Elias Acevedo, the Cleveland sex offender charged with murdering Pamela Pemberton and Christina Adkins back in the 1990s, pleaded not guilty to a 293-count indictment against him Monday morning. His bond was set to $5 million dollars by Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Joseph Russo during his arraignment.
Acevedo lived on the same block as notorious Cleveland kidnapper and rapist Ariel Castro during the 1990s when the women went missing, reports the Daily Mail.
Prosecutors say Acevedo strangled Pemberton, 30, and left her body in a vacant lot near in Tremont in October 1994. They also believe that he killed Adkins, who was 18-years-old and five months pregnant at the time. Adkins had been missing since January 1995, until Acevedo led investigators to her skeletal remains located just south of Interstate 90 last week, Cleveland.com reports.
Acevedo is also charged with the rape and kidnapping of two girls, who were as young as 8 and 11, in addition to a 1993 rape case a few months ago.
The Ohio man had been on the radar of the FBI's Violent Crimes Task Force since at least August. The task force coordinated several searches and gathered evidence it felt could link Acevedo to the unsolved cases.
In all, Acevedo faces four counts of aggravated murder, 173 counts of rape, 115 counts of kidnapping and one count of gross sexual imposition; plus two counts of rape and one of kidnapping from the 1993 case.
He's been held in Cuyahoga County Jail since June.
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