Yates Will Face Nine Additional Murder Charges Authorities Say They Found Woman Who Survived Attack By Suspect

Investigators say they have found a woman who survived a slaying attempt and robbery by accused serial killer Robert Lee Yates Jr. in August 1998.

Homicide detectives also believe they have enough evidence to charge Yates with nine more murders, including two in Pierce County.

Spokane County Prosecuting Attorney Steve Tucker said the additional murder charges and the attempted murder and robbery charges are expected to be filed against Yates in Superior Court on Thursday.

The name of the victim in the alleged attack was not released nor were any details. Tucker said the woman filed a report with police after the incident.

Yates has been held in the Spokane County Jail since his arrest April 18. Bail has been set at $1.5 million cash.

The former Army helicopter pilot, father of five and Kaiser replacement worker has been charged with the murder of Jennifer Joseph, a 16-year-old prostitute who was found dead near Mount Spokane in 1997.

Tucker confirmed the new cases being reviewed for prosecution involve the deaths of Darla Scott, Melinda Mercer, Shawn McClenahan, Michelyn Derning, Linda Maybin, Laurie Wason, Shawn Johnson, Sunny Oster and Connie LaFontaine Ellis.

All died of gunshot wounds and were involved in drugs, prostitution or both. Detectives have linked Yates to the crimes through DNA and other evidence.

The bodies of two of the women were found in the south Tacoma area - Mercer in 1997 and Ellis in late 1998.

Army National Guard records show Yates was on a training exercise at Fort Lewis near Tacoma in December 1997 when Mercer’s body was discovered. A plastic bag had been placed over her head and investigators believe she had been at the site for less than 24 hours.

Guard records also place Yates at Fort Lewis about the time Ellis was killed.

Sheriff Mark Sterk said Spokane County will try to have the two Tacoma cases prosecuted in Spokane.

“We’ve asked for that to happen,” Sterk said Tuesday.

Jerry Horne, chief criminal deputy prosecutor in Pierce County, said his office would not object to the Mercer and Ellis cases being handled in Spokane.

But Richard Fasy, Yates’ public defender, said he will argue against that because the crimes happened on the other side of the state.

Fasy also said he was surprised to learn that sheriff’s detectives located and interviewed a person who allegedly was attacked by Yates.

“The additional counts are new to me,” Fasy said. “I’m anxiously awaiting new information as to those charges, and I trust the prosecutor’s office will provide us with new information in a timely fashion.”

While detectives did not reveal the name of the supposed survivor, a woman who calls herself “Mary” said in late April that she knows a fellow prostitute who claims she was attacked by Yates.

The victim was picked up by a man in a van and handcuffed, Mary said in an interview Tuesday.

The victim identified Yates after seeing his picture in the newspaper and on television after his arrest, Mary said.

“He supposedly told her he was the serial killer,” Mary said, “and he told her if she ever opened her mouth he’d kill her.”

Mary said she initially questioned the validity of her friend’s story after Yates’ arrest and talked to her about reporting the incident to detectives.

“She said, `Well, I didn’t think that the police would believe me,”’ Mary said. “I said, `Now wait a minute. The police have been out here talking with you and me and they could put you in a safe spot.’ “She told me, `Yeah, but I got a drug habit. Are the police going to take care of that, too?”’ Mary said she doesn’t know if her acquaintance is the woman involved in the attempted murder case.

Mary’s recollections of her own encounters with Yates were reported in a story published in April 29 editions of The Spokesman-Review.

As new charges against Yates’ come down locally, the investigation into his international affairs moves forward.

The FBI believes Yates had a 1988 black Chevy van while he was stationed at a base in Goeppingen, Germany, from 1988 to 1991. He also did a tour at another base in the early 1980s.

Yates’ van has been searched by detectives and is being held as evidence at an undisclosed location. Sheriff’s investigators did not say what was discovered in the vehicle.

German federal police - the BKA - are looking into the deaths of 26 prostitutes, with the assistance of the U.S. Army Criminal Investigative Command. The FBI is providing German authorities with Yates’ DNA, fingerprints, mug shots and a detailed time line of his whereabouts.

Homicide detectives in Spokane are continuing to investigate eight other cases they believe may be linked to Yates.

The deaths of Shannon Zielinski and Heather Hernandez - killed in 1996 and 1997, respectively - will not be included in charges this week, Tucker said.

Investigations into five slayings from the early 1990s also remain active but on the back burner, along with the case of Melody Murfin, who has been missing since May 1998.

“Our best evidence is not in those cases,” sheriff’s spokesman Dave Reagan said.

Reagan would not talk about the evidence that makes the more recent cases stronger than earlier ones.

Also on Tuesday, Spokane County commissioners approved $77,000 for a senior prosecutor and paralegal to work with the homicide task force for a year.

By the end of 2000, city police and the Sheriff’s Office had expected to spend $2.2 million on the serial killer investigation.

Tucker said the coming prosecution could add millions more.

This sidebar appeared with the story: The victims

Robert Lee Yates Jr. is to be charged Thursday in Superior Court with the murder of these 10 women, prosecutors say.

JENNIFER JOSEPH: Date found - 8-26-97 She was a 16-year-old from Tacoma who told her dad and younger brother that she was going to live a short life. She couldn’t have pets because of allergies, so she had stuffed animals - a room full. Her death proved to be the linchpin for the serial killer investigation.

DARLA SUE SCOTT: 11-5-97 As a baby, Scott struggled for life for two months, weighing just over 3 pounds. She was fun-loving, a peacemaker and “mostly told her mother what she knew she wanted to hear,” said Barbara Scott, her mother.

“She is baby, honey, sis, twin and mommy to us,” Barbara Scott said. She was 29.

MELINDA MERCER: 12-7-97: Mercer lived in Seattle during the four years before her death in 1997, according to her mother, Karyl Greenwood. She had worked at several restaurants in the Wallingford neighborhood. She was 24. She was found in a Tacoma field.

“She was the most loving girl, the most innocent victim ever,” Greenwood said.

SHAWN MCCLENAHAN: 12-16-97 McClenahan was born in Walla Walla where she graduated from high school. She received a phlebotomist’s certification from Spokane Community College. She worked at both Deaconess and Sacred Heart medical centers.

She was 39 at the time of her death and had a 21-year-old son.

SHAWN JOHNSON: 12-18-97 The last time anyone saw Shawn Johnson, 36, was at a wedding in Deer Park in October 1997.

“My daughter was trying to get help when the serial killer took her choices away. To find out, with a knock at your door, that your daughter was murdered and you can never see her again is to feel so much agony you can’t even speak.” Johnson’s mother, Margaret Dettman, in a letter to the editor.

LAURIE ANN WASON: 12-26-97 Family members said Wason once ran an adult-care home. She was also a dog breeder. Her picture once appeared in Rottweiler Quarterly with her pet, Lucky.

She was 31 when killed. She had a 12-year-old son at the time and was married.

SUNNY OSTER: 2-8-98 She was the mother of two sons. The last time her family saw her was summer 1997, when she visited her sister in Auburn. She loved to swim. She worked as a bartender and a nurse’s aide.

She went to Spokane for a drug treatment program. She was 41.

LINDA M. MAYBIN: 4-1-98 Brian Brown said his friend Linda Maybin, 34, was afraid of the serial killer. The last time he saw Maybin, they had talked about the murders, and she told him, “Don’t go nowhere, ‘cause I’m coming back.”

He never saw her again.

MICHELYN DERNING: 7-7-98 Her family called her “Mike.” She grew up in Southern California. She married in 1985 and had a son, Ryan, who is now 13 and living with his grandparents. She came to Spokane in 1997 to be with an old friend. She worked as a ranch hand, an in-home nursing assistant and at other odd jobs. She was 47.

CONNIE LYNN LAFONTAINE ELLIS: 10-13-98 Known as a beautiful, immaculately groomed woman, the 35-year-old told a friend that she was planning to move to the Spokane Indian Reservation and enroll in a training program shortly before she was killed. She had two children; one died of a heart condition, the other of sudden infant death syndrome.

Her body was found in Pierce County ditch.

Staff writer Bill Morlin contributed to this report.