Claim: Robert Lee Yates is a serial killer.

Robert Lee Yates Jr. -LRB- born May 27 , 1952 -RRB- is an American serial killer from Spokane , Washington . From 1996 to 1998 , Yates is known to have murdered at least 13 women , all of whom were sex workers working on Spokane 's `` Skid Row '' on E. Sprague Avenue . Yates also confessed to two murders committed in Walla Walla in 1975 and a 1988 murder committed in Skagit County . In 2002 , Yates was convicted of killing two women in Pierce County . He currently is on death row at the Washington State Penitentiary .