Guard Officials To Meet With Serial Killer Task Force Police Hope Military Will Help Investigate Yates’ Gps Sites

Senior staff from the Washington Army National Guard headquarters near Tacoma will be in Spokane today to meet with the serial killer task force.

The task force is asking to use the Army Guard’s helicopters to check out 70 sites recorded in a Global Positioning System device owned by Robert L. Yates Jr.

The confessed serial killer, himself a former helicopter pilot for the Army Guard, logged the sites throughout the state in his GPS computer, beginning in June 1999.

The Magellan 2000 device was found by detectives during a search of Yates’ South Hill home after his arrest in April.

Now, Sgt. Cal Walker, who commands the task force, wants task force detectives to personally visit the sites “to see what Mr. Yates saw when he recorded these locations.”

Detectives want to make sure the geographic coordinates Yates recorded are airstrips or airports and not hiding places that may have been used by the serial killer.

Detectives have not found handguns that Yates is believed to have owned, nor have they found “souvenirs,” such as clothing or jewelry, that the killer may have collected from his victims.

One of the sites that puzzles detectives is in the Spokane Valley, west of Liberty Lake, Walker said. “We’ve been out there for a preliminary check, but need to return for a more thorough search,” Walker said.

Others with unusual locations are in central and southwestern Washington.

When Walker initially asked the Army Guard for use of its helicopters, he was told there must be a “drug connection” for the military to become involved.

A year before Yates’ arrest, the Army Guard authorized use of its helicopters equipped with heat-detecting equipment to look for the bodies of missing women in the Spokane area.

Walker renewed his request, saying many of the victims murdered by Yates were drug abusers. The Army Guard, now reconsidering the request, is sending a team of senior officers to Spokane to meet today with Walker and the task force.

They probably will be shown a newly produced color map of the state, showing the 70 sites, many of which appear to be airports or airstrips in Washington.

There is one site in Oregon, west of Portland, and another in Idaho, near Asotin, Wash.

The maps were produced by John Bordelli, an information specialist with the Spokane County Information System Department.

Walker would not release the geographic coordinates in Yates’ GPS device, but did authorize release of the map prepared by Bordelli.

About two dozen of the sites are inside the boundaries of either Fort Lewis, a U.S. Army base near Tacoma, or the Yakima Firing Center, where the Army Guard conducts military maneuvers.