I looked at it.
14:57I said, that's nice.
14:58I gave it back to him.
14:59I said, just be careful.
15:00Then he got in his car, and he left.
15:03But again, when all this happened, I remember that day,
15:07him showing me the gun, and to this day, I remember that whole scene.
15:13And I just felt like that meant trouble.
15:16And yet, I had no idea what type of trouble.
15:21It just felt wrong, you know.
15:24Why would he have it?
15:25I don't know.
15:26I just, it wasn't right.
15:28You know, hindsight looking back, it's like, you know, something's going to happen.
15:32And that's what I felt that day.
15:34But it didn't know what.
15:54I was tending bar in the morning.
15:57I believe it was not long after the bar open that he come walking through the door.
16:04It was very weird for him just to show up unannounced.
16:07He always called in advance and said, hey, I'm coming up for whatever reason.
16:12Are you going to be up at the ranch, or are you going to be home?
16:15And you see him and say, oh, what are you doing?
16:18He said, well, I come by to see you and let you know I was up at the ranch.
16:22I don't remember hugging him that day.
16:24But he looked dirty.
16:27He just didn't smell bad.
16:28He stunk.
16:30And in hindsight, having been around dead people, that's, to me, is what he smelled like.
16:38But at the time, you don't say, oh, you smell like a dead person.
16:42And I asked if he was hungry.
16:44And yeah.
16:45So we went down and got a small pizza.
16:47We ate it.
16:49And he says, well, I'm going to go home.
16:51I said, OK.
16:51And he left.
16:55There was nothing to think anything else on what he told me.
16:59That he had gone up the ranch and came out.
17:07About two months later, my father had a heart attack.
17:11I drove him to the hospital.
17:13He was in a room when I get the phone call.
17:17Hello?
17:18And it was my younger son, Kenny, telling me that they were looking for Robert because he killed somebody.
17:26And I said, wait a minute, what?
17:28He says, they're looking for Robert because he killed somebody.
17:32While he's telling me that, I'm not putting two to two together.
17:37It was hard to digest and realize that he was actually talking about Robert.
17:43He was the angel.
17:44He was the one that didn't do no wrong.
17:46You're thinking that there was a mistake, that this can't be true.
17:50You know, you're in disbelief that even we're talking about this, it just couldn't happen.
18:05I've got 30 years since it happened.
18:09And it's like out of sight, out of mind, but there's still stuff that reminds you.
18:15I've never known anybody that a family member or a child of theirs has ever murdered anybody.
18:23When the murders happened and that person that did the murders was my son, Robert,
18:29there was a moment in there that I wished we never had him.
18:38Robert was a good kid. He's never done anything that I'd be ashamed of.
18:44This is the only thing in his life that I know of that has affected me
18:53to the degree that I was ashamed to be his father.
18:59I believe that people can do evil things, but with Robert, I never saw the evil
19:05evil things until all of this came about.
19:29Police all over the West had been looking for 28-year-old Robert Ackermont.
19:33Ackermont was wanted by police in Medford, Oregon for the murders of Roxanne Ellis and Michelle
19:37Abdul, real estate women and lesbian activists, whose bodies were found in the bed of Ellis' truck.
19:43Ackermont also killed a Visalia man, a man who was last seen with Ackermont two months ago.
20:02When I saw the U-Haul, I said, it's got to be Robert.
20:07And with that thought, it was if I go in the house with my gun.
20:11It's like, do you go in with a gun drawn because you're capturing somebody?
20:15Do you go in with your gun and he hears the door and he pulls his gun out, not knowing
20:23who's there?
20:25This goes through your head. The last thing I wanted to do was shoot my son or possibly both of
20:31us get shot.
20:36So I just drove past, went on around the block.
20:51I never thought about helping him get away. Once it was there, it's like you wanted to catch him
20:57because you want to know why. And he didn't want him to do harm to anybody else.
21:03So those are my thoughts is, you know, he needs to be caught.
21:07I had the choice. I could have aided and bedded and, you know, get out of town, but it wasn't
21:14easy.
21:16And we fall back to that right and wrong of growing up. And it was wrong in what he did.
21:24And I chose to use the phone to call the police. And that's probably the hardest thing I ever did.
21:31Yeah. Well, some people would say I didn't love him because I turned him in. And that's wrong.
21:38I loved him. And I was worried about other people dying for no reason. It's just not the right thing.
21:45So I had to put a stop to it.
22:03Police arrested Akramont early this morning after a family member tipped police that he was in the area.
22:08They even had the license number of the U-Haul truck he was driving.
22:12Sir, did you commit these murders?
22:13What can you tell us?
22:19At the time, all this was coming to light.
22:23It's, you don't think about, here's my son I've had so high, and now I'm down at the bottom.
22:30You're dealing with this in disbelief.
22:37You don't want to believe it.
22:39Everything I'd learned that was going on in his life was the first time when these murders occurred.
22:45I learned that he was in debt. Took a while, but found out he was in debt over $100,000
22:51on a credit card.
22:52His business failed when he, when he did the software, made the software with the trucking company had failed.
22:58I had to believe he killed for money.
23:13They just lowered a second rescue worker down the shaft to help recover a body.
23:21Bothers you that he brought Scott's body up and dumped him down the mine shaft on the ranch property.
23:26If that bothered you, you know, and again, every time you go up there, you see the mine shaft,
23:32and you can't help but think about what took place.
23:41I wanted to talk to Robert. What's going on? Why is it going on? What did you do? Why did
23:47you do it?
23:48I mean, a bunch of questions.
24:01I think that the police might have told them that I told them that he was in the U-Haul,
24:07so I turned him in.
24:09Because that was a question that he asked me, did you turn me in? And I said, yes, I did.
24:18He said, I will F your life up. And I think that was the end of the conversation.
24:28And then after that's when all the bad letters started coming out.
24:34He sent the Stockton Riker a letter. Well, I got my mail. The Stockton Riker got theirs.
24:41They just said as a child he was molested. If you think of it sexually, he wrote it down.
24:53That he was going to F my life up.
24:57And then I got phone calls from Medford Police, Stockton Police, Visalia Police.
25:04I got phone calls from Hawaii. I got phone calls from New York,
25:08and wanting to know if I molested my son.
25:24That's the letter he wrote to the Stockton record.
25:28Yeah.
25:32My earliest moments were during 5-6 when my father, Ken Akinach, began following me sexually.
25:39This stress led to bedwetting, which also drew punishment, severe beatings with a ruler,
25:44and being stood in front of the living room window naked all day for all to see.
25:53He was trying to destroy my life because he felt that I destroyed his.
25:58He was upset. I understand that part of it.
26:01Did I give it any thought that he would go this route? Nope.
26:05But when he sent me the letter, he also sent a letter to the Stockton record
26:11explaining what I did to him, his stepmom did to him, what we forced him to do.
26:19He accused me of sodomizing him, him having sex with my wife, being forced to watch porno movies,
26:28him being forced to watch his dog have sex with my wife.
26:33I took it as, I'm writing this to hurt you, you know, not for any other reason, you know,
26:40because he wanted to get under my skin. He wanted me to feel guilty.
26:44It comes down to you, believe it or not. I know it took place, and I know it never happened.
26:50Not a lot of people said anything about it, other than, you know, how could he do that to you?
26:55He had, I was mad, I was angry, I wanted to, I think I wanted to kill him, I was
27:01so pissed at him.
27:02Everybody asked me if it was true, and all I could tell was no, it's not true, but again,
27:09he was hurt, and he wanted to hurt back.
27:17I think any parent that has to go through what I have gone through, you have to wonder,
27:26was it something I did? Why would he write letters? Because it's not how he was brought up,
27:34and where he went wrong, I have no idea. So now it doesn't make sense to me,
27:39why are you killing people? I didn't look at him like, you're a killer. You're my son,
27:46and I want to know why. What have I done? What happened? And you don't know. You know,
27:53at first, I'm taking the blame. I'm trying to figure out what I did, and everybody's told me,
28:00you didn't do nothing. And I realized I didn't do nothing. There was a point there,
28:04I felt like I did something, to the point of breaking down.
28:10I felt like taking my life. I didn't tell nobody. But that's just how wrapped up you get,
28:20that you can't deal with it. End it.
28:36I said I wasn't going to do this to you. It's not me.
28:57I wanted to say something to him. I wanted to say it in person to him. I felt that I
29:03had to.
29:05I couldn't turn, say in the court at a time, and plead for his life. In this case here,
29:12I didn't run from the problem. I dealt with the problem of turning him in. That was the problem,
29:18turning him in to stop him from murdering people. I believed the eye for an eye. I believed in the
29:25death penalty, and I couldn't beg for his life, because that's not me.
29:33The day I got up to read it, I was very nervous. It was hard to stand there and read
29:41the letter.
29:42Knowing that your son was going to get the death penalty.
29:54First, I'd like to say to the George family, along with the Ellis and Abdel families,
30:03how sorry I am for the horrendous crimes my son committed against your family's loved ones.
30:10Robert, I've never told you how deeply you have hurt your mother, brother, myself, and so many other
30:17people. You can't even count them. The day I learned and knew you committed these crimes,
30:25that I would have passed. My heart was torn from my chest. All the hopes and dreams as a father,
30:31as for his son, were gone. I am still your father, so I will be here for you.
30:40Robert, I only hope you could be put to death for the crimes you committed, that I would have passed
30:48before. For this would only be a double stab in my heart.
31:03Robert, you are my number one son. I held you so high. You achieved so much in life, you threw
31:11it away.
31:12For only through our Lord can your soul be saved for the crimes you committed against other humans.
31:20I will always love you.
31:30It was tough that day to have to do that. But I said it, and I felt better after saying
31:40it.
31:50I wanted him to die in a sense because he murdered people. I've told everybody,
31:57I am for the death penalty. He's just not that person out killing people just to be killing them.
32:04He killed for money, but it was wrong. And if he ended life in prison, that's one thing.
32:09If he got the death penalty, that was another. And there's nothing I could do about it.
32:14And I wasn't going to go beg for it. And I'm sure he thought I should be on his side,
32:21help him out, do what I could. But he did it to himself.
32:35Yeah, that's him. If you look at the other pictures, he's put on an awful lot of weight.
32:40One of the officers in the prison took the pictures. So he's on one side of the glass,
32:45I'm on the other. Once the trials were over and he was in Oregon Prison, Salem,
32:54a period of time went by and I had this urge. I just had to see him. That's when I
33:01went up and talked to him.
33:03And to me, it was like having a ghost. I mean, it was a driving force. Nothing was going to
33:09hold
33:09me back. I had to go see him. It was something in me. I couldn't let go.
33:17And I wanted answers. There was just a feeling, like a drive that I needed to see my son. And
33:25not
33:26for any particular reason. Not to apologize for anything I've said or done or how I ever treated
33:30him in life. I just needed to see him. You know, if the window wasn't there and you were meeting
33:43in
33:43that same room, I, on my part, I would have hugged him. I don't know if he would have wanted
33:50it.
33:57I got in to see him. And that lasted about 15 minutes. I wanted to leave because I'm going to
34:04use the mental state that he was in. I don't know if he was putting on a show or he
34:09was actually
34:10falling apart mentally. Then he started to go off the edge and talk about people behind the wall
34:19and that they're listening and they know what you're going to say before you say it.
34:25And I'm thinking, where's this crap coming from? And he would continue with that. I said, well,
34:31this isn't the person I come to see and I can't stand this. That's all he's talking about.
34:35I wanted to leave. After that visit was the last time I spoke with him.
34:54When Robert died in prison, I came and placed Robert here in the grave in my plot, my family
35:02plot. He's part of the family still. I haven't abandoned him. I put flowers on him every year on
35:12him. Why do you put flowers on his grave? I put flowers on his grave because Robert's still my son,
35:19regardless of what he did.
35:23To learn the things that he did,
35:24I don't look at it as you're tearing him down off that pedestal I had him on. He's already fallen.
35:29But I still care an awful lot about him. It's difficult, even though he's dead, it's difficult
35:38to wipe him out of your mind that he never was there. Because he was there and I was proud
35:44of that
35:45person. I do believe in heaven and hell and that there's got to be a God that's created all this.
35:53Everybody would hope that they're members and I hope he's there, but that's not my choice.
35:59If there's a God and I believe there's got to be somebody higher than me that's created all this,
36:20I'll say I think about it all the time, but not every day. But it's on your mind,
36:26even today, that what did I do? Why? If it was all about money. But then you say,
36:33well, could I have helped him? I could have given him money.
36:37Have you watched or read his police interview?
36:41No, the only thing I got was a transcript of when I was there.
36:50Go ahead when you're ready.
37:12Go ahead.
37:16Go ahead.
37:18Go ahead.
37:21Go ahead.
37:25Go ahead.
37:28I will.
37:30Go ahead.
37:32How long did you know that you had these for?
37:36You were a kid since you were in high school, since you were in college.
37:45I think she's a kid.
37:47That's true.
37:51So hard to get out of bed.
37:53I think I'm going to get out of the car.
37:57You got somebody.
38:02It's the first time I've ever seen any of this stuff, but these are clips that puts a different light
38:08on what I was told by a lot that, you know, he says he was ______, wanted to kill.
38:18We didn't see it. We didn't know it.
38:51So do you look at him a little differently now?
38:56I don't know that I got any emotion right now.
39:01I didn't know he was a serial killer.
39:07I would hate to go up there and dig his plot up because I pissed at him.
39:12I could take him, dig it up, and put him down the mine shaft, I guess.
39:18Take him out of the family plot.
39:21But it's not that I don't love him anymore, unless he's my child.
39:28I look at him differently as he's a serial killer.
39:39If I were to look back, I'd blame myself, in a way, for not being the best parent I could
39:45have been because I've been a workaholic all my life by going to any bar at night.
39:53We just didn't do a whole bunch together outside of my work.
39:57He went to school.
39:58So it wasn't a lot of fun time playing as much as it was working.
40:05Because you feel like for him to do this, how as parents, what did we do wrong?
40:12So you lose that bond of a family.
40:15I regret that part of it, of not being there when you feel like you should have been there.
40:22So if I blame myself, yeah, there's blame for myself.
40:31I don't forgive him.
40:32Those are crimes that you don't forgive people.
40:34You know, there's a punishment to it, and he was given his punishment.
40:39They just didn't have time to carry it out before he died in jail.
40:46But, you know, had it changed my life?
40:48Well, it changed it to where you're pissed off.
40:51You don't sleep.
40:52It's on your mind all the time.
40:54So as time goes on, well, it gets a little easier, but you still think about it today.
40:59And here we sit today, uh, talking about it.
41:07It's like, it's like people think, I guess, that I should write him off of my life for what he
41:18did.
41:18And I can't do it.
41:23There's no words.
41:25Yeah, I, I carry the weight.
41:28Don't ever, I don't think ever, I'll have peace with what took place.
41:34Pardon me
41:35No toえば
41:36But it's for you
41:37If you're not positive.
41:38I have one word from the german's
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