Death sentence for Yates elicits tears, but none for joy

TACOMA — It was a victory of sorts for many in the courtroom yesterday when convicted serial killer Robert L. Yates Jr. was sentenced to die for the aggravated murders of two women.

The prosecutors had won their case. The police had seen their cases close. The victims' families had gotten what they wanted. But nobody was celebrating.

"It's not really happiness," said Karyl Bushell, mother of Melinda Mercer, 24, who with Connie LaFontaine Ellis, 35, were killed by Yates in Pierce County. "It's not really sadness. It's more like, after five years, done."

"I felt for his five kids, knowing they would have to go through life without their father on Earth," said juror Launi Hocker of Puyallup. "But in the name of justice, it had to be done. He had to be stopped."

Ellis' father, Emil LaFontaine, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from his home in Rolla, N.D., "He deserves that. ... If anybody deserves the death penalty, it was Yates."

Yates, a father of five and a helicopter pilot in the Army and National Guard, is already serving a 408-year sentence under a plea deal two years ago in Spokane County, in which he confessed to killing 13 others. "I'm glad about the verdict," said Kathy Lloyd, whose sister, Shawn McClenahan, Yates killed in Spokane five years ago. "And I believe that justice was done — anyone who kills that many women and brings that much horror to his victims, his victims' families and his own family deserves to die — but I'm not turning cartwheels.

"I guess I'm thinking that nobody is really a winner," she said.

Waiting on death row Robert L. Yates Jr. will join nine other men on Washington's death row. They are: • Jonathan Gentry, 46, sentenced in Kitsap County in 1991 for the rape and murder of 12-year-old Cassie Holden in a wooded area in Bremerton in 1988. • Cal Brown, 49, sentenced in King County in 1994 for the 1991 rape and stabbing death of 22-year-old Holly Washa of Burien. • Darold Stenson, 50, sentenced in Clallam County in 1994 for shooting his wife, Denise, 28, in an effort to collect $800,000 in insurance and then killing Frank Hoerner to make it look like a love triangle murder-suicide. • Clark Elmore, 51, sentenced in Whatcom County in 1996 for raping and killing 14-year-old Kristy Ohnstad in 1995. • Dwayne Woods, 33, sentenced in Spokane County in 1997 for fatally beating two women, Telisha Shaver and Jade Moore. • Cecil Davis, 43, sentenced in Pierce County in 1998 for raping and killing 65-year-oldYoshiko Couch of Tacoma in 1997. • Covell Thomas, 25, sentenced in Pierce County in 2001 for shooting his boss, Richard Geist, 26, in 1998 to steal $5,000 from him. • Davya Cross, 42, sentenced in King County in 2001 for fatally stabbing his wife, Anouchka Baldwin, and his stepdaughters, Amanda Baldwin, 14, and Salome Holly, 18, near Snoqualmie in 1999. • Allen Gregory, 29, sentenced in Pierce County in 2001 for raping and fatally stabbing his neighbor, 43-year-old Geneine Ann Harshfield, at her Tacoma home in 1996. Source: Washington State Attorney General's Office and Seattle Times files.

In his plea bargain in Spokane, Yates said he killed Susan Savage and Patrick Oliver, when they were on a picnic in Walla Walla in 1975. He said he killed Stacy Hawn in 1988 in Skagit County. He said that between 1996 and 1998, he killed Shannon Zielinski, Jennifer Joseph, Heather Hernandez, Darla Sue Scott, Shawn Johnson, Laurie Wason, Sunny Oster, Linda Maybin, Melody Murfin and Michelyn Derning, women whom like Mercer and Ellis Yates had hired as prostitutes.

All of the latter women had been shot in the head and their bodies left in remote places.

Yates also confessed to trying to kill Christine Smith in Spokane. Yates shot her in the head, but she survived.

Yates had said he would confess in Spokane only if guaranteed he would not be executed. In exchange, he admitted six murders for which he had not been charged and led police to Murfin's body, which he had buried in his yard.

His Spokane plea agreement did not include charges for the murder of McClenahan, whose body was found in a gravel pit next to Laurie Wason's body in 1997. Spokane County Prosecutor Steve Tucker said that if Yates appealed the plea bargain, he would charge him with aggravated first-degree murder for killing McClenahan and could seek the death penalty.

The no-execution deal was controversial, and Pierce County refused to go along with it.

But Tucker was unapologetic — he said he had helped families find out who had killed their loved ones and had recovered a body. He also called Pierce County's move to seek the death penalty needlessly time-consuming and costly.

Before deliberations began on Wednesday, Yates told the Pierce County jurors, "The world is a frightening place, and I've made it more so for many. Hundreds of people are hurting and grieving because of my actions."

The jury of seven women and five men, who convicted Yates last month, returned their death-penalty verdict after less than five hours of deliberation. When Judge John A. McCarthy read the verdict, Yates bowed his head but showed little emotion. His father, Robert Yates Sr., and his sister, Shirley Hess, sobbed.

On the other side of the room, behind the prosecutor's desk, Holly Bartlett kissed a photo of her sister, Melinda Mercer.

Yates' lawyer, Roger Hunko, who has called the death penalty "an abomination," looked surprised and searched jurors' faces as if their answers might change. He said he would file an appeal as soon as the sentencing is made official Wednesday, and that process would mean that it would be at least seven years before the sentence could be carried out.

Only one death-row inmate in recent years, Charles Rodman Campbell, has fought execution. He was convicted of killing three people in Snohomish County in 1982 and was executed 12 years later, in 1994.

Tim Ford, a prominent Seattle attorney who opposes the death penalty, said the national average for waits on death row is 11 years.

After the verdict yesterday, jurors said they had taken their first vote at noon, and that it was unanimous.

Washington executions Since the state's death penalty was reinstated in 1981, four men have been put to death: • Westley Allan Dodd, 31, hanged in 1993 for murdering three boys, William Neer, 10, and Cole Neer, 11, and Lee Iseli, 4, in Clark County in 1989 • Charles Rodman Campbell, 39, hanged in 1994 for the 1982 murders of Renae Wicklund, 31, her daughter, Shannah, 8, and a neighbor, Barbara Hendrickson, 51, in Snohomish County. • Jeremy Sagastegui, 27, executed by lethal injection in 1998 for the 1995 murders of 3-year-old Keiven Sarbacher; the boy's mother, Mellisa Sarbacher, 21; and her friend, Lisa Vera-Acevedo, 26. • James Elledge, 58, killed by lethal injection in August 2001 for the 1998 strangling and stabbing of Eloise Jane Fitzner, 47, in Lynnwood, where he worked part time as a janitor.

Some jurors said sentencing Yates to die by lethal injection was one of the most difficult things they had ever done. Several said they began to prepare themselves some time ago for the sentence they hoped they would not have to impose.

"I came to terms with it, personally and religiously, weeks ago when I realized I might have to do it," said Renee Rouleau-White, of Tacoma.

"It was the hardest thing I have ever done," said Doug Brunner of Buckley. "They asked us whether we believed in the death penalty and I said yes, but it wasn't until this morning that I finally realized what that really meant."

The jurors said they had tried hard to find a reason to spare Yates' life, but could not.

"Believe me," said Hocker, "there's no stone left unturned in that jury room. We tried and scraped to find some reason to give him mercy, but we came up empty."

Jurors said the evidence against Yates was so overwhelming that the defense had little to work with. They were unswayed, they said, by defense arguments that Yates had served honorably in the military or that, as a renewed Christian, he could provide comfort and guidance to other prisoners.

"I believe he did have a conversion," said Brunner, "but it was too late. He should have had it in 1976 after he killed that first couple."

"If he found God, he's going to need him," said Hocker.

Robert Yates Sr. said he was not surprised by the verdict. "I didn't hold out much hope with them coming back this fast," he said. "After that, I just knew it was going to be death. But I think he's prepared." He wept as he embraced the victims' relatives.

Prosecutors Jerry Costello and Barbara Corey-Boulet also hugged members of the victims' families. "It would be nice if we never had to try cases like this," said Corey-Boulet.

"But I think we've achieved the greatest measure of justice we could achieve," Costello added.

As Yates' father left the courtroom, tears streaming down his face, he shook the hands of Corey-Boulet and Costello. "I know you were just doing your jobs," he said.

Reporters Ian Ith, Sarah Anne Wright and Dave Birkland contributed to this report.