Yates May Avoid Death Penalty Even If Guilty, Aggravating Factors Hard To Prove

Accused serial killer Robert Lee Yates Jr. could escape the death penalty even if he is found guilty, said Spokane County Prosecutor Steve Tucker.

Death penalty laws in Washington state require aggravating circumstances with murder.

“It seems kind of strange that multiple victims isn’t enough for death,” Tucker said Friday. “But unless there are other felonies involved, there could be a problem seeking the death penalty.”

For example, Blake R. Pirtle was sentenced to death for cutting the throats of two Burger King employees in the Spokane Valley in 1992 because the killings were committed during a robbery.

And Dwayne Woods received a death sentence after the murders of two Spokane Valley women and the beating of a third in 1996. In that case, Woods was charged with two counts of aggravated first-degree murder and one count of attempted first-degree murder.

Prosecutors cited rape as the aggravating circumstance in the Woods slayings.

But then there was the case of Jack Owen Spillman III, a former Spokane Valley resident who once told a cellmate he wanted to be “the world’s greatest serial killer,” but received only a life sentence in 1996 for killing an East Wenatchee woman, her daughter and a 9-year-old Okanogan County girl.

Tucker said he doesn’t know at this point whether aggravating circumstances are present in Yates’ case. His office is still waiting for more police and DNA reports.

“To our knowledge, the state’s never prosecuted a serial killer because one has never been caught,” Tucker said.

Yates, 47, is being held in the Spokane County Jail on $1.5 million cash bail in the 1997 killing of 16-year-old Jennifer Joseph.

The Spokane County Sheriff’s Office says DNA and other evidence links Yates to at least 11 other killings in Spokane and Tacoma.

Tucker said the Homicide Task Force hopes to get DNA results for more victims by the end of next week. DNA samples were sent to the Washington State Patrol’s crime lab in Seattle on Tuesday.

Tucker said he’d like to charge Yates in Superior Court with multiple Spokane County murders by May 18.

“But if that’s not possible, then we’ve got at least the one (Joseph) which will be filed May 18, and we’ll add more charges as we go,” Tucker said.

Former Spokane County Prosecutor James Sweetser, who is now a defense attorney, said the case presents tremendous challenges for both sides.

“As a prosecutor, what I’d be worried about would be going to trial with just the one count against the defendant,” Sweetser said. “It would be difficult to get the death penalty on just that count.”

Sweetser agreed with Tucker that it could be difficult to find aggravating circumstances, especially rape or kidnapping.

“Their lifestyles would indicate at this point that they willingly went along,” Sweetser said.

However, if Yates is the Spokane serial killer, Sweetser said, the very nature of so many charges would establish a compelling argument for death.

“I would argue that the killings were part of a common scheme or plan,” he said.

If he were defending Yates, he said, he would be encouraged to know that prosecutors are going to try to file as many charges as possible against him by the middle of the month.

“The faster the better from the defense’s point of view,” he said. “The case is only going to get worse for him the longer it goes on.”

As for the prosecutor’s office, despite the fact that the trial of Stanley Pietrzak is scheduled to start this month, Tucker said the deputies working that case have not been overwhelmed with the Yates case.

Pietrzak is accused of burning Kelly Conway and stuffing her remains in a Dumpster in April 1999. Pietrzak is scheduled to go to trial May 30.

Deputy prosecutor Larry Steinmetz has been added to the Yates’ prosecution team with Tucker and deputy prosecutor Jack Driscoll.

The state attorney general’s office has said it would loan Tucker attorney Brian Moran from its office to help prosecutors on the case, Tucker said.

Yates is represented by Spokane County Public Defenders Richard Fasy, Scott Mason and Jay Ames.