48 Hours - Homicide in Spokane

Episode Date: January 22, 2025

Over a three year period in the late 1990's, police suspected a serial killer was responsible for several murders in the Spokane, Washington area. At least a dozen women died, most of whom were sex workers. Former Los Angeles Police Detectives Mark Fuhrman and Mike Fitzsimmons co-hosted a local radio talk show alleging that Spokane police botched their investigation and that their delay in finding the killer led to more murders. “48 Hours" correspondent Harold Dow reports. This classic "48 Hours" episode last aired on 2/15/2002. Watch all-new episodes of “48 Hours” on Saturdays, and stream on demand on Paramount+.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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with iGaming Ontario. MUSIC I'm Dan Rather. A serial killer terrorizes Spokane, Washington. Did mistakes by the police cost lives 48 hours right now. A baffling murder spree. I can remember the summer that they started turning up dead. Very typically two gunshot wounds to the head.

At least a dozen women murdered in three years, like Debbie's sister, Sean. She loved her children so much. There were more questions than answers. This was our first serial killer case. Were the police overlooking clues in plain sight? Controversial ex-cop Mark Fuhrman started turning up the heat. We're going, what are they doing?

He is investigating the investigators. It's like a body stacking up like cordwood. Then finally police get their man, a former army pilot and father of five. Murder in the first degree of you plead. Mr. Yeats deserves to die. We took him off the street before he could create any new victims. But Furman charges the delay was deadly. Nine ten women would still be alive. Did police mistakes cost lives? Isn't it easy to Monday morning quarterback? A 48-Hours Mystery. Murder in Spokane.

Who knows more about pressure than a cop working homicide, always under the gun? A string of murders that stymied authorities for years, the body count steadily rising along with the heat on one city's police force. Women were dying. Were the police slow off the mark, too inexperienced to catch the killer, or worst of all, did they simply bungle the case? All charges they vigorously deny. Their chief accuser in many ways is one of their own, a former detective with a lot of miles on the homicide beat and a one of their own. A former detective with a lot of miles on the homicide beat

and a lot of baggage too. A key figure in another notorious case. Harold Dow goes inside the highly charged investigation of murder in Spokane. It's like Russian roulette. Every time you get into a car, you don't know what's going to happen. You know, it can happen to anybody. We're scared. We don't want to die.

1986 is when I started working the street. We don't want to die. 1986 is when I started working the street. Michelle, not her real name, worked this dangerous stretch of East Sprague known as the Track. There was always somebody disappearing. When a prostitute disappears, that's it. It's scary. But in 1997, the Track suddenly got a lot scarier. I was the fourth prostitute found dead in the Spokane area in less than three months. Two more women have apparently been murdered in Spokane County.

Within a two-year period, 16 women, most believed to be prostitutes, were murdered, their bodies dumped in out-of-the-way places. County detectives say that a serial killer is at work here. A serial killer on the loose. Did the community care? No. To this day, the community doesn't care. Because they were prostitutes? They didn't give a damn. They're indifferent. Mike Fitzsimmons, who earned a law degree before beginning a 30-year career as a journalist is well known in Spokane. His call-in radio show, All About Crime, has been on the air since early 1997.

And the consensus was it wouldn't fly. FitzSimmons soon began doing some of his shows with a former Los Angeles homicide detective. Mark Fuhrman. I don't call myself an expert, an expert in detective work, homicide or anything else. But I've been exposed to a lot of things in a lot of areas. Remember the O.J. Simpson case? I remember that case.

After his infamous testimony at the O.J. trial, Detective Fuhrman, would you resume the witness stand, please? Fuhrman pled no contest to perjury for lying about making racist comments and left the L.A LA police department in disgrace. He resurfaced two years later. The ex-homicide detective had reinvented himself as a journalist.

I just reported what the evidence showed. Furman investigated the 23-year-old murder of Martha Moxley in Greenwich, Connecticut. I saw the solution to this crime. His book about Martha Moxley in Greenwich, Connecticut. I saw the solution to this crime. His book about the case, Murder in Greenwich, named Kennedy relative Michael Skakel as the killer. Skakel was subsequently indicted. And Mark Furman fingered Michael Skakel.

That is a fabulous piece of police work. That's fish. Today, Furman lives in northwest Idaho, 90 miles from Spokane. And now, Mark Furman. He's been co-hosting All About Crime since early 1998. We are back. Soon after prostitutes started to die. I can remember the summer that they started turning up dead.

August 26, 1997. Jennifer Joseph and Heather Hernandez are found the same day, one in the county, one in the city. Now Mike, he had this gut feeling that they're connected. And then along came Darla Sue Scott. 29-year-old Darla Sue Scott was discovered on November 5, 1997, partially buried with white plastic bags over her head. Cause of death? Two gunshot wounds to the head.

Now we've got three prostitutes that are murdered. So we start asking questions on the radio. Just one little piece of information could make the difference. You know anything about Darla Sue Scott? Early on, Berman profiled the serial killer on the air. I would say he's a male white, maybe early to late 30s, a resident in this county. He's very comfortable with the area. He's a predator.

He's going out looking for a victim. I mean, he's killing people right now. And then, Shawn Johnson was found. Two days before Christmas, we got a knock at the door. Debbie Fine is Shawn Johnson's older sister. She loved her children so much. A mother of two young boys, Shawn was struggling to overcome a drug problem

when she was murdered. A lot of people might think that because someone might have been a part of that street life, that they're not loved, they don't have a family. No one cares about them. But that's not true in Shawn's case. No, not in this case at all. We never expected this, never. True baby sister. Always will be.

A killer amongst us. The investigation continues. The murders and what police were doing to catch the killer became the number one topic on Furman and Fitzsimmons radio show. Well you can't fault the police. They probably have so many different leads to investigate. I would be real comfortable if some of these clues had been followed up on. That is not good police work. You and Mark Furman investigated these murders yourselves. We didn't really investigate the murders, we investigated the investigation.

We started looking into how they were doing things. You know Mike would say, what are the police doing? What are they thinking? The first task we have is to find out if indeed this is the work of a serial killer. Four bodies, all women, all prostitutes, and all shot with a small caliber weapon. I can't believe they're not connected. Looking for evidence to link the four murders, police formed a task force in late 1997. This was too little, too late.

You have four detectives that are handling all the evidence booking, the autopsies, the families, the interviews, and things started coming in. Yes, they became very quickly overwhelmed. The day after Christmas 1997, 50 officers combed the crime scene. The serial killer left a macabre gift for the new task force. The coroner removed the bodies for an autopsy. Two more murdered prostitutes, their bodies buried head to head within inches

of each other. Laurie Ann Watson and Sean McClenahan were found here at 14th and Carnahan in this field that's now a housing development. Why was this important? You had two bodies here. What does that mean? He came here twice. This guy's, he's probably out of control. In the year to come, prostitutes would keep turning up dead. They got bodies stacking up like cordwood. We're going, what are they doing? Did the task force mishandle the investigation?

Errors were made and people died because errors were made. It's on the job training. It's not detective work, but it's ridiculous. That's Next. By the end of 1997, the women who worked Spokane's Sex for Pay district were under siege, held hostage by a serial killer who was murdering them one after another, then disposing of their bodies like bags of trash. I went out there and worked anyway. Rena is a former prostitute.

I just didn't think it was going to happen to me. Inside police headquarters, Detective Fred Roych was determined to put an end to the bloodshed. They were human beings. Every one of them was a daughter, a sister. A lot of them were mothers. They were loved by somebody. Roych was part of the task force established in late 1997 to investigate the serial killings. Task force captain Doug Silver.

The only common thread we had at that point was the fact that they were prostitutes. Former forensic pathologist George Lindholm soon discovered something else that tied the killings together. The common activity here was gunshot wounds, very typically two gunshot wounds to the head. This is reminiscent of what is called double tapping, that is bang bang. By the end of 1997, seven women had been murdered. No one on the task force had ever dealt with anything like this. Ben Estes is a city police detective.

Early on, a crucial decision was made. Keep details and possible clues to the crimes a secret from the public. We've got to figure out who's killing these prostitutes and why. That decision immediately came under fire from Mark Fuhrman and Mike Fitzsimmons. They find a body and they wouldn't tell you if it was male or female. That's crazy. We didn't want to take the risk of having any evidence destroyed. We didn't have that much evidence to deal with in this serial killing situation. Since

the beginning of crime, it's been a cat and mouse game. We educate criminals. When we give them something, they learn how to fight what we do. When we come up with fingerprints, they learn to wear gloves. When we come up with DNA, they learn to wear a condom. In fact, investigators were keeping the lid on exactly that kind of evidence, DNA. One case of condom was recovered from the body of one of the women and it contained seminal fluid. And fingerprints found on a plastic bag used to cover one victim's head. The plastic bags were taped with duct tape.

Duct tape is just excellent for picking up fingerprints when you're wrapping it. Detectives soon had another lead. Sixteen-year-old Jennifer Joseph, the killer's second victim, was last seen climbing into a white Corvette on East Bragg Avenue. Now the police couldn't know this at the time, but that white Corvette would prove to be the key to solving the case. Again, police made no mention of it to the public. They had a witness who gave them a great clue, which put out in the proper way, could have elicited the suspect in days, weeks, a few months. The killings and police response gave Furman the subject for a new book.

Greenwich book was done. What are you going to do next? Serial killers in my backyard. So I became engaged, not only in the radio show, but then I became engaged to write the book. Furman and Fitzsimmons began to investigate the crime scenes. We were very well-meaning, trying to really get information that they needed out to the public from an avenue that could elicit some kind of clues.

They visited the site at 14th and Carnahan, where the sixth and seventh victims had been discovered, buried head to head. We start patrolling through here, have a look. The two men discovered unexamined debris not far from the crime scene. It turned out to be unrelated to the murders, but the failure to examine it, they claim, was sloppy police work. Why wouldn't they at least check this out? And then on February 8, 1998...

...was in plain sight. They were up on the road and could see the body in plain sight. And this is the victim, Sonny Oster? Sonny Oster. Sonny Oster, victim number 8, a woman known to work East Sprague, was found dead from gunshot wounds to her head. Once again, Furman and Fitzsimmons decided to investigate. We canvassed all the homes and we asked, you know, if the police had been here and asked questions.

The answer was no. One man living nearby saw a maroon car near where Oster's body was dumped. This is where the car was parked? The car was parked right here, right across from where the body was found. Furman and Fitzsimmons sent the information to the task force. They talked to him in July 17 months later. 17 months later. The information that it was, it was just that a vehicle was in the area. Okay, that information is just as strong as what about 25 other vehicles that we had.

Although the car turned out not to be involved in the crime, Furman's frustration with the task force continued to grow. We would fax every clue we got from the radio. We would tell them everything that we had, not hoping they'd tell us something. We're trying to have them tell us, don't do this, don't give this out, this is important, don't. And finally, I just said, screw it.

Let's put the information out to the public, because they have a right to know where this occurred because they might have seen something because we canvassed the neighborhood and nobody talked to anybody. Mark Furman implied that we should be for some reason consulting him. Task force officials say they had a good reason not to talk to Furman about the case. What we're not going to do is bring a person of questionable truthfulness into this investigation. That would be ludicrous.

All fairness to Mark Furman. I have all the respect for him that I do any other convicted felon in this community. Do you think the task force was unhappy with you and Mike Fitzsimmons? I think they were extremely unhappy. I think the biggest reason is we wouldn't go away. Car passing by here on the side of the road is only... Furman and Fitzsimmons began to openly question the thoroughness of the task force investigation. The representatives of the sheriff's department and the police department made some overture that we were interfering with an investigation and that they should reel us back.

Of course, the TV and radio stations said, they're journalists, they're working on a case, if they're interfering, you know, arrest them with them. Yeah, arrest them. In late February of 1998, the police commissioned a National Guard helicopter equipped with an infrared camera to fly over the crime scene where the two bodies were found,

looking for heat emanated by decomposing bodies. They find nothing here with that technology, and they do a press conference and make a statement, there's no more bodies at 14 than Carnahan. And of course, the next day, April 1st. Another body was found at the site. That's when the task force got knocked on their heels. Nine women had been murdered in 21 months' time, and the police seemed nowhere in their

investigation. That is a slow, long, slow process. Obviously, on a situation like this, we pick up everything that's in the area. Meanwhile, the serial killer was not about to stop. That's next. UFO lands in Suffolk and that's official, said the News of the World. But what really happened across two nights in December 1980 when US servicemen saw mysterious lights in the forest near RAF Woodbridge and claimed to have had a close encounter with an actual craft. Encounters, a new podcast available exclusively on Wondery Plus,

takes a deep dive into one of the most famous and still unresolved UFO encounters to ever take place in the UK. Featuring shocking testimony from first-hand witnesses, hosts, journalist, podcaster and UFO researcher Andy McGillin, that's me, and producer Elle Scott take us back to the nights in question and examine all of the evidence and conflicting theories about what was encountered in the middle of a snowy Suffolk forest 40 years ago. Are we alone? Encounters is a podcast which is going to find out. Listen to Encounters exclusively in ad-free on Wondry+. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or in Apple podcasts. Harvard is the oldest and richest university in America.

But when a social media-fueled fight over Harvard and its new president broke out last fall, that was no protection. Claudine Gay is now gone. We've exposed the DEI regime and there's much more to come. This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe and WNYC's On The Media. To listen, subscribe to On The Media wherever you get your podcasts. When it happened, when it started happening, everybody was scared. Nine women murdered in 21 months. None of these cases is solved.

You'd think they'd have some kind of an inkling. That was the body count in Spokane after Linda Mabin's body was discovered on April Fool's Day, 1998, just after police had declared there were no more bodies at the 14th and Carnahan location. The task force, they were very demoralized by this. Morale was affected. Every day we walked in and looked those pictures

and it affected every one of us differently every single day. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat. Two detectives transferred out of the task force and in a political shakeup. These people have everything to be proud of. Cal Walker was named as a new supervisor. And so this is the task force room. This is where the work was done. Nine months later, Mark Sterck joined the team as newly elected sheriff.

Hours and hours and hours of good old fashioned detective work. The investigation intensified. We had a number of surveillance sites, 24 hours a day. The task force began electronic surveillance of the track on East Bragg Avenue, shooting hundreds of hours of videotapes. And then we reviewed those tapes, looked at all of the license plate numbers, ran all those plates so that we knew who was out there on East Sprague. We'd come out, initially we were out here two or three nights a week.

The police were also taking a more hands-on approach toward protecting the killer's potential victims, even though the women were breaking the law. One of our jobs was in fact to get to know the women that work the street and hopefully gain their trust. We actually became pretty good friends with some of these people. Terry Hammer and his partner Dave Bentley. We knew that there was a killer out here and at any time they could pick up one of these people and kill him and then we'd have to deal with that.

Those women regardless of their stature in life, deserve the same quality of investigation as anybody on the face of this earth. And that's what we attempted to do. Despite a re-energized investigation, it wasn't long before the serial killer struck again. This is basically the area that she was recovered she had a hot tub cover placed over her. 47 year old Michael Lynn Durning had been missing for several

days by July 7th 1998. The first thing they said was we found her body and of course. Gregory Landis was one of Durning's closest friends. She was an incredible person. Everywhere she went, people would fall in love with her. Landis says Michael Lynn was struggling to rebuild her life, and didn't fit the profile of the killer's usual victims. She had been a drug addict, but she was definitely not a prostitute.

Michael Lynn was in the wrong place at the wrong time. You lost a dear friend. Will you ever get over this? Will you ever forget? You get close to those families and you watch what they go through and you start going through that too. You don't give up. Frustrating as it already was, the Spokane serial killer case was about to get worse.

Homicide detectives say the woman's head had been covered with a plastic bag. In January of 1999, the task force announced that two murders in Tacoma, Washington, 300 miles away, were both linked to the Spokane killer. And then, in the strangest turn of all, the killings suddenly stopped. Months passed. And with no new bodies discovered... Sheriff Sterk faced a new problem. As the sheriff, I had to fight the policymakers in this community to make sure that our funding didn't get withdrawn for this investigation before it was done. In the first year and a half of the serial killer case, investigators had amassed a lot

of physical evidence. They had DNA samples from several crime scenes, as well as ballistics. But what they really needed was a prime suspect. Well, they found one by re-examining one of their earlier leads. Jennifer Joseph had been seen by another prostitute driving away eastbound in a white Corvette. Jennifer Joseph was one of the first serial killer victims back in August 1997. We took every registered Corvette owner out of the state of Washington and Idaho, about 3,000 of them.

Then we took that and whittled it down to about 1,200 really workable names. That was a data file. We started comparing those to people who had contact with prostitutes. Through computer data basing, detectives zeroed in on a smaller list of potential suspects. About 47 names. Now, you've got this list, you've got these 47 odd names here. What do you do with it?

Investigate these people. One of the names given to Task Force Detective Rick Grabenstein was a man who had sold a 1977 white Corvette. Detective Grabenstein goes and takes a good quick look at the car. He had the wherewithal to take his fingers and grab some carpet fibers. Those fibers were sent to a lab and compared with fibers taken from the original Jennifer Joseph crime scene.

And what were the results? In the world of fibers, no two fibers get any closer to a match than these two. On April 10th, 2000, a search warrant was issued for the car. Police discovered blood on the passenger seatbelt and a missing button from the blouse belonging to Jennifer Joseph. At that point you knew you had your man. We knew it. We got our guy. When we come back, Robert Lee Yates

Jr. Police arrest Jennifer Joseph's killer. We took him off the street before he could create any new victims. Can they link this married father of five... Not guilty. ...to the murders of all these women? That's next. MUSIC How tough is it to catch a serial killer? Very, say experts in the field. For one thing, the perpetrator rarely looks the part, and since he usually has no remorse,

he doesn't act guilty either. Most serial offenders are considered to be fairly smart, smart enough to at least keep quiet about their evil deeds in the presence of strangers, even if some may openly taunt the authorities. In Spokane, Washington, 10 women had been murdered in two years. After a painstaking investigation and sometimes painful scrutiny of the police, authorities finally got their man. Harold Dowell picks up the story. This is Breaking News.

Police in Spokane, Washington have arrested a serial killer. 47-year-old Robert L. Yates, he was booked about a half hour ago. Here comes the last words. On April 18th, 2000, the Spokane Homicide Task Force arrested Robert Yates Jr. for the murder of 16-year-old Jennifer Joseph. Detectives have definitive evidence tying Robert Yates to the murder of nine victims. Through DNA analysis, police were able to link Yates

to nine more murder victims, positively identifying him as the Spokane serial killer. He was exactly what the FBI said he would be. We wouldn't recognize him. He would fit in. Yates, a career military helicopter pilot and married father of five, had somehow kept his killing spree a secret. Investigators are waiting laboratory results in three more cases. And the more

police investigated, the more the number of Yates victims began to climb. We are talking about none other than Robert Yates. The outcome of the task force investigation seemed fine to Mark Fuhrman. We got Todd on, welcome to the show Todd. Until he took a closer look at the arrest affidavit. I think there are several things in this investigation that really went sideways. According to the affidavit, Robert Yates Jr. had been questioned by the police a total of three times over the course of the investigation.

Jennifer Joseph died from gunshot wounds. The first encounter, a mere month after Jennifer Joseph was murdered. Back in 97, they had everything that they needed. They had a witness who gave them a great clue. Remember, back in August of 1997, an eyewitness told police she had last seen Jennifer Joseph in a white Corvette. Well, just five weeks later, Officer Corey Terman, acting on instructions from detectives, pulled in a white Corvette. Well, just five weeks later, Officer Cory Turman, acting on instructions from detectives,

pulled over a white Corvette right here on the corner of Ralph and Sprague. The driver of that car was Robert Yates, Jr. Cory Turman stops the white Corvette. He does not run the plate before he stops the car. He talks to him, he puts down that he's cooperative, and he asks him a few questions. Satisfied because Yates had a reason for being in the area,

Driver works at 2200 East Riverside. Officer Terman filed a standard police field interview, known as an F.I., and let Yates go. He writes down the license number of the car. However, he mistakenly identified the car as a Camaro, not a Corvette. These detectives are looking for white Corvettes. They see this, it's about a Camaro.

The field interview was routed to the city's equivalent of a vice squad. Task force members didn't see it until two years later. Officer Turman made a simple mistake. It was a fatal mistake. It was not an unimportant mistake. They asked him to pull over a Corvette because a Corvette was involved in a murder. And Furman says police never should have let Yates go. Corey Turman did pull over a Corvette.

Two blocks from where Jennifer Joseph was last seen. I'm sorry, this guy's going to the station. Do I have probable cause? Absolutely. We didn't have probable cause to stop and search that car at that time. They might do that in Los Angeles, but the people in this county elected me to protect their constitutional rights. Police also maintained that the Corvette tip was just one of many in their investigation. We didn't just sit around and do just this. These guys were out pounding the pavement working on 6,000 tips.

In November of 1997, Yates was pulled over for speeding in a white Corvette. One year later, he was stopped for possible solicitation of a prostitute. Both stops were treated routinely. They didn't have a clue. They did have a clue. They just didn't know they had it. Finally, in August of 1999, almost two years after police first stopped Yates, his name appeared on a list of 47 Corvette owners.

He was brought in for questioning on September 24th. We didn't have great evidence to confront him with. Basically, we were looking for his cooperation. Detective Rick Grabenstein conducted the interview. We wanted to get a sample of his blood. But Yates refused to cooperate. Which was within his right at that point. Absolutely. And once again police let him go. Looking back on it Mark, if you could pick out major mistakes that led to prolonging the arrest of the suspect.

When they followed that Corvette clue as far as they could in a very short period of time, they should have released that to the public. They had nothing to lose. If we start putting information out about our case, who are we communicating with? We're communicating with our suspect. Had they stopped him right there, would a number of women still be alive? Yes. Nine, ten women would still be alive.

Isn't it easy to Monday morning quarterback? We look back now at what we've done. We're not saying we didn't make mistakes. Did we cause some women to die as a result of that? I don't think so, and I don't think that's a fair statement. I'm not the most popular character of a city government in the state of California. This is a book about a frustrating investigation for a task statement. I'm not the most popular character of a city government. This is a book about a frustrating investigation for a task force.

This book is about one thing. It's about money. It's about monetary gain for Mr. Furman. You read Mark Furman's book. What do these markers represent? They represent the pages that have errors on them. You got a lot of markers. There are a lot of errors.

Mark Fuhrman is about Mark Fuhrman. And some cops question Fuhrman's credibility in light of his behavior during the O.J. Simpson trial. All right, Detective Fuhrman, you're zoomed in. I have to look at the last case he investigated down in Los Angeles. My opinion is he embarrassed the city of Los Angeles, and he certainly embarrassed law enforcement. And I think when we look at him now, we have to look at him as an entertainer, a talk show

host, and not a police officer or an investigator or anything else. I guarantee this. Give me the white Corvette clue. When I first asked, I would have found Robert Yates. They had a great clue, which could have elicited the suspect in a few months. Despite charges of a problematic investigation... We have 11 felony charges involving homicide suspect Robert Yates. It was the Spokane Task Force that ultimately got its man.

Coming up... Mr. Yates, any last words? Robert Yates, Jr. God will not forgive me, Mr. Yates, any last words? Robert Yates Jr. God will not forgive me, Mr. Yates. Serial killer stands accused. You killed my mom. Mr. Yates deserves to die. His fate, next on 48 Hours.

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Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. and your favorite podcasts. ["The Last Supper"] We got a room and spent the night. I never would have thought in a million years that he was the serial killer. That's how normal he was.

He looked like a neighbor, like the guy right down the street. He didn't look like a killer. But looks can be deceiving. A suspected serial killer is in custody tonight. 47-year-old Robert Yates Jr. served as a helicopter pilot in the National Guard. in the National Guard. On May 31st, 2000, this married father of five was arraigned on eight counts of first degree murder.

To count six premeditated murder and the first degree. What is your plea? Not guilty. At first, the prosecution sought the death penalty. Was it a good case that the police gave you? It was a great case. But Spokane prosecutor Stephen Tucker cut a deal with the killer.

In exchange for a full accounting of his crimes, The state will forego the pursuit of the death penalty. Yates would receive life in prison. Mr. Yates, any last words? To the charge of murder in the first degree of view plead. Guilty, Your Honor. In October, Robert Yates pled guilty to 13 counts of murder. Guilty, your honor.

Guilty, your honor. Guilty, your honor. And disclosed the location of Melanie Murfin's body, another of his victims. The last girl's body they found buried in his yard. Right next to the house, underneath the master bedroom. This guy is a monster. But there was another bombshell. Not all of Yates' victims were women or prostitutes.

Those were just a couple kids on a picnic blanket and he just killed them. Yates confessed to murdering a young couple, Susan Savage and Patrick Oliver way back in 1975. The one thing that did bug me was that couple that was murdered, when did this all start? Was there something before that while we were going to college? Al Gotti has been Yates' close friend for nearly 40 years. He told me he doesn't know why he did that. Yates was only 24 years old when he committed the murders.

Anything in his childhood that would indicate that he would be sitting where he's sitting right now in jail for murder? No, there was none whatsoever. Yates grew up in Washington State, Gotti says, with the support of a strong nurturing family. He was very much loved. There was a lot of respect in that family. They were the type of people that you'd want as your neighbor. Mr. Yates, he'd give you the shirt off his back. We're just an ordinary family and I want the victim's family also know that I care about them too. Robert Yates' father.

What was Bob Yates Jr. like, your son like growing up? I would say he was a wonderful son. He was a happy-go-lucky kid. He got into all kinds of sports, mainly baseball. He was a star pitcher, a starter on the football team. Did you go to any of his games? I went to every one of his games. I was very proud of him. Yates spent a few years in college and then joined the Army in 1977. He became a respected helicopter pilot, serving for 18 years.

He went to Somalia and that uprising happened, flew some generals around. You know, as a father you raised him in a decent home, you taught him right from wrong. What would make your son kill? You know, I just don't know. I don't have a clue. My mind is just always thinking about that. I think anybody that you would ask that knew Bob Yates. They'd probably tell you he would be the last person that you would suspect to do such a thing. In 1974, 23-year-old Robert Yates

married his current wife, Linda. They raised five children together. He loved his children dearly. I remember when we were young, he'd home him all being happy kissing in and let's go let's go fishing Let's go camping next weekend 25 year old Sonia is Robert Yates second oldest daughter, but he had his good days, and then he had his bad days, too What's a bad day? He would just come home and be angry and we wouldn't know why And we just stay away from him.

Looking back, you notice any strange behavior now? Your dad coming home late? Yeah, he's lied and said that he's gone to a National Guard thing and actually he stayed at a hotel in Spokane with one of the prostitutes. He was a regular of mine for almost two years. I dated him two weeks before they arrested him. Michelle, a Spokane prostitute, says she knew Yates well. He was always very quiet.

He was just a middle-aged man who wasn't happy at home. The first time I dated him in this parking lot, but like it was a medical center parking lot. Rena is a former prostitute. And after the date was done, he said, can you get me some crack? She says she used drugs with Yates. From there on out, he was a regular of mine. Robert Yates, a good John for some.

He tipped me good and always smoked crack. The last John for others. I guess I was one of the lucky ones. And I knew so many of the girls that weren't. For him to kill these people was quite a shock to me. Al Gaddy corresponds with Yates regularly. Do you think Bob Yates realizes all the harm he's done? I don't think that he really comprehends the magnitude of what he's done.

All rise. At his sentencing on October 26, 2000... This is the time for the sentencing. Yates faced not only justice, but the relatives of the people he killed. God will not forgive you Mr. Yates. You killed my mom. Shawn's death has quite simply damaged me in ways that can never be repaired. How can you take my mother and bury her in your yard?

I feel the pain and the fear that she went through in the hands of you. Mr. Yates deserves to die. And finally, Robert Yates Jr. spoke. Nothing I can say will erase the sorrow, the pain, and the anguish that you feel. And I apologize. I am sorry. I am sorry. Mr. Yates, I will impose the maximum sentence. Robert Yates was sentenced to 408 years in state prison. Was justice served? I don't know. How can anyone have justice when you

lose a sister or a mother or anyone? For those close to Yates, there will always be one unanswered question. Yeah, I do want to know why. I do not have a clue to this day as to why he might have done this. He told me He has no idea why he did it He gave up everything why? Trying to solve the puzzle of the serial killer serial killers are unique they live with us they work with us, in a moment. In Murder in Spokane, I tried to get into the mind of a serial killer. I read about Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Richard Ramirez, Jeffrey Dahlmer, and a dozen others. Did I learn anything?

Yes, about those individuals. Did I learn anything that could catch Robert Yates? Not really. Serial killers are unique. They're individuals. They're manipulative. They're chameleons that walk among us and we never see them. They live with us, they work with us.

We don't know who they are. Every case that we do, we create a profiler, another cop that knows a little more, another city, another agency. And then they all have to start from ground zero at the next one. Because he's different, unique, smart. But the question always looms. Do we know why? The answer is no. In fact, we don't

even know how many. Those who profile serial killers offer this chilling assessment, that Yates has probably committed even more murders than he's been linked to thus far. There's some very long gaps in his self-confessed killing spree, and the experts say it's unlikely a serial killer would go that long, a decade or more, between murders. Investigators in Washington state have been making lists of every unsolved murder everywhere Yates is known to have been during the last 25 years. But so far, aside from those crimes that have already landed him in prison for life, Robert Yates isn't talking.

In 2002, Robert Yates was found guilty of two other killings and was sentenced to death. In 2018, the Washington Supreme Court declared the state's death penalty as unconstitutional and Yates' sentence was commuted to life in prison without parole. If you like this podcast, you can listen ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus and the Wondery app. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a quick survey at Wondery.com slash survey. So get this, the Ontario liberals elected Bonnie Cromby as their new leader. Bonnie who?

I just sent you her profile. Check out her place in the Hamptons. Huh, fancy. She's a big carbon tax supporter, yeah? Oh yeah. Check out her record as mayor. Oh get out of here. She even increased taxes in this economy. Yeah. Higher taxes, carbon taxes. She sounds expensive. Bonnie Crombie and the Ontario Liberals.

They just don't get it. That'll cost you. A message from the Ontario PC Party.