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The Smiley Face Killer - Documentary · The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Meet John Doe, a quiet, friendly type who likes to
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: keep his yard trimmed and tidy. He's a perfect neighbor
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: in every way but one. John Doe kills women, a
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: lot of women.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: The bodies are piling up. People began wondering what's going
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: on here? Who are these women? Who's killing him?
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Seventeen women dead and police can't find him. He's a
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: serial killer with the ultimate weapon. He's a chameleon.
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: Serial killers trademark is their ability to manipulate those around
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: them into believing that they are nothing more than just
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: a regular human man.
• 0:41
  Speaker 4: It was like a puzzle, and I wanted to solve it.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: A dark, twisted puzzle spawned from the mind of a
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: killer that only forensic science can stop. Spokane, Washington. By day,
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: it's a safe place to raise a family, but when
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: night falls, a darker underbelly emerges. In the past three years,
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: six women have been found dead, shot and dumped in
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: the countryside. Their bodies are so decomposed at least find
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: little evidence, and identifying them takes months. When investigators finally
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: do put names to the victims, they discover they have
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: one thing in common. They are ladies of the night.
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: There is extremely unusual half dead prostitutes in the city
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: of Spokane.
• 2:02
  Speaker 5: Within a short period of time, we had some type
• 2:05
  Speaker 5: of a serial murder situation going on here.
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: There was somebody preying on that segment of our society
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: here in Spokane.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: Then the streets grow quiet and investigators pray the killing
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: is over. August twenty sixth, nineteen ninety seven, a rider
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: on the outskirts of Spokane sees what he thinks is
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: a dead deer that is no animal. Detectives Rick Gravenstein
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: and Fred Rooch respond to the crime scene. Is this
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: woman the latest victim of the serial killer? The location
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: of the body strikes a chord with investigators.
• 2:52
  Speaker 5: It was in a rural area, wheat fields and trees.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: Gravenstein and Rooch know this countryside well.
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: Every single body that was found in this county. Regardless
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: of the reason we responded to it.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: Previous crime scenes have yielded little evidence. This victim's wounds
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: are fresh, potentially offering clues about the killer. A small
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: hole in the skull points to the cause of death.
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: A hole in the back there She had apparently been
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: the victim of a gunshot wound that they had shot
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: with a small caliber handgun.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: But if they're right, the crime scene doesn't match the crime.
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: Every time you have a head wound, you have a
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: great deal of bleeding, particularly with the gunshot wounds.
• 3:36
  Speaker 5: That blood should be there at the scene.
• 3:38
  Speaker 6: When there's a lack of blood and an immediate location,
• 3:41
  Speaker 6: that generally indicates that the killing did not occure there.
• 3:45
  Speaker 6: And this is what's commonly referred to as a dump site.
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: Every one of the victims had been transported by a
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: motor vehicle to their body found sites. We know we
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: have a car somewhere. More than likely it has a
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: great deal of evidence in it.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: And the method of support isn't the only similarity to
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: the previous crimes.
• 4:04
  Speaker 6: The fact that they were in the rural areas, all female,
• 4:08
  Speaker 6: in different conditions of disrobing, and the fact that they
• 4:11
  Speaker 6: all having been shot it did lead you to at
• 4:14
  Speaker 6: least suspect strongly that there was some relationship there.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: If the serial killer is back, investigators need hard evidence
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: to confirm their suspicion, but first they have to id
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: the victim. Through dental records, they learn her name is
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: Jennifer Joseph, a local prostitute. At the autopsy, the coroner
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: looks for the serial killer's signature mo O.
• 4:40
  Speaker 7: There were generally at least two gun shot wounds to
• 4:43
  Speaker 7: the head region very closely situated, and this is sometimes
• 4:46
  Speaker 7: referred to in police military circles as double tapping. In
• 4:51
  Speaker 7: other words, the habit of firing. If you're going to
• 4:53
  Speaker 7: fire the gun firate twice.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: But Jennifer Joseph's body tells a different story.
• 5:00
  Speaker 7: In this particular autopsy, there were some distinctly different findings.
• 5:05
  Speaker 7: She had gunshop wounds elsewhere that included the left shoulder,
• 5:10
  Speaker 7: and there was also a gunshop wound to the chest region,
• 5:13
  Speaker 7: the anterior chest region. This strongly suggested this lady either
• 5:21
  Speaker 7: resisted or it may have potentially almost got away.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: Bullet fragments indicate the killer used a twenty two pistol,
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: a discovery which gives them pause for thought. Investigators know
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: the previous victims were shot with the larger twenty five
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: caliber weapon. Now they must ask themselves is the killer
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: changing his m or worse, could this be the work
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: of a copycat killer. To link Jennifer's murder to the others,
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: they'll need more than circumstantial evidence. The coroner searches her
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: body for traces of the killer's DNA.
• 6:00
  Speaker 7: What we're looking for primarily is seminal fluid that gives
• 6:04
  Speaker 7: us the opportunity if we can recover it for DNA
• 6:07
  Speaker 7: identification of a perpetrator or at least somebody who's had
• 6:11
  Speaker 7: intercourse in a brief interval prior to the death.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: In previous cases, the massive deterioration of the bodies made
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: DNA retrieval almost impossible.
• 6:23
  Speaker 7: In many cases, putrefaction was so bad that you weren't
• 6:27
  Speaker 7: even sure that you could tell where you were sampling.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: Despite these challenges, the coroner has managed to get two
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: matching DNA samples from previous victims. Now he searches for
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: male DNA in Jennifer Joseph's body. True to form, the
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: coroner gets his sample and with it the answer investigators
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: have been waiting for.
• 6:57
  Speaker 6: It became very apparent us that this was the DNA
• 7:02
  Speaker 6: of our killer.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: Despite the different used in the Jennifer Joseph killing, the
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: DNA evidence leads no doubt that after a year of silence,
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: the serial killer is back on the prow. If investigators
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: want to catch their killer, they have to head down
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: to his watering hole and in Spokane. That means East
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: Sprague Avenue, better known as the Track. They spread a
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: wide net attempting to identify regular customers.
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: We briefed the uniform division to try to make as
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: much note as possible of everybody that was utilizing the
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: prostitutes out there.
• 7:49
  Speaker 5: It's white, not.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: But winning the confidence of these women presents police with
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: a challenge.
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: The relationship between police and prostitutes is typically real adversarial.
• 8:05
  Speaker 5: We're on opposite sides of the law.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: The prostitute stonewall the police at every turn.
• 8:13
  Speaker 6: They're reluctant to reporting of this to the police, and
• 8:16
  Speaker 6: because they don't trust the police.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: The killer chooses his victims wisely. He stalks the track,
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: knowing full well that a missing prostitute attracts little police attention.
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: There were people at higher levels controlling purse strings, that
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: sort of thing. That did make some off the cuff
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: comments about spending that much time investigating the death of
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: a prostitute, But.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: The attitudes of local citizens presents an even greater obstacle.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: Because only prostitutes were showing up dead, there was really,
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: unfortunately not a lot of attention paid to this, and
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: this community woke up very slowly to what was going on.
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: That these had been school teachers, Are nurses ending up
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: dead and tossed into these fields and along the roadsides,
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: Something would have been done much quicker.
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: You know, the public's perception of the victims out there,
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: that's a very little concern to me.
• 9:11
  Speaker 5: As a detective. I'ming a guy at the bottom.
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: My job is to catch who's killing him.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: That job's about to get a whole lot harder. In
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: a high stakes game of cat and mouse. The killer
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: continues to elude police over the next few months, right
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: under their noses. He strikes again and again and again.
• 9:31
  Speaker 5: This guy is not going to quit killing people.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: With every murder, the Spokane serial killer is cleaning up
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: his act. In Spokane, Washington, investigators are chasing an elusive
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: serial killer. They have his DNA, but no viable suspect
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: match it with and with his latest victim, he's getting
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: better at covering his tracks.
• 10:07
  Speaker 6: I noticed that placed over her head was a plastic
• 10:11
  Speaker 6: shopping bag with a smiley face imprinted on it, and
• 10:16
  Speaker 6: at that time myself and the other detective's present discussed
• 10:20
  Speaker 6: whether this was some kind of a.
• 10:24
  Speaker 8: Sick joke. For lack of a better term.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: The latest victim is twenty six year old Darlas SIUs Scott.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: Investigators question the purpose of the plastic bag.
• 10:34
  Speaker 7: These are obviously not playing any role in the death,
• 10:40
  Speaker 7: and the reason for that is there are no holes
• 10:42
  Speaker 7: in the bags and there are gunshob wounds that the
• 10:44
  Speaker 7: head underneath the bag. The only explanation that seems reasonable
• 10:48
  Speaker 7: for this is a person who's probably transporting the body
• 10:51
  Speaker 7: and needs to stop the shedding of blood from the wounds.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: With this new trick under his belt, the killer won't
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: be leave any more evidence behind in his car. He's
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: cleaning up his act.
• 11:08
  Speaker 7: If I can use the term learning in a perverse sense,
• 11:12
  Speaker 7: that that's what's going on. He's learning from each of
• 11:14
  Speaker 7: his victims as he moves along through the course.
• 11:17
  Speaker 5: Of these murders.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: With the death toll rising. Women working the streets like
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: Christine Smith know that every trick is a high stake.
• 11:27
  Speaker 9: Scambal, are you doing, honey, It's like playing Russian roulette. Really,
• 11:32
  Speaker 9: everybody was in fear. I mean it wasn't just I
• 11:35
  Speaker 9: don't think it was just the prostitutes. I mean everyone
• 11:39
  Speaker 9: was concerned.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: Although the track is a hunting ground, many prostitutes stay
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: for one simple reason, drugs.
• 11:49
  Speaker 9: Every penny I made went to crack, every single penny.
• 11:54
  Speaker 9: I would work twenty four hours a day, seven days
• 11:57
  Speaker 9: a week. Go go go, go, go, go go, and
• 12:00
  Speaker 9: it was it was just to buy.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: Crack in the women that work the track. The killer
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: knows he's got a desperate and captive supply of victims
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: for Christine Smith and the others, Leaving town isn't an option.
• 12:14
  Speaker 9: I mean, you got to feed the gorilla on your
• 12:16
  Speaker 9: back no matter what.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: Pressuring the prostitutes for information isn't working, So investigators adopt
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: a news strategy. They send in officers with special instructions
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: build trust with the women.
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: We had detectives assigned just for that purpose, whose marching
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: orders were basically to overlook any of the misdemeanor or.
• 12:40
  Speaker 5: Low level criminal activity they may be involved in.
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: Befriend them, become their friend, become their trusted somebody so
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: that they'll call you.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: Through sheer persistence, they finally succeed in getting one of
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: the women to open up. She reveals a key piece
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: of information about the night Jennifer Joseph disappeared. Last time
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: I saw her, she was getting into a white Corvette
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: a white Corvette. Did she get a plate?
• 13:06
  Speaker 5: Is he a regular?
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: No?
• 13:08
  Speaker 6: We had a good identification that Jennifer Joseph had been
• 13:12
  Speaker 6: seen in a white Corvette the last time that we
• 13:15
  Speaker 6: could verify that she was seen alive.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: It's the first big break in the case. But locating
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: the car is not as easy as it might seem.
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: We had about four thousand corvette registrations from eastern Washington
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: and another nine hundred from northern Idaho.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: Investigators are also concerned that the car's color might have
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: been misreported.
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: Some people's idea of what white is is another person's
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: silver or another person's light blue.
• 13:49
  Speaker 5: So you're worried about excluding cars.
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: It might be the killer's car. So the list of
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: several thousand corvettes long.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 13:59
  Speaker 10: I got the pictures the vets.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: In an effort to focus the list, they re examine
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: their evidence looking for any connection to the car. Forensic
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: technician Kevin Jenkins recovers a red fiber from Jennifer Joseph schu.
• 14:14
  Speaker 10: The characteristics that I look at to determine if something
• 14:17
  Speaker 10: is a carpet fiber is generally the size. Carpet fibers
• 14:20
  Speaker 10: are generally larger than those used for clothing or upholstery.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: Based on the lifestyle of the victim, he concludes that
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: those fibers are not from just any carpet.
• 14:30
  Speaker 10: The fibers were likely from a automotive source just by the
• 14:35
  Speaker 10: nature of the victims being prostitutes and in and out
• 14:38
  Speaker 10: of cars on a regular basis.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: Now investigators have a specific tool to pare down the
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: forty nine hundred corvettes on their list. They meet with
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: corvette owners. They check all used car lots and corvette clubs,
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: collecting carpet samples from every corvette they find with a
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: red interior.
• 15:00
  Speaker 10: Carpet samples from several vehicles were sent to the laboratory
• 15:03
  Speaker 10: for analysis to compare against the carpet fibers that were
• 15:06
  Speaker 10: found on Jennifer Joseph.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: But there is no match. Checking almost five thousand vehicles
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: is going to take time, time the killer can use
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: to hunt his next victim. Investigators finally know the make
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: of the Spokane serial killer's car and even the color
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: of its carpet, but they are no closer to determining
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: his identity. They turn to the one piece of evidence
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: they have that might bear the mark of their killer.
• 15:45
  Speaker 7: We were hoping to potentially get a print off of
• 15:48
  Speaker 7: those bags.
• 15:49
  Speaker 5: If at all.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: Possible, investigators turned to a radical new approach in fingerprint technology.
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: I first became aware of it one night at home
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: watching a television show about forensic work.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: The new cutting edge technology is called vacuum metal deposition.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: It's the last chance they have to get the killer's fingerprints.
• 16:12
  Speaker 6: This machine is a large metal tank from which they
• 16:17
  Speaker 6: extract all the air and turn it into virtually a
• 16:21
  Speaker 6: perfect vacuum.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: The device works by heating zinc and gold within the
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: tank until they vaporize. The metals coat everything except contaminants.
• 16:31
  Speaker 6: The fingerprints show up because that is a contaminant, and
• 16:36
  Speaker 6: any contaminant disrupts the deposition of the metal onto the article.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: Having now retrieved four smiley face bags from the killer's
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: latest victims, police are confident they'll find something, but the
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: first bag reveals nothing. Disappointed, they return to the drawing board.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: Three bags from three victims are painstakingly run through the system,
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: but still no sign of their killer. On their last try,
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: they finally catch a break and manage to pull a print.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: It's not the fingerprint they'd been hoping for. It's a
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: pomp print and that poses problems for investigators.
• 17:17
  Speaker 6: The palm print has to be compared one to one
• 17:20
  Speaker 6: with a suspect palm print by a human examiner.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: The trouble is investigators are a long way from finding
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: a suspect.
• 17:32
  Speaker 8: I liken the whole investigation to a roller coaster.
• 17:35
  Speaker 6: We would be up one moment believing that we were
• 17:38
  Speaker 6: on the trail of our killer, only to find that
• 17:43
  Speaker 6: the lab would prove us wrong.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: With every blind alley they go down, the killer gets
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: another chance to strike, and two weeks after his last murder,
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: he decides to double his efforts. The latest victims are
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: Laura Wasson and Sean mcclenahan. Again, it's the same mo.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: The victims are prostitutes found in an isolated rural setting.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: Both have been shot in the head. Both are tagged
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: with the killer's infamous calling card, But this time one
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: of the bodies yields a clue, a strange mark behind
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: her lefty ear.
• 18:29
  Speaker 7: When a contact gunshot wound occurs, there's a good chance
• 18:32
  Speaker 7: of skin is blown back against the end of the barrel,
• 18:36
  Speaker 7: and that can leave an imprint.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: Based on ballistics, police know the killer used a twenty
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: two caliber pistol now forensic technician Ed Robinson hopes to
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: use the gunshot mark to zone in on the specific
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: make and model of the murder weapon.
• 19:00
  Speaker 11: I was provided with photographs of one of the shooting
• 19:04
  Speaker 11: victims which depicted damage to the skin near the ear
• 19:10
  Speaker 11: of the hip. Looking at the photograph, I was fairly sure,
• 19:15
  Speaker 11: based on my original list of three firearms, that I
• 19:18
  Speaker 11: was going to be able to narrow it down to
• 19:21
  Speaker 11: one firearm. The process that I used was to put
• 19:26
  Speaker 11: a thin layer of clay on a styrofoam mannequin head
• 19:31
  Speaker 11: and then make impressions with various portions of the firearms
• 19:37
  Speaker 11: that I had previously listed. The process for the photography
• 19:41
  Speaker 11: was just to make everything one to one so that
• 19:43
  Speaker 11: all of the images were the same size.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: After several attempts to get to perfect match.
• 19:50
  Speaker 11: I narrowed the list to raven pistols.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: Police get a list of raven owners, They compare it
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: to lists of corvette owners and sex offenders.
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: Alt if we could compare all those lists together and
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: shift it and see what shook out the bottom whose
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: name appeared the most times and all those lists, that
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: was probably our suspect.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: Thirteen women dead and police still don't have a suspect.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: As the death to arises, so does the fear in
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: the community.
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: The pressure was really mounting, and so the public's awareness
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: was really amounting. Even though these women were viewed by
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: many as quote just prostitutes, it still was becoming an
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: issue of significant community concern.
• 20:35
  Speaker 9: I think that the public was also afraid that it
• 20:38
  Speaker 9: was going to stem into like not just out on
• 20:41
  Speaker 9: Sprague with the prostitutes, if possibly he'd start killing off
• 20:46
  Speaker 9: other just quote unquote normal people.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: To police authorities respond to the public pressure, it.
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: Formed a task force made up of detectives from the
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: city police Department, the Sheriff's Department, the Worsen State Patrol
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: who had participation from the FBI, as well as the
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: Worshan State Attorney General's office.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: The heightened attention triggers an overwhelming public response.
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: Once the task force was formed, hotline was set up
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: and a lot of people were calling in their neighbors,
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: their friends, their ex boyfriends saying I think you gotta
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: take a look at this guy. And so in quick order,
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: the task force had a long list of people they
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: needed to look at.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: Despite the outpouring of tips, no credible suspects are put forward,
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: suggesting to police the killer is a master at blending
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: in cyril.
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: Killer's trademark is their ability to manipulate those around them
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: into believing that they are nothing more than just a
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: regular human being.
• 21:46
  Speaker 8: They don't stand out for any particular reason. They don't
• 21:49
  Speaker 8: look like Frankenstein or anything.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: The man who is killing prostitutes in cold blood could
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: even be a family man, someone his friends and neighbors
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: would never suspect, someone who's not likely to ever come
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: to the attention of police, someone with an iron clad cover.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: With the murder count now at thirteen, law enforcement agencies
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: across the region joined together to catch the elusive Spokane
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: serial killer. Investigators believe they are chasing someone with an
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: iron clad cover, a killer with the ability to hide
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: in plane sight, but with no viable suspects, Police follow
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: up on the only concrete lead they have, the killer's
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: brand of weapon. They contact raven gun owners in the
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: area and bring their weapons in for testing.
• 22:51
  Speaker 11: Twenty five auto caliber firearms were submitted to the crime
• 22:56
  Speaker 11: lab for test firing and microscopic comparison to the bullets
• 23:01
  Speaker 11: taken from the murder victims. All of the firearms that
• 23:04
  Speaker 11: were submitted were test fired into a water recovery system,
• 23:09
  Speaker 11: which allows for the collection of nearly pristine or pristine
• 23:13
  Speaker 11: bullets and the collection of the test fired cartridge cases.
• 23:18
  Speaker 11: The bullets were recovered and those test fires were microscopically
• 23:23
  Speaker 11: compared to the bullets.
• 23:26
  Speaker 5: From the murder victims, but.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: No matches are made and the frustration wears hard on
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: the team.
• 23:33
  Speaker 7: My biggest challenge in these cases was to have a
• 23:37
  Speaker 7: positive attitude that hopefully, this time we're going to find
• 23:41
  Speaker 7: something that's going to shut down this activity. And over
• 23:45
  Speaker 7: and over again that didn't happen. So it's frustrating.
• 23:48
  Speaker 5: You can't sleep at night.
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: You go to bed at ten o'clock, You wake up
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: at two, you turn the coffee pot on, You get
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: the books out, and you start reading about the case.
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: You can't put it away.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: Just when they're at their lowest, the killer throws another
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: sucker punch. The fourteenth victim is Linda Mabon, but this
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: time is different.
• 24:11
  Speaker 4: The body had been dumped into a ditch and then
• 24:13
  Speaker 4: buried in the botanical debris. There was quite a lot
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: of it in forensic standards still on the site, enough
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: to tell that it did not match the local vegetation.
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: After thoroughly examining the debris, forensic botanist Richard Old makes
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: an expert determination.
• 24:32
  Speaker 4: The evidence that was dumped with the bodies was all
• 24:34
  Speaker 4: horticultural in nature. The site where it was dropped was
• 24:37
  Speaker 4: primarily exotic weeds and a few native plants.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: The debris provides another clue.
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: There was no pine needles associated with it, and this
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: is largely a pine needle area.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: Instead, Old recognizes traces of Japanese maple oak and dark
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: bark chips.
• 24:55
  Speaker 4: This was typical of horticultural material that would have fallen
• 24:59
  Speaker 4: in the fall, was deciduous vegetation.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: It's the kind of vegetation found in backyards.
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: There's a lot of illegal dumping that goes on in
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: that area, typically from people getting rid of long clippings
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: and clean up the yards that sort of thing. But
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: no one would just put lawn debris on top of
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: bodies unless you were the killer.
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: A killer who likes to keep his yard trim and tidy.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: Based on the materials he found at the crime scene,
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: Richard Old sets about creating a picture of the killer's yard.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: If he can find that yard, he can find the killer.
• 25:38
  Speaker 4: That yard, that that material came from was out there someplace.
• 25:42
  Speaker 4: It was like a puzzle, and I wanted to solve it.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: Old knows that the debris came from a landscape garden
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: based on species type and natural proximity from tree to tree.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: He begins to assemble a unique botanical fingerprint of the
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: killer's lair.
• 25:59
  Speaker 4: What I am imagine the yard to look like was
• 26:02
  Speaker 4: two bark beds within fifty feet of each other based
• 26:05
  Speaker 4: on the amount of cross contamination, and I knew the
• 26:09
  Speaker 4: species composition of each of those bark beds. To know
• 26:13
  Speaker 4: the vegetation as well as knowing that there are two
• 26:16
  Speaker 4: separate bark beds made this a very unique location that
• 26:20
  Speaker 4: this material had come from. Normally, botanical evidence is used
• 26:25
  Speaker 4: after a perpetrator has been identified. In this case, we
• 26:30
  Speaker 4: had an opportunity to use the evidence to actually identify
• 26:34
  Speaker 4: the perpetrator.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: But legally they can't just walk into any yard to
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: check the flower beds. Instead, they develop an invaluable investigative tool.
• 26:44
  Speaker 4: The detectives in the case put together a book of
• 26:48
  Speaker 4: the species that I found in the debris and use
• 26:51
  Speaker 4: this when they were visiting suspects homes to see if
• 26:56
  Speaker 4: that plant composition occurred on those sites.
• 27:00
  Speaker 5: Obviously not the yard.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: In his lab, doctor Lindholm continues to pore over the bodies,
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: searching for any trace evidence the killer may have left behind.
• 27:10
  Speaker 7: We do take sample, so the pubic hare off, we
• 27:14
  Speaker 7: com it, and we also pulled samples. Now on the
• 27:16
  Speaker 7: comb and the brushings. Debt you're looking for somebody else's
• 27:21
  Speaker 7: pubic hare is what you're looking for.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: Months of examination pays off. Lindholm manages to recover foreign
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: hair follicles from each of the victims.
• 27:31
  Speaker 10: I analyzed the hairs and compared them and determined that
• 27:34
  Speaker 10: these pubicares did not match the.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: Victims, suggesting one thing, the pubic hairs belonged to the killer.
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: A DNA match to the semen sample recovered from Jennifer
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: Joseph's body confirms their suspicions.
• 27:50
  Speaker 10: When I analyzed the pubic cares, I found them to
• 27:53
  Speaker 10: be light brown and likely from a Caucasian person.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: Armed with new information about their killer, investigators returned to
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: the track, this time with a new tactic. Undercover officers
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: pose as prostitutes. Every john is a potential suspect.
• 28:16
  Speaker 6: We had instructed the certain officers who worked that downtown
• 28:20
  Speaker 6: corridor to look for evidence. It was pertinent to our investigations,
• 28:24
  Speaker 6: such as grocery or merchandise bags, small caliber weapon, and
• 28:30
  Speaker 6: specifically in any vehicle that might be capable of carrying
• 28:34
  Speaker 6: or conveying a body and a large amount of debris
• 28:38
  Speaker 6: in it.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: Even if there's nothing suspicious in the car, a john
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: is still fair game for closer inspection.
• 28:47
  Speaker 6: Yeah, if a potential customer contacted them and agreed to
• 28:54
  Speaker 6: a sex act for money, that was constituted the crime
• 28:57
  Speaker 6: of soliciting prostitution, and they would be arrested. We would
• 29:02
  Speaker 6: get their identification, We would get fingerprints and palm prints
• 29:05
  Speaker 6: when they were booked that could be compared to.
• 29:10
  Speaker 8: Information we already had.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: Trying to stay one step ahead of the killer, the
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: Task Force adopts a radical approach in dealing with missing persons.
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: We learned real quickly in this investigation to treat all
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: missing persons, particularly females, as if they were homicide victim.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: A po least fear the worst. When a woman reports
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: that her roommate, Melody Murphin has gone missing. The local
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: prostitute was last seen leaving her house with a repeat customer,
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: someone she knew well, someone she trusted.
• 29:45
  Speaker 9: It's not unusual to have repeat customers. I feel safe,
• 29:49
  Speaker 9: he feels safe. We know each other, we know it
• 29:52
  Speaker 9: or not. I'm not out to get him. He's not
• 29:55
  Speaker 9: out to get me. I'm not a cop.
• 29:57
  Speaker 5: He's not a cop. Are you ready to go?
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: The roommate describes the collar as white, middle aged with
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: brown hair. He fits their serial killer description to a
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: t A killer out there.
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: Don't worry, I'll take.
• 30:11
  Speaker 7: Care of her.
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: Melody Murphins disappeared near Mother's Day. Although we had no
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: body with Melody, it was felt that she had been
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: killed because she wasn't around anymore.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: Investigators search the city streets and Spokane countryside, but they
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: find no trace of Melody Murphin.
• 30:33
  Speaker 5: I get your name.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: Three weeks later, the case takes a dramatic turn when
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: police questioned local prostitute Christine Smith.
• 30:41
  Speaker 8: I got hit with something.
• 30:44
  Speaker 9: A good man, a black van pulled up and I
• 30:49
  Speaker 9: got into the van, and I had Since there was
• 30:54
  Speaker 9: a serial killer running around, I was trying to always
• 30:57
  Speaker 9: put up my feelers out to get any tuition on
• 31:00
  Speaker 9: whether or not the person was, you know, okay or not?
• 31:05
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm good.
• 31:06
  Speaker 9: I asked the customer if he was the serial killer.
• 31:13
  Speaker 9: Sure you're good, and he said that he was a
• 31:17
  Speaker 9: helicopter pilot with the Army National Guard. He was a
• 31:20
  Speaker 9: father of five. Now does that sound like a serial
• 31:22
  Speaker 9: killer to you. We proceeded to drive down the street
• 31:25
  Speaker 9: and I told him that I wanted to go to
• 31:27
  Speaker 9: my spot. He gave me forty dollars for oral sex
• 31:42
  Speaker 9: and nothing was really happening. He said, okay, like he
• 31:47
  Speaker 9: was talking to somebody else. I thought that I had
• 31:51
  Speaker 9: been hit in my head really hard by maybe a
• 31:57
  Speaker 9: ranch or or a crowbar. I jumped out of the
• 32:01
  Speaker 9: passenger seat, ran down the street, screaming to the top
• 32:05
  Speaker 9: of my lungs. My youngest daughters life is what flashed
• 32:21
  Speaker 9: before me, and that's what kept me from passing out.
• 32:30
  Speaker 9: And then I went into the elevator and I started
• 32:32
  Speaker 9: pushing buttons so that the elevator would keep the door closed,
• 32:39
  Speaker 9: hoping not to not see, you know, a hand come
• 32:41
  Speaker 9: in to open the elevator door, and an arm did
• 32:52
  Speaker 9: come through the elevator at one and I thought it was,
• 32:56
  Speaker 9: you know, the person that had just hit me, and
• 32:58
  Speaker 9: it turned out to be the security guard.
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: After almost nine years and thirteen murders, can someone finally
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: put a face to the notorious Spokane serial killer? After
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: nine years of hunting the infamous Spokane serial killer, police
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: have a potential eye witness. Prostitute Christine Smith has survived
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: an attack with an aggressive John.
• 33:34
  Speaker 9: Because it was a violent crime, the hospital said that
• 33:37
  Speaker 9: I had to make a police report.
• 33:39
  Speaker 5: Do you have any idea where you were that's happened?
• 33:41
  Speaker 5: I don't.
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: Smith describes the attack and reports that she was struck
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: in the head with a heavy blunt object.
• 33:49
  Speaker 9: No, I don't remember anything.
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: Christine Smith's case didn't fit the profile that we had
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: of our victims at that time.
• 33:58
  Speaker 6: The most glaring discrepancy was the fact that she in
• 34:02
  Speaker 6: the kid, that she had been hit with something, struck
• 34:05
  Speaker 6: with a club or something different.
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: All of our victims had been shot in the head.
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: We knew of none of them that had been physically assaulted.
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: Back to square one, The elusive nature of the killer
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: continues to baffle police. Who is he and where is
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: he hiding?
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: We had over seven thousand tips, which ultimately led to
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: about eighty thousand pages of investigative material. To clear those
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: seven thousand tips, It's so needle in a haystack.
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: To cross reference, and filter the mountain of leads. Forensic
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: technicians turned to a new program called tip Man. From
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: seven thousand tips, Tipman narrows the field to just forty
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: four suspects.
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: Most of these suspects when they were approached, if they
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: were truly innocent, they were rolling up their sleeves and
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: offering up their blood sample. And if they weren't guilty, bingo,
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: they walked.
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: Closing in on a possible suspect, Police turn their attention
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: to finding the white Corvette.
• 35:11
  Speaker 8: The corvette might disappear.
• 35:13
  Speaker 6: I might find it in the woods, burned up after
• 35:16
  Speaker 6: it's been reported stolen, or any number of things which
• 35:18
  Speaker 6: will destroy evidence in it.
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: One by one, investigators approached the forty four Corvette owners
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: on their list of suspects and search their vehicles.
• 35:28
  Speaker 6: I took a number of samples from the interior carpeting
• 35:31
  Speaker 6: of the corvette in different areas.
• 35:39
  Speaker 5: Here it is guys, have a look if you want.
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: Nearing the end of the list, their search pays off.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: The red carpet fibers strike an immediate cord with investigators.
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: Those fibers were microscopically almost identical to the fibers that
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: were recovered from Jennifer Joseph's shoes and the towel that
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: are with her body.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: But there's a snag. The car owner only recently purchased
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: the Corvette.
• 36:05
  Speaker 5: I got all the paperwork in that house.
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: I can go get it if you want.
• 36:08
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: Now police have to track down the previous car owner
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: and bring them in for questioning. The Corvette is immediately impounded.
• 36:17
  Speaker 5: As part of Burnelsis.
• 36:18
  Speaker 10: We pretty much took the Corvette apart piece by piece.
• 36:23
  Speaker 10: On the interior of the vehicle.
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: The vehicle was spotless. It was actually a real collector's car.
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: It was I would have loved to have owned a
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: car like that.
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: The team quickly discovers a small white button encased in
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: the passenger floorboard.
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: I recognized that button immediately as a button that I
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: had seen before.
• 36:44
  Speaker 10: I compared it against the buttons that were still on
• 36:46
  Speaker 10: the Jennifer Joseph jacket.
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: It was an identical match to the one that was
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: underneath this car seat.
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: Despite the fact that the car had been professionally detailed,
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: the forensic team makes out a faint stain on the
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: passenger seat built Immediate DNA testing proves the blood belongs
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: to Jennifer Joseph. The evidence in the vehicle confirms what
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: investigators had earlier suspected. The killer viciously murdered Jennifer Joseph
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: then drove her lifeless body to the outskirts of Spokane,
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: dumping her in the countryside. Now police need a name
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: in connection to the car. Who was the previous owner
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: of the white Corvette. Police quickly learned that the car
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: was last registered to a helicopter pilot, a doting husband
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: and a father of five. The man's name Robert Yates.
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: Police move in to make an arrest.
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: We picked a isolated section of highway in case the
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: worst case scenario happened. We weren't going to jeopardize those
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: people in the community.
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: Got you that We're taking him down, possibly armed police
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: lead Nothing to chance.
• 38:17
  Speaker 4: Robert Yanks.
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: Let's see both hands out the window.
• 38:21
  Speaker 5: Now on the car.
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: On the ground.
• 38:27
  Speaker 4: Now.
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: When Yates fully complies with police, it begs one question.
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: In their desperate attempt to catch the Spokane serial killers
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: blood have investigators captured the wrong man After a decade
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: of slaughter. Spokane police arrest forty seven year old Robert
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: Lee Yates and charge him with murder. Investigators are convinced
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: they have finally found their killers. Now they need the
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: evidence to prove it. All units are dispatched to the
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: Yates family home.
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: What I wanted to do is find the weapons in
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: the house first and foremost.
• 39:17
  Speaker 10: I'm sorry to have to do this, but we have
• 39:19
  Speaker 10: a warrant to search the premises.
• 39:27
  Speaker 5: Can you believe it?
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: This guy's a war hero, He's a helicopter pilot, mister
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: average Spokane.
• 39:34
  Speaker 5: He had five children and a wife.
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: He'd been married, he'd been in the army, he'd been
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: in the Army, National Guard.
• 39:40
  Speaker 5: It's unbelievable.
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: A search of the house turns up nothing. Let's take
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: a look in the yard, hoping that Yates may have
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: buried his guns in the garden. Investigators move outdoors, but
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: again the search comes up cold. Forensic botanist Richard Old
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: is initially puzzled by the elaborate lands gaping in the backyard.
• 40:02
  Speaker 5: It didn't work.
• 40:03
  Speaker 4: It wasn't the way I had pictured it in my head.
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: But a closer examination of the individual plant species draws
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: Old back to his original sketch.
• 40:13
  Speaker 5: That's what I was saying.
• 40:13
  Speaker 10: It's the stuff that we found in the field, right.
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: He determines that most of the plants used to cover
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: Linda Maven's body are present, and yates his backyard, but
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: there is one glaring difference, the new red bark. He
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: covered the black bark with red chips.
• 40:30
  Speaker 4: When I saw that old bark that I'd spent so
• 40:32
  Speaker 4: many hours digging through the hair on the back of
• 40:35
  Speaker 4: my neck just stood on end.
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: Old's theory pays off in spades and fuels a search
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: for more evidence. When police discover a black van on
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: the property, they strip it for clues and turn up
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: a bullet fragment, but is it enough to guarantee a conviction.
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: Investigators are then approached by former prostitute Christine Smith. She
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: tells them about the recent visit that she made to
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: her doctor.
• 41:02
  Speaker 9: He comes back into the room and he says, well,
• 41:04
  Speaker 9: miss Smith, you have the beginning of osteoarthritis in your neck,
• 41:08
  Speaker 9: but can you tell me.
• 41:09
  Speaker 5: What year you were shot?
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: X rays reveal bullet fragments lodged in the bone at
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: the base of Christine's skull. Her attacker didn't hit her
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: with a crowbar, as she had earlier believed. He shot
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: her point blank in the head.
• 41:24
  Speaker 9: I was shot right here and it being that close
• 41:28
  Speaker 9: to my ear all you hear is an immense ringing.
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: It's a miracle that Christine Smith survived the attack. The
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: fragments are removed from her skull and sent to the
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: ballistics lab for comparison.
• 41:42
  Speaker 11: I was able to say that they were consistent in
• 41:46
  Speaker 11: design with the bullet that had been recovered from a
• 41:50
  Speaker 11: band where Christine Smith had.
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: Been DNA testing will make or break the case. If
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: investigators can prove that the semen samples recovered from the
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: earlier victims belonged to Yates, they have their killer. The
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: DNA results are unmistakable. Robert Lee Yates is the Spokane
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: serial killer responsible for murdering fourteen women in Spokane County.
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: I gotta tell you that I started to cry. I
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: sat at my desk and I cried. I was so
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: happy that we had finally done what we'd set out
• 42:23
  Speaker 3: to do.
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: Stas agreement, but investigators aren't done with Yates. The prosecution
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: makes a deal. They'll waive the death penalty in exchange
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: for information. They suspect Yates is responsible for the disappearance
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: of Melody Murphin, the prostitute reported missing two years earlier.
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: He drew on a little map that he gave to
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: his defense attorneys, and we follow his defense attorneys.
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: From a helicopter thousands of feet in the air.
• 42:51
  Speaker 4: Our own date.
• 42:52
  Speaker 3: Mentally points to a house in South Spokane.
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: The map leads them right back to the Yates family home.
• 43:00
  Speaker 5: That's something here.
• 43:05
  Speaker 6: We encountered a badly decomposed body that had obviously been
• 43:11
  Speaker 6: buried for some time. That body that had been buried
• 43:18
  Speaker 6: at mister Yates home for the better part of two
• 43:21
  Speaker 6: years was that of Melody Murphin.
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: In a Spokane court room, Robert Lee Yates receives a
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: life sentence in a separate trial in Pierce County. There's
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: no obligation to honor Yates's plea bargain.
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: Jury ultimately decided he should be put on death row
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: where where he still is today.
• 43:41
  Speaker 5: I can tell you.
• 43:43
  Speaker 3: That every one of those women were loved dearly by
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: somebody at some point in their life.
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: A memorial service is held for all the victims, closure
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: for their families.
• 43:55
  Speaker 9: Because the victims, even though they were prostitutes, they were
• 43:58
  Speaker 9: still mothers and utters and aunts and nieces and you know,
• 44:04
  Speaker 9: grandkids of people.
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: H Assass