The Crime Web: Robert Yates

At 6.30am on April 18, Robert Lee Yates Jr, 47, a married father of five, was arrested for the murder of 16 year old Jennifer Joseph .

As Yates sat at the police station more charges of murder were added to the initial murder charge after a taskforce closed it trap around Yates. A task force had been mobilized to track the serial killer. Yates became a prime suspect when witnesses described seeing Yates' 1977 white corvette in the area on the nights that the women disappeared. Last spring, Yates was questioned and detectives found enough evidence from Jennifer Joseph in the car, which led to his initial arrest.

Detectives begun round-the-clock surveillance of Yates for the two days preceeding his arrest. After he returned from a two-week Army National Guard camp where he has continued to his service as a helicopter pilot in the 66th Aviation Brigade of the Washington Army National Guard, which is headquartered at Gray Army Airfield, which is located on the base at Fort Lewis near Tacoma.

It appears Spokane's Serial Killer grew bolder with each murder he committed. At first he relied on time and distance to separate himself from the crimes.

In the beginning, serial killer victims were turning up miles from where they worked here along Sprague Avenue. Late in august of 1997, a farmer found Jennifer Joseph's body underneath this pine tree in the Mt. Spokane foothills.

The next known serial killer was Darla Scott. Her body was also discovered in a rural area of the Hangman Valley. But in this case, the gunman had cut the distance from Sprague Avenue in half.

The killer's comfort zone would be cut in half again with the discovery of Shawn McClenahan and Laurie Wason at 14th and Carnahan.

More than a half year later, in the serial killer's boldest execution, Michelyn Derning died just a few blocks from where she entered the serial killer's vehicle.

It appears the gunman had become quite comfortable with attacking and disposing of his targets even in this very urbanized area.

However they do believe that as their investigation turned up the heat, Robert Yates gave up his alleged campaign of murder.

The 47-year-old Spokane resident is currently employed as a replacement worker at Kaiser Mead, where he was hired in December 1998 as a strikebreaker after workers at the plant walked off the job.

Yates would cruise a well known prostitution strip just a short drive from his average suburban home from August 1997 to July 1998.

His main objective was to find prostitutes to murder. Most of the victims were white, with only one being asian, and they were all involved in prostitution or drugs or both.

Yates' style was to shoot the victims in the head with a .25-caliber gun after covering their heads in several plastic grocery bags. Investigators suggest that the bags were a "signature" -- things serial killers do to their victims that are not necessary for murder. He would them dump the bodies where they would be found in remote locations but near well-traveled roads and in close proximity to each other. Almost all the victims had been killed elsewhere before being transported to "dump sites" where they were found.

Semen was found on eight of the bodies. Three of the victims' bodies were within 50 yards of each other, and two of the bodies were touching. Three victims were found with vegetation from Yates' own home on top of their bodies, which also assisted in linking Yates to the crimes.

On October 26, 2000 after many appalling plea bargains Yates was finally sentenced to 408 years in prison for 13 killings. Yates was then transferred to Pierce County where he is to face two further counts of first-degree murder of Melinda Mercer and Connie LaFontaine Ellis.

Susan Savage, 22, and Patrick Oliver, 21 were the first to cross paths with the Robert Yates. In 1975 the young couple were picnicking on Mill Creek, near Walla Walla, when Yates happened upon them while practicing his target shooting in the same area.

Patrick Oliver was shot three times in the head before Yates turned on Susan and shot her twice. Yates buried the couple's bodies under a pile of brush where the were found within days. Yet it took a further 25 years before the families of the couple would find out they were the first victims of a serial killer, when Yates admitted he was responsible for the murders.

Twenty-three year old Stacy Elizabeth Hawn from Seattle was the first prostitute known to be killed by Yates around July 7, 1988. Her skeletal remains were found five months later in Skagit County outside of Mount Vernon. Stacy had been shot once in the head.

Initially Hawn was listed as a possible victim of the Green River Killer, however Yates' finally admitted to her murder and was able to pinpoint the location she was found as well as her injuries. His confession was part of a plea bargain so he could avoid the death penalty.

Jennifer Joseph, aged 16, was found on August 26, 1997. Her body was found in an advanced state of decomposition in a small secluded spot at the corner of Forker and Judkins Roads on the Peone Prairie. She had been killed by a close-range gunshot to the chest. DNA was able to be extracted from semen swabs and were undeniably matched to Yates. A sleeve button found in the white Corvette formerly owned by Yates was matched to the shirt worn by Joseph at the time of her death. The analysis of blood smears found in the Corvette produced a match with a DNA profile generated through samples from Joseph's parents.

The decomposed body of twenty-nine year old prostitute Darla Sue Scott, was found on November 5, 1997 by a man walking his dog off Hangman Valley Road. Two plastic bags that had been covering her head were also found in her shallow grave. Her cause of death was two gunshots to the head. DNA found on Darla's body was matched to Yates.

On December 7, 1997 the body of twenty-four year old Melinda L. Mercer, 24 was found on S. 50th St. in Tacoma. She had four plastic bags covering her head and she had been shot three times.

The body of Shawn L. Johnson, aged 36, was found on December 18, 1997. Her decomposing remains were found off Hangman Valley Road with two plastic bags covering her head. The cause of death was two gunshots to the head. Semen samples taken from her body were matched to Yates' DNA.

Thirty one year old Laurel Wason's body was found on December 26, 1997, in a gravel pit near the Hangman Valley Road. Her head was covered with three plastic bags cover her head and she had died from two gunshot wounds to the head. Foreign vegetation, peanut shells, packing Styrofoam and chips of broken concrete were found covering her body that matched debris found in Yates' backyard. Semen found in her body matched Yates.

Shawn A. McClenahan, 39 was also found December 26, 1997, next to the body of Laurel Wason. Three plastic bags covered her head and the cause of death was two gunshots to the head. DNA evidence from semen was matched to Yates as well as a fingerprint on one of the plastic bags. Foreign matter covering her body was also from Yates' backyard. Semen found in her body was matched to Yates.

Sunny G. Oster, aged 41, was found on February 8, 1998. Her remains are found in a wooded area in Western Spokane County and have all the hallmarks of a Yates' murder. Her head is covered with three plastic bags and she ahs two gunshot wounds to the skull. Yates' semen was also found on her body.

Thirty-four year old Linda Maybin's decomposed body is found on April 1, 1998. Her shallow grave is only 50 yards from the site of Wason and McClenahan's gravesite.. Two plastic bags cover the victim's head. Cause of death is one gunshot to the head. Semen in her body was matched to Yates' DNA. Non-indigenous plant trimmings covering her body were matched to vegetation in Yates' backyard.

The next victim was found on July 7, 1998. Forty seven year old prostitute Michelyn Derning was found under a bath cover by a transient in an area frequented by prostitutes in Spokane's East Central neighborhood. Cause of death is gunshot wound to the head. Unlike all of the other victims, she was seen alive a week before her body was discovered. The others were found weeks, or sometimes months, after they disappeared. Derning was not raped and was murdered where she was found.

Connie LaFontaine Ellis, 35, was found October 13, 1998, in a ditch near the 1700 block of 108th Street South in Tacoma. Her decomposed body has three plastic bags covering her head and she had suffered only one gunshot wound to the head.

Melody Ann Murfin, 43, who disappeared in 1998 and was always regularly included in the Spokane Serial Killer victim list. Her body was found October 18, 2000, buried in the side yard under the bedroom window of Yates' home. Although authorites thoroughly searched the yard after his arrest, they found Murfin's body after Yates provided them with a man pinpointing its location.

Christine L. Smith, 32, was robbed and assaulted by a man in his van on August 1, 1998. Smith was grazed by the gunshot to her head but managed to escape and report the attack to police.

Smith had agreed to perform oral sex for $40 in the back of Yates' van in a secluded parking lot in Spokane on Aug. 1, 1998. According to Smith, Yates was driving a black van with a bed and mattress in the back. Smith asked Yates if he was the "psycho killer." that had been killing prostitutes at the time, Yates responded by saying "he was not the killer because he had five kids and would not do that."

After several minutes when Smith had failed at arousing Yates with oral sex Yates shot her in the head - (Smith had thought she had been hit rather than shot), nearly causing her to lose consciousness however Smith struggled to stay awake and keep her wits about her as she fell backwards. Luckily the bullet had only scraped the side of her face. Smith did not know she had been shot until a later x-ray showed fragments in her face and skull.

She contacted police again on April 18 after recognizing Yates as her attacked from his mugshot published in The Spokesman-Review. Police found blood stains, a .25-caliber bullet casing and a bullet encrusted in the roof of a van similar to the one described by Smith that was once owned by Yates. The fragments of bullet were later removed from her head for ballistic comparison to other bullets from Yates' victims.

Robert Lee Yates Jr. is an Army veteran who served nearly two decades as a helicopter pilot for the U.S. Army. He is the married father of four daughters and a son, ranging from age 11 to 25.

He grew up in nearby Oak Harbor, Wash., a Puget Sound community where the quiet calm is often punctuated by the rumbling of jet engines from strike aircraft and patrol planes in the flight pattern at nearby Whidbey Island Naval Air Station.

After dropping out of college in the early 1970s, Yates married and enlisted in the Army on Oct. 4, 1977. Within 3 years, Yates was a warrant officer attending flight school at Fort Rucker, Ala., the home of Army aviation. He graduated with a pair of flight wings authorizing him to fly helicopters.

Yates flew the OH-58 Kiowa, the military version of the Bell Jet Ranger helicopter. Sleek, fast and highly maneuverable, the scout helicopter served as a battlefield commander's eyes and ears.

Yates was stationed overseas in Germany during the height of Cold War tensions between Western Europe and the former Warsaw Pact. His decorations included three Meritorious Service Medals, three Army Commendation Medals, three Army Achievement Medals and a Humanitarian Service Medal for participating in a relief mission to South Florida to help clean up the devastation left by Hurricane Andrew in 1992.

He also received two Armed Forces Expeditionary Medals one for each tour he had spent flying in peacekeeping missions with the Unified Task Force in Somalia in 1993 and in Haiti during Operation "Uphold Democracy" in 1994.

"It's real gutsy he would go out there and look for the enemy with no weaponry," said Chief Warrant Officer-3 Jay Enders, who would later fly with Yates in the Washington Army National Guard. "He [Yates] was a true professional when he was out here, very proficient."

Yates ended his career as a chief warrant officer-4, the highest rank a warrant officer could attain in the Army. He had amassed more than 5,000 hours of flight time in helicopters without a single mishap and had been awarded the title of Master Army Aviator.

After 18 years as a career military aviator, Yates was almost within sight of the coveted 20-year mark, when servicemen are eligible for retirement benefits. Instead, Chief Warrant Officer Yates retired from the Army in March 1996.

He was a civilian again, finally settling with his family into a beige two-story rancher on Spokane's South Hill. Within months of retiring, however, Yates was looking to get back into the cockpit. In April 1997, the Washington Army National Guard granted his request.

But Yates was unable to fly. A performance evaluation report filed by his commanding officer in May 1998 noted that his "morale and dedication remained high" despite not being able to fly "due to delays in processing [his] medical examination."

While Chief Warrant Officer Yates was grounded, detectives were working to unravel the mystery behind a growing number of bodies that were being discovered across Washington State.

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Original Written: January 30, 2002