Robert Lee Yates Jr. (born May 27, 1952), also known as the Grocery Bag Killer, 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 his second wife Linda, whom he married in 1976. The children's birth years range from 1974 to 1989.
Murders
Yates committed his first murders in 1975, when he shot and killed two college students who were picnicking Many of his subsequent victims were sex workers working along East Sprague Avenue who had substance abuse issues, and Yates would often do drugs with them and other sex workers. Yates initially solicited the victims; after having sex with them, often in his Ford van, he would kill them and dump their bodies in rural locations. All of his victims died of gunshot wounds to the head or heart. Eight of the murders were committed with a Raven .25-caliber handgun, and one attempted murder was linked to the same model of handgun.
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".
Patrick Allen Oliver and Susan Patricia Savage
On July 14, 1975, the bodies of Patrick Oliver, 21, and Patricia Savage, 22, were found shot in the head near Walla Walla. They were last seen the day before, on their way for an afternoon swim and picnic.
Stacy Elizabeth Hawn
On December 28, 1988, the partial skeleton of Stacy Hawn, 23, was found near Big Lake. She was last seen on July 7, 1988 in Seattle. Yates confessed to picking up Hawn, who was working as a sex worker, in his van nearby.
Shannon Rene Zielinski
On June 14, 1996, Shannon Zielinski, 38, was found shot in the head in Mead. Her partially nude body was badly decomposed and dumped in a wooded area near a school bus stop. Zielinski had a lengthy criminal record and worked as a sex worker.
Heather Louise Hernandez
On August 26, 1997, the body of Heather Hernandez, 20, was found in an overgrown lot in Spokane. She was shot five days earlier according to detectives. Hernandez had only recently come to the area and within a few weeks was arrested twice for sex work.
Jennifer Ann Joseph
On August 26, 1997, Jennifer Joseph, 16, was found shot in the head in a field in Spokane. Police found a brown towel and a brown hair belonging to a white male at the scene. After Joseph's parent's divorce, she dropped out of high school and moved to Tacoma. She started using methamphetamine and became involved in sex work. She was killed just a month after arriving in Spokane.