Hometown Horrors (pt 2)

**Please note that we had not fine-tuned our audio quality quite yet. If poor sound quality isn't your thing, we encourage you to jump to Ep. 4 : Torture Terrors, and revisit these early days later**

In our debut two-part episode, we dive deep into the stories of two of Spokane’s most notorious serial killers.

On July 24, 2017, Donna Perry was sentenced to life without parole for the murder of three sex workers back in 1990. However, at that time, she was Douglas Perry. And that body count is believed to be much, much higher. 

Up until April 18, 2000, Robert Lee Yates had spent the last 25 years of his life as a stand-up family man, while hiding a dark and sinister secret. Over the span of two decades, Robert had claimed the life of at least 13 people. His chaos finally caught up to him when he was arrested for one of the murders, and the rest unraveled from there. 

Join Gavin, Suzi, and Brittany each week as we take you on a thrill ride adventure into the juicy details surrounding famous and unheard-of cases.

Things can get a little rough, so listener discretion is advised. 
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Transcript

SPEAKER_06 0:03

911, what is your emergency? I just found a body. I don't know what to do.

SPEAKER_05 0:10

Government officials. You are listening to Nightcap, a true crime podcast where we drink a little. Okay, maybe a lot, and deep dive into horrific murders, sinister crimes, unsolved mysteries.

SPEAKER_03 0:27

Each week, we will take you on a thrill ride adventure into the juicy details surrounding famous and unheard of cases.

SPEAKER_06 0:34

Including authentic reactions from rotating co-hosts and insight from trained professionals that give you a real forensic look into true crime.

SPEAKER_03 0:42

Be warned, this podcast does contain explicit content and graphic descriptions of real life accounts and cases.

SPEAKER_02 0:49

Listener discretion is definitely advised.

SPEAKER_07 0:52

Thank you for tuning in to Hometown Horrors Part 2.

SPEAKER_02 0:56

Alright, guys, so we're jumping in next with the second case of our episode. And this is on Robert Lee Yates, Jr. Or also known as Bobby, like his mother called him. I thought that was cute. Or also known as Dad's name. Oh weird. Hopefully your dad is nothing like him. We'll see. I'm kidding, dad. I love you. Or he is also known as the spoken serial killer. Alright, so he is a serial killer. His characteristics were rape and murder. His number of victims was 16 to 18 or more. Because we don't really know. We don't really know 18 lots. Roughly, if not yet. So I'm gonna start off with his early life just to give you guys a little background on Robert Lee Yates. He was born on May 27th in 1952 in Anacortez, Washington, to Anna Mae and Robert Yates Sr. And he was also an only child. And I thought I would throw this in because I I learned about this and I was like, there's kind of relevancy here. But before Yates was born, Yates' grandmother actually murdered his grandfather with an axe. Oh my god. Died back in 1945. Yeah. I was like, relevant? I I kind of thought so. I'm like, okay, so it's fine. It runs in the family, apparently. Okay. Exactly. He grew up in Oak Harbor, Washington. He was a part of a normal middle class family, and they even attended a 7th Adventist Church. And in 1958, Yates was actually molested by an older boy in his neighborhood at the age of six. And in a phone interview I listened to that was done a couple months back, he had explained that like this older neighborhood boy actually just like took him to an abandoned building and like ripped his clothes off and did whatever he could think of to Yates. And he kind of let this go on without telling anybody until he actually got arrested. So I've been kind of a little bit of like a psychological background there, but he graduated Oak Harp High School in 1970 and he began attending the Skaggett Valley Community College. And he got married to his first wife, Shirley Nylander, and they married in 1972, but that didn't last very long. And they were divorced in 1974. But after that, in that same year, oh am I talking fast? I get a little passionate. That same year, he actually met his new wife, Linda Brewer, and they're married to this day. She couldn't divorce him, even though they're not technically together, she says now, but they're they're still married. She didn't want to divorce him. Yikes. I mean it's a loyal bitch. Yeah. I don't they have four daughters and one son together. In 1975, he was hired by the Washington State Corrections as a prison guard at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla. And after six months of working there, he enlisted into the United States Army, where he became a certified flight civilian or certified to fly civilian airplanes and helicopters. He was stationed all over the world and even learned earned several medals and awards across his 19-year career, retiring in March of 1996. And after retiring, that's when Yates moved to Spokane. And he moved to the South Hill on a beige two-story rancher. And then also after that time, he was also working in Tacoma, Washington with the National Guard. So he drove back and forth, which that becomes relevant later in the story. But with all this background knowledge, like that seems like a pretty normal upbringing. I mean, besides the grandmother or grandma and the molestation. But pretty, pretty normal guy, you know, just like family man, that's the kids. Okay, so now I'm gonna dive into these murders, and they are gonna seem a little repetitive, but I wanted to explain each and every one of them just to kind of show this pattern that he had created. And so bear with me here, but it's super interesting. So the first people he actually killed was Patrick Oliver, who was 21, and Susan Savage, who was 22. And the bodies were discovered, they were discovered shot dead and located by Mill Creek near Walla Walla on July 14th in 1975. So this is dating back. This is his very first one. So he was only like rubber, like 23 at the time. And then so the next murder was Stacey E. Hahn, and she was 23. She was lasting alive in Seattle on July 7th, 1988. And her skeletal remains were found five months later in Skaga County. And next up we have Shannon Zelensky, she was 38. She was found June 14th, 1996. So we're fast-forwarding quite a bit here. Oh, and she was she was found near Holcomb Road in Mount Spokane Drive in Spokane, which is crazy. Yeah, and so I'm gonna get deep on these the roads that these women were found on because like me and Gavin have live in Spokane our whole life, so I recognize these roads. So it's super interesting, especially feeling Spokane. And then we have Heather Hernandez, she was 20. She was found August 26, 1997, in an overgrown and abandoned lot in Spokane. And she had only moved to Spokane a month earlier. She got shorted on the sick there. And then Jennifer Joseph, she was only 16. She was by far the youngest victim that Yates ever came in contact with. And she was found on August 26, 1997, on Forker in Judkins Road in Spokane. Her body was on a high state of decomposition. The cause of death was a gunshot wound to the chest, and semen was found inside of her corpse.

SPEAKER_00 6:54

And I used to those first, the first two were in the 70s, and then he like just chilled until the 90s. Yeah. Basically. Interesting.

SPEAKER_02 7:07

The first two he had ever killed was was in 95, and then the next one after that was 1988. These are all the ones that we know of. That he and then after that it was 1996. That's crazy. And in 1997, that's when he started his free and act in like Spokane. So then Jollis Who Scott was also found on November 5th, 1997. Her decomposing body was found by a man walking his dog near Hangman Valley. Ah yeah. Growth. So many details. Yeah. That's right. That was like just walking your dog, find a corpse. But there was two plastic bags were found at the scene. Her cause of death was two gunshot wounds to the head. Semen was also found inside of her body. Belinda Mercer, 24, found on December 7th, 1997. On South 50th Street in Tacoma, four plastic bags covered her head. Cause of death was three gunshot wounds to the head, and semen was found inside of her body. Sean Johnson was next, 36, found December 18th, 1997. Also off of Hangman Valley Road. The cause of death was two gunshot wounds to her head. That was covered in two plastic bags when she was found. Semen was again found in her body.

SPEAKER_00 8:25

Laurel didn't want to look at these people. Like he didn't want to see their faces. Well is what it seems like.

SPEAKER_02 8:33

Well, the thing is, is the these women were all shot and killed before they were transported and dumped. And during transportation is when they got the bags covering their heads.

unknown 8:44

Oh.

SPEAKER_02 8:45

Seems like uh, you know, you're trying to make sure you don't make a big old mess. Yeah, okay. Yeah, that's I mean, that's what that's what I gathered from it. I was like, don't get it in the car. Yeah, exactly. So now we have Laurel Wyson, 31. She was found December 26th in a gravel pit near Hangman Valley Road again. Three plastic bags, two gunshots. Semen was also found. Now we have Sean McClenaghan, 39. She was found the same time next to the body of Laurel Wayson. Three bags also covered her head, two gunshot wounds to her head as well, and semen was also found. So they found those two right next to each other. Same spot. Like they were within like yards of each other. How many years apart? Like oh, we're we're within two years now. Jesus. So those last like four ninety-six to ninety-eight is when a majority of these killings happened. So I told you it's gonna get repetitive, but there was that many women from two years. Jeez as the in the consistency.

SPEAKER_07 9:48

Town and country.

SPEAKER_02 9:49

Exactly. The consistency is within these women and the way that they were killed, the way that they were found and the semen. I mean, it's all basically the same. That's why I wanted to kind of like show you guys how many, because it was a lot. I was mind-blown. And this is consistent, I guess. I don't I don't see much. All right, next we have uh Linda Maimon, 34. She was found April 1st, 1998. Her decomposed body is found at just 50 yards from Waste and McClanahan's crime scene. Two plastic bags, one gun gunshot wound to the head, and Steven was also found. So he apparently really liked dumping bodies near Hangman Valley Road. I mean, there was a lot of within that same. What is that? It's in the valley.

SPEAKER_07 10:39

You keep talking, I'm gonna noogle some shit.

SPEAKER_02 10:43

All right, next we have Michelin Durning. She was 47. She was found July 7th, 1998, and she was found under a hot tub cover in an area frequented by sex workers in Spokane's East Centrol neighborhood. One gunshot wound to the head. Her body was not transported and dumped like the other victims, and no semen was found in her body. So she was like the only one out of his like actual confirmed killings that wasn't transported and wasn't like messed with out any sexual way after that. Interesting. Yeah, super weird. It makes you wonder if he like got caught short in the act or I don't know. But next we have Connie Lafontaine Ellis. She was 35. She was found October 13th, 1998, in a ditch near the 1700 block of 108th South Street in Tacoma. She had three plastic bags over her head, one gunshot wound to the head. And I when I listened to this interview, a little fun fact. I'm gonna just sneak in here. I listened to an interview, and Gates actually admitted to starting to use crack cocaine after the murder of Connie LeFonda Ellis. No, we'll just throw that into the mix. And so after that, he didn't commit any more murders. Really? Which is kind of interesting. I I don't know, but he uh he openly admitted that. He was like, I basically, you know, switched routes and focused on crack cocaine after the murder of Connie Lafontaine Ellis.

SPEAKER_00 12:14

Plus like the murders were an addiction and just transfer it to something else. Yeah, I did that with food when I got sober, just started.

SPEAKER_02 12:28

But another honorable mention was Melody Murphin. She was 43 and she disappeared in 1998, and her body was not found, but she was always included on the victim list. Interesting. So they just included her in there, but that'll come by later when I'll explain that. Okay, this is not gonna get I now just wait. So here we go. This is right, this is where it gets interesting. So this is how it happened. This is how Robert Lee Yates actually like went under the knife from the task force that was assigned to find all of these women because they knew they had a serial killer on the loose. I mean, this was you know, 12, 11, 12 girls in the matter of two years. That this was fucking insane. So many people in two years, two fucking years? Yeah. I mean epidemic, yeah, pretty much, and all in the same places, and like they had all the DNA evidence because they kept finding semen, kept finding you know, fingerprints on the backs, kept finding message, so therefore well, exactly. They were just living for gel off of because these were all I gotta note that these were all sex workers in Spokane. That's so crazy. All these women, besides you know, the women that were found in Tacoma, they were known sex workers in Tacoma. But the first ones, Patrick Oliver and Susan Savage, they were just random bystanders, so they didn't really tie into that kind of pattern that he had had. Yeah, but Patrick? Patrick, he killed one man. Oh one man, he's a sex worker too. No, so Patrick Oliver and Susan Savage were just having a picnic out in Mill Creek near Walfall. They came across Robert Yates and uh it was a bad day. So real bad.

SPEAKER_00 14:13

That was the one out of the 70s, right? Yeah, that wasn't quite gotten his groove yet.

SPEAKER_02 14:18

Yeah, so that was actually when he was working at the Washington State Penitentiary as a prison guard, is when he committed his first the first murders, which is super interesting. Yeah, it those were the first ones of the bunch before he kind of switched his outlook to only like victimize the sex workers. Yeah, kind of strange. I mean, they were like his like starting out. Uh it's weird, makes no sense. But then he got a pattern down and he just kind of stuck with it, I guess. They were the trial run. Apparently, as fucked up as that. I know. Sorry. All right, so this is where it gets juicy because the catch of Robert Yates is it's pretty juicy. So actually in 1996, Yates' wife Linda, she found motel receipts, and not long after that, his daughter Sonia found an address book in her father's lunch pail with women's names she didn't recognize. But when they confronted Gates about it, he claimed he was only looking for car parts. That's what he told his wife and his daughter. He was just looking for car parts. Because all these women have car parts. And Motality states he's meeting at motels to find car parts. What year was this? That was in 1996. So that's when the fucking Craigslist wasn't even the same. Yeah. So that's when the spree started, and that's when they were already kind of catching on. But then get it get this. So that same year, his wife Linda catches her husband cleaning blood out of his van. Yet Gates claims he had only hit a dog and that it had died on the way to taking the dog to the vet. And that's why he was cleaning blood out of his van. Because he has a girly that he was. Oh, yes. He sticks a dog up and he let it flee all over his seats, and then he was just cleaning it up when it wasn't after he tried to take it to the vet, but it died anyway. He's a master of excuses, so we'll just put that out there. So then we fast forward to September 1997. The investigation into the prostitution murders was now in full spring with detectives and undercover officers frequenting the area where sex workers were known to work, which was Sprague Sprague Avenue at the time, which was like Spokane's Skidbrow. That's what they called it. Because it was, you know, a couple block radius, and it was just known for that. And Sprague has now cleaned up a lot. I'll say that. Gavin, do you agree with that?

SPEAKER_07 16:40

Yes, Sprague is actually looking pretty nice. And eventually you'll get to see what it was and what it is now on our blog.

SPEAKER_02 16:47

Yeah, it's quite the difference, even within like the last 20-something years. But so this is when police first came into contact with Yates when Yates was stopped for a traffic violation in a 1977 white Corvette near East Sprague Avenue. And but he was just ticketed and he was allowed to leave. But when he where he was picked up or pulled over was only 2.5 miles away from where a slain woman's body had recently been found.

SPEAKER_00 17:13

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_02 17:15

That was the first little tick in the connection that they had made. Yeah. In May 1998, Yates sold his white corvette to Rita Jones of Spokane. So he got rid of that one. November 1998, Yates and Jennifer Robinson, a known sex worker, were pulled over at 1.25 a.m. in a Honda Civic near the area where women were disappearing. But Yates claims to the officers that she was a friend's daughter that he was driving home. I told you Master of this man. Oh my god. But Robinson acknowledged the story of who Yates was and what was happening, quote unquote. And so there was little the police could do but take a field report of the incident. Robinson, little to her knowledge, though, was one of the lucky ones because he did not murder her. She walked out alive. But just two days later from this incident, Yates' middle daughter complained to the police that her father hits me all the time and he was charged with misdemeanor assault. So he kind of got a little bit on the radar with that one, too.

SPEAKER_00 18:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:20

But sadly enough, in January 1999, Yates' misdemeanor charges were dropped as long as he quote unquote does not do anything similar for the next two years. Okay. Yeah. No problem. That's the justice system in full, stacked there. No season enough and just drop it all. Sorry, I get a little heated. Get a little heated about this case because it's just such a piss-off. Ridiculous. Like okay, so now we're gonna go over down a rabbit hole though. So we're gonna fast forward to August 1999. And it gets a little intense. This is when a report was filed by a 30-year-old Christine L. Smith claiming she had been the victim of an ins of an assault and robbery while working on Sprague Avenue. So according to Smith, she had been picked up by a date near East 124th Short Street by a man in a 70s model black van. She described the van as having dark brown seats and a mattress in the back. She also described the driver as a Caucasian man, 50 years of age approximately, 5'10, 175 pounds, with a medium build, sandy blonde hair, no facial hair, and a pock marked face. Which I had to look that up. Yeah, what is that? It's like named after like when you get chickenpox as a child and it leaves scars on your face, almost like acne scars. Got it. Okay. Oh, I've never heard of that before. Let me see. Yeah, so it's like indentations like scars in your face. So yeah, I had to look that up too. I was like, what is a pock marked face? But yeah, fuck that. That's what that is. And so she also claimed he did not reekabooze or act drunk like her other dates usually did. And so after negotiating a price for her services, she had her date drive her to an empty parking lot near East 400 Fifth Street. And she recalls while en route, the man told her he was a helicopter pilot for the National Guard. She had even asked the man if he was the psycho killer. And to which he responded that he was not. He had five children and would never do something like that. That's telling you, Master.

SPEAKER_04 20:28

She asked him multiple times.

SPEAKER_02 20:32

She recalls asking, but Moles like some shit I wouldn't told to. Not this guy, right? Not this guy. Shit. Yeah. And a lot of the girls that were interviewed after Yates had actually been arrested were saying the same thing. They were like, I know him. He was so nice. He was so normal. I had no idea. I feel stupid because, as you know, a sex worker, you should trust your gut into knowing that these men are safe because that's what you have to do in that field is trust your gut. And a lot of them were shocked because they're like, they had no idea. That was who that was until they seen his face.

SPEAKER_07 21:04

All American men, this white fence and this blue shuttered house.

SPEAKER_02 21:09

And it's five kids and a wife. Oh yeah. And it's Army Medals Arab.

SPEAKER_07 21:13

I can never. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 21:16

So so after it's arriving in the parking lot, the date paid her forty dollars for oral sex. And at that point, they moved to the back of the van to the mattress where she performed for about five to seven minutes.

SPEAKER_07 21:29

That's it.

SPEAKER_02 21:30

Okay, but get this. During that time, she claims that the the entire duration of oral sex, the man never became erect.

SPEAKER_00 21:42

The search for you, buddy. Right. So what a trooper though she is. I would just have been like, nah. This is my 41 pandal.

SPEAKER_02 21:57

You guys don't understand how big of a trooper this girl really is, because Get this. At some point after the five to seven minutes, the man hit Smith over the head with an object she could not identify, leaving her nearly unconscious. She then, after the incident, had realized that he shot her in the head. Oh my god. And it did not kill her. It nearly shocked her. Unconscious. Okay. So then she fell backwards. She struggled to keep herself and her senses intact. I mean, she was just f shot. But after the blow, the man demanded his money back, all while she struggled to find an exit from the back of the van, unsuccessfully. While trying to pull the money out of her pants pocket to give back to the man. Oh my god. Blood dripping from her head, she miraculously made it to the passenger door and fled the scene alive. Holy fucking shh. Yeah. She got out. You guys got shot in the dome and got out of that fucking in all the way. She was still trying to give the dude his fucking money back. I would have just been like trying to leave. Crazy shit. So she so she later received three stitches and a half-inch wound above and behind her left ear. And after the went hospital, she didn't know that she was shot. They later told her that when she requested the hospital report, that she did get shot and they had to pull the pieces of the bullet out of the wound. It hit her in like a perfect spot in her head that it like stopped the bullet. Holy shit. And sewed back to the bigger. Imagine getting shot with some stitches. Oh my god. It was fine. Oh my god. Yeah. So after leaving the hospital, she contacted police with the most detailed reports on Yates to the date. I mean, the police at that time could not link it to Yates, but they were gonna, you know, we'll find out. We're gonna use it later. But in the phone interview that Yates just had done in November, he was saying about this whole incident that she pissed him off because after only five minutes, she was demanding money and wanted him to hurry up, which made him angry. And so that's that's why he claims that he tried to shoot her in the head. And so he said after he shot her in the head because she pissed him off, he was shocked that she didn't just flop over and die like the rest of them. Those are his words. Jesus. Those are his words. Flop over, all over and die like the rest of them. And why he didn't shoot her in the head again, he didn't know. He's probably fucking fascinated. That's what I'm saying. And he let her display, he was probably just like far thing. Well, this is a thing now. I was mad, but this girl got some sparing. Oh, I think this was a robot. Oh my gosh, yeah. This is great. Okay, so Jesus. Yes, a little juicy. So then we're gonna go forward to on September 14th, 1999. One of the task force detectives paid a visit to the Yates home located on 2220 East 49th Street in Spokane, looking for Yates, but he was unavailable. A message was left to Yates to contact authorities, to which he complied and met with detectives at the public safety building later that day. And upon arrival, the officials immediately noted that he had sandy blonde hair and he was quote unquote sweating profusely. I wonder why. Yeah. So then detectives had told Yates that he was under suspicion for a connection with the serial murder investigation, although he was not a confirmed suspect at that time. Yates was first questioned about the stop in November 1998 with Jennifer Robinson, the known sex worker, where he repeated the same story that he knew her father and was driving her home. But that was also a super common story that men caught with sex workers would say. Yeah. Yeah, they're like, I know her. I'm just just driving just driving hard. Trying to help her out. I mean, that's what Donna Perry had said. I'm just trying to help him out. I'm just trying to help him out. That's right. Want to get him off the street, you know. But the detectives even told him that. He they were like, that's a bullshit story. But yeah, he still sucked to his story, and when asked the girl's name that he was pulled over with, he had difficulty remembering. And when asked her father's name, he had no recollection at all. Oh my god, make something up, bro. Like party's like you're a master of excuses, and you can But he even though he had he had claimed to work with the father for like an amount of time, that's how he knew the daughter was through the father.

SPEAKER_00 26:43

But then he terrible liar. Out of all of them, that's the one that just stumped him.

SPEAKER_02 26:48

Like he couldn't have been like yeah. So then they were like, so then he had he claimed to drove the girl home and to her house that was just off of Mission Avenue. So after that, detectives bluntly told Gates that they did not believe his story and that they could easily check the authenticity with Jennifer's father. And even after they threatened that, Yates maintained that he told nothing but the truth. And he also refused to give DNA samples to the detectives, claiming that it would be too extreme for a family man.

SPEAKER_00 27:19

What? What? Maybe he thought they were talking about that whole like butthole swab thing we talked about.

SPEAKER_02 27:26

Okay, but we'll start the family man. So the detectives they followed through with their word, though. I mean, they didn't con or contact Jennifer Robinson's father, but they did contact Jennifer Robinson the very next day. And they asked her what she had recalled from the incident that when she got pulled over with Robert Yates. And she had told detectives that she remembered they had reached an agreement for her to perform oral sex for 20 bucks. She said that when the police had stopped them, she instructed Yates to tell the story about her father, which she also admitted was indeed not fucking true. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm sure she had used that excuse many times before. I mean, it's kind of smart, but she also told police that her father did not even live in Spokane and had never worked with Yates.

SPEAKER_00 28:19

Okay. Yeah. So like she didn't want me to get that deep into the explanation at that point, but okay. I know. I mean, she believed you, lady, okay.

SPEAKER_02 28:30

I mean, she knew that she wasn't gonna go under for anything at that point. They were just trying to find the murderer, so she was like, What do I have to lose? I mean, I would have done the same thing, like, yeah, fuck that fucker, you know. So they now knew that they had caught Yates in a lie, obviously. So the task force considered him an even more potent suspect and decided to hunt down his white Corvette, which was noted, I should say, by a witness in Jennifer Joseph's murder that a white Corvette was the last place Jennifer was seen, and that was the 16-year-old girl. So another sex worker on the street that they had interviewed had said that that was the last time that she had seen her was entering a white Corvette.

SPEAKER_07 29:06

I totally forgot about all the Corvettes. I remember back in the day on the news, they had been looking for Corvettes. Totally forgot about that whole part.

SPEAKER_02 29:17

It was, I mean, it was a huge part in the story, but it was actually um when they had pulled him over with Jennifer Robinson, the guy that had ticketed him and let him go, wrote down in the police report that he had a white uh Camaro instead. Yep. So it kind of delayed catching on Yeah, apparently, but it delayed them even catching on to Gates because that was a huge thing. That a witness statement that was like she was last seen getting into this white crevet, and they didn't make the connection until they looked into Yates and realized that he owned a white Corvette, and then they were like, oh shit, you know, that goes together. Oh my god. So they tracked down his white Corvette with the new owner, the Rita Jones, Inspokan, and she had completely consented to a full search of the vehicle, and they which they found several fiber samples and like they were collected from throughout the car. But evidence was also uncovered that Yates had the Corvette's carpet replaced twice within a two-year period. Which that's not fishy at all.

SPEAKER_07 30:16

I mean that's sketchy as fuck. Like what's I'm sorry, I was just shitting all over it. Like I've replaced a lot of things in vehicles. And that's not even the upholstery and the carpet is not one of them.

SPEAKER_02 30:28

And that's not even the vehicle he hit the damn dog in. That was his man. Why do you put in the van, but you're gonna replace the carpet twice in your shiny white Corvette and then get rid of it, bro? I don't know. Sorry, the racket this pisses me off, you guys, to no end. I'm like, this fucking guy, dude. So, but then Yeats, former employer, also confirmed that Yates had driven and owned a mid-80s model Ford van. And the date that he had acquired the van was two to three months before the incident involving Christine Smith, the survivor that got shot in the head, which she had described an 80s colored dark, you know, 80s model dark van. So then that got confirmed. So then April 5th, 2000, forensic evidence comes back confirming a close match between fibers found in the Corvette and fibers recovered from the Jennifer Joseph murder investigation. And with this new evidence emerging, they obtained a warrant to impound the Corvette for additional testing. So then they just took it. Detectives then found blood throughout the Corvette that indeed matched the blood of poor Jennifer Joseph. At this point, they knew they had got him and that he was the killer. So then Tuesday, April 18th, 2000, Robert Yates Jr. was arrested for just the murder of Jennifer Joseph. So that one little thing, one little yeah. And he had admitted in his interviews too that he was like that Corvette. It's what you know, it's what caught me.

SPEAKER_07 31:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:56

That's what did it. Was that one witness account and then that link.

SPEAKER_07 32:00

Well, don't go out killing people in a fucking white. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Order a fucking van.

SPEAKER_02 32:10

Sheets of all things, you could be killing women and you're gonna pick a like a creeper fucking venture.

SPEAKER_07 32:15

Like a normal motherfucker.

SPEAKER_02 32:18

So actually, fun fact, after that Christine had escaped, he had claimed in this interview that he went home and he spray painted this orange stripe that was along his van. He spray painted it to match the rest of his van because he was so scared that Christine Smith was gonna identify his van as like this dark model van with an orange stripe on it, which was kind of peculiar and it was different and it set it apart. So he immediately went home and spray painted it's a stripe. Painted over the stripe? Painted over the stripe to make it just a dark van so that it wasn't gonna stick out like a sore thumb.

SPEAKER_00 32:53

Like, yeah, like a just you know, at home spray paint job isn't gonna stick out.

SPEAKER_02 33:02

Yeah, this man's mindset though is like you wouldn't finish the job, but you're gonna go home and give your car a paint job. I don't, it's just it's so beyond me. I can't like empathize with it.

SPEAKER_07 33:10

He couldn't finish the job in multiple senses of the word.

SPEAKER_02 33:15

Couldn't even get a break, the five to seven minutes. Okay, but this is okay, so this is when they really start smacking down on him. So they um after they had arrested him, they obviously issued a warrant out for his DNA because they could get it now, because even though he was a family man or not, they could get his DNA. So after they took his DNA, they found a match to sperm samples taken from the victims Scott, Johnson, Wyson, McClanahan, Mercer, Oster, Mabin, and Derning. Remember all those girls disperm down inside of that? All matches. All matches. And on April 25th, 2000, a fingerprint match was made between the Yates and the bag that was found on McClellaghan's head upon discovery of her body. And so they got him on this like tons of DNA shit. Yeah. Like just but police had also tracked down Yates' 79 Ford Van, in which they discovered more blood and a spent Magtech 0.25 bullet casing that matched the weapons used in the murder of Johnson, Wayson, Clenaghan, Foster, Maybind, Ellis, and Mercer. It's like that is bullet casings like winding up in cars.

SPEAKER_00 34:24

I don't get it.

SPEAKER_04 34:25

What are you doing? Like inside your car. Fell down my sleeve.

SPEAKER_02 34:33

And relating back to like your story with Donna, um, when they searched through the white corvette, which I didn't say earlier, but they found a pearl button, a button made of actual pearl that was missing off of the shirt that was found on Jennifer Johnson's body. Or Jennifer Joseph, excuse me. Jennifer Joseph. Her body was found in a shirt that was missing a pearl button. And he had gotten car detailed, gotten the carpet removed, la-di-da. They'd ripped that carpet out and found it in the passenger seat, like hidden under it. So that even pinpointed, yeah, even further was just this one pearl fucking button that he had forgotten underneath it.

SPEAKER_07 35:08

Just think about that, y'all. If you want to kill somebody in your car, they will find some sh under your carpet.

SPEAKER_02 35:15

Just not do it. I think you're good, but you're not. Yates was then charged with eight counts of first-degree murder for the deaths in Spokane, as well as one count of first degree attempted murder and one count of first-degree burglary, which was the assault committed on the survivor Christine Smith. And all of those, he pleaded not guilty. Yates was also charged with two counts of first-degree murder in Pierce County for the slayings of Connie Lafontaine Ellis and Melinda Mercer. He also pleaded not guilty. But yet another murder Yates was suspected of committing was the death of missing Melody Murphy. Remember her? Although without the body, they could not link Yates to the murder or the disappearance. October 16th, 2000, Yates, with a disgusting amount of evidence against him and an almost guaranteed certainty of receiving the death penalty, announced that he was ready to strike a deal. Thanks. Yeah, super nice guy. Super nice. Yeah. In exchange for receiving life in prison instead of death, he was willing to plead guilty to 13 counts of first degree murder and one count of first degree attempted murder, but would not plead guilty to the two charges in Pierce County. So he didn't want to plead guilty to those ones. And on top of that, he would also lead police to the body of missing Melody Murphin. That was in his sleep. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 36:41

Did he do it?

SPEAKER_02 36:42

Yeah, the prosecutors agreed. I mean, it was very much against um the victims' families. Like the detectives that went through and asked all the families, like, you know, he wants to strike a deal. He wants to admit to like these murders. And I think they had tagged him for 11. He was going to plead guilty to 13, which tied him to even more murders, and Melody Murphy, which made it even more I think she was in the 13 counts, but I think it was like 18 of them wanted him to spend life in prison, and like less than that wanted him to face death. So they had went and took the plea deal because they wanted to find this body, which was like a big deal to them. So they agreed to the terms of his offer, and with that, Gates disclosed the location of Merfin's body. But get this. Oh god. Are you ready? It was in his own fucking yard.

SPEAKER_00 37:37

Holy shit. How do you just like throw that one in there?

SPEAKER_02 37:41

Like Yeah. Only one of there. Only one. And Melody Murphin's daughter was pissed because they had searched his fucking house top to bottom, poked through his yard multiple times on multiple occasions, trying to dig up whatever they could on him, and they did not find her body until he literally drew a fucking map on a piece of paper. Oh man. And it led them. And it wasn't just in his yard, it was in his fucking front yard. For one. What? Holy shh. And it was in a flower bed. And it was one foot away from his house foundation. And it was underneath his fucking bedroom window. Whoa. Him and his wife's bedroom window.

SPEAKER_00 38:29

Yeah. I wonder if he had some sort of like weird personal connection to her. You know, like or something where he wanted to keep her close. Like that, because that's just so like that's pretty extreme detail.

SPEAKER_07 38:42

And this dead girl is buried feet from my from my bed.

SPEAKER_02 38:47

Oh she was found. She they dug her up. She was wrapped in plastic, which was unlike any of the other girls that were just dumped. Like it was almost care. Extra care. And I'm like, and in my mind, I'm like, how the fuck? Like in your front yard? Like, how did you pull that? Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 39:02

Like impressive.

SPEAKER_02 39:03

Like your neighbors on the South Hill were just like, oh, homeboy's just gardening in his flower bed, you know, in the middle of the night.

unknown 39:09

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 39:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:11

Just I don't know. Jesus Christ.

SPEAKER_04 39:12

It's just pretty honest.

SPEAKER_00 39:15

Yeah. It's such a jump from the rest of them. Like it's just bizarre. It's super different.

SPEAKER_02 39:21

I mean, there was the one that was found underneath the hot tub cover, like that was right off of like Sprague, but I mean that was a little different, but that seemed like a rushed job, whereas this seems like more methodical. Yeah, you put Lord.

SPEAKER_03 39:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:34

Super weird. And Melody Murphy's daughter had actually claimed, or like, and her statement to Yates in the courtroom was like her interview with ID investigation was saying she was pissed because they had overlooked and scraped through his whole property. How could they not find him without cutting him a deal to save his life?

SPEAKER_00 39:50

You know, but I wish they weren't looking for that. I mean, you know, I mean, none of them were like that. It's not like they're like, oh, we have a feeling. Like, I don't know. There's no way that you would have found that without knowing that you were looking for it. Right. It doesn't, I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 40:08

They did say that they had looked over his yard multiple times, but I don't think they were like necessarily. I think when they had dug her up, they said that she was like three feet, three to four feet underground. Unless you dug up his entire yard, I mean you couldn't really find it. But I do understand like Melody Miraffin's daughter's, you know, issue with that. Like he was figured that out before making a plea to save his life. Because in her mind and in a lot of people's minds, they were like, This man killed, you know, 13 to 18 plus people. What is that not the perfect time to use the death sentence? And if not then, then when? You know?

unknown 40:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:44

So it's super interesting. So then two weeks later after that, Yates did plead guilty to all promise counts and was sentenced to 408 years in prison. And he was also fined over like$600,000, too. Which how the fuck someone pay that much money back while they're in jail? That's exactly what I said when I read that. I was like, how is he gonna pay that off? Even if he can work he what they make like 10 cents an hour in prison, if that's typical for them to be like, hey, you're gonna be here forever.

SPEAKER_00 41:16

Also, like give us some cash.

SPEAKER_02 41:18

Like, I don't Yeah, it's super I that's what I thought too. I was like, that's weird, because usually they just put him in jail. I've never really heard of a fine, but I read that it was like$600,000 in fines, and I'm like, ugh. And are they really gonna get that? I don't know. Are they gonna get that money? I don't know. But so get this. So he made the plea to save his life because he didn't want to die. But remember those two Pierce County murders that he refused to plead guilty for? Then Pierce County came after him for the other two counts of the first degree murder that he refused to plead guilty for. But now without the protection of his spoken county plea deal, they were gonna send him to death because it wasn't included in his plea deal, which he kind of threw a bitch fit over that because he was like, I admitted to killing them, but he literally wrote that he wasn't gonna be guilty for those. So they caught him in like a loophole.

SPEAKER_07 42:08

Oh, these are two different trials, too, correct?

SPEAKER_02 42:10

Because it's two different counties. He says Pierce County for those two that were in Tacoma, because he was working in Tacoma. Remember when he was on he was driving back to Tacoma, and so Pierce County comes after him, and they they sent they got him, they pled guilty and they sentenced him to death. So he that whole plea deal was for nothing. But but it loops around again. So in 2013, Yates attorneys filed a habeas corpus petition in federal district court stating that Yates was mentally ill and quote unquote, through no fault of his own, suffers from a severe paraphilic disorder that predisposed him or predisposed him, excuse me, to commit murder. But that didn't obviously take Yates far. A Pierce County prosecutor actually said, I don't think Mr. Yates helps his cause by relying on the fact that he's a necrophiliac. Because remember all the semen found in all of those girls?

SPEAKER_00 43:07

Oh that's after twist, and that was his like sorry, it's just a thing. I had to kill him, so I could like that. He was trying to like use that as an excuse.

SPEAKER_02 43:25

He was literally like, I'm insane, so don't kill me. I just like to have sex with dead women and BD. Super crazy. Oh in the statements during court, because they let all the victims' families talk to him while he was in court. And uh Sonny Oyster's mother or grandmother, I don't remember which one, which I should have written it down, but mother or grandmother, she was like, Did he they mention that he had sex with all of these women after they were dead, like my sweet Sunny? Like she brought that up in court and was pissed off about it. He was like, they she She he raped them after they were dead. Like they did because they kind of left that part out in court. They were just getting him for murder. But with all the seam samples, you know, and like with them all being sex workers, you would think, like, oh, they just had sex and then he killed them. But no, he got killed them, then had sex with them, and then dumped their bodies.

SPEAKER_00 44:20

Like God. That's why he couldn't get hard with uh what's her name? She he she still had a heartbeat. He wasn't into that.

SPEAKER_02 44:31

Oh my god. And the one that was living and giving him moral sex and he couldn't get erect for that. Yeah, yeah, no, exactly. Like the problem was she was alive. I don't know. It's fucked up. It's it's fucking it's super fucked up. It's all fucked. So, but after even after all of that, he claimed insanity, got denied that, because obviously they were like, no, that's not a thing. But after all that, he did get away from the death penalty after Washington State Supreme Court ruled in 2018 that the death penalty violated the state constitution, and Yates' sentence was commuted to life without parole because Washington got rid of their fucking death sentence.

SPEAKER_07 45:10

Oh, that's right.

SPEAKER_02 45:11

So he sat on death roll for that whole time. I think it was 16 years or something.

SPEAKER_07 45:15

Well, fuck yeah. Sit there in your fucking misery, you motherfucker.

SPEAKER_02 45:19

Right. And thought he was gonna die for that long, but everybody knows that death row takes a long fucking time for some reason. I don't know why, but my opinions on that. I know I do too, but that's for another time.

SPEAKER_00 45:31

We'll get into that. I haven't researched enough yet. Um we'll dive into fucking prison system.

SPEAKER_02 45:45

So Robert Lee Yates Jr. now spends his days incarcerated at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla, which he worked out as a prison guard back in 75. Oh shit. So it really went full cycle there. When he killed those first two people, he's now spending life without parole there. And his murder spree was considered one of the worst in US history because he whacked that many girls in two years and didn't get caught for it. But this is a whole fun part where I'm just gonna like dive into this whole thing. It's kind of interesting. I'm gonna read his apology that he publicly made to the families in court.

SPEAKER_00 46:21

Okay, this will be good.

SPEAKER_02 46:23

Yeah. So here we go. And that was in the words of Robert Yates Jr. himself. Nothing I can say will erase the sorrow, the pain, and the anguish that you feel that I have caused on your life. I have caused so much sorrow, much pain. You can't know how much pain I know I caused for all of you and my family. I have taken away the love and compassion and the tenderness of your loved ones, and I've submitted in that place grief and bitterness. I pray that God will right the wrongs that I have committed and that justice will bring closure to all who, as a result of my actions, have become victims. I pray and apologize to the public, this community, this nation, to law enforcement, to my family, to my lovely wife, my children who I dearly love, my friends and my family. And then he went forward to apologize to all the friends and families of all the victims. He went through one by one and stated he was so sorry for the family and friends of all the victims. And then he says, In my struggle to overcome my guilt and shame, I have turned to God. I hope that God will replace your grief with hope and your sorrow with peace. You can't just do that, bro. Like you can't just Oh, you're gonna hop, you're gonna hop from one addiction to a crack addiction to a God addiction, bro. Yeah, yeah. Does it work like that? I don't know. I'm like, I'm all about religion and like higher powers in God and loving, but you can't do that. I don't That's not how this works.

SPEAKER_00 48:06

Oh my god. I would have been livid to hear, like, you know, if I was like the family of these girls, like one of these girls, I would be fucking livid to hear like my family member's name like come out of his mouth. Like that, I think would just like don't fucking say her name, you know.

SPEAKER_02 48:24

Um No, each and every one, or not I don't know if it was all of them, but a lot of them, like the family and friends of these victims, they had came forth and addressed him in court. And I watched the videos of it and like you deserve to burn in hell. One of the moms was like, I hope you rot in a prison in a three foot by three foot prison cell for the rest of your life. But then as she was walking away, she was like, But you deserve to die. It even his daughter came up and was saying stuff, you know, all these people just hate us. Our whole family is ruined because all the hate that is coming, not just towards my father, but towards our whole family. And she was like, and this is the same daughter that he like had abused too. And she came forth in court next to Robert Lee Yates Sr. and made a statement, but they she had also said that she loved her father, and then the dad came in and he turned to the families and he apologized to the families and he goes, I love my son, and I'm so deeply sorry. And they turned around and Robert Yates' father hugged all of the victims' families, the ones that wanted to hug him and embraced them after saying loved him. And I'm like, I'm not gonna hug the father of the man that killed I yeah, don't like that.

SPEAKER_07 49:38

But then think about think of it again from his father's standpoint. Like, he probably feels oh fucking terrible that he fucking brought this monster into the fucking world. Oh totally. Ruined all of these families, all these people's lives, ended lives. Like, I can only imagine how terrible he feels.

SPEAKER_02 49:54

So I mean and that strong poll to be like, I love my son. I still love my son. I mean, like as an I love my I love my son, but so apologizing. But and in the wraparound of all that, I'm gonna bring in astrology just because I think it's fun. Robert Lee Yates is a Gemini, which for those who know astrology will make a lot of sense because you think about the monster of excuses this man was, but then he turns right back around and he's a monster, but then he turns right back around again and claims he loves God. And he claimed in his interview that was just taken in November 2020, he was like, if I had you know picked up and read the Bible earlier in my life, I purely believed that none of this would have happened. He talked about the way that if you guys want to look this up, I'm we're gonna link in on our blog or whatever somewhere, this interview that this other true crime podcaster had done. And if you just listen to the way that Robert Yates talks, I sat there like hour and I was like two o'clock in the morning and it's like an hour and a half long interview that I'm just sitting there with headphones and smoking a cigarette, drinking a beer, and I'm just like, oh the oh like it's it was just so sad, maybe he talked with like such confidence. Like he was like, Oh yeah, this murder, oh yeah. I mean, that was definitely like this day. And he said one of the days that he killed one of the sex workers that he was like, my wife pissed me off, she wasn't having sex with me anymore, she didn't want to be with me. She was just she even told my kids that I was just the moneymaker and I was a roommate, and I couldn't take out my anger on her. So I turned around and I took it out on you know, women that I went to the streets to get comfort and sex from. And if they were mean to me, then I took it out on them and like on my wife's like behalf, basically, and was like the way that he was so nonchalantly like talking about this, it was just like so fucking beyond me. And it was just so confident, and like he was like, it's like almost like he held so much clout with it. Like he was just like, Yeah, I did that, and yeah, but I I also had these issues and I was molested, but I should have turned to God and exactly. I did it, but but and the interviewer even asked him, like, did you feel better after you killed these women? Like, did it make you feel good? Like, did you get some sort of like relief after the fact? And he was like, No, I just I felt even more guilty. Like, I'm a family man and I have kids and a wife, and like I should be out, like you know, like supporting them and doing good things for them, and I'm out, you know, killing people? Like, how does that make any sense? And like that's how he's talking. And you're like, All right, what insane.

SPEAKER_07 52:31

So now suddenly he is thinking like a fully functioning human being. Yeah, but when he was doing it, like all logic out the fucking window.

SPEAKER_02 52:40

And he completely denied any type of satisfaction from get like from doing it. Like he completely said, like every time he said that after he killed the first two, that couple that was on a picnic, that he was like, I stayed up all night and I knew I was going to jail, and I was so scared I didn't sleep for two days, I didn't eat, I was petrified. I was like, What have I done? The adrenaline. He gets off on the rush, but he he wouldn't admit that on the phone. That's true. There was still no admittance of any kind of he says, Oh, I'm so sorry about the sorrow and the guilt and the pain. There's no sorrow in his mind, there's nothing. It's almost like he likes being famous. Like this interview just happened November 2020, and he was just like, do you did that?

SPEAKER_00 53:17

He's still fucking reveling in it. That's disgusting. He's like wearing a t-shirt that says, like, can't blame me, I'm a Gemini, you know.

SPEAKER_08 53:28

Like, no, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:33

But but that's it. That's the crazy fucked up story of the Smoken serial killer. For anybody that was interested and lives in Smoke Can.

SPEAKER_07 53:40

I know the shit's if you don't live in Spokane, Spokane's actually pretty cool.

SPEAKER_00 53:50

I know I heard his night spore, but yeah, I I never knew the full story, so thank you.

SPEAKER_07 53:56

I didn't either, and I live here. That's insane. Crazy. The only literally the only part of that whole case that like I had a like a memory tied to was the I remember the Corvettes. There was something about Corvettes, and that's part of the reason why he got caught.

unknown 54:14

Huh.

SPEAKER_02 54:14

I mean, I was only two years old at the time of like most of the murders. I mean, it was 96 when he started killing, and that's the year that I was born. So yeah.

SPEAKER_04 54:21

Yeah, I was you're oh man, I'm so old.

SPEAKER_07 54:25

I was a bit older than that, but I was still pretty young when he started killing. It's just insane.

SPEAKER_01 54:31

But Spokens, yeah, it's a really great place, guys.

SPEAKER_02 54:32

You should come visit. Come hate that suck. Sprague Avenue is actually really cool. You got a lot of great bars and restaurants on that street now.

SPEAKER_07 54:40

Oh, could you just imagine like the person who or however Sprague was named? Like, just think of like, and like these are only two of the people who killed sex workers off of Scareg. There were more.

unknown 54:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 54:56

I just think like like that street and that profession ended up like it's just insane to me.

SPEAKER_02 55:04

That's why it was just it was labeled Spokane Skid Row, like in Los Angeles. It's and it was Skid Row for a reason. I mean, I remember driving when I turned like 16 and was driving it, you could see sex workers walking down it, even you know, that was 10 years ago.

SPEAKER_07 55:18

And now there's signs all over the place that literally say prostitution is uh no-go. Yeah, all down that street like city street signs. They say it was bad. And like they've cool, like gentrified it, like it's all like up and coming, everything is looking really nice. Like it 10 years ago, if you would have drove drove down there, you'd have been like, this is a pretty sketchy looking area. Nowadays, you drive down there, like within the last three years, it is gorgeous, actually.

SPEAKER_02 55:45

Yeah, there's Ben and Dita's pizza down there.

SPEAKER_07 55:47

Even like the the ugliest parts, like they're looking pretty damn good. I mean, you don't really see prostitutes. I don't know where they've moved to, but they're all in porn girls are still making money somewhere. Oh, it's all alright. Hashtag Zigalice.

unknown 56:05

Exactly. Big fan.

SPEAKER_02 56:07

Let's sell our precious sex burgers. We love them.

SPEAKER_07 56:10

Stop killing talking, psycho. Jesus Christ, we're just trying to make a dollar.

SPEAKER_02 56:16

Yeah, right. Let the girls work, damn it. They just fit.

SPEAKER_07 56:22

All right, my friends. Thank you for tuning in to Nightcap. You guys can find us anywhere you find your podcasts. Make sure to check us out at nightcap true crime dot com. And we'll see you next week. Bye.