Yates pleads guilty to serial killings

By JOHN K. WILEY

Associated Press

SPOKANE – Robert L. Yates Jr. pleaded guilty today to 13 murders, taking a place among the nation’s most prolific serial killers.

The Army veteran and helicopter pilot also pleaded guilty to one count of attempted murder as part of a deal to escape the death penalty.

Yates removed his glasses and wiped his eyes as he answered “guilty, your honor” as each count was read against him. It was his first public show of emotion since his arrest in April.

Yates made no statements during the 30-minute court appearance, other than to answer questions. The small courtroom was packed with family of victims.

The 48-year-old father of five is to be sentenced next Thursday to 447 years in prison.

Yates was arrested in April and charged with the deaths of eight women and the attempted murder of another in the Spokane area in 1996-98. He also was charged with the murders of two women in Pierce County that occurred in the same period.

All of the victims were involved in a life of prostitution and drugs, and had been shot.

Yates pleaded guilty to seven of the Spokane slayings he was charged with; two Spokane-area slayings he was suspected of but not charged with; the murder of a young man and woman in Walla Walla County in 1975; and the murder of a woman in Skagit County in 1988.

Yates also pleaded guilty to the attempted murder of Christine Smith, 32, of Spokane, the only victim known to have escaped his attacks.

Yates could still face the death penalty in the two Tacoma-area slayings, and in an additional slaying in Spokane County that is being held in abeyance in case Yates tries to renege on the agreement or file an appeal.

Yates’ relatives this week said they knew him as a caring family man who loved cars and the outdoors, and was proud of his service in the Army and National Guard as a helicopter pilot.

But Sonja Yates, one of Yates’ four daughters, said there had been signs of trouble.

“My mom had her suspicions that he was sneaking around once in a while,” the 22-year-old said Wednesday, speaking publicly for the first time since her father’s arrest. “He would stay out until 2 in the morning. She wondered what he was doing.”

Investigators say Yates frequently cruised Spokane’s red-light district in a white 1977 Corvette and picked up prostitutes. Last spring, investigators recovered a victim’s DNA in the car, providing the evidence that triggered Yates’ arrest.

After the arrest, Yates’ family left their Spokane home and went into hiding.

Yates takes his place among the nation’s most prolific killers, a list that includes the uncaught Green River Killer, blamed for the deaths of at least 49 women in Washington and Oregon starting in 1982, and Ted Bundy, a Tacoma native who confessed to killing 30 women, including eight in Washington state, before his execution in Florida in 1988.

John Wayne Gacy Jr. was convicted in 1980 of 33 Chicago-area murders, the most convictions by anyone in U.S. history.