Serving 408 Years, Killer Also Gets Death Sentence
A judge in Tacoma formally sentenced serial killer Robert Lee Yates Jr. to death by injection for the murders of two women.
On Oct. 3, the same jury that found Yates guilty of murdering Melinda Mercer, 24, in 1997 and Connie LaFontaine Ellis, 35, in 1998, agreed on the death sentence for the 50-year-old father of five.
Yates already is serving a 408-year sentence under a plea agreement two years ago with Spokane County, in which he admitted murdering 13 other people since 1975. Ten were women who, like Mercer and Ellis, died after encountering Yates while working as prostitutes.
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