SPOKANE, Wash. — During an emotional sentencing hearing, victims' relatives demanded to know why a confessed serial killer took the lives of 13 people.
But Robert L. Yates Jr., although tearful and apologetic, offered no motive — not even to his sobbing daughter — as he was sentenced Thursday to 408 years in prison.
"I pray that God will right the wrongs that I have committed and that justice will bring closure," Yates, 48, told a small courtroom packed with relatives of his victims.
"Why did you do it?" asked Kathy Lloyd, sister of victim Shawn McClenahan, interrupting Yates. He did not answer.
Last week, the 48-year-old Army veteran and National Guard helicopter pilot admitted to 10 Spokane-area slayings from 1996 to 1998, and the deaths of a young man and woman in southern Washington in 1975 and of a woman in the state's northeastern corner in 1988.
Yates, a father of five, could still face the death penalty in Pierce County in western Washington, where he is charged with two additional slayings.
Spokane County Superior Judge Richard Schroeder also fined Yates $620,000 and signed him over to the custody of the Pierce County sheriff.
Family members of the victims, during sentencing testimony, confronted Yates.
"Do you have any idea what it's like to go to a cemetery for a family reunion for 25 years?" said Chris Oliver, brother of Patrick Oliver, who was killed in Walla Walla in 1975.
"He has disgraced and dishonored every uniform he ever wore," said John Joseph, father of Jennifer Joseph, killed in 1997.
Yates' 25-year-old daughter, Sasha, got no answer when she asked why the killings happened.
"I still love you, Dad, even though you did this," she said as her father looked away.
The case renewed debate about the state's death penalty laws after Yates avoided capital punishment by confessing to the murders and showing investigators where a missing body was buried. Last week, investigators using a map drawn by Yates found the remains of a woman buried in the yard of his Spokane house, beneath his bedroom window.
Many family members denounced the deal in which Yates escaped the death penalty.
"Life must be cheap in eastern Washington," said Don Oliver, another of Patrick Oliver's brothers. "Mr. Yates deserves to die."
Yates also confessed to the attempted murder of a prostitute in 1998 who subsequently escaped and survived.
A homicide task force set up in 1997 to investigate the deaths of Spokane prostitutes is still following leads in other unsolved slayings in the region, Spokane County sheriff's Sgt. Cal Walker said Thursday.
The case prompted legislators to propose making it easier to seek capital punishment by adding "serial killing" to the list of aggravating circumstances in which the death penalty may be applied.