Serial Killer: Robert Lee Yates

[Midnight Man 2]

A middle-aged father of 5, Robert L. Yates Jr., a decorated military helicopter pilot, and National Guardsman was convicted of 15 murders but suspected of as many as 18. The most prolific serial killer ever sentenced in Washington state, he now sits on death row. He came from a solid, lovinghome with encouraging Support , a moral upbringing and Christian teaching from the time he could walk. He was an obedient child, a dedicated student, and a team player on the Oak Harbor High Schoolfootball team. Yates was a car buff frequently seen washing the Corvette and his other vehicles. He liked to cruise through the red-light district in a white Corvette, where the Army veteran murdered women 8 of at least 13 of his victims.

Washington state prosecutors suspect Yates is responsible for the slayings of as many as 18 women, many with a history of drugabuse and prostitution. Victims were shot in the head. The first body was found Feb. 22, 1990, and the killings continued for a decade. "Bobby is a loving, caring and sensitive son, a fun-lovingand giving brother, an understanding, generous and dedicated father, who enjoys playing ball, fishing and camping with his kids," the three-paragraph statement said. "We feel deeply for the families who have experienced loss," the statement said. "We ask that all judgments be reserved until the timely due process of law has been completed."

Signed "the Robert L. Yates family members."

In 2000, Yates, 50, pleaded guilty to the attempted murder of one woman and the killing 10 other women in Spokane County from 1996 to 1998. He's also admitted to two slayings in Walla Walla in 1975 and the killing of a woman whose body was found in 1988, in Skagit County. A judge sentenced him to 408 years in prison. Pierce County prosecutors then brought Yates to Tacoma to be tried on the aggravated murders of Connie LaFontaine Ellis and Melinda Mercer. During the 5 1/2-week trial, prosecutors told jurors this was Yates "his evil hobby." He killed for thrill of it and because he enjoyed sex with his dead victims. The death penalty was sought in this trial. Robert Lee Yates Sr. talked about his and his wife's joy at their son's birth, and his pride as Yates became a boy who never "sassed" him and always obeyed. Yates played baseball andfootball, and fished and hiked with his father.

Attorneys showed photos of Yates as a baby, in a tiny suit, with his little sister, and through the years in a military uniform and later with his children. The elder Yates acknowledged that his son didn't confide in him and that he married his second wife before divorcing his first. Recently, Yates Sr. said, his son has returned to his Seventh-day Adventist faith. "He fell away from God," the father said. "He went to the depths. But he's come back, and I really feel it's sincere." Crying, he continued, "I love him so much, and I've told him a good many times. I abhor what he's done, but I love him just the same." Yates cried during his father's testimony and when his victims' parents described their pain. Melinda Mercer's mother, Karyl Bushell, recalled her oldest daughter as a child who loved anything extravagant and funny. "She loved to dance," Bushell said, in tears. "She loved children. She loved people." She avidly hiked, skied and skated.

A troubled youth, Mercer spent her teen years in foster care but was at her mother's house for her birthday and holidays. She earned a GED, learned to hang drywall and had worked as a waitress in Seattle. In 1997, when she became aware of her daughters heroin addiction, Bushell found a hospital where she could receive drugtreatment, but she didn't showed up. Two months before her murder, she asked if she could move back home with her family in Centralia. Bushell declined out of fear herdrug use would affect the other children in the home. "She wanted to come home, and I told her she couldn't," Bushell said, crying hard. "I told her she had to start helping herself before I could help her anymore. She said, 'Mom, you're supposed to loveme,'" said Bushell. "I said, 'I do love you, but you have to help yourself.'" Emil LaFontaine of North Dakota called his daughter, Connie LaFontaine Ellis, a strong, independent girl who inspired his pride. She had 5 siblings and step-siblings, moved from the Chippewa reservation where her father lived to Spokane to be with her mother.

At 17, she had her first child, Angel, later, she gave birth to 2 sons. The first son died in infancy. She married and moved to Tacoma. In 1996, her youngest son, Randy, couldn't get a transplant in time and died of heart problems. "That was one of the main factors in the way she continued her life," LaFontaine said. "Connie was devastated by his death." She tried numerous times to beat a heroin addiction. She was working on the streets when Yates killed her, in September 1998. Her death hurt her daughter the hardest, LaFontaine said. LaFontaine cried reading from a statement he wrote about his daughter.

"Connie gave me strength and opened my life," he read. "I could not have asked for more. No wonder an eagle came down above her as she was buried, and came to hover over my own." Prior to reading the death sentence, Yates' attorneys moved for a retrial, saying prosecutors erred in the penalty phase closing arguments by making "passionate and prejudicial" statements to the jury. Defense attorneys also felt jurors committed misconduct by considering more evidence than allowed in sentencing, such as contemplating if Yates had undiscovered victims, as they reported to the media afterwards. Pierce County Judge John McCarthy rejected the arguments. The jury sentenced Yates to death after it convicted him of the aggravated murders of Connie LaFontaine Ellis and Melinda Mercer. Both bodies were found near Fort Lewis, where Yates served as a helicopter pilot in the Washington National Guard. "I'd like to thank the court for the courtesy accorded me and the professionalism shown me," Yates said quietly while looking down.

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