CLEVELAND, Dec. 30 (UPI) -- A 49-year-old Cleveland man Monday admitted in court he killed two women and raped his three daughters and sister-in-law.
Under his plea agreement, Elias Acevedo Sr. was given prison terms totaling 445 years and will never be paroled, the (Cleveland) Plain Dealer reported.
Assistant Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Blaise Thomas said Acevedo could easily have qualified for a death penalty, but that punishment was taken off the table as part of the deal, the newspaper said.
Acevedo confessed to murdering Pamela Pemberton, 30, in 1994 and Christina Adkins, the 18-year-old pregnant girlfriend of his cousin, in 1995 after the prospect of being executed was removed, the Plain Dealer said. He also admitted repeatedly raping his daughters and assaulting his sister-in-law.
"You have changed my life forever," one daughter said in her statement describing what her father had done to her. "You robbed me of my childhood. ... I have lived in fear but I will no longer."
Acevedo's sister-in-law told how he had raped her 20 years ago when she was 18 and pregnant with his brother's child.
"I am grateful I can stand here today as one of his survivors," she said. "Back then I was the coward, but I'm not a coward anymore."
