Robert Lee Yates Jr.: The Spokane Serial Killer
Overview
Robert Lee Yates Jr. was a decorated U.S. Army helicopter pilot, a husband, and a father of five who led a shocking double life as one of Washington state's most prolific serial killers. Between 1975 and 1998, Yates murdered at least 16 people, targeting women involved in sex work and drug use in Spokane's red-light district, in addition to a young couple near Walla Walla. His method was consistent: he would solicit women for sex, shoot them, and dump their bodies in rural locations, often with plastic bags placed over their heads—a grim signature that led to the moniker "The Grocery Bag Killer." For years, he evaded capture, hiding his monstrous acts behind a facade of military professionalism and suburban normalcy. His eventual arrest in 2000, brought about by a combination of task force investigation and DNA evidence, unraveled a quarter-century of terror. Yates confessed to 13 murders to avoid the death penalty in Spokane County, receiving a 408-year prison sentence. However, he was subsequently tried and sentenced to death in Pierce County for two additional murders. In 2018, his death sentence was commuted to life in prison without parole after the Washington Supreme Court ruled the state's capital punishment law unconstitutional.
Early Life and Background
Robert Lee Yates Jr. was born on May 27, 1952, in Oak Harbor, Washington, into a middle-class, Seventh-day Adventist family. His seemingly normal upbringing was shadowed by a dark family history; in 1945, his grandmother murdered his grandfather with an axe. Yates graduated from Oak Harbor High School in 1970, where he was remembered as a quiet but athletic kid who played baseball.
After briefly attending university, he married his first wife, a union that lasted only a short time. In 1975, he worked as a corrections officer at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla. He remarried in 1976 and enlisted in the U.S. Army in October 1977. The military became his career for nearly two decades. Yates trained to become a helicopter pilot, a role in which he was seen as highly proficient and professional. His 21-year military career included service in Germany, Somalia, and Haiti, and he earned numerous awards, including the Master Aviator Badge. He and his wife raised five children, and to his community in Spokane, Yates appeared to be a respectable family man and a decorated veteran.
The First Murders: A Prelude
Yates's murderous activity began long before the string of killings that would make him infamous. On July 13, 1975, he was returning from target practice near Walla Walla when he encountered Patrick Oliver, 21, and Susan Savage, 22. The two college students were having a picnic together. For reasons he never fully explained, Yates shot both of them in the head. Their bodies were discovered the next day, but the case went cold for 25 years. It was only after his arrest in 2000, as part of a plea bargain to save his own life, that Yates confessed to these first two murders, finally connecting the long-unsolved crime to his hidden history of violence.
More than a decade later, on July 7, 1988, Yates killed again. While on military leave, he picked up 23-year-old Stacy Elizabeth Hawn in an area of Seattle known for prostitution. He shot her once in the head and dumped her body in a remote area in Skagit County. Her skeletal remains were not found until December 28, 1988, and her murder also remained unsolved for years until Yates’s confession.
The Spokane Killings: 1996-1998
After retiring from active duty in 1996 and joining the Army National Guard, Yates settled with his family in Spokane. It was here that he began to kill with terrifying frequency, preying on vulnerable women in the city's East Sprague Avenue district, an area known for sex work and drug activity.
His spree began on June 14, 1996, with the murder of 38-year-old Shannon Rene Zielinski. Her badly decomposed body was found in a wooded area in Mead. Over the next two years, a pattern of disappearances and discoveries created a climate of fear.
In August 1997, the bodies of 16-year-old Jennifer Ann Joseph and 20-year-old Heather L. Hernandez were found on the same day, both victims of gunshot wounds. The discoveries continued: Darla S. Scott, 29, in November 1997; Shawn L. Johnson, 36, in December 1997; and on the day after Christmas 1997, the bodies of both Laurie Jean Wason, 31, and Shawn Ann McClenahan, 39, were found near each other.
The killings carried into 1998. The remains of Sunny G. Oster, 41, were found in February, followed by Linda M. Maybin, 34, in April. On May 20, 43-year-old Melody Ann Murfin went missing. She was not found until after Yates’s arrest, when he led investigators to her body, which he had buried in the yard of his family home, just beneath his bedroom window. The last of his Spokane victims was 47-year-old Michelyn Jo Derning, found on July 7, 1998.
During this same period, Yates also killed two women in Pierce County. Melinda L. Mercer, 24, was found in Tacoma on December 7, 1997, and Connie LaFontaine Ellis, 35, was found in a nearby ditch on October 13, 1998. Both had been shot, with plastic bags placed over their heads.
The Victims
Robert Lee Yates left a trail of shattered families and stolen lives. His proven victims were:
- Patrick Oliver, 21 — July 13, 1975, near Walla Walla. A college student, he was enjoying a picnic with his friend Susan Savage when they were both tragically killed.
- Susan Savage, 22 — July 13, 1975, near Walla Walla. She was a student picnicking with Patrick Oliver when their lives were cut short in a senseless act of violence.
- Stacy Elizabeth Hawn, 23 — July 7, 1988, in Skagit County. Her remains were found months after she was last seen in Seattle; her case remained cold until her killer's confession.
- Shannon Rene Zielinski, 38 — June 14, 1996, in Mead. Her body was discovered in a wooded area near a school bus stop.
- Jennifer Ann Joseph, 16 — August 21, 1997, in Spokane. A teenager who had recently moved to the area, her life was tragically cut short.
- Heather L. Hernandez, 20 — August 21, 1997, in Spokane. She had only been in Spokane for a few weeks before she became a victim of the city's serial killer.
- Darla S. Scott, 29 — November 5, 1997, in Spokane. Her remains were found in a shallow grave near a golf course.
- Melinda L. Mercer, 24 — December 7, 1997, in Tacoma. Remembered by her mother as "the most loving girl," she was a waitress who fought for her life in her final moments.
- Shawn L. Johnson, 36 — December 18, 1997, in Spokane. Her body was found with plastic bags over her head, a signature of the killer.
- Laurie Jean Wason, 31 — December 26, 1997, in Spokane. Her body was discovered on the same day and in close proximity to another of Yates's victims.
- Shawn Ann McClenahan, 39 — December 26, 1997, in Spokane. She was found murdered near the body of Laurie Wason.
- Sunny G. Oster, 41 — February 8, 1998, in Spokane. Her family had brought her to Spokane to enter a drug treatment program in an effort to turn her life around.
- Linda M. Maybin, 34 — April 1, 1998, in Spokane. Known as "Barefoot Linda," she was found just yards from where two other victims had been discovered.
- Melody Ann Murfin, 43 — May 20, 1998, in Spokane. She was missing for two years until Yates, after his arrest, confessed and led police to her grave in his own yard.
- Michelyn Jo Derning, 47 — July 7, 1998, in Spokane. The daughter of a Marine Corps colonel, she was found nude in Spokane.
- Connie LaFontaine Ellis, 35 — October 13, 1998, in Tacoma. A mother who had suffered the loss of two children, she had moved to the area and worked as a hairdresser before falling into a high-risk lifestyle.
Investigation and Capture
As the number of victims grew, law enforcement in Spokane formed a task force to hunt the serial killer preying on women from East Sprague Avenue. The investigation was a slow and arduous process. A key break came from Christine Smith, the only known survivor of an attack by Yates. On August 1, 1998, Yates picked her up, robbed her, and shot her. Miraculously, the bullet only grazed her scalp, and she escaped. She provided police with a description of her attacker and his vehicle.
Another crucial clue was a white Corvette. Victim Jennifer Joseph had last been seen getting into a car of that model. Investigators began looking for men who frequented the Sprague area and owned such a car. Robert Lee Yates’s name appeared on a list of suspects. On September 19, 1998, police stopped Yates and asked him for a DNA sample. He refused, citing his status as a "family man."
The final pieces fell into place when investigators obtained Yates's DNA and matched it to semen found on multiple victims. After his arrest on April 18, 2000, a search of a 1977 Corvette he previously owned revealed blood evidence linked to Jennifer Joseph. Confronted with the overwhelming evidence, Yates's facade crumbled.
Trial and Sentence
Facing multiple murder charges, Robert Lee Yates chose to cooperate in exchange for his life. In 2000, he entered a plea agreement with Spokane County prosecutors. He confessed to 13 murders—the 1975 Walla Walla killings, the 1988 Skagit County murder, and ten of the Spokane killings—as well as the attempted murder of Christine Smith. In exchange for his confession and for leading investigators to the body of Melody Murfin, he was spared the death penalty and sentenced to 408 years in prison. After the sentencing, he issued an apology to the families of his victims.
However, the plea deal did not cover the two murders committed in Pierce County. Prosecutors there refused to forgo capital punishment and, in 2001, charged Yates with the aggravated first-degree murders of Melinda L. Mercer and Connie LaFontaine Ellis. At his 2002 trial in Tacoma, the jury heard harrowing details of the crimes. During the trial, it was revealed that Melinda Mercer had desperately chewed through two of the four plastic bags over her head before she died. On September 19, 2002, the jury found him guilty. Following the verdict, on October 3, 2002, the same jury sentenced Robert Lee Yates Jr. to death by lethal injection.
Aftermath and Appeals
For years, Yates remained on death row at the Washington State Penitentiary, appealing his sentence. His attorneys argued that the death sentence was disproportionate, given his life sentence for 13 other murders, and compared his case to that of Green River Killer Gary Ridgway, who received a life sentence for confessing to far more killings. These appeals were repeatedly rejected by the Washington Supreme Court.
The final turn in Yates's legal fate came not from his own appeals, but from a landmark decision affecting all of Washington's death row inmates. On October 11, 2018, the Washington Supreme Court ruled that the state's use of capital punishment was unconstitutional because it was applied in an "arbitrary and racially biased manner." As a result of this ruling, Robert Lee Yates's death sentence was automatically commuted to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He continues to serve his sentence at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla, the same institution where he once worked as a guard.
