Talk:Robert Lee Yates

Questions the article poses
The information here seems rather sketchy, and makes it hard to understand the chronology of events. If the following questions were answered in the article text, it'd clarify things a great deal.


 * The article states that Yates was asked for a DNA sample in 1998, which he refused to give. Why did the police stop him? What was the context for the stop? Was he already a suspect at the time?
 * "One particularly bizarre detail of Yates' murders involved the case of Melody Murfin, whose body was buried just outside of the bedroom window of Yates' family home." Why is this bizarre (beyond the obvious)? By the standards of serial killer craziness, this doesn't seem particularly bizarre. Was there more to it?
 * There's mention of a "Task Force," but what task force is this? (Yes, you can figure it out from the context -- serial killer, people investigating -- but it comes out of nowhere and is never mentioned again.)
 * In general, the timeline of events seems murky, and the article is essentially a collection of moments that don't seem to flow together or provide a clear picture of what Yates did, how he become a suspect, how he got caught, etc. On an article about a serial killer, this kind of information seems pretty basic. Even fairly pertinent details like whether he pleaded innocent or guilty in 2001 when he was facing the death penalty are simply not there.

I'm in no way familiar with the Yates case, so I don't feel comfortable improving the article myself.

This is by no means the only serial killer article on Wikipedia that suffers from this sort of problem -- a lot of them have things like arrest dates and body counts, but they're presented in a way that makes it hard to understand what exactly took place. I suppose coming up with sources for some of these things is a little tricky, but on the other hand, given that there are trial records and the like, I'd assume that a lot of solid information actually available. Then again, diving that deep into the topic is probably not the kind of thing most people would do for fun, so I guess it's a little hard to blame anyone for it... -- 85.76.0.16 (talk) 12:32, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Robert Lee Yates. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20140212015914/http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2022883256_deathpenaltyinsleexml.html to http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2022883256_deathpenaltyinsleexml.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 23:41, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

External links modified (January 2018)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Robert Lee Yates. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090422025822/http://www.francesfarmersrevenge.com/stuff/serialkillers/yates.htm to http://www.francesfarmersrevenge.com/stuff/serialkillers/yates.htm

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 14:56, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

Correct Date of the Discovery of Linda M. Maybin's Body
The body of Linda M. Maybin was discovered on April 1, 1998. The date was wrongly mentioned as December 26, 1997. The error has been corrected with citation duly added. HemRaj Singh (talk)

Image: Robert Lee Yates (criminal).png Reverting unexplained content removal
Hello, The articles fair use image was removed from the. When the image was removed there was no summary detailing the reason(s) for the removal. Please review this edit and provide feedback as to why it should be deleted or recovered. Thank you, Vwanweb (talk) 03:55, 30 November 2018 (UTC)