• 3 First Names Serial Killers
• Serial Killer Names John

Robert Lee Yates Jr. Is an American serial killer from Spokane, Washington. From 1975 to 1998, Yates is known to have murdered at least 11 women in Spokane. Yates also confessed to two murders committed in Walla Walla in 1975 and a 1988 murder committed in Skagit County. In 2002, Yates was convicted of killing two women in Pierce County and sentenced to death but it was commuted to life without parole.

As such, the fact that the City of Albuquerque straight up uses the name 'West Mesa Serial Killer' is a pretty good sign that one is involved. The West Mesa Serial Killer is an unapprehended and unknown individual who murdered 11 young women, one of whom was pregnant, and buried them in clumsy graves in West Mesa, Albuquerque. Robert Lee Yates From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Robert Lee Yates Jr. (born May 27, 1952) is an American serial killer from Spokane, Washington. From 1975 to 1998, Yates is known to have murdered at least 11 women in Spokane.

Robert Lee Yates Jr. (born May 27, 1952) is an American serial killer from Spokane, Washington. From 1975 to 1998, Yates is known to have murdered at least 11 women in Spokane. Yates also confessed to two murders committed in Walla Walla in 1975 and a 1988 murder committed in Skagit County.

In 2002, Yates was convicted of killing two women in Pierce County and sentenced to death but it was commuted to life without parole after Washington outlawed the death penalty in 2018. He is currently serving life in prison at the Washington State Penitentiary.

Early life[edit]

Yates was born on May 27, 1952 and grew up in Oak Harbor, Washington^[1] in a middle-class family that attended a local Seventh-day Adventist church. Before his birth, his grandmother murdered his grandfather with an axe in 1945.^[2]

Yates graduated from Oak Harbor High School in 1970. In 1975, he was hired by the Washington State Department of Corrections to work as a correction officer at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla.^[3]

In October 1977, Yates enlisted in the United States Army, in which he became certified to fly civilian transport airplanes and helicopters. Yates was stationed in various countries outside the continental United States, including Germany and later Somalia and Haiti during the United Nations peacekeeping missions of the 1990s. Yates also served three years in the Army National Guard as a Helicopter Pilot from April 1997 through April 2000. He earned several commendation and service medals during his military career, including the US Army Master Aviator Badge.^[3]

Yates left the active duty Army in April 1996, apparently a year and a half short of being eligible for his full retirement benefits and pension. At this time, the military was reducing its numbers, so he got his full retirement despite being short of the customary 20 years served. He then joined the Army National Guard in April 1997 and served three years until his arrest in April 2000. He served a total of 21.5 years in the military.^[3]

He has five children (four daughters and one son) with second wife Linda, whom he married in 1976. The children's birth years range from 1974 to 1989.^[1]

Murders[edit]

The murders Yates committed between 1975 and 1998 in Spokane all involved sex workers who worked along Spokane's East Sprague Avenue. The victims were initially solicited for sex work by Yates, who would have sex with them (often in his 1979 Ford van), sometimes do drugs with them, then kill them and dump their bodies in rural locations. All of his victims died of gunshot wounds to the head. Eight of the murders were committed with a Raven .25-caliberhandgun, and one attempted murder was linked to the same model of handgun.^[4]

Autopsies of two of the victims indicated that the killer was a marksman aiming for the heart.^[5] One particularly bizarre detail of Yates' murders involved the case of Melody Murfin, whose body was buried just outside the bedroom window of Yates' family home, while his wife was sleeping in the room^[6]

On August 1, 1998, Yates picked up sex worker Christine Smith, who managed to escape after being shot, assaulted and robbed. She is Yates' only known attempted murder survivor.^[7] On September 19, 1998, Yates was asked to give a DNA sample to Spokane police after being stopped. He refused, stating that it was too extreme of a request for a 'family man.'^[7]

Convictions and appeals[edit]

Yates was arrested on April 18, 2000, for the murder of Jennifer Joseph.^{[citation needed]} After his arrest, a search warrant was executed on a 1977 white Corvette that he had previously owned. A white Corvette had been identified as the vehicle in which one of the victims had last been seen. Coincidentally, Yates had been pulled over in this vehicle while the Task Force was searching for it, but the field interview report was misread as saying 'Camaro' not 'Corvette,' thus the incident was not realized until after Yates had been arrested.^[8]

After searching the Corvette, police discovered blood that they linked to Jennifer Joseph and DNA from Yates that they then tied to 12 other victims.^[8] In 2000, he was charged with 13 counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted first-degree murder in Spokane County Superior Court.^[1] As part of a plea bargain in which Yates confessed to the murders to avoid the death penalty, he was sentenced to 408 years in prison.^[9] Charges were dropped in the murder of Shawn McClenahan, however in a statement made by Yates, he apologized to her family and the other victims.^[10]

In 2001 Yates was charged in Pierce County with the murders of two additional women. The prosecution sought the death penalty for the deaths of Melinda L. Mercer in 1997 and Connie Ellis in 1998, which were thought to be linked to the killings in Spokane County.^[9] On September 19, 2002, Yates was convicted of those murders and subsequently sentenced to death by lethal injection on October 3, 2002.^[11]

The 2002 death sentence was appealed on grounds that Yates believed his 2000 plea bargain to be 'all-encompassing' and that a life sentence for 13 murders and a death sentence for two constituted 'disproportionate, freakish, wanton and random' application of the death penalty. The arguments were rejected in 2007 by the Washington Supreme Court.^[12] A September 19, 2008 execution date was stayed by Chief Justice Gerry L. Alexander pending additional appeals.^[13]

In 2013, Yates's attorneys filed a habeas corpus petition in federal district court, stating that Yates is mentally ill and, 'through no fault of his own ... suffers from a severe paraphilic disorder' that predisposed him to commit murder. The still-pending motion is regarded as a 'long shot' by most observers. 'I don't think Mr. Yates helps his cause by relying on the fact that he's a necrophiliac,' said Pierce County Prosecutor Mark Lindquist.^[14]

Yates remains incarcerated at the Washington State Penitentiary.^[1] His case was further complicated by Washington Governor Jay Inslee's 2013 declaration that he would not sign death warrants for anyone on death row while he is in office. Inslee cited the high cost of the appeals process, the randomness with which death sentences are sought, and a lack of evidence that the penalty serves as a deterrent to other criminals.^[15][16]

In July 2015, the Washington Supreme Court once again rejected an effort by Yates to overturn his conviction and death sentence.^[17] After the Washington State Supreme Court ruled in 2018 that the death penalty violated the state constitution, Yates's death sentence, as well as that of Washington's other death row inmates, was commuted to life in prison without the possibility of parole.^[18]

Victims[edit]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

1. ^ ^abcdSable Burns, Kari. 'Serial Killer Robert Yates'. www.karisable.com. Retrieved May 14, 2009.
2. ^https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.true.crime/Gm3bFiVLTvc
3. ^ ^abc'Robert Lee Yates was the Spokane serial killer'. Crime Library. p. 8. Archived from the original on March 7, 2005. Retrieved May 15, 2009.
4. ^'Serial Killer Robert Lee Yates Jr'. www.francesfarmersrevenge.com. Archived from the original on April 22, 2009. Retrieved May 15, 2009.
5. ^Barer, Burl (October 24, 2011). Body Count. New York: Kensington Books. ISBN0786030259.
6. ^'Robert Lee Yates was the Spokane serial killer'. Crime Library. p. 11. Archived from the original on June 1, 2009. Retrieved May 15, 2009.
7. ^ ^ab'Robert Lee Yates'. Retrieved May 15, 2009.^{[unreliable source?]}
8. ^ ^abFuhrman, Mark (April 30, 2002). Murder in Spokane. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN9780061098734.
9. ^ ^ab'Wash. Prosecutors Seek Death Penalty for Serial Killer'. ABC News. Archived from the original on April 21, 2001. Retrieved May 15, 2009.
10. ^Barker, Kim. 'Families lash out, killer apologizes'. The Seattle Times. Retrieved August 27, 2020.
11. ^'Serial killer Yates sentenced to death'. The Seattle Times. October 3, 2002. Archived from the original on August 6, 2020. Retrieved September 25, 2012.
12. ^'State high court upholds death penalty for Yates'. The Seattle Times. September 28, 2007. Retrieved September 17, 2014.
13. ^'State Supreme Court grants Yates stay of execution'. KHQ-TV. September 11, 2008. Archived from the original on August 6, 2020. Retrieved August 6, 2020.
14. ^Carter, Mike (May 16, 2013). 'Serial killer Robert Yates Jr. seeks federal appeal of death sentence'. The Seattle Times. Archived from the original on August 3, 2015. Retrieved September 17, 2014.
15. ^'Inslee halts executions in state while he is governor'. The Seattle Times. February 11, 2014. Archived from the original on February 12, 2014. Retrieved February 12, 2014.
16. ^Millares Young, Kristen (February 11, 2014). 'Washington state to suspend death penalty by governor's moratorium'. The Guardian. Retrieved February 12, 2014.
17. ^'Supreme Court rejects serial killer Yates' petition to overturn death sentence'. KCPQ. July 9, 2015. Retrieved December 10, 2015.
18. ^Cornwell, Paige (October 11, 2018). 'List of inmates whose sentences are changed from death row to life in prison'. The Seattle Times. Retrieved October 12, 2018.

External links[edit]

• Robert Lee Yates, Jr. at Crime Library

Derrick Todd Lee (November 5, 1968 – January 21, 2016), also known as The Baton Rouge Serial Killer, was an American serial killer. Between 1992 and 2003, Lee murdered seven women in the Baton Rouge area.^[1]

Prior to his murder charges, Lee had been arrested for stalking women and watching them in their homes. Despite this, he was initially overlooked by police, because they incorrectly believed the killer was white. Lee was linked by DNA tests to the deaths of seven women in the Baton Rouge and Lafayette areas in Louisiana, and in 2004 was convicted, in separate trials, of the murders of Geralyn DeSoto and Charlotte Murray Pace. The Pace trial resulted in a death sentence.

Newspapers suggested Lee was responsible for other unsolved murders in the area, but the police lacked DNA evidence to prove these connections. After Lee's arrest, it was discovered that another serial killer, Sean Vincent Gillis, was operating in the Baton Rouge area during the same time as Lee.

Lee died on January 21, 2016, of heart disease at a hospital in Louisiana, where he was transported for treatment from Louisiana State Penitentiary, where he had been awaiting execution.^[2][3][4]

3 First Names Serial Killers

Methods[edit]

Lee's methods varied with nearly each murder. Similarities between the crimes included the removal of cell phones from the victim's belongings, and a lack of any visible signs of forced entry into the location where the victim was attacked. Two of the victims' bodies were discovered at the Whiskey Bay boat launch, approximately 30 miles west of Baton Rouge, just off Interstate 10.

As a result of an inaccurate FBIoffender profile and erroneous eyewitness accounts, police originally believed the killer to be white.^[5] Police therefore administered thousands of DNA tests to Caucasian men in and around the general area of the murders. Having no leads, police then allowed the now defunct company DNAPrint Genomics to access DNA left at the crime scenes. DNAPrint Genomics generated an ancestry profile indicating that the suspect was 85% African,^[6] thus changing the course of the investigation. Police then knew they were searching for a black man for the January 2002 slaying of Geralyn Barr DeSoto. More specific analysis of the DNA evidence found under the fingernails of DeSoto linked Lee to the 21-year-old Addis, Louisiana woman's death.^{[citation needed]}

Dianne Alexander[edit]

Lee entered the St. Martin Parish home of Dianne Alexander on July 9, 2002. Lee beat Alexander severely and attempted to rape her. Dianne Alexander is the only known survivor of Derrick Todd Lee. Alexander survived because her son walked in during the commission of the crime, frightening Lee out of the back of the house. Alexander's son chased Lee through the back of the house and was able to get a description of the car. Alexander had details as to what Lee looked like and on May 22, 2003, Alexander was able to describe Lee to a police sketch artist.

Between the DNA evidence gathered off of the deceased victims, a psychological profile made by Mary Ellen O'Toole^[7] and the police sketch based on Alexander's description, the police went public with the information. Police in the nearby town of Zachary recognized the man by a recent peeping tom incident they had just investigated. Police in Zachary called the police in Baton Rouge to let them know the name of the suspected perpetrator. Additionally, the Zachary Police Department also let the Baton Rouge Police Department know that they had a DNA sample from Lee due to a prior murder investigation from 6–8 months earlier. The DNA lab ran and compared the samples and they were a match to Derrick Todd Lee.

Alexander's survival and description of Lee assisted investigators in his arrest. Alexander felt she deserved the Lafayette Crime Stoppers Inc. public reward offering of $100,000 for information leading to the arrest of Lee. On or about August 14, 2003 Alexander contacted Lafayette Crime Stoppers Inc. and inquired about the offer. It was then that Lafayette Crime Stoppers Inc. informed Alexander that she was not eligible to receive the reward.

On February 22, 2006, Alexander hired Attorney L. Clayton Burgess to pursue the case. Lafayette Crime Stoppers Inc. claimed that the reward offer expired on August 1, 2003 and that, although Alexander had gone to the police, she did not contact Lafayette Crime Stoppers Inc. before August 1, 2003. Furthermore, Lafayette Crime Stoppers Inc. claimed that she [Alexander] did not use the tipster hotline and, thereby did not comply with the 'form, terms, or conditions' required by Lafayette Crime Stoppers Inc. The case was decided in Lafayette Crime Stoppers Inc.'s favor.^[8]

Victims[edit]

Once Lee was identified as the primary suspect in these crimes, law enforcement located and captured him in Atlanta, Georgia. Lee waived extradition and was returned to Baton Rouge, where he was tried in August 2004 for the murder of Geralyn DeSoto. Desoto had been found dead in her home in Addis, stabbed numerous times.

DeSoto's husband had initially been the primary suspect in her murder, but as the investigation progressed, DNA evidence linking Lee to the crime had been discovered. Although Lee was eligible for first degree murder charges, the District Attorney elected to try Lee for murder in the second degree because DeSoto had not been sexually assaulted, which meant a first-degree murder conviction would be harder to obtain. Lee was convicted by jury and sentenced to life imprisonment without parole.

There was some argument that Derrick Lee was perhaps incompetent to stand trial. During psychiatric evaluations, he scored an average of 65 on various standardized IQ tests; a score below 69 is considered to be the threshold for what can be considered mental retardation. Lee was, however, deemed fit to stand trial despite his low IQ.

Serial Killer Names John

Lee was convicted on October 14, 2004, for the May 31, 2002, rape and murder of LSU graduate student Charlotte Murray Pace. He was sentenced to die by lethal injection. On January 16, 2008, the state Supreme Court upheld the murder conviction and death sentence.^[9] Lee was placed on death row at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola. During the manhunt, John Walsh, host of America's Most Wanted, added the Baton Rouge Serial Killer to his Top 10 Fugitives of 2002 at #3.

Lee was portrayed in an episode of the docudrama series Obsession: Dark Desires, which aired in March 2014 and centered on his stalking of surviving victim Collette Dwyer^[10] whose tips to police about Todd were not fully followed up.^[11]

In addition to the murders of DeSoto and Pace, DNA has linked Lee to five more murders. They were Randi Mebruer, Gina Green, Pam Kinamore, Trineisha Colomb and Carrie Yoder, all of whom were killed between 1998 and 2003.^[12][13]

'Crying baby' rumor[edit]

In early 2003, an urban legend began to circulate that Lee was using the taped sounds of a crying baby to lure victims to the door. The Baton Rouge Police were quick to deny that the information was coming from their office. Fueling the rumor were season 3 episodes of the television series Criminal Minds titled 'Children of the Dark'^[14] and 'Tabula Rasa'.^[15] Lee and the 'crying baby' rumor were mentioned in both episodes.

Snopes reported on this urban legend.^[16]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

1. ^Bell, Rachael. 'Derrick Todd Lee, Baton Rouge Serial Killer'. Crime Library. truTV. Retrieved 30 April 2013.
2. ^'Officials confirm convicted serial killer Derrick Todd Lee has died'. Archived from the original on July 4, 2018. Retrieved January 21, 2016.
3. ^'Louisiana Serial Killer Derrick Todd Lee Dies'. abcnews.go.com. Retrieved 2015-01-21.
4. ^Hamberger, Jeff. 'Convicted serial killer Derrick Todd Lee cause of death released'. wgno.com. Retrieved 16 March 2016.
5. ^'Despite a White Profile, a Black Suspect'. ABC News. 2006-01-07. Retrieved 2018-02-09.
6. ^'Genome Test Nets Suspected Serial Killer'. genomenewsnetwork.org. Retrieved 2016-01-22.
7. ^Augenstein, Seth (June 5, 2017). 'NHIA 2017 Meeting to Feature Psychopathy, Blood Spatter, Police Shootings'. Forensic Magazine. Rockaway, New Jersey: Advantage Business Media. Retrieved February 23, 2019.
8. ^Dianne ALEXANDER, et ux. v. LAFAYETTE CRIME STOPPERS, INC., et al. (Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Third Circuit February 3, 2010). Text
9. ^'Review of death sentence for Derrick Todd Lee refused', Associated Press, March 8, 2008Archived April 12, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
10. ^'Obsession: Dark Desires'. Crime and Investigation Network. Retrieved February 13, 2014.
11. ^'Tipster claims her leads about serial killer suspect were ignored'. Capitol Watch. Retrieved February 13, 2014.
12. ^Dupuy, Kevin. 'Timeline of Events: Serial killer Derrick Todd Lee'. WBRZ-TV. Retrieved October 12, 2020.
13. ^'Hear from families of Derrick Todd Lee's victims: 'We couldn't be happier; any sense of justice lost''. The Advocate. Retrieved October 12, 2020.
14. ^'Criminal Minds - Children of the Dark'
15. ^Criminal Minds episode, 'Tabula Rasa', imdb.com; accessed January 22, 2016.
16. ^'Snopes - Crying Baby Lure', snores.com; accessed January 22, 2017.

External links[edit]

• Derrick Todd Lee at About.com