In the summer of 1988, a young woman named Stacy Elizabeth Hawn, a 23-year-old White/Caucasian female, vanished. She was last seen alive on July 7, 1988, in Seattle, Washington. For months, her whereabouts remained a mystery, a painful void for those who knew her. The search for answers came to a grim conclusion on December 28, 1988, when her skeletal remains were discovered in a remote area south of Big Lake in Skagit County.
An examination would later reveal that she had died from a single gunshot wound to the head.
For years, Stacy's case grew cold, one of many unsolved tragedies. The break in the investigation would not come until the arrest of a prolific serial killer years later. Robert Lee Yates, a former U.S. Army helicopter pilot, was apprehended in April 2000, unmasking a monster who had terrorized Washington for years. As investigators delved into his horrific crimes, Yates began to confess to a string of murders in an effort to avoid the death penalty. Among his confessions was the murder of Stacy Elizabeth Hawn.
Yates admitted to picking up Stacy in Seattle while he was on military leave. He confessed to shooting her and dumping her body in the secluded location where she was eventually found. Her murder was just one of at least sixteen that Yates committed between 1975 and 1998. His victims were often prostitutes, and he targeted them in Spokane and other parts of Washington. He was known for shooting his victims, frequently with a. 25-caliber handgun, and leaving their bodies in rural areas, sometimes with plastic bags placed over their heads.
As part of a plea bargain for his many crimes in Spokane County, Robert Lee Yates pleaded guilty to thirteen counts of first-degree murder, including Stacy's, and one count of attempted murder. This confession brought a resolution to a case that had been unsolved for over a decade and officially named the person responsible for Stacy Elizabeth Hawn's death. Yates was ultimately sentenced to 408 years in prison for these crimes and later received a death sentence, which was commuted to life without parole, for two other murders in Pierce County.
