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Robert Lee Yates Jr’s Reign Of Terror - Serial Killer Documentary · The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories

0:08
Speaker 1: Spoke Anne, Washington State, August the first, nineteen ninety eight.
0:14
Speaker 1: On a notorious downtown strip known as The Track, a
0:18
Speaker 1: forty six year old male picked up a sex worker
0:21
Speaker 1: called Christine. The woman did not know it yet, but
0:26
Speaker 1: the man at the wheel was a serial killer.
0:29
Speaker 2: He pretended to be exactly what he wasn't. The All
0:32
Speaker 2: American Hero family man was actually a sex addict who
0:37
Speaker 2: killed prostitutes for pleasure.
0:40
Speaker 1: After having sex with her, the killer pulled out his
0:43
Speaker 1: twenty five caliber handgun and shot the woman in the head.
0:47
Speaker 3: She later found bullet fragments in her head.
0:50
Speaker 4: She had this incredible rush with death and miraculously had
0:54
Speaker 4: escaped with only a bullet one.
0:56
Speaker 1: Christine was the only one that survived an attack by
1:00
Speaker 1: Robert Lee Yates Jor.
1:02
Speaker 5: For more than.
1:03
Speaker 1: Twenty years, Yates preyed on vulnerable young women in and
1:07
Speaker 1: around the Pacific Northwest. Typically, once someone got into his car,
1:12
Speaker 1: their fate was sealed.
1:14
Speaker 6: Yates simply discarded them as if they were trash that
1:17
Speaker 6: he'd thrown out of his vehicle, and then he'd get
1:20
Speaker 6: rid of them after he'd had his fun.
1:23
Speaker 1: When this All American family Man was finally caught, he
1:26
Speaker 1: was convicted of killing fourteen young women and one man. However,
1:31
Speaker 1: it's suspected he may have murdered many more. That makes
1:35
Speaker 1: Robert Lee Yates Junior one of the world's most evil killers. Spokane, Washington.
2:05
Speaker 1: For more than twenty years, between nineteen seventy five and
2:09
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety eight, a serial killer was on the loose
2:13
Speaker 1: across America's Pacific Northwest. Fifty year old war hero Robert
2:18
Speaker 1: Lee Yates Junior shocked the world when he was found
2:21
Speaker 1: guilty of mercilessly killing fourteen women and one man.
2:27
Speaker 7: He didn't look like a monster.
2:29
Speaker 6: He looked like at an average Joe, and he was
2:32
Speaker 6: a father of five. He lived in a middle class neighborhood.
2:35
Speaker 6: He was seen as respectable. He was at a decorated
2:38
Speaker 6: pilot in the US Army National Guard.
2:42
Speaker 2: He has several tours in Germany. He becomes chief warrant
2:47
Speaker 2: officer in every respect, an all American hero, the sort
2:52
Speaker 2: of chat that you hang bunting out for when he
2:56
Speaker 2: returns home.
3:03
Speaker 1: But for more than twenty years, Robert Lee Yates led
3:06
Speaker 1: a double life. At night, he was a cold blooded
3:10
Speaker 1: serial killer, preying on vulnerable young women, mostly in the
3:14
Speaker 1: city of Spokane local journalist Bill Morlin covered the story
3:20
Speaker 1: of the murders.
3:21
Speaker 4: The common ingredient in these deaths where the women had
3:24
Speaker 4: been picked up on an area in Spokane called East Sprague.
3:28
Speaker 4: It's an area east of the downtown area, and it's
3:30
Speaker 4: sometimes called the Track. The women would be picked up
3:34
Speaker 4: and he apparently would engage in sexual activities. In some instances,
3:38
Speaker 4: he engaged in drug usage with these women and then
3:41
Speaker 4: would shoot them, usually in the head. Most of the
3:44
Speaker 4: murders were committed by a twenty five caliber handgun.
3:47
Speaker 5: Their bodies would.
3:48
Speaker 4: Be found many times in drainage ditches or in semi
3:52
Speaker 4: wooded areas outside of town.
3:58
Speaker 1: Special Agent norm is a seasoned investigator. In nineteen ninety eight,
4:04
Speaker 1: he supervised the task force assigned to track down the killer.
4:08
Speaker 3: This one stands out in that it involved the deaths
4:12
Speaker 3: of so many innocent people. It's very challenging to find
4:15
Speaker 3: this person. The Spokane community was on edge during this investigation.
4:20
Speaker 3: A number of people thought that the investigators weren't doing
4:24
Speaker 3: enough to catch the killer at the time because the
4:26
Speaker 3: victims were prostitutes. Nothing can be farther from the truth.
4:30
Speaker 3: The victims were humans and they didn't deserve to die,
4:33
Speaker 3: so we were bound and determined to find him.
4:35
Speaker 1: At the start of the investigation, Yates was not a suspect.
4:40
Speaker 5: He wasn't on our radar.
4:41
Speaker 3: There was nothing that appointed us in his direction as
4:44
Speaker 3: being the serial killer.
4:48
Speaker 1: This killer story begins in nineteen fifty two on May
4:54
Speaker 1: the twenty seventh. Robert Lee Yeates Junior was born in
4:57
Speaker 1: Spokane and was raised in the small town of Oak Harbor, Washington.
5:03
Speaker 6: Robert Lee Yates's father worked on a local naval base.
5:07
Speaker 6: He was a blue collar worker. He had a very
5:09
Speaker 6: close relationship with his father, I think he idolized him,
5:13
Speaker 6: and his father was a coach for a little league
5:15
Speaker 6: baseball team.
5:17
Speaker 1: Yates's time at school was very normal.
5:20
Speaker 6: Robert Lee Yates Junior played baseball at school, but he
5:23
Speaker 6: wasn't the star on the team. He was good at
5:26
Speaker 6: his schoolwork, but he wasn't the smart person in the class.
5:30
Speaker 7: He was just average. So there was nothing that stood out.
5:34
Speaker 6: There was nothing that said that this family would be
5:36
Speaker 6: the family that would produce a serial killer.
5:39
Speaker 1: To the outside world. The Yates's were a happy, contented,
5:43
Speaker 1: all American family.
5:45
Speaker 8: In many ways, Yates's relationship with his father was completely normal. Usually,
5:50
Speaker 8: it's thought that even one positive raw model is sufficient
5:55
Speaker 8: to start people from becoming seriously psychiatrically disturbed. And yet
5:59
Speaker 8: it didn't do any Here, we have to ask ourselves
6:02
Speaker 8: the question why.
6:04
Speaker 1: When investigators dug into yates family history, they discovered something shocking.
6:11
Speaker 3: We learned that his grandmother killed his grandfather, and there's
6:15
Speaker 3: some violence in the family.
6:16
Speaker 8: Obviously, his grandmother didn't just kill his grandfather, but she
6:21
Speaker 8: killed him in a specially gruesome way. She took an
6:24
Speaker 8: ax to him actually, and then I've committed to a
6:27
Speaker 8: mental institution, and that becomes I suspect an intergenerational message,
6:32
Speaker 8: which is women are very dangerous. They have what you want,
6:38
Speaker 8: but they're very dangerous people.
6:43
Speaker 1: While there was a violent history in the family, Yates
6:46
Speaker 1: himself allegedly suffered some trauma when he was just six
6:50
Speaker 1: years old.
6:52
Speaker 6: We often find in serial killers that that violence is
6:55
Speaker 6: actually rooted in shame. That shame is often something that's
7:00
Speaker 6: happened during the childhood, something that the child felt they
7:03
Speaker 6: had no control over, but something that they felt judged by,
7:06
Speaker 6: something that made them feel less worthy. Robert Lee Yates
7:10
Speaker 6: was sexually assaulted by another child who was a neighbor,
7:15
Speaker 6: but Yeates.
7:15
Speaker 1: Kept the assault a secret. The incident was never reported
7:19
Speaker 1: to police. After graduating high school, Yates met his first
7:26
Speaker 1: wife in nineteen seventy two. Aged twenty, Yates and his
7:31
Speaker 1: wife moved to the small town of Walla Waller in
7:34
Speaker 1: Washington State, where they enrolled in college. There, he spent
7:38
Speaker 1: his free time alone in the woods, hunting, hiking, and fishing.
7:43
Speaker 6: The parents of his wife years later and say, actually,
7:46
Speaker 6: he was quite a loner. We never really got to
7:49
Speaker 6: know him, even though he was married to their daughter.
7:51
Speaker 6: He was somebody who was quite insular. And it's that
7:54
Speaker 6: constant theme of invisibility.
7:57
Speaker 1: Yates's marriage to his first wife ended in divorced just
8:01
Speaker 1: eighteen months later. However, he had already begun a new
8:04
Speaker 1: relationship with another woman. In December that year, Yates got
8:09
Speaker 1: a job at the Washington State Penitentiary, and the first
8:13
Speaker 1: of their five children was born. In July nineteen seventy six,
8:17
Speaker 1: they were married.
8:18
Speaker 7: He works as a prison officer.
8:20
Speaker 6: And this is a job that's about the enforcement of
8:23
Speaker 6: rules and regulations. It's about status, and it's about power,
8:26
Speaker 6: and it's about authority. And this also coincides with his
8:31
Speaker 6: first murder.
8:35
Speaker 1: On July the thirteenth, nineteen seventy five, a twenty three
8:39
Speaker 1: year old Yates was practicing shooting targets just outside town
8:43
Speaker 1: near Mill Creek, when he came across two students. Lifelong friends,
8:48
Speaker 1: Susan age twenty two and Patrick, aged twenty one, were
8:52
Speaker 1: having a picnic.
8:53
Speaker 7: This was an area that he knew quite well. It
8:56
Speaker 7: was out in the middle of nowhere.
8:57
Speaker 6: And he was fairly confident that he wasn't going to
8:59
Speaker 6: be disturbed, and it wouldn't surprise me if he'd been
9:02
Speaker 6: fantasizing about this for quite some time. And he comes
9:05
Speaker 6: across to college graduates and he decides that he's going
9:09
Speaker 6: to kill them, and that's what he does. He literally
9:12
Speaker 6: shoots them in cold.
9:13
Speaker 2: Blood, and rage burst out. He acted entirely instinctively and
9:20
Speaker 2: shot them both. It is unimaginable.
9:24
Speaker 5: Why would you do that?
9:26
Speaker 2: There is something profoundly out of kilter in Yates's personality.
9:32
Speaker 1: For Yates, simply murdering the young friends was not enough.
9:37
Speaker 6: He placed the body of Susan's on top of that
9:39
Speaker 6: of Patrick, and Susan's body he'd removed a lot of
9:42
Speaker 6: her clothing, so this is really humiliating.
9:45
Speaker 7: This is really demeaning.
9:47
Speaker 1: Yates left the bodies by the side of the creek
9:50
Speaker 1: and covered them with a pile of rubbish, a sleeping bag,
9:53
Speaker 1: and an old.
9:54
Speaker 4: Tire, essentially assassinates what is motivation was is? I mean
9:59
Speaker 4: it's any Did he think that this people were being sinful?
10:03
Speaker 4: Did did it go against his religious upbringing. I'm only speculating.
10:06
Speaker 4: There's no way of knowing. He's never talked about what
10:09
Speaker 4: motivated him to kill that young couple.
10:12
Speaker 6: This would have been an escalation of behavior rather than
10:15
Speaker 6: a switch being flipped. People don't just decide to kill overnight.
10:19
Speaker 6: They don't turn into murderers one day, having been completely
10:24
Speaker 6: normal the previous day. I think that he was probably
10:27
Speaker 6: stalking people. He was probably fantasizing about harming others.
10:35
Speaker 1: Waller Waller, Washington, nineteen seventy seven. Two years after murdering
10:41
Speaker 1: two students at Mill Creek, the killer, twenty five year
10:44
Speaker 1: old Robert Lee Yates Junior, joined the army in October.
10:49
Speaker 1: He decided to become a pilot, but during his eighteen
10:52
Speaker 1: years of service he could not contain his murderer's urges.
11:01
Speaker 6: There was one interesting incident when he was serving in Somalia.
11:05
Speaker 6: He allegedly shot a pig from the helicopter, and that
11:10
Speaker 6: wouldn't have been an easy thing to achieve in a
11:13
Speaker 6: moving airborne vehicle.
11:15
Speaker 7: It's something that he did that he didn't have to do.
11:19
Speaker 6: He wanted to prove to himself that he could hit
11:21
Speaker 6: a target from that far.
11:22
Speaker 1: Away wherever warrant obviously Yates was stationed. Trouble seemed to follow.
11:29
Speaker 4: Women in that area near where he'd been stationed, many
11:32
Speaker 4: of them prostitutes, suddenly ended up dead.
11:35
Speaker 1: But without conclusive evidence, Yates was never tied to these
11:39
Speaker 1: mysterious murders.
11:41
Speaker 4: Apparently because of the lapse of time and because of
11:43
Speaker 4: technology issues, there was no DNA saved from some of
11:46
Speaker 4: those victims.
11:49
Speaker 1: On April the first, nineteen ninety six, the father of five,
11:54
Speaker 1: forty four year old Yates made a surprising decision. After
11:58
Speaker 1: nearly two decades of distinguished service, he resigned his position.
12:03
Speaker 2: He pulls out and suddenly returns to Spokane. He only
12:08
Speaker 2: had to serve a further eighteen months before he would
12:10
Speaker 2: have got a full military pension. Now, why would a
12:14
Speaker 2: man with five children and a wife suddenly decide to
12:19
Speaker 2: leave the army? I think the answer lies in another killing.
12:25
Speaker 1: In August nineteen ninety five, Dale County, Alabama, eight months
12:30
Speaker 1: before Yates's resignation, a nineteen year old transvestite prostitute was
12:35
Speaker 1: shot in the face by an unknown killer. The body
12:39
Speaker 1: was found dumped on the roadside bordering Fort Rucker, an
12:43
Speaker 1: Army aviation base where Yates had been stationed at the
12:46
Speaker 1: time for training. A culprit was never found, but some
12:50
Speaker 1: continue to speculate.
12:54
Speaker 2: I think that unknown killer was Robert Lee Yates Junior,
13:00
Speaker 2: and I think that's why he left the Army suddenly
13:04
Speaker 2: that I feel that he was appalled here is a
13:09
Speaker 2: woman who is actually a man. I think he Yates flipped,
13:14
Speaker 2: and I think that's why he suddenly snatched his wife
13:18
Speaker 2: and family out of a very good Army career which
13:21
Speaker 2: was about to see him get a substantial and generous
13:25
Speaker 2: pension and take them back to Spokane out of the blue.
13:29
Speaker 6: And this is a real pivotal moment I think in
13:32
Speaker 6: his life, because he's somebody who operates quite well when
13:35
Speaker 6: there are boundaries around him. But now those boundaries are gone.
13:39
Speaker 6: I think we're going to see some changes.
13:41
Speaker 1: Though it's never been proven He's suspected of committing two
13:44
Speaker 1: other murders between nineteen ninety five and nineteen ninety six
13:49
Speaker 1: in Washington State, and in the following year, Yates picked
13:54
Speaker 1: up the pace.
13:55
Speaker 2: He was intent on killing and intent on killing prostitutes.
14:00
Speaker 2: He would target prostitutes, perhaps because they were easy, perhaps
14:04
Speaker 2: because they no one would miss them.
14:06
Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety seven, Yates joined the Army National Guard,
14:11
Speaker 1: hoping to become a helicopter pilot.
14:14
Speaker 6: We have him entering yet another career that involves him
14:18
Speaker 6: enforcing the law. So this is something that enables him
14:21
Speaker 6: to continue having that power and that control and that status.
14:26
Speaker 1: But Yates' flying career was quickly put on hold as
14:29
Speaker 1: his medical results were being processed.
14:32
Speaker 7: He's grounded.
14:33
Speaker 6: He's not allowed to fly his helicopter. Now this is
14:36
Speaker 6: a pivotal moment for me, because somebody else has taken control,
14:40
Speaker 6: somebody else has.
14:41
Speaker 7: Made that decision. He's not the one that's in the
14:43
Speaker 7: driving seat anymore.
14:47
Speaker 1: Despite not initially being able to fly, he remains in
14:51
Speaker 1: the National Guard, but with a large family to support,
14:55
Speaker 1: he takes on a menial job at a manufacturing plant
14:58
Speaker 1: in Spokane, and all the while Yates continued to kill.
15:04
Speaker 6: I think the murders that he committed were an attempt
15:06
Speaker 6: to get back control. I think there were things happening
15:09
Speaker 6: in his life that he felt were out of his
15:12
Speaker 6: control and he wanted to feel powerful again.
15:16
Speaker 1: His new hunting ground was the CD strip in downtown
15:20
Speaker 1: Spokane known as the Track.
15:23
Speaker 3: Prostitutes, to Yates were easy targets in that they would
15:26
Speaker 3: get into his vehicle without any questions asked. They would
15:30
Speaker 3: just decide what money was going to be exchanged for services.
15:35
Speaker 5: And the prostitutes were.
15:36
Speaker 3: Very vulnerable because most of them were drug addicts and
15:39
Speaker 3: they'd sell themselves for money and use it to buy drugs.
15:43
Speaker 6: Robert Lee Yates was very much a regular face on
15:46
Speaker 6: the sex workers scene in this part of town at
15:49
Speaker 6: the time, so he wouldn't just pick up women to
15:52
Speaker 6: have sex with.
15:52
Speaker 7: He would do drugs with them.
15:54
Speaker 6: He became part of their community, and I think he
15:57
Speaker 6: would be trusted by them.
15:58
Speaker 7: He was somebody that they knew.
16:02
Speaker 1: In the summer of nineteen ninety seven, Yates picked up
16:05
Speaker 1: twenty year old Heather from the Downtown Track to have
16:09
Speaker 1: sex with her.
16:10
Speaker 8: But I suspect that the victims may not have known
16:13
Speaker 8: even the second before they died that this was going
16:17
Speaker 8: to be a killing because I suspect their interaction went
16:21
Speaker 8: down much as an interaction with a prostitute goes down.
16:25
Speaker 8: And then when he was done, he draws his gun
16:28
Speaker 8: and he shoots.
16:32
Speaker 1: Yates shot Heather in the head with a twenty two
16:35
Speaker 1: caliber handgun.
16:36
Speaker 8: Literally, there's just a second that the victim becomes aware
16:41
Speaker 8: that something's amissing. After that, the victim is dead.
16:44
Speaker 1: After Yates murdered Heather, he dumped her body on the
16:48
Speaker 1: side of the road.
16:49
Speaker 3: Well, he was brazen in his thought as far as
16:52
Speaker 3: dumping the bodies.
16:55
Speaker 1: In August that year, Yates was back on the track
16:58
Speaker 1: looking for easy prey. He picked up sixteen year old Jennifer.
17:04
Speaker 1: Like the young woman before her, her fate was a
17:07
Speaker 1: foregone conclusion.
17:09
Speaker 8: Unlike money serial killers, the way that Yates kills is instrumental.
17:15
Speaker 8: He has sex with his victims and then he pulls
17:18
Speaker 8: out a gun and he shoots them. They die virtually
17:22
Speaker 8: instantaneously at the hand of somebody who knows how to
17:25
Speaker 8: use weapons effectively. He's not trying to torture, he's not
17:29
Speaker 8: trying to terrorize. He's simply eliminating the witness.
17:34
Speaker 6: He watches as the life literally drains from them. And
17:37
Speaker 6: this is an individual who is not going to stop
17:40
Speaker 6: because his offending is getting worse.
17:42
Speaker 7: It's becoming more sadistic.
17:45
Speaker 1: Once dead, he Yates prepared to move Jennifer's body, a
17:49
Speaker 1: ritual he would repeat time and time again.
17:52
Speaker 4: After shooting them in the heads, he put bags over
17:54
Speaker 4: the head, largely to keep his car clean. I mean
17:57
Speaker 4: he didn't want the blood dripping out and would put
18:00
Speaker 4: plastic banks over their heads to keep the mess off
18:03
Speaker 4: his car.
18:05
Speaker 1: Ten days later, local farmers found Jennifer's badly decomposed body.
18:10
Speaker 1: It had been dumped in brush northeast of Spokane.
18:14
Speaker 6: This site where Jennifer was found it was next to
18:18
Speaker 6: a working farm near to an aur faffer field. So
18:22
Speaker 6: he's not really seeming too bothered about covering up. It
18:26
Speaker 6: seems that he just wants to get away at this
18:28
Speaker 6: point in time.
18:30
Speaker 1: That same day, officers made another grim discovery another of
18:35
Speaker 1: his victims, Heather.
18:36
Speaker 4: It's found in a field in a parking lot off
18:39
Speaker 4: of the strip in East boulcan Rari.
18:41
Speaker 3: Yates would typically bury them slightly or partially. Other times
18:46
Speaker 3: he would cover them with debris. Many of them were
18:48
Speaker 3: found nude or semi nude. They were discarded like trash
18:51
Speaker 3: along the road.
18:52
Speaker 6: And that's exactly how he saw these women. He saw
18:55
Speaker 6: them as disposable. He saw them for just his own pleasure,
18:59
Speaker 6: and then he'd get rid of them after he'd had
19:01
Speaker 6: his fun.
19:03
Speaker 1: But this time, the Spokane based detectives had a vital lead.
19:08
Speaker 3: We received a tip that one of the victims, Jennifer Joseph,
19:12
Speaker 3: was last seen getting into a white Corvette.
19:16
Speaker 1: On the twenty fourth of September nineteen ninety seven. A
19:19
Speaker 1: local police officer patrolling the track pulled Yates for speeding.
19:24
Speaker 4: And a police officer actually had stopped him to fill
19:26
Speaker 4: out a report, but in the vehicle description, instead of
19:29
Speaker 4: writing down Corvette, the officer wrote down CM, apparently referring
19:34
Speaker 4: to a Camaro.
19:36
Speaker 6: The police officer actually wrote down that he was in
19:40
Speaker 6: a different kind of car, and that meant that they
19:42
Speaker 6: missed Robert Lee Yates.
19:44
Speaker 1: Later that autumn, Yates picked up Dahla, a twenty eight
19:48
Speaker 1: year old sex worker on the track.
19:51
Speaker 6: He would pick up these women, he would shoot them
19:53
Speaker 6: in the head and then he would bury their bodies.
19:56
Speaker 6: So this was very cold, This was very kind of executionist.
19:59
Speaker 7: Style.
20:01
Speaker 1: Darla's body was found on November the fifth, nineteen ninety seven,
20:05
Speaker 1: ten miles south of downtown Spokane on Hangman Valley Road.
20:09
Speaker 3: I visited the recovery site of Darling, and she was
20:12
Speaker 3: dumped in some bushes by some trees and rolled down
20:16
Speaker 3: a hill, but not very far off off the Hanging
20:19
Speaker 3: Valley Road where often rode my bicycle for exercise. When
20:24
Speaker 3: I ride by there, I always think for her, and
20:27
Speaker 3: my heart goes out to her and her family because
20:29
Speaker 3: she was treated like trash after.
20:31
Speaker 2: She was killed.
20:33
Speaker 1: In December that year, yates Is killing spree spread some
20:37
Speaker 1: three hundred miles east to Tacoma, an area he's familiar
20:41
Speaker 1: with as.
20:42
Speaker 5: A pilot with the Western Army National Guard.
20:44
Speaker 4: He was based here in Spokane, but on certain weekends
20:47
Speaker 4: he would travel to the other side of the state
20:49
Speaker 4: near Tacoma, Washington, where he would do military weekend drills.
20:55
Speaker 1: On December the sixth, Yates chose his next victim. He
20:59
Speaker 1: picked up thirty four year old sex worker Melinda Roberti.
21:03
Speaker 6: Yates didn't just target an area that he was familiar with.
21:07
Speaker 6: He would be carrying out his crimes in areas where
21:10
Speaker 6: he just happened to find himself. He was in Tacoma
21:14
Speaker 6: on one particular date, and this coincided with the murderer
21:17
Speaker 6: of Melinda.
21:19
Speaker 1: Melinda's body was found the following day, dumped in wasteland
21:23
Speaker 1: by a railroad track.
21:25
Speaker 6: But I think at this point he's becoming quite arrogant.
21:28
Speaker 6: He's not gotten caught so far, so he's pushing the
21:31
Speaker 6: boundaries a little bit. And you see this happen with
21:33
Speaker 6: quite a lot of serial killers. They have this kind
21:36
Speaker 6: of prone mister boredom, this need for stimulation, this need
21:39
Speaker 6: to kind of mix things up a bit, And I
21:41
Speaker 6: think that's what he's doing when he's killing outside of
21:44
Speaker 6: the area he knows.
21:47
Speaker 1: By the end of nineteen ninety seven, the forty five
21:50
Speaker 1: year old serial killer had shot and murdered at least
21:54
Speaker 1: twelve innocent people, most to a vulnerable young women.
22:02
Speaker 6: I think the fact that sex workers in this area
22:04
Speaker 6: were still going out and still working, even though they
22:08
Speaker 6: knew that their friends and their acquaintances were being killed
22:12
Speaker 6: by the serial killer just shows what desperate circumstances these
22:16
Speaker 6: women live in. They have to go out, they have
22:19
Speaker 6: to work or money, often to feed drug habits.
22:25
Speaker 1: On December the twenty second, nineteen ninety seven, police set
22:29
Speaker 1: up a special task force in Spokane to catch the
22:33
Speaker 1: serial killer terrorizing America's specific Northwest, but the killings that
22:38
Speaker 1: holiday season continued unabated.
22:42
Speaker 7: Robert E.
22:43
Speaker 6: Yates murder's Sony during the Christmas period of nineteen ninety seven,
22:46
Speaker 6: where most people are celebrating the festivities with their families.
22:51
Speaker 6: This really does show me that serial killers don't take
22:55
Speaker 6: time out. They don't stop for the holidays. They want
22:58
Speaker 6: to keep killing because they joy it, because it gives
23:00
Speaker 6: them power and it gives them control.
23:04
Speaker 1: A day after Christmas, detectives discovered the lifeless bodies of
23:09
Speaker 1: two more women. Both were found within the Spokane city limits.
23:14
Speaker 7: Lauren and Sean.
23:15
Speaker 6: Their bodies were found at the same time. Laurel was
23:19
Speaker 6: shot in the head and discarded like a piece of rubbish.
23:23
Speaker 6: Sean was another one of Robert Lee Yates's victims, and
23:26
Speaker 6: I think he was getting a little bit arrogant. He
23:29
Speaker 6: was getting a little bit sloppy at the time of
23:31
Speaker 6: her killing. So after he killed her, he placed the
23:34
Speaker 6: plastic bag over her head, and there was a print
23:37
Speaker 6: that was found on that bag, and that turned out
23:41
Speaker 6: to be his print.
23:42
Speaker 7: So so as he's becoming more bold.
23:44
Speaker 6: As he's becoming more confident, he's starting to maintensteakes.
23:49
Speaker 1: Fear amongst the general public escalated as the murders across
23:54
Speaker 1: the Pacific Northwest continued.
23:56
Speaker 4: By the end of the naeties, there were like a
23:58
Speaker 4: dozen or so of these prositues were turned up dead
24:01
Speaker 4: and there was no killer in custody, and by then
24:03
Speaker 4: everyone was saying, we have a serial killer in our
24:06
Speaker 4: midst and something needs to be done about it.
24:08
Speaker 6: I think the impacts of his crimes on the community
24:11
Speaker 6: were incredibly significant, because here's this guy who appears to
24:14
Speaker 6: be completely regular, completely average, completely invisible, to be honest,
24:19
Speaker 6: somebody who didn't really stand out, and yet he was
24:21
Speaker 6: able to wreak such havoc across the community.
24:26
Speaker 1: By January nineteen ninety eight, the number of unsolved murder
24:30
Speaker 1: cases in Spokane had drastically risen. The FBI was called
24:35
Speaker 1: in to assist the Spokane Task Course in catching the killer.
24:39
Speaker 3: The Spokane Serial Killer Task Force to haad hundreds of
24:42
Speaker 3: leads to begin with, turn into thousands of leads. Some
24:45
Speaker 3: of those leads were interstate, in fact, even in other countries,
24:49
Speaker 3: So they asked the f GUY to get involved.
24:53
Speaker 1: Special Agent Norm Brown was the FBI's liaison officer who
24:58
Speaker 1: coordinated efforts and resources with the Spokane Serial Killer task Force.
25:03
Speaker 3: It's difficult to work these type of cases because we
25:07
Speaker 3: know women are being killed, the longer we can't find
25:10
Speaker 3: the serial killer. So we're anxious to find the killer.
25:15
Speaker 3: So that works on the head and the hearts of
25:17
Speaker 3: the investigators. I spent about a one hundred hours plus
25:22
Speaker 3: following leads and helping the task force. It was challenging.
25:26
Speaker 3: We'd try to think why the killer would pick this
25:29
Speaker 3: site to dump the bodies. Generally there are found in
25:32
Speaker 3: fields or in wooded areas, but not always. A couple
25:36
Speaker 3: of bodies were found within the city limits.
25:42
Speaker 1: On January the nineteenth, nineteen ninety eight, the task force
25:46
Speaker 1: sponsored a candlelit vigil to memorialize that many women who'd
25:51
Speaker 1: been murdered on the streets of Spokane in the hope
25:54
Speaker 1: it would lead to more information about the killer.
25:58
Speaker 4: There was a lot of community outre A lot of
26:00
Speaker 4: people thought that the law enforcement authorities weren't giving us
26:03
Speaker 4: enough attention because of who these victims were. There were
26:07
Speaker 4: candlelight vigils, and of course the undercovered police.
26:09
Speaker 5: There watching to see who would show.
26:11
Speaker 1: Up, but there were no further leads. Four months later,
26:18
Speaker 1: Yates sold his white Corvette, a car he'd been stopped
26:21
Speaker 1: in for speeding in on the track by police the
26:24
Speaker 1: previous year. He began prowling his favorite hunting ground in
26:29
Speaker 1: a big black van.
26:31
Speaker 6: Robert Lee Yates really is the embodiment of the arrogant,
26:34
Speaker 6: narcissistic serial killer who really does know his patch that
26:38
Speaker 6: he would go up and down, and he set up
26:40
Speaker 6: his vehicle as a mobile sex unit. So this is
26:44
Speaker 6: a guy who's very confident in what he's doing. He's
26:47
Speaker 6: hiding in plain sight. He is almost taunting the police
26:50
Speaker 6: essentially and saying, hey, everybody, look at me, Look what
26:53
Speaker 6: I'm up to, and none of you have caught me at.
26:58
Speaker 1: In May nineteen ninety eight, Yates picked up forty three
27:02
Speaker 1: year old Melody downtown. Like his previous victims, he followed
27:07
Speaker 1: the same deadly routine. After he'd had sex with her,
27:12
Speaker 1: he killed her. Melody was reported missing by her family
27:18
Speaker 1: shortly after she disappeared. Even with support from the FBI,
27:23
Speaker 1: the Task Force were unable to locate her body.
27:26
Speaker 3: Melody had been missing for several days weeks and then
27:29
Speaker 3: months she was last seen living with her sister in Minnesota,
27:33
Speaker 3: or that she was working the streets in Tennessee or
27:36
Speaker 3: selling drugs in California. None of these leads panned out.
27:39
Speaker 3: It's like she just dropped off the face of the earth.
27:42
Speaker 1: Shortly after Melody's murder, the overconfident killer began to make
27:47
Speaker 1: a series of mistakes. In July that year, Yates picked
27:56
Speaker 1: up forty seven year old Michelin downtown. This time, Yates
28:01
Speaker 1: buried her body close to home, a block from the
28:04
Speaker 1: manufacturing company in Spokane where he worked.
28:08
Speaker 6: The body of Michelin was actually found near Robert Lee
28:12
Speaker 6: Yates's place of work, and I think this shows how
28:15
Speaker 6: arrogance and how incredibly confident he was becoming in his killing.
28:20
Speaker 6: Very often, serial killers will keep it a clear separation
28:23
Speaker 6: between their work life and their home life and their killing,
28:27
Speaker 6: but it's starting to merge into one.
28:30
Speaker 1: Police questioned a number of employees who worked at the
28:33
Speaker 1: manufacturing company, including Yates, but with no evidence to link
28:39
Speaker 1: him to the murder, no further action was taken.
28:42
Speaker 6: And he's actually interviewed in relation to the discovery of
28:45
Speaker 6: this body, and part of me thinks he probably quite
28:48
Speaker 6: enjoyed that. He probably quite enjoyed the police asking him questions,
28:52
Speaker 6: knowing that he knew all along who was responsible.
28:56
Speaker 8: Like many serial killers, he starts slow and begins to escalate,
29:00
Speaker 8: and the frequency of the killing and the amount of
29:02
Speaker 8: the killing gets more and more, and there's something else
29:05
Speaker 8: that becomes more and more over time. He makes less
29:08
Speaker 8: and less efforts to hide the bodies.
29:10
Speaker 1: After a while, but Yates's luck was about to run out.
29:18
Speaker 1: On August the first, nineteen ninety eight, Yates picked up
29:22
Speaker 1: another sex worker, Christine Smith, in downtown spoken.
29:27
Speaker 3: Christine Smith got inside the van of Robert Yates attempted
29:31
Speaker 3: to perform oral sex on him, and during that process,
29:34
Speaker 3: she felt a sharp blow to her head and she
29:40
Speaker 3: immediately got out ran away.
29:43
Speaker 4: It was like a glancing blow and she didn't even
29:45
Speaker 4: realize initially that she'd been shot.
29:47
Speaker 5: It was a superficial wound near her ear.
29:50
Speaker 6: As I recall, Christine Smith's case really is absolutely astounding.
29:55
Speaker 6: She thought she'd just been stabbed, and she managed to
29:58
Speaker 6: escape the car, go and get help from people. This
30:02
Speaker 6: is a witness who has survived. This is a witness
30:04
Speaker 6: who can identify him, and it's only a matter of
30:07
Speaker 6: time before the police catch.
30:09
Speaker 7: Up with him.
30:11
Speaker 1: Despite Christine's escape, Yates was unable to contain the urge
30:16
Speaker 1: to kill. In September, he was on the hunt again.
30:20
Speaker 1: Sex worker Connie was his next victim. Her body was
30:24
Speaker 1: found weeks later by a search and rescue dog down
30:27
Speaker 1: an embankment in Pierce County, Tacoma.
30:31
Speaker 4: These women turning up dead, and most of them were prostitutes,
30:35
Speaker 4: and it was the common theme with these victims, and
30:39
Speaker 4: they were difficult to find background information about them, and
30:43
Speaker 4: they were turning up dead one at a time, and
30:45
Speaker 4: many of these cases would result in just a short
30:49
Speaker 4: little news item on the evening news or in the newspaper.
30:54
Speaker 1: The following months, Yates went on the prowl to his favorites,
30:57
Speaker 1: hunting ground the track. On November tenth, nineteen ninety eight,
31:03
Speaker 1: he picked up sex worker Jennifer, but before Yates could
31:07
Speaker 1: make his move, they were pulled over and his details
31:10
Speaker 1: were taken down.
31:11
Speaker 4: And a police officer actually had stopped him and filled
31:14
Speaker 4: out a police report about suspicious activity. He had a
31:17
Speaker 4: young woman in the car with him, and there was
31:19
Speaker 4: no criminal conduct that he could be arrested on the
31:22
Speaker 4: spot for, and the police officer filled out a report.
31:25
Speaker 1: The police encounter saved Jennifer's life. Yates immediately dropped her
31:30
Speaker 1: off just a few blocks away, spoke Anne Washington. Nineteen
31:40
Speaker 1: ninety nine. After almost thirty years, Robert Lee Yates, Junior,
31:45
Speaker 1: the serial killer responsible for at least thirteen murders, is
31:49
Speaker 1: still on the loose. Following two police interviews the previous year,
31:54
Speaker 1: detectives discovered that Yates had once owned a white Corvette,
31:58
Speaker 1: a car linked to one of the victims found in
32:01
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety seven.
32:06
Speaker 6: There was a witness who saw Jennifer Joseph getting into
32:10
Speaker 6: a white Corvette on that summer evening that she disappeared.
32:14
Speaker 6: And a white Corvette is quite a distinctive vehicle. It's
32:17
Speaker 6: one that you're not going to mistake for something else.
32:20
Speaker 6: And this is something that's going to be really important
32:22
Speaker 6: in the conviction of Robertie Yates.
32:26
Speaker 1: On September the fifteenth, nineteen ninety nine, forty seven year
32:30
Speaker 1: old Yates was brought in for questioning.
32:32
Speaker 6: Robertie Yates is called in by the police and he
32:36
Speaker 6: can't account for his whereabouts on a couple of the
32:39
Speaker 6: key dates. One of the things that really does trip
32:42
Speaker 6: him up is. The police are presenting their evidence to
32:46
Speaker 6: him and they say about a white Camaro being seen,
32:50
Speaker 6: and he corrects them. He goes, oh, no, it's not
32:52
Speaker 6: a Camaro, it's a Corvette.
32:55
Speaker 1: Yates' admission was a breakthrough, but it wasn't enough to
32:59
Speaker 1: arrest him. The police needed more evidence to link him
33:02
Speaker 1: to the Washington murders. Yates was released the same day.
33:07
Speaker 1: The task Force issued as search warrants and tracked down
33:11
Speaker 1: the new owner of the nineteen seventy seven white Corvette
33:14
Speaker 1: that Yates had sold.
33:16
Speaker 4: They pulled registrations for every white Corvette in Idaho and
33:19
Speaker 4: Washington in this region and winnowed that down and ultimately
33:23
Speaker 4: located the corvette that Robert Yates had once owned.
33:27
Speaker 1: The task Force recovered Yates's white Corvette and submitted it
33:31
Speaker 1: to forensic examination.
33:33
Speaker 3: The investigators were able to recover evidence that linked Yates
33:38
Speaker 3: to the killing of one of the prostitutes.
33:41
Speaker 4: One of the victims, Jennifer Joseph, had carpet fibers on
33:45
Speaker 4: her body. They processed that car and found the same
33:48
Speaker 4: kind of carpet threads that matched Jennifer.
33:57
Speaker 1: Jennifer Joseph had been murdered to years earlier, and her
34:01
Speaker 1: body was found in an alfalfa field northeast of Spokane.
34:07
Speaker 4: The detectives meticulously took the corvette apart, and in that
34:10
Speaker 4: process they found a small button that matched the kind
34:14
Speaker 4: of button was on the clothing.
34:16
Speaker 5: Worn by Jennifer Joseph.
34:17
Speaker 4: They then knew that Jennifer Joseph had been in that
34:19
Speaker 4: vehicle prior to her death.
34:22
Speaker 1: Investigators also found a number of bloodstains. When tested, they
34:28
Speaker 1: revealed DNA belonging to Jennifer.
34:34
Speaker 4: They knew that her murder had been in that vehicle
34:37
Speaker 4: before she had been dumped in a field northwest of Spokane.
34:40
Speaker 6: All of the evidence is starting to match up, and
34:42
Speaker 6: it leads them right back to Robert Lee Yates.
34:45
Speaker 1: The Task Force put in a warrant for Yates's arrest.
34:49
Speaker 4: By the time the detectives get a warrant for his arrest,
34:51
Speaker 4: they were one hundred percent certain they've got the right man.
34:54
Speaker 1: On April the seventeenth of two thousand, the Task Force
34:58
Speaker 1: put Yates under twenty four hours surveillance.
35:01
Speaker 6: The police had staked out the family home, made sure
35:04
Speaker 6: that he was there, and after he left for work
35:07
Speaker 6: at six o'clock the following morning, they moved in, and
35:11
Speaker 6: they arrested him.
35:12
Speaker 1: The same day. Detective search Yates's house for further evidence.
35:17
Speaker 1: Immediately after his arrest, a sample of Yates's DNA was
35:21
Speaker 1: taken and compared with samples collected from a number of
35:24
Speaker 1: murder victims found between nineteen ninety six and nineteen ninety eight.
35:29
Speaker 3: It was tested that day and came back late that afternoon.
35:33
Speaker 3: I recall that we were at the Yates home conducting
35:36
Speaker 3: a search when we got word that the DNA matched
35:40
Speaker 3: Robert Yates. At least eight of the victims had the
35:44
Speaker 3: same DNA found on them, so we knew we were
35:47
Speaker 3: dealing with the serial killer. All investigators were very happy.
35:52
Speaker 3: We were actually elated.
35:56
Speaker 1: The day after Yates was apprehended, a newspaper report was
36:00
Speaker 1: released detailing his arrest. Upon seeing it, former sex worker
36:06
Speaker 1: Christine Smith instantly recognized Yates as being the man who
36:11
Speaker 1: shot her in the back of his van in August
36:13
Speaker 1: of nineteen ninety eight. At the time of the incident,
36:18
Speaker 1: she thought she'd been stabbed and had reported it to police.
36:24
Speaker 6: It wasn't until a couple of years later, when she
36:27
Speaker 6: was involved in a car wreck, that she went to
36:29
Speaker 6: the hospital and they discovered shrapnel in her head, and
36:33
Speaker 6: then she realizes that she's actually been shot. She hasn't
36:36
Speaker 6: been snabbed. Somebody has howed a gun to her head
36:39
Speaker 6: and pulled the trigger. And not only that, this person
36:42
Speaker 6: who's done this is Robert Lee Yates, and she realizes
36:45
Speaker 6: and I could have been one of his victims.
36:52
Speaker 1: Christine's evidence helped connect the final pieces of the puzzle.
36:56
Speaker 3: Her coming forward was very crucial to the task force.
37:00
Speaker 3: She came forward providing the information in law enforcement, and
37:03
Speaker 3: she was a living victim. If you will, it's a
37:06
Speaker 3: living person that could testify against Rabri Yates.
37:10
Speaker 1: A month later, in May of two thousand, investigators meticulously
37:15
Speaker 1: searched Yates's black van. They discovered blood pertaining to two
37:19
Speaker 1: other victims, three bullet holes and spent bullets, and bullet
37:23
Speaker 1: debris containing Christine's DNA.
37:27
Speaker 4: When the task force finally got to her, they had
37:29
Speaker 4: the bullet fragment surgically removed and it blistically matched up
37:34
Speaker 4: to the same weapon that was used in some of
37:36
Speaker 4: these other killings.
37:38
Speaker 1: Whilst searching Yates's property, investigators discovered the murder weapons he
37:43
Speaker 1: used handguns.
37:44
Speaker 4: Some of the victims may also have been killed with
37:46
Speaker 4: the twenty two, but most of the murders were committed
37:49
Speaker 4: by a twenty five caliber handgun.
37:51
Speaker 1: The task force now had enough evidence to charge him
37:55
Speaker 1: with a total of thirteen murders and the attempted murder
37:59
Speaker 1: of Christine Smith. In October of two thousand of the
38:02
Speaker 1: Spokane Superior Court, Yates faced his charges in front of
38:07
Speaker 1: a packed room. The serial killer took to the stand
38:11
Speaker 1: and made a shock plea.
38:13
Speaker 4: Yates, to the surprise of many, goes to court and
38:15
Speaker 4: pleads guilty to thirteen counts of murder in one count
38:19
Speaker 4: of attempted murder.
38:20
Speaker 1: The callous killer avoided going to trial by pleading guilty
38:24
Speaker 1: to the murders.
38:25
Speaker 6: Robert y Yates struck a plea bargain. He confessed to
38:29
Speaker 6: thirteen murders and actually got life in prison without the
38:34
Speaker 6: possibility of parole.
38:37
Speaker 1: As part of the deal, Yates revealed a horrible secret Robberie.
38:42
Speaker 3: Yates agreed to disclose the location of Melanium. None of
38:46
Speaker 3: the investigators knew where she was, and the family didn't
38:50
Speaker 3: know where she was either, so he agreed to lead
38:53
Speaker 3: us to her body.
38:55
Speaker 1: Using Yates's hand drawn map. The task force excavated an
39:00
Speaker 1: to the east side of the killer's home.
39:04
Speaker 3: Her body was located in Robert Yates's yard buried. It
39:09
Speaker 3: was his trophy, so to speak. It was pretty horrendous.
39:13
Speaker 3: When the investigators were conducting the search inside the house.
39:16
Speaker 3: No one ever dreamt that she would be buried right
39:19
Speaker 3: outside his bedroom. We were surprised and dejected to know
39:24
Speaker 3: that he would do such a thing.
39:26
Speaker 6: This says he wants to be able to watch over
39:29
Speaker 6: the body of this victim, to have control over this
39:32
Speaker 6: crime scene.
39:33
Speaker 4: There's obviously some sadistic kind of a thrill associated with that.
39:37
Speaker 5: I mean, his body was buried at.
39:39
Speaker 4: His family home, right outside the bedroom where he and
39:42
Speaker 4: his wife slept.
39:44
Speaker 1: Yates's deal with the police saved his life.
39:49
Speaker 3: That was a strong selling point that he would give
39:52
Speaker 3: up the location of her body and he would get
39:55
Speaker 3: a life sentence as opposed to the death penalty. The investigators,
39:59
Speaker 3: including believe that he should get a death sentence if
40:03
Speaker 3: the death sentence doesn't apply to him. Who doesn't apply
40:05
Speaker 3: to He ended up getting four hundred and eight years
40:08
Speaker 3: for the murders.
40:10
Speaker 1: In two thousand and two, prosecutors in Pierce County charged
40:15
Speaker 1: Yates with two additional murders, that of Melinda in nineteen
40:19
Speaker 1: ninety seven and of Connie in nineteen ninety eight. Yates
40:23
Speaker 1: murdered both women in Pierce County, Washington.
40:26
Speaker 6: In two thousand and two, he was convicted of further murders,
40:30
Speaker 6: and for those murders he actually received the death penalty.
40:34
Speaker 1: In October of two thousand and two, Yates was sentenced
40:37
Speaker 1: to death by lethal injection, but Washington State is now
40:41
Speaker 1: abolished capital punishment. As a result, Yates is now serving
40:45
Speaker 1: life in prison without the possibility of parole, in Washington
40:49
Speaker 1: State Penitentiary in Waller. Waller, in an ironic twist of fate,
40:55
Speaker 1: is now housed in the same facility that he once
40:58
Speaker 1: served in as a prison guard to twenty five years earlier.
41:02
Speaker 1: A fitting end for the monstrous murderer.
41:05
Speaker 4: That is the most shocking part of this. He was
41:07
Speaker 4: just the guy that everybody has living next door to them.
41:10
Speaker 4: He wasn't this three eyed monster or some sexual psychopath
41:14
Speaker 4: or registered sex offender. I mean, he was a father.
41:17
Speaker 4: He lived in a modest, upscale part of town. He'd
41:20
Speaker 4: been in the military, just about as ordinary as you
41:23
Speaker 4: could possibly get.
41:25
Speaker 6: And he didn't look like a monster either. He looked
41:27
Speaker 6: like an average joe. He this averageness is something that
41:31
Speaker 6: actually played to his advantage as a serial killer.
41:34
Speaker 1: Convicted of fifteen cold blooded murders, Spokane's mass murderer is
41:40
Speaker 1: suspected of taking many more innocent lives, and that makes
41:44
Speaker 1: Robert Lee Yates Junior one of the world's most evil killers.