Associated Press
SPOKANE — Members of the task force that caught serial killer Robert L. Yates Jr. accepted awards and gave speeches all over the country this year.
But the most important accolade may have been the Christmas card sent by the serial killer’s wife as members of the task force emptied their desks and prepared to go out of business this week.
Linda Yates thanked the officers for the support they gave her family after Yates was arrested early last year.
"It’s another one of the odd things that came out of this case," Sgt. Cal Walker, leader of the Spokane Serial Homicide Task Force, said Thursday. "We still have a good working relationship with that family."
The task force is shutting down three years after it was formed in December 1998. Walker and sheriff’s detectives Rick Grabenstein and Fred Ruetsch were the last remaining members of a joint sheriff-police-State Patrol team that hunted Yates. They are moving on to new assignments.
Yates, 49, is serving a 408-year sentence after confessing to 13 murders. He sits in an isolation cell in the Pierce County Jail in Tacoma, where he is scheduled to stand trial in April for two additional murders.
Linda Yates and her children now live in the Walla Walla area. Walker wouldn’t disclose the short, handwritten message on the Christmas card.
Task force detectives helped Linda Yates and her children move their household items last year from the family’s Spokane home to Walla Walla. They made special efforts to quickly get Yates’ 10-year-old son his favorite baseball glove and ball, tucked away in the piles of the family’s belongings.
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