Robert Lee Yates' house

This is Robert Lee Yates' former house.

It is situated at 2220 East 49th Avenue in Spokane, Washington.

Yates is a serial killer who is believed to have murdered at least 16 people between 1975 and 1998.

The former US Army helicopter pilot and married father of five moved to this address in March 1998.

He committed his first two murders in July 1975, when he shot and killed two picnickers named Patrick Allen Oliver and Susan Patricia Savage. However, his serial killings didn't begin until nearly 26 years later.

He began targeting sex workers during the summer of 1996, which was just a few weeks after he retired from active duty in the United States Army.

In most cases, he would pick his victims up, have sex with them, shoot them, and then dump their bodies in rural locations.

The exception to this was Melody Murfin, whom he buried in his backyard.

On May 12th, 1998, Yates shot Murfin twice in the head. Afterwards, he buried the 43-year-old at the back of his house, near his bedroom window.

He did this despite the fact that his wife, Linda, was asleep in the room at the time.

The police identified him as a suspect in 1999.

Two years prior, he had been caught speeding near the location where one of his victims' bodies had been found. Then, in November 1998, the police pulled him over while he was in the presence of a sex worker.

At the time, Yates owned a white Corvette. This piqued the police's interest in him, as one of the victims was last seen getting into the same type of vehicle.

Their suspicions were raised even further when they questioned him about the murders, as he became visibly nervous and refused to give them a blood sample.

Four months later, the authorities managed to track down the location of his Corvette, which he had sold to a local woman.

During a forensic examination of the car, they found fibers that matched the fibers on one of the victims. Subsequent tests also revealed Yates' DNA, which connected him to 12 more murders.

Yates agreed to confess to his crimes in a bid to avoid the death penalty. He also told the police where he had buried the body of Melody Murfin.

In 2001, he was sentenced to more than 400 years in prison.

The following year, he was convicted of murdering two victims in a different county. However, on that occasion, he was sentenced to death despite his earlier plea bargain in Spokane County.

For the next sixteen years, he sat on death row, trying to appeal the decision.

Yates' life was eventually spared on October 11th, 2018, when the Washington Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty violated the state's constitution. As a result, his death sentence was commuted to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Yates is incarcerated at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla. He is currently 71 years old.

Further information is available in the "Photos" section below.

Photos

Photos of the house and other related images.

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