- 6 minutes ago
Evil Lives Here - My Child the Killer (2026) Season 1 Episode 2
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Short filmTranscript
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.
00:35He's been good. I'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.
00:58I can't turn, I can't turn it down.
01:25It brings 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
01:40because 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.
01:58It, you know, the 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.
03:24And looking for him and people knowing that it was my son, they were shocked that how could Robert could
03:34have done this?
03:35They're in disbelief just like I was.
03:37They know him.
03:39But more so of how I felt about him, how he achieved so much, and then to have this tragedy.
03:47It was a relief to talk to them.
03:51It was, you could say, a therapy for me to get it off my chest rather than bottle it and
03:56think about it, where a normal person wouldn't do what he did.
04:00And what his mindset is, when it came about, I don't have the answer.
04:06I was concerned when they arrested him that what did I do wrong that made him become the person that
04:14murdered people.
04:16And even today, even though it's all done, you might say, you still wonder because there's no cut and dried
04:22answer.
04:48His mother had that picture taken on.
04:51He was a cute kid.
04:54You know, there were good moments, you know, the giggles and the laughter and, you know, I mean, still a
05:00baby.
05:02To look at the picture and think back when this took place, there's, I'll say there's not much thought other
05:14than the future part of what could have been that went wrong.
05:24When Robert was born, and you seen him, and you held him, and the baby, well, being a father kicks
05:32in, and yeah, you had love for your child.
05:36You wanted to be the father, and then we planned the next child because we wanted them close together.
06:02As a young child, him and his brother would go with me up to the ranch.
06:07They'd play together.
06:10If they worked with me, they'd both work until they got bored, and then they'd do what kids do.
06:16You know, they'd play ball together and run and hide and stuff like that.
06:23To me, between Robert and Kenny, Kenny was a little more rebellious, especially down with his mother.
06:31I'll say he was a hell raiser, but it's just between the two of them, Robert, he was a strong
06:37one.
06:38To look at him, if you were there, you're just a nice, easygoing kid with no problems, and just a
06:45child that you were proud to have because there were no issues.
07:03Robert was, let's say, upset living with his mother.
07:08He didn't want to live with her no more.
07:10So I get the phone call, and he wants to come live with us.
07:14He was just a young teenager, even though he's 12 years old.
07:19You know, I was happy that he wanted to come live with us.
07:22We didn't have any issues with him.
07:33I feel Robert stood out because he was a smart kid in school, his grades.
07:41It's just everything he did was a positive that when he was with my wife and I, he just didn't
07:50get in trouble.
07:52He'd go in his room to study, and when I went in to check on him and see if he
07:57needed help or nothing, he seemed to know what was going on.
08:00You know, later in life, he got a computer and taught himself the computer, got the books and learned it
08:07and made programs out of it.
08:08He was that smart.
08:11Nobody recognized that he was a genius.
08:13Well, in hindsight, I could look at it and say, you know what?
08:16He was a genius.
08:17He was that smart of a kid.
08:19Not smart-alecky.
08:20He was just a smart, intelligent person.
08:22But you didn't see it.
08:24I could say no more than he was a good kid that I put up on a pedestal.
08:44I wanted to take the chemistry set back because it wasn't right to steal it.
08:49It's not the right thing to do.
08:51And I felt by making him take it back, it would bestow in him that you don't steal.
08:58I called out, talked to the principal, and I said, I want you to do something about it.
09:02Put the fear of God in it.
09:04So the principal talked with him.
09:07He threatened, you know, the police, but he was going to let it go this time.
09:12But I had hoped that it put some sort of fear into him that you don't do it.
09:17I had no reason to think that he was a bad kid.
09:23Growing up, I learned what was right and wrong.
09:25And you think that you're teaching it to your kids.
09:29You discipline them for things that they're doing bad and let them know that they can't do that.
09:34So I felt that in that sense, I was letting them know the difference between right and wrong.
09:42The reason I brought up these issues of the chemistry set, I'm looking for answers of why did you do
09:48what you did doing these crimes?
09:50You feel like you did something in order to make your son do what he did.
09:55You know, it's just the whole thing is sad, everything.
10:06The ranch, it's a home away from home.
10:09It's peace of mind.
10:12It's hard to describe just how much it does mean to me.
10:16With my son bringing Scott up and disposing of him the way that he did, he put a cloud, a
10:22shadow on this place and all the families involved in the harm that he caused them.
10:41What's in this box?
10:44Newspaper clippings that people have given to me.
10:48Some of the Stockton records that I've clipped out.
10:51An article that I was given about a, I believe it was a father turned his son in.
11:00I got phone records of my son during the time that he was going back and forth with Scott's body
11:07to bring him up here and dump him in the mineshaft.
11:12My wife and I sat down and put together on a calendar his movements and phone calls.
11:18And that's in here.
11:19The police had access to that.
11:22When I got started to dig through this box, to get the articles and let you know what I had,
11:30it brings up what had happened 30 years ago.
11:35It reminds you of all the bad.
11:39There was no good in this.
11:41You felt bad.
11:42You feel sad.
11:43It brings out the anger again.
11:46In some cases, the doubt, what's the truth, what isn't the truth, brings back up, where's the closure?
11:53What's the answer?
11:55That, why?
12:00But I hang on to it.
12:02I ought to burn it, but I don't wish to.
12:19That's Robert at graduation, and he was a valedictorian and gave a speech.
12:27But there again, Robert was a smart person that achieved things, and this is one of those examples.
12:39I feel Robert was a confident person.
12:42I don't know that he had to get up anywhere to give a speech.
12:46He was the dominant person when he was with his friends.
12:50He was the one that was in charge.
12:53They looked up to him, and it's sort of like they were the followers, and he was the leader.
13:10After Robert graduated, he went to work for Roadway Trucking down south.
13:18Roadway is a major trucking company that delivered freight to different businesses, but he was in charge over several truck
13:26terminal managers.
13:27The impression I got from him was he was happy with his job.
13:32Everything's going well.
13:34And then one day, I find out that he quit.
13:43He tells me he was working on a software program that had to do with trucking, and that if he
13:50had stayed with Roadway,
13:52they would have claimed it to be their property because he invented it while he was working for Roadway.
14:01Everything that he accomplished, the sky is the limit.
14:03You figure he was going places, and he's going to be very successful.
14:26He stopped by, came in and visited.
14:28When it was time for him to leave, he said, I want to show you something.
14:32So he went to his car, and he got the little handgun.
14:35Well, that was a .25, I believe is what it was.
14:41The only thing I knew Robert owning other guns was a pellet gun that I bought him.
14:48I took it, and I looked at it.
14:49I said, that's nice.
14:49I gave it back to him.
14:50I said, just be careful.
14:52Then he got in his car, and he left.
14:53But again, when all this happened, I remember that day, him showing me the gun, and to this day, I
15:02remember that whole scene, and I just felt like that meant trouble.
15:07And yet, I had no idea what type of trouble.
15:12It just felt wrong.
15:14Yeah.
15:15Not, why would he have it?
15:17I don't know.
15:18It wasn't the right, you know, hindsight looking back.
15:20It's like, you know, something's going to happen, and that's what I felt that day.
15:25Better to know what.
15:45I was in a bar in the morning.
15:48I believe it was not long after the bar opened that he'd come walking through the door.
15:55It was very weird for him just to show up unannounced.
15:58He always called in advance and said, hey, I'm coming up for whatever reason.
16:03Are you going to be up at the ranch, or are you going to be home?
16:06And you see him, oh, what are you doing?
16:09He said, well, I come by to see you and let you know I was up at the ranch.
16:13I don't remember hugging him that day, but he looked dirty.
16:18He just didn't smell bad.
16:19He stunk.
16:21And in hindsight, having been around dead people, that's, to me, is what he smelled like.
16:28But at the time, you don't say, God, you smell like a dead person.
16:33And I asked if he was hungry, and yeah.
16:36So he went down and got a small pizza.
16:38We ate it.
16:40And he says, well, I'm going to go home.
16:41I said, okay.
16:42And he left.
16:45There was nothing to think anything else than what he told me, that he had gone up the ranch
16:51and came out.
16:57About two months later, my father had a heart attack.
17:01I drove him to the hospital.
17:03He was in a room when I get the phone call.
17:07Hello?
17:07And it was my younger son, Kenny, telling me that they were looking for Robert because
17:15he killed somebody.
17:16And I said, wait a minute, what?
17:18He said, they're looking for Robert because he killed somebody.
17:22While he's telling me that, I'm not putting two to two together.
17:27It was hard to digest and realize that he was actually talking about Robert.
17:33He was the angel.
17:34He was the one that didn't do it overall.
17:36You're thinking that there was a mistake, that this can't be true.
17:40You know, you're in disbelief that even we're talking about this.
17:45It just couldn't happen.
17:53I've got 30 years since it happened.
17:58And it's like out of sight, out of mind, but there's still stuff that reminds you.
18:03I've never known anybody that a family member or a child of theirs has ever murdered anybody.
18:11When the murders happened and that person that did the murders was my son, Robert, there
18:18was a moment in there that I wished we never had him.
18:26Robert was a good kid.
18:28He's never done anything that I'd be ashamed of.
18:32This is the only thing in his life that I know of that has affected me to the degree that
18:42I was ashamed to be his father.
18:46I believe that people can do evil things, but with Robert, I never saw the evil until all of this
18:54came about.
19:16Police all over the West have been looking for 28-year-old Robert Akramont.
19:20Akramont was wanted by police in Medford, Oregon for the murders of Roxanne Ellis and Michelle Abdull,
19:25real estate women and lesbian activists whose bodies were found in the bed of Ellis' truck.
19:30Akramont also killed a Visalia man, a man who was last seen with Akramont two months ago.
19:49When I saw the U-Haul, I said, it's got to be Robert.
19:54And with that thought, it was if I go in the house with my gun, it's like, do you go
19:59in with a gun drawn because you're capturing somebody?
20:02Do you go in with your gun and he hears a door and he pulls his gun out, not knowing
20:10who's there?
20:12This goes through your head.
20:13The last thing I wanted to do was shoot my son or possibly both of us get shot.
20:23So I just drove past, went on around the block.
20:38I never thought about helping him get away.
20:40Once I was there, it's like you wanted to catch him because you want to know why.
20:46And he didn't want him to do harm to anybody else.
20:49So those are my thoughts is, you know, he needs to be caught.
20:54I had the choice.
20:55I could have aided and bedded and, you know, get out of town.
21:00But it wasn't easy.
21:02And we fall back to that right and wrong of growing up.
21:06And it was wrong in what he did.
21:10Then I chose to use the phone and call the police.
21:14That's probably the hardest thing I ever did.
21:19Some people would say I didn't love him because I turned him in.
21:23And that's wrong.
21:24I loved him and I was worried about other people dying for no reason.
21:29It's just not the right thing.
21:31So I had to put a stop to it.
21:49Police arrested Akramont early this morning after a family member tipped police that he was in the area.
21:54They even had the license number of the U-Haul truck he was driving.
21:58Sir, did you commit these murders?
22:00What can you tell us?
22:05At the time, all this was coming to light.
22:09It's, you don't think about, here's my son I've had so high.
22:13And now I'm down at the bottom.
22:16You're dealing with this in disbelief.
22:23You don't want to believe it.
22:25Everything I'd learned that was going on in his life was the first time when these murders occurred.
22:31I learned that he was in debt.
22:33Took a while, but found out he was in debt over $100,000 on credit card.
22:38His business failed when he did the software, made the software with the trucking up, and it failed.
22:43I had to believe he killed for money.
22:58You just lowered a second rescue worker down the shaft to help recover a body.
23:06It bothers you that he brought Scott's body up and dumped him down the mine shaft on the ranch property.
23:12That bothers you.
23:12You know, and again, every time you go up there, you see the mine shaft, and you can't help but
23:18think about what took place.
23:27I wanted to talk to Robert.
23:29What's going on?
23:30Why is it going on?
23:31What did you do?
23:32Why did you do it?
23:33I mean, a bunch of questions.
23:46I think that the police might have told them that I told them that he was in the U-Haul,
23:52so I turned him in.
23:54Because that was a question that he asked me, did you turn me in?
24:00And I said, yes, I did.
24:03He said, I will F your life up.
24:07And I think that was the end of the conversation.
24:13And then after that's when all the bad letters started coming up.
24:19He sent the Stockton Riker a letter.
24:22Well, I got my mail.
24:24The Stockton Riker got theirs.
24:26They just said as a child he was molested.
24:30If you think of it sexually, he wrote it down.
24:37That he was going to F my life up.
24:42And then I got phone calls from Medford Police, Stockton Police, Visalia Police.
24:49I got phone calls from Hawaii.
24:51I got phone calls from New York.
24:53Wanting to know if I molested my son.
25:06That's the letter he wrote to the Stockton Record.
25:11Yeah.
25:15My earliest moments were during 5-6 when my father, Ken Akinah, began following me sexually.
25:21This stress led to bedwetting, which also drew punishment.
25:25Severe beatings with a ruler and being stood in front of the living room window naked all day for all
25:32to see.
25:36He was trying to destroy my life because he felt that I destroyed his.
25:41He's upset.
25:42I understand that part of it.
25:44Did I give it any thought that he would go this route?
25:46Nope.
25:47But when he sent me the letter, he also sent a letter to the Stockton Record.
25:54Explaining what I did to him, his stepmom did to him, what we forced him to do.
26:01He accused me of sodomizing him, him having sex with my wife, being forced to watch porn movies,
26:10him being forced to watch his dog have sex with my wife.
26:15I took it as, I'm writing this to hurt you.
26:20Not for any other reason.
26:22You know, because he wanted to get under my skin.
26:24He wanted me to feel guilty.
26:26It comes down to you, believe it or not.
26:28I know it took place, and I know it never happened.
26:32Not a lot of people said anything about it, other than, you know, how could he do that to you?
26:38I was mad.
26:39I was angry.
26:40I wanted to, I think I wanted to kill him.
26:42I was so pissed at him.
26:44Everybody asked me if it was true, and all I could tell was no, it's not true.
26:50Again, he was hurt.
26:51You want to hurt back.
26:58I think any parent that has to go through what I have gone through, you have to wonder,
27:08was it something I did?
27:11Why would he write letters?
27:14Because that's not how he was brought up.
27:16And where he went wrong, I have no idea.
27:19So now it doesn't make sense to me.
27:21Why are you killing people?
27:24I didn't look at him like, you're a killer.
27:27You're my son, and I want to know why.
27:29What have I done?
27:31What happened?
27:32And you don't know.
27:34You know, at first, I'm taking the blame.
27:37I'm trying to figure out what I did.
27:40And everybody's told me, you didn't do nothing.
27:43And I realized I didn't do nothing.
27:44There was a point there, I felt like I did something, to the point of breaking down.
27:51I felt like taking my life.
27:53I didn't tell nobody.
27:57But that's just how wrapped up you get that you can't deal with it, end it.
28:17I said I wasn't going to do this to you.
28:23It's not me.
28:38I wanted to say something to him.
28:41I wanted to say it in person to him.
28:43I felt that I had to.
28:46I couldn't turn, say, in the court at a time, and plead for his life.
28:51In this case here, I didn't run from the problem.
28:55I dealt with the problem of turning him in.
28:58That was the problem.
28:59I turned him in to stop him from murdering people.
29:02I believed the eye for an eye.
29:04I believed in the death penalty, and I couldn't beg for his life, because that's not me.
29:14The day I got up to read it, I was very nervous.
29:17It was hard to stand there and read the letter, knowing that your son was going to get the death
29:25penalty.
29:35First, I'd like to say to the George family, along with the Ellis and Abdel families,
29:43how sorry I am for the horrendous crimes my son committed against your families and loved ones.
29:51Robert, I've never told you how deeply you have hurt your mother, brother, myself, and so many other people.
29:58You can't even count them.
30:00The day I had learned and knew you committed these crimes, my heart was torn from my chest.
30:08All the hopes and dreams as a father, as for his son, were gone.
30:16I am still your father, so I will be here for you.
30:21I only hope you could be put to death for the crimes you committed that I would have passed before.
30:29For this would only be...
30:37For this would only be a double stab in my heart.
30:43Robert, you were my number one son.
30:46I held you so high.
30:48You achieved so much in life, you could throw it away.
30:52For only through our Lord can your soul be saved for the crimes you committed against other humans.
31:00I will always love you.
31:10It was tough that day to have to do that.
31:13But I said it, and I felt better after saying it.
31:29I wanted him to die in a sense, because he murdered people.
31:34I've told everybody, I am for the death penalty.
31:39He's just not that person out killing people just to be killing them.
31:43He killed for money, but it was wrong.
31:45And if he ended life in prison, that's one thing.
31:48If he got the death penalty, that was another.
31:51And there's nothing I could do about it.
31:53And I wasn't going to go big for it.
31:57I'm sure he thought I should be on his side, help him out, do what I could.
32:02But he did it to himself.
32:12Yep, that's him.
32:13If you look at the other pictures, he's put on an awful lot of weight.
32:17One of the officers in the prison took the pictures.
32:21So he's on one side of the glass, I'm on the other.
32:25Once the trials were over, and he was in Oregon Prison, Salem, a period of time went by, and
32:33I had this urge.
32:35I just had to see him.
32:37That's when I went up and talked to him.
32:40And to me, it was like having to go, I mean, it was a driving force.
32:45Nothing was going to hold me back.
32:47I had to go see him.
32:48It was something in me.
32:50I couldn't let go.
32:54And I wanted answers.
32:55They were just a feeling, like a drive, that I needed to see my son.
33:02And not for any particular reason, not to apologize for anything I've said or done,
33:06or how I ever treated him in life.
33:12I just needed to see him.
33:14You know, if the window wasn't there, and you were meeting in that same room,
33:21and I, on my part, I would have hugged him.
33:25I don't know if he would have wanted it.
33:33Got in to see him.
33:35And that lasted about 15 minutes.
33:37I wanted to leave because I'm going to use the mental state that he was in.
33:42And I don't know if he was putting on a show or he was actually falling apart mentally.
33:48And he started to go off the edge and talk about people behind the wall and that they're
33:57listening, and they know what you're going to say before you say it.
34:01And I'm thinking, where's this crap coming from?
34:05And he would continue with that.
34:06I said, well, this isn't the person I come to see, and I can't stand this.
34:10That's all he's talking about.
34:11I wanted to leave.
34:30When Robert died in prison, I came and placed Robert here in the grave in my plot, my family
34:38plot.
34:40He's part of the family still.
34:43I haven't abandoned him.
34:45I put flowers on him every year on him.
34:49Why do you put flowers on his grave?
34:51I put flowers on his grave because Robert's still my son, regardless of what he did.
34:58To learn the things that he did, I don't look at it as you're tearing him down off that pedestal
35:03I had him on.
35:04He's already fallen.
35:05But I still care an awful lot about him.
35:10It's difficult, even though he's dead, it's difficult to wipe him out of your mind that
35:17he never was there.
35:19Because he was there, and I was proud of that person.
35:23I do believe in heaven and hell, and that there's got to be a God that's created all this.
35:28Everybody would hope that they're members in heaven.
35:31I hope he's there, but that's not my choice.
35:34If there's a God, and I believe there's got to be somebody higher than me that's created
35:38all this, then he'll answer to him.
35:56I'll say, I think about it all the time, but not every day.
35:59But it's on your mind, even today, that what did I do?
36:04Why?
36:04If it was all about money.
36:07But then you say, well, could I have helped him?
36:10I could have given him money.
36:12Have you watched or read his police interview?
36:16No, the only thing I got was a transcript of when I was there.
36:25Go ahead, when you're ready.
36:29I wish I could tell you, it was just about right.
36:32It'd be a lot easier for you to do.
36:35It's been a long time moving.
37:07How long did you know that you had this right?
37:10Your kids since you were in high school, since you were in college.
37:19I can't see you guys.
37:21I can't see you guys.
37:25I can't see you guys.
37:27I can't see you guys.
37:29I can't see you guys.
37:29I don't know.
37:31You killed somebody.
37:36First time I've ever seen any of this stuff.
37:39But these are clips that puts a different light on what I was told by a lot.
37:46That, you know, he says he was wanted to kill.
37:52We didn't see it.
37:53We didn't know it.
37:55We're only reading your hearts but they may be a serial killer.
37:58Is that what you are?
38:00Well, it's also an issue.
38:02We have some murder at this, though.
38:04And this kills people.
38:07It's part of the same act.
38:09We're in a killer.
38:11It's a separate incident.
38:25So do you look at him a little differently now?
38:30I don't know if I've got any emotion right now.
38:35I didn't know he was a serial killer.
38:41I would hate to go up there and dig his plot up,
38:44because I pissed at him.
38:46I could take him, dig it up, and put him down the mine shaft,
38:49I guess, and take him out of the family plot.
38:55Well, it's not that I don't love him anymore,
38:58he's less.
39:00He's my child.
39:01I look at him differently as he's a serial killer.
39:13If I were to look back, I'd blame myself, in a way,
39:16for not being the best parent I could have been,
39:20because I've been a workaholic all my life,
39:22by going to any bar at night.
39:27We just didn't do a whole bunch together,
39:29outside of high work.
39:30He went to school.
39:32So it wasn't a lot of fun time playing,
39:34as much as it was working.
39:38Because you feel like, for him to do this,
39:41how as parents, what did we do wrong?
39:45So you lose that bond of a family.
39:48I regret that part of it, of not being there
39:52when you feel like you should have been there.
39:55So to blame myself?
39:56Well, yeah, there's blame for myself.
40:04I don't forgive him.
40:05Those are crimes that you don't forgive people.
40:07You know, there's a punishment to it.
40:09And he was given his punishment,
40:12and they just didn't have time to carry it out
40:15before he died in jail.
40:19But, you know, had it changed my life?
40:22Well, it changed it to where you're pissed off,
40:24you don't sleep.
40:25It's on your mind all the time.
40:27So as time goes on, well, it gets a little easier,
40:30but you still think about it today.
40:32And here we sit today, talking about it.
40:40It's like people think, I guess,
40:49that I should write him off of my life for what he did,
40:52and I can't do it.
40:56There's no words.
40:58Yeah, I carry the weight.
41:00I don't ever, I don't think ever all have peace
41:05with what took place.
41:13My son was morphing into something
41:15that I did not recognize.
41:16It just wasn't Timmy.
41:18There's two people there.
41:19I was like, this is not normal.
41:22What is wrong with my son?
41:24I swear to God, and it's so hard to make anyone believe,
41:28but I was looking at a devil.
41:30That's wrong.icer
41:30cortical. .
41:30.
41:30.
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