Case isn't closed on Yates yet

Robert Lee Yates Jr. says he killed 14 people in Washington state, and a polygraph test indicates he didn't kill anyone else.

But authorities in 47 jurisdictions are still looking at Yates, 48, who has lived and trained all over the world as a helicopter pilot for the U.S. Army. They don't take the serial killer's word at face value. They still think he might have killed elsewhere.

"I honestly, honestly, honestly--having talked to our investigators--have to believe we're not done with Mr. Yates," said Cpl. Dave Reagan, a spokesman for the Spokane County Sheriff's Office.

Yates avoided the death penalty by pleading guilty to 13 murders. One of the killings he's confessed to is being held out: If he appeals the plea bargain, a 14th murder charge can be filed, and Yates could face the death penalty.

Yates is supposed to be sentenced to life in prison Thursday. But the Spokane County serial-killer task force plans to keep working through the end of next year on the case. A detailed timeline is being put together, outlining when Yates lived where.

Before, authorities were concentrating on crimes in recent years. Now that Yates has admitted killing a couple in 1975 and a woman in 1988, along with the 11 women he killed in Spokane between 1996 and 1998, almost any unsolved homicide in the last 25 years in Washington could get a new look.

"There's that big gap," said Sheriff Mike Hawley of Island County. "When you look at serial killers, they don't have big gaps like that."

Hawley and the Island County prosecutor are trying to interview Yates. They want to know whether he might have killed Teresa Hesselgrave, a Coupeville newlywed suffocated on April 15, 1977, when she was 19. Yates grew up in Oak Harbor, just down the road, and he visited often. He enlisted in the Army in 1977.

Hawley said Yates might have known Hesselgrave. Since Yates faces a life sentence for pleading guilty to 13 murders, Hawley just wants an answer from Yates on the death: Yes or no. Her parents are getting older, and Hawley would like to find the killer to give them some peace.

He also wants to know whether Yates might have killed Linda Moran, who vanished from a gas station on the road to Oak Harbor in 1996, the year Yates retired from the Army and moved to Spokane.

Snohomish County Sheriff Rick Bart said detectives there are investigating whether Yates may have killed a Vancouver Island couple discovered near Monroe and Burlington in late 1987. The man was strangled. The woman was raped and shot. Yates was a support aviator at Fort Rucker, Ala., at the time, but one of his children was attending school in Walla Walla.

Bart said there are similarities between the couple's death and Yates' other confessed crimes. He expects DNA test results within a week. "I think I'd be remiss if I didn't have my people look into this," Bart said. Spokane County also still has 11 unsolved murders, including three that have been linked to one killer.

Kathy Brisbois was one of those victims. Her sister, Debbie Brisbois, showed up at Yates' plea-bargain hearing Thursday with other relatives and a framed picture of Kathy.

"They didn't mention my sister's name," she said. "I thought he was going to confess to my sister. He didn't."

Spokane County Prosecuting Attorney Steve Tucker said he didn't think Yates would be found responsible for those other murders. If he was responsible, Tucker said, Yates would have said so. To escape the death penalty, Yates volunteered that he had slain six other people he hadn't been charged with killing.

"He had nothing to lose, by telling us any extras," Tucker said.

Yates admitted the 14 killings to his defense lawyers, and he passed the lie-detector test, before Pierce County charged him with two counts of aggravated first-degree murder. The lie-detector test wasn't done by a police officer, but by an outside polygraphist approved by the Spokane County prosecutor and Yates' attorneys.

Police had wanted to conduct their own test.

Once Pierce County filed its charges, Yates had no real incentive to admit any other murders. If he did kill other people, he might use those victims to bargain with Pierce County, which could very well ask for the death penalty. But the Pierce County prosecutor has said he will not plea-bargain a death-penalty case.

Staff reporter Keiko Morris contributed to this story.

Kim Barker's phone message number is 206-464-2255. Her e-mail address is kbarker@seattletimes.com.