Robert Lee Yates Jr. (born May 27, 1952) is an American serial killer from Spokane, Washington. From 1975 to 1998, he is known to have murdered at least 11 women in Spokane. He 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 the Washington Supreme Court ruled capital punishment unconstitutional in 2018. He is currently serving life in prison at the Washington State Penitentiary. Early life Yates was born on May 27, 1952, and grew up in Oak Harbor, Washington in a middle-class family. They attended a local Seventh-day Adventist church. Before his birth, his grandmother had murdered his grandfather with an axe in 1945. 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. In October 1977, Yates enlisted in the United States Army, where 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. 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 received 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. 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. Murders Yates' first murders were committed in 1975, when he shot and killed two college students who were picnicking. Many of his subsequent victims were prostitutes working along East Sprague Avenue who had