SALEM (AP) — The Oregon Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the murder convictions and death sentence of Robert Acremant, who admitted killing a lesbian couple in Medford in 1995.

Acremant pleaded guilty to aggravated murder, kidnapping and robbery in the Dec, 4, 1995 slayings of Roxanne Ellis, 53, and Michelle Abdill, 42, after they refused to give him money from their property management business.

Prosecutors said Acremant killed the women in a desperate attempt to rob them of money he needed to win back a Las Vegas stripper he was courting.

Acremant made conflicting statements about whether he knew the women were homosexuals. In one interview, he said he killed them seeking money, not because they were homosexuals.

Acrement lured the women to a Medford duplex apartment, where he tied and gagged them with duct tape. He shot them twice in the head after forcing them to lie in the back of a pickup truck, which was discovered with the bodies in a Medford parking lot three days later.

Acremant also was convicted of murder in California for the 1995 slaying of Scott George of Visalia, the son of a friend of Acrement's mother.