Convicted Serial Killer Apologizes for Crimes
Trying to avoid the death penalty, serial killer Robert Lee Yates Jr. spoke to a Pierce County Superior Court jury and apologized for the “morass of evil” that was his life.
“I prepared this so I might leave nothing within my heart unsaid that needs to be said to all my victims’ families and my family and people in the communities I’ve terrorized,” said Yates, who has admitted killing 15 people since 1975.
“I’m sorry beyond what words can express,” Yates said.
The jury convicted Yates, 50, last month of aggravated first-degree murder for the slayings of Melinda Mercer, 24, in 1997 and Connie LaFontaine Ellis, 35, in 1998. Yates admitted killing both women.
Yates has already been sentenced to 408 years in prison as part of a 2000 plea agreement in Spokane County. Pierce County prosecutors refused to go along with that deal and brought Yates to trial for aggravated first-degree murder, the only crime to carry the death penalty in Washington state.
Now, the jury must decide whether to put him to death.
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