Long trail of tips led police to Yates
In the end, hundreds of possibilities, thousands of tips, more than a million dollars and 18 dead women led to a shiny white 1977 Corvette worth $10,000.
Robert Lee Yates Jr. once owned that car, once worked on it in his front yard. It was his baby, and ultimately the reason he was arrested, even though he sold it two years ago. When investigators finally looked inside, they found the things that murder cases are made of.
Yates, a 47-year-old father of five who once flew helicopters in the U.S. Army, has been charged with first-degree murder in the death of Jennifer Joseph, a 16-year-old girl who died of gunshot wounds in August 1997.
He is being held in the Spokane County Jail on a $1.5 million cash bond.
Spokane County Sheriff Mark Sterk says Yates is a serial killer. He is the leading suspect in the deaths of at least 12 and as many as 18 women, most of whom dabbled in drugs and prostitution on the streets of Spokane.
The victims were shot to death and their bodies were left in remote areas.
Police say initial tests have matched Yates' DNA to DNA found on or near eight of the women. The rest are linked by other evidence.
Yesterday, investigators searched the outside of Yates' house, a tan split-level with brown trim, lace curtains, a flowering plum tree out front and a woodshed in back.
Investigators haven't been inside yet. That search could take as long as three weeks as detectives take the place apart looking for a weapon and whatever else they can find.
An FBI explosives-sniffing dog named Cascade has already pointed to six spots where a weapon might have once been.
Car broke the case
Investigators have interviewed more than 100 people, sealed off the neighborhood and moved Yates' family to a hotel.
They are also combing through cars. They have nine now, including a van seized in Idaho yesterday. Yates had driven most of these cars, including his daughter's and wife's Hondas, his own Honda and his former Corvette. One of his vans had seats from another van Yates drove. Another car is still parked in the home's double garage.
A green Ford truck once driven by Yates has an old Department of Defense registration sticker and another sticker proclaims Fort Drum, N.Y. A bumper sticker on the Honda Civic asks, "Why must I be surrounded by frickin' idiots?" A black Ford van with expired plates and a missing headlight has a sticker on the back saying "Fear This."
The white Corvette is hidden away. Investigators have already tested the carpet and also found a mother-of-pearl button that matched one from Jennifer Joseph's jacket. They found blood, too.
That car broke the case, police say. Another prostitute had last spotted Joseph in a similar car, driving eastbound on East Sprague Avenue, a white man at the wheel.
The trail to that car was not easy; investigators received more than 6,000 tips, followed many other trails that ended in bad confessions or DNA tests that ruled out other suspects.
The task force was hampered by so much. The bodies were left outside in out-of-the-way places, and they weren't found for weeks or months, destroying valuable evidence. The task force couldn't afford a crime analyst. The killer seemed to be taunting investigators at first, and then just stopped killing - in the Spokane area, at least. Some thought he was dead. Others figured he had moved or had landed in jail.
Six bodies were found from 1990 through 1996, the year Yates moved to town after spending 18 years in the Army. Investigators are trying to determine whether he had visited Spokane before. They are also fielding calls from police concerned about unsolved murders around the world.
Police pulled him over
The bodies of Jennifer Joseph and Heather Hernandez were found 15 miles apart on the same day, Aug. 26, 1997.
Shortly after, the sheriff's office heard about the white Corvette. They asked officers to watch for white Corvettes, especially those near East Sprague.
In September 1997, a police officer pulled over Yates in his Corvette a few blocks from where Joseph was last seen, an area where prostitutes work. He wasn't cited.
The killings started escalating and the Spokane Homicide Task Force officially formed to investigate.
Rallies were held for forgotten women. Prostitutes started working in pairs.
The task force made a database of all Corvette stops. They made another database, of every single Corvette in Washington and Idaho. They went to Corvette clubs and they made lists of all the members.
Yates sold his Corvette in May 1998 to a woman named Rita Jones. She shined the car, kept it clean and stored it with her sister, who worked in the property room for the Spokane Police Department.
A second police stop
Two bodies were found in July and October 1998, and then, no more bodies.
Buses started showing billboards of the missing women. A huge billboard was put up on East Sprague pleading "Help us find our killer!"
Yates picked up Jennifer Robinson, a known prostitute, Nov. 10, 1998, in a Honda Civic, according to the statement of facts in the case. A police officer stopped him at 1:25 a.m. Yates said he knew the woman's father and he was driving her home.
Two days later, at 6 p.m., police came to his house, five miles south of East Sprague. He was charged with misdemeanor assault for threatening his 19-year-old daughter. That charge was due to be dismissed as long as Yates didn't commit any crimes.
Eventually, the task force started talking to people connected to Corvettes and to the East Sprague area. Detectives called Yates in on Sept. 15. He was not a suspect but he started sweating profusely, according to the statement of facts.
In January, investigators decided to look at the Corvette once owned by Yates. They took out carpet fibers and they sent them to the state crime lab.
In February, investigators held a public meeting. They asked for tips and said they had DNA that would link the killer to 10 victims.
Evidence mounts
On April 5, the state crime lab said fibers from the Corvette's carpet closely matched fibers from Jennifer Joseph's shoes and a towel found near her.
The task force seized the car, found the blood and found the button.
Meanwhile, Yates was at a two-week training stint for the National Guard. On Monday, the day after he returned, investigators tailed him wherever he went. On Tuesday morning, a half-hour after he left for his job as an overhead crane driver at the Kaiser Aluminum plant, Yates was pulled over and arrested.
He didn't want to talk to detectives. He hasn't since.
Then detectives followed his wife, Linda Yates, as she dropped off the two youngest of her five children at school and then ran errands. They stopped her on one and asked her to come to the station, where they told her that her husband might be a serial killer. They didn't want to tell her this in front of her children. They didn't want to arrest Yates at home.
Linda Yates couldn't go home, and neither could the couple's four children who live there.
The sheriff's office bought them clothes and food and put them up in a hotel. Two detectives make sure they have everything they need.
Detectives picked up their cats, Bell and Toby. Sheriff Mark Sterk said it is the least they can do for the family.
Kim Barker's phone message number is 206-464-2255. Her e-mail address is kbarker@seattletimes.com
--------------------------- Yates time line
May 27, 1952 - Robert L. Yates Jr. born.
June 1970 - Graduates from Oak Harbor High School
Fall 1970 - Enrolls at Walla Walla Community College
Winter 1972 - Drops out of Walla Walla College community college
July 24, 1976 - Marries Linda Brewer of Walla Walla
1978 Yates begins 18-year career in the Army that takes him to numerous states and overseas to Somalia and Germany.
1991 to 1995
Yates stationed with the Army at Fort Drum, N.Y. and later at Fort Rucker, Ala.
1996
April: Yates discharged from the ARmy. Lives with his family in a single-story Spokane rental house.
September - Starts work at electronics manufacturer Pantrol in Spokane.
1997
March - Yates, his wife and five children move about a mile into a two-story house in a tree-lined neighborhood on Spokane's South Hill.
April - Yates joins the Washington Army National Guard as a pilot with the 66th Aviation Brigade, which trains once a month at Fort Lewis.
Aug. 16 - A friend of murder victim Jennifer Joseph, 16, sees her getting into a car described as a white 1975 Chevrolet Corvette driven by a white man in his 30s or 40s. The vehicle is similar to the 1977 Corvette owned by Yates, which he sells in 1998.
Sept. 24 - Yates, driving the Corvette, is stopped for speeding a few blocks from where Joseph was last seen.
November - Spokane police and county Sheriff's Department form joint task force to look into killings. They also ask help from the FBI.
1998
Yates applied to fly air-ambulance helicopters but didn't get the job, neighbors said.
Yates charged with domestic violence after police are called to his house to investigate a disturbance. Charge later dismissed.
September: Laid off from Pantrol.
Nov. 10, 1998 - Yates is stopped while driving his 1985 Honda Civic in an area frequented by prostitutes; inside is a woman described as a known prostitute. Yates told officer he picked up the woman to give her a ride home at her father's request.
December - Yates gets job at Kaiser Aluminum's Mead smelter north of Spokane.
1999 March 7- A white man is seen picking up a prostitute in East Spokane by a man who is the boyfriend of a prostitute; he gives investigators license-plate number of car that turns out to belong to Yates.
Sept. 15 - Yates interviewed by detectives at Spokane Public Safety Building. They note that he seemed to be seating profusely. He is asked about the traffic stop in 1977.
2000
January: Detectives track down the white Corvette's new owner and get permission to remove carpet fibers.
April 5 - Forensic scientist reports to investigators that fibers from Corvette closely match fibers in Joseph's shoes and a brownish-gray towel found near her body.
April 10 - Subsequent search of Corvette reveals mother-of-pearl button on the floorboard similar to one found on Joseph's jacket, and bloodstains on the driver's and passenger's seats and seat belts.
Sunday - Spokane County sheriff's detectives begin around-the-clock surveillance of Yates after his return to Spokane from a two-week Army National Guard camp at Fort Lewis.
Tuesday - Yates arrested as he drives to his job at the Kaiser plant.
Wednesday - Yates charged in Spokane County with first-degree murder in the slaying of Joseph and held on $1.5 million cash bond.
Yesterday - Initial tests match DNA from Yates to DNA found with eight of the women he is suspected of killing, according to Spokane County sheriff.
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Victims found
1990
Feb. 22: Yolanda Sapp, 26
March 25: Nickie Lowe, 36
May 15: Kathy Brisbois, 38
May 13 Sherry Palmer, 19
1995
Aug. 25: Patricia Barnes, 60
1996
June 14: Shannon Zielinski, 38
1997
Aug. 26: Jennifer Joseph, 16
Nov. 5: Darla Scott, 29
Dec. 7: Melinda Mercer, 24
Dec. 18: Shawn Johnson, 36
Dec. 26: Laurie Wason, 31
Dec. 26: Shawn McClenahan, 39
1998 Feb. 8: Sunny Oster, 41
April 1: Linda Maybin, 34
May: Melody Murfin, 43 (reported missing; not yet found)
July 7: Michelyn Derning, 47
Oct. 13 Connie Lafontaine Ellis, 35