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Suspected Washington state serial killer pleas not guilty

May 31, 2000
Web posted at: 6:20 p.m. EST (2220 GMT)

SEATTLE (Reuters) -- A suspected serial killer who police believe may have slain up to 18 prostitutes in Washington State pleaded not guilty Wednesday to eight counts of aggravated first-degree murder.

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Robert Lee Yates, Jr., a 48-year-old aluminum worker and Army Reserve helicopter pilot, entered his plea in a Spokane court, in proceedings broadcast on Northwest Cable News.

The judge set the trial date for May 21, 2001, and ordered Yates held without bail, the station said. Prosecutors will have 30 days to decide whether to seek the death penalty.

Yates, a husband and father of five, was charged last month with the 1997 shooting death of Jennifer Joseph, a 16-year-old prostitute whose body was found in a field near Spokane, a city about 250 miles east of Seattle.

Joseph and other victims were found shot to death, their heads wrapped in plastic bags and their purses stolen.

Police have said blood samples from Yates linked him to several other women ranging in age from 16 to 47 who were killed between 1990 and 1998.

Yates is also suspected in two other Spokane-area killings and two murders near the city of Tacoma just south of Seattle. Detectives in Watertown, New York, where Yates lived a decade ago, were also investigating possible links to an unsolved murder there.

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