Robert Yates Pleads Guilty to 13 Murders in a Deal That Spares Him Death in Spokane
The 48-year-old Army helicopter pilot admitted killings in Spokane, Walla Walla and Skagit counties going back to 1975, and the attempted murder of a woman who survived.
Published
Robert L. Yates Jr. admitted to killings reaching back a quarter of a century. On October 19, 2000, he pleaded guilty in Spokane to thirteen murders, and prosecutors agreed not to seek his death.
He also pleaded guilty to one attempted murder. Yates, 48, an Army veteran and helicopter pilot, took off his glasses and wiped his eyes as he answered "guilty, your honor" to each count, the first emotion he had shown in public since his arrest in April. He said nothing else in the thirty-minute hearing beyond answering the judge, and when he was asked whether the confession read in court was accurate, he replied, "That's my statement, your honor." The families of his victims filled the small courtroom.
Ten of the murders were of women killed in Spokane County between 1996 and 1998: Jennifer Joseph, Heather Hernandez, Darla Scott, Shawn Johnson, Laurie Wason, Shawn McClenahan, Sunny Oster, Linda Maybin, Melody Murfin and Michelyn Derning. Two were in Walla Walla County in 1975, where Patrick Oliver and a young woman were shot while picnicking, and one was a woman killed in Skagit County in 1988. The attempted-murder count concerned a Spokane woman who survived being shot in his van in August 1998, the only person known to have escaped him. Days before the plea, Yates had drawn investigators a map to Melody Murfin's body, buried beside his house on Spokane's South Hill, and the deal had depended on her being found.
Yates had often driven through Spokane's red-light district in a white 1977 Corvette, investigators said, and DNA from one of the victims recovered from that car led to his arrest on April 18. The agreement left two cases open. Pierce County had charged him in July with the aggravated first-degree murders of Melinda Mercer and Connie LaFontaine Ellis, killed in the Tacoma area in 1997 and 1998, and prosecutors there could still seek the death penalty. A further Spokane County killing was held back, to be charged if he tried to withdraw from the deal or appealed. "He's been forthright so far, and said he's killed this many and only in Washington state," said Spokane County Prosecutor Steve Tucker.
His public defender, Richard Fasy, said Yates had received threatening letters from inmates at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla, where he had briefly worked as a guard in 1975. "I am concerned for his safety in the future," Fasy said. "Life in prison is not going to be easy for Mr. Yates."
The Washington Supreme Court's 2007 opinion says Yates pleaded guilty on October 13, 2000, while the Associated Press reported that he entered his pleas in court on October 19. Reports on the day of the plea gave the expected sentence as 447 years, and the court imposed 408.
Sources
- State v. Yates, 161 Wn.2d 714, 168 P.3d 359 (2007), Washington Supreme Court (via Justia)
- Yates pleads guilty to 13 killings, The Herald (Everett)
- Wash. Serial Killer Pleads Guilty, ABC News (AP)
- Yates sentenced to 408 years in prison, The Herald (Everett)
- Yates to admit 13 killings to avoid death penalty, The Seattle Times, with the Associated Press
- The Past Five Years, The Spokesman-Review
Related News
- October 3, 2002: Tacoma Jury Sentences Robert Lee Yates Jr. to Death for Killing Melinda Mercer and Connie Ellis