May 27, 1952 - Robert Lee Yates
What made Yates particularly difficult to identify was the gap between his public life — a decorated Army helicopter pilot and family man — and a pattern of violence against women that stretched across two decades and multiple Washington counties. His killings, concentrated largely in the 1990s Spokane area, disproportionately targeted women living on the margins, a factor investigators later acknowledged slowed the official response. He was ultimately linked to more than a dozen murders before his arrest in 2000.
From Wikipedia
Robert Lee Yates Jr. (born May 27, 1952), also known as the Spokane Serial Killer and the Grocery Bag Killer, is an American serial killer, kidnapper, rapist, necrophile, and former U.S. Army aircraft pilot who murdered at least sixteen people, mostly female prostitutes, in eastern Washington between 1975 and 1998.
Yates was enlisted in the United States Army from 1977 to 1996, during which time he flew helicopters. He is believed to have begun killing in 1975 when a couple was shot to death in Walla Walla. Between 1988 and 1998, Yates committed eleven murders in Spokane County, two in Pierce County, and one in Skagit County. He was sentenced to death in 2002 but it was commuted to life without parole after the Washington Supreme Court ruled capital punishment unconstitutional in 2018. He is currently serving life in prison at the Washington State Penitentiary.
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