Yates Far From Being Forgiven Serial Killer Hasn’T Come Close To Salving Wounds

For now, Robert Lee Yates Jr. is beyond forgiveness.

The Spokane serial killer’s apologies during his sentencing Thursday struck the families and friends of his victims as feeble and ineffective. “I am sorry …,” he said again and again, reading the names of the dead from a sheet of paper. “I am sorry.”

His statement lacked the power to earn him the forgiveness of those who loved the 13 people he has confessed to killing, the victims’ relatives said.

If forgiveness is at all possible, it would take a lot more than contrition, experts say. Yates would have to share the hidden details of the murders. He would have to confess to other crimes he may still be keeping secret. He could tell why he did it, what he was thinking and how it was in his power to prevent his own actions.

“When I think of apologies, I am more persuaded by people who apologize, then follow up with some affirmative action,” says Sister Deborah Cerullo, a former prosecuting attorney who joined a religious order and now teaches at the Notre Dame University School of Law.

Offered after victims have had adequate time to express their grief and rage, apologies can be powerful tools to bring about healing, especially after years of silence and bitterness.

It’s a popular topic, as the recent turn of the century brought on a spate of public apologies, including the Pope’s apology for the historic atrocities of the Catholic Church, the Southern Baptist Church’s apology for supporting slavery, and President Clinton’s apology for lying to the public during the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

For the families of Yates’ victims, it’s too soon to even consider a meaningful apology and the possibility of forgiveness, experts say. That may never be possible, given the magnitude of his crimes.

Audrey McClenahan was the last person to speak on behalf of a victim Thursday, and she was the only one - out of 18 people - to even mention the possibility of forgiveness.

“I will never forgive you for that. I’m trying to be forgiving, but it isn’t in me right now,” she says.

Thursday’s sentencing speaks volumes about an American justice system that is heavy on retribution, but weak on restoration.

“Our current justice system doesn’t promote healing,” says Emmett Solomon, a prison minister and founder of the Restorative Justice Ministry Network in Huntsville, Texas.

“This is the rawest sort of problem we deal with,” Solomon says. “Righteous indignation is the hardest to get rid of.”

After all, a judge can’t mandate remorse or forgiveness.

But if the victims are ever going to return to a point where they can call their life good, they need a place to start healing, Solomon says.

The basic ingredients for that include the opportunity for victims to express their pain and a sincere apology by the offender; only then can there be an attempt at forgiveness by the victim. That gives Yates a certain power, but not absolute power.

“Forgiveness does not only come as the response to an apology,” says Ron Large, chairman of the religious studies department at Gonzaga University. “But it is a lot easier to come by when there is one.”

Right now it’s too soon to even consider such a process, experts say. And Yates is certainly not in a position to express the kind of penitence that would be considered a real apology, Solomon says.

“It’s not something you can say in words,” he says. “It requires the offender to sit across the table for hours, listening to his victims, feeling their anguish. Then, it comes when he can convey true remorse.

“It brings about a healing that nothing else can bring.”

The movement to give victims a forum to voice their feelings began in the early 1980s, Cerullo says.

Now most prosecutor’s offices have victims’ advocates. But prosecutors are done with the case after the criminal is sentenced.

“The point at which someone is held accountable may provide closure, but it is not necessarily the beginning of healing,” she says.

For the courts to get further involved would take more money, more staff and more time.

“There would have to be a belief that victims can actually come out of the other side of this,” Cerullo says. “That enough healing could happen that they could actually have lives again that are not overwhelmed by this tragedy.”

Linda Carter, a victim-witness coordinator in Spokane County, is a proponent of such mediation. It already happens in the juvenile system, because the focus is on rehabilitating the criminals. But it will take 10 or 20 years for a program to become a fixture within the adult justice system, where the focus would be helping the victims, she says.

Solomon has facilitated just such interactions, even among death row inmates in Texas. The first thing it takes is time.

“Victims heal by the decade, not by the year,” he says. “The feelings are too raw at first.”

Prison counselors in Texas determine which convicts are mature enough for such work. Then pastors and psychologists spend months preparing both the victim and the prisoner for face-to-face mediation.

Some victims are motivated by a drive to end an obsession with their loss, to get unstuck, to get on with life. In order to do that, they need to know the gritty details of the last moments of their loved ones’ life.

“It still haunts me when I think of her dying the way she did,” Audrey McClenahan said of her daughter, Shawn. “You’re going to have a long time to think about this … a long time. The same we all will have. And I will ask God to have mercy on your soul.”