Panel rejects Fuhrman’s claims

Associated Press

SPOKANE — A citizens group Friday rejected the claim in Mark Fuhrman’s latest true-crime book that the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office bungled the search for serial killer Robert L. Yates Jr., who pleaded guilty to 13 murders after his arrest last year.

In "Murder in Spokane," Fuhrman — the former Los Angeles police detective disgraced in the O.J. Simpson case — asserts that Yates should have been caught two years sooner, sparing the lives of perhaps nine of his victims.

"Whether it was laziness, incompetence or just plain human error, the task force could have caught Yates back in September 1997," writes Fuhrman, who now lives nearby in northern Idaho. Yates was arrested on his way to work on April 18, 2000.

Fuhrman’s book — and increasingly vitriolic attacks on local authorities on his crime-oriented call-in radio show here — have drawn indignant protest from the sheriff’s office, which contends Fuhrman did not have complete or accurate information.

"The end result speaks for itself," Sgt. Cal Walker, who led the Yates investigation, said Friday. "He was caught, and he was caught well."

Sheriff Mark Sterk disclosed Thursday that several months ago he asked a panel of 20 citizens to review the efforts of the special task force set up to catch the serial killer who preyed on women here for two years.

The panel issued a statement Friday, saying that "published claims by third parties about mistakes made and methods used in the investigation have proved to be grossly inaccurate and insulting to the victims and their families."

Task force members "did everything in their power to find and stop the Spokane serial killer," the panel said.

Fuhrman was out of town Friday on a national book tour and could not be reached immediately for comment. His publicist did not return a telephone message.

Controversy over the new book has made public a long-simmering battle between Furhman and the sheriff’s office.

Fuhrman was denied access to official files in the Yates case.

His book contends authorities could have identified and arrested Yates sooner if they’d relied more on old-fashioned police work and less on DNA and other high-tech evidence.

The sheriff’s office counters that Fuhrman’s investigative skills are on display every time Simpson, acquitted of two murder charges in the death of his ex-wife and a friend, plays a round of golf. Fuhrman was convicted of perjury for his testimony in the case, and defense attorneys dismissed him as a racist who might have planted evidence.

Fuhrman’s attacks on local investigators are "bitingly malicious," Sterk said Thursday.

"It’s so hurtful — not only to my investigators, but to the families of the victims," he said.

Fuhrman has contended Yates should have been arrested after city police officers spotted him trolling for prostitutes in a white Corvette. One of the victims was reported getting into a white Corvette just before she disappeared.

But Sterk said officers could not simply arrest everyone in a white Corvette.

"You elected me to protect your constitutional rights, for honest citizens as well as bad guys," he said.

Fuhrman also contends investigators should have released more information to the public, to enlist more help in identifying the killer.

But Sterk said revealing details — like the involvement of a white Corvette — would have served only to "educate the suspect" about what authorities were looking for.

He vehemently denied Fuhrman’s contention that Yates dug up, moved and repositioned his victims to taunt investigators. In one case, Yates stacked one victim on top of another, Fuhrman’s book contends.

"We’re going to show you photos that make it pretty clear to us that those bodies were never moved," Sterk said. "They were dumped by Mr. Yates, and that’s where they were found. They were not stacked on top of each other."

Yates, who turns 49 Sunday, pleaded guilty last year to 13 murders and one attempted murder. He was sentenced in November to more than 408 years in prison. The father of five faces trial in Pierce County next year for two Tacoma-area slayings. He could face the death penalty if convicted of aggravated first-degree murder in those deaths.