Ohio killer, rapist is assisting FBI analysts

1/10/2014

CLEVELAND — A sex offender who pleaded guilty to killing two women more than 15 years ago and raping children is opening up to an elite FBI unit that studies serial killers and rapists.

Elias Acevedo Sr. agreed to spend the rest of his life in prison for the crimes. But he’s also fulfilling a promise to assist behavioral analysts who work with the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime, The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer reported.

The interviews weren’t part of Acevedo’s plea agreement, but his attorney Bret Jordan said they were his client’s idea. Jordan says Acevedo “truly, truly feels horrible about what he did but he doesn’t understand why it happened.”

“He doesn’t know if what he did could be prevented, but he wants to know,” Jordan said.

The FBI declined to comment on the arrangement.

Acevedo, 49, agreed last month to plead guilty to 297 counts, including murdering the women and kidnapping and raping children. The two 20-years-to-life sentences for aggravated murder and sentences for other crimes total 445 years.

The murder charges involve a Cleveland neighbor, Pamela Pemberton, who was killed in 1994, and 18-year-old Christina Adkins, who was pregnant when she disappeared in 1995.

Acevedo also was charged with rape and sexual assault involving attacks on minors, some dating back more than 25 years.

It was the high-profile arrest last year of Ariel Castro for holding three women captive for more than a decade that led authorities in Cleveland to dig back into the Adkins cold case.

FBI Violent Crime Task Force members and other investigators linked him to the long unsolved cases using geographic proximity to the crime scenes and previously unexplored connections to the victims. Adkins was his cousin’s girlfriend and Pemberton was a neighbor.

Acevedo’s surviving victims also provided vital information that authorities were able to use in confronting him. That interrogation resulted in him admitting to the murders and leading agents to Adkins’ long-hidden body in October.

Jordan said it doesn’t matter if people question Acevedo’s motivation for cooperating with the FBI.

“For him, this is an opportunity at some small redemption,” the attorney said.