More information will be released today, Sterk said.

Detectives continued searching Yates' home Wednesday. His wife and four of the couple's children were put up in an undisclosed hotel at county expense. Their fifth child is an adult living on her own.

Investigators also seized seven cars used by Yates in recent years and continued interviewing his neighbors.

News that detectives now have a prime suspect in the serial killings was a relief to many.

"It's been a long, hard road," said Pat McClenahan, whose sister, Shawn, became a victim of the serial killer in late 1997. "My thoughts initially were that I wanted retribution against him. But later I realized vengeance isn't mine. He'll pay the piper. I really believe that."

DNA evidence was the key in breaking open the 21/2-year investigation, said Sterk, who left a training conference in the Midwest early to fly back to Spokane and announce the news.

Investigators had previously said that at least 10 of the murders were committed by the same person and that the killer left his DNA at some of the crime scenes.

That evidence matched DNA gleaned from Yates' blood Tuesday evening, the sheriff said.

Detectives, authorized by a search warrant, had collected biological samples from Yates as he sat in the county jail. They then sent the material to the Washington State Patrol's crime lab in Spokane for comparison.

Initial reports returned Wednesday suggest Yates' DNA matches that tied to at least 12 murders, Sterk said.

Further tests are planned to confirm the match.

The DNA evidence may yet link Yates to six other murders in Washington and deaths elsewhere, Sterk said.

Detectives from as far away as New York state have called regarding unsolved murders in their jurisdictions, the sheriff said.

While with the U.S. Army, Yates was stationed at various times at Fort Drum, N.Y., near Watertown, N.Y.

Investigators in Watertown said they are looking at Yates as a possible suspect in the killing of a 20-year-old woman shot to death on Aug. 1, 1990.

"We would like to compare some information we have from our unsolved murder with the leads being developed out there in Spokane," said Lt. Joseph Goss, of the Watertown Police Department.

Goss said the Watertown victim was shot with a handgun just a few hundreds yards from where the city's police department was located at the time.

Yates has refused to talk to detectives, Sterk said. He also has declined media interview requests.

In District Court on Wednesday, Yates answered Court Commissioner Virginia Rockwood's questions clearly and concisely, his arms folded for much of the hearing.

"Yes, it is, your honor," he replied when Rockwood asked him if his name was Robert Lee Yates Jr.

He showed no reaction as Rockwood read aloud the affidavit of probable cause filed against him in the Joseph murder.

Yates raised his voice once during his court appearance, challenging a county Corrections Department report that he has a juvenile record in Colorado.

"There must be some mistake there because I never lived in Colorado," he said.

He then was led back to his cell. His next appearance will be in Superior Court. He has requested a public defender.

The affidavit in the Joseph murder shows how evidence and witness statements led detectives to Yates.

That case began Aug. 26, 1997, when two men found the badly decomposed body of a teenage girl at the edge of a farm field near Mount Spokane.

Investigators found her shoes and a brownish-gray towel discarded in the tall grass near the body, according to the affidavit.

They also discovered that a mother-of-pearl button was missing from the left cuff of the jacket she was wearing.

An autopsy found the teenager had died of multiple gunshot wounds. Fingerprints established her identity as Jennifer Joseph.

Task force detectives later determined Joseph was last seen alive about 10 days before in Spokane's East Sprague neighborhood, an area frequented by prostitutes.

A witness said she saw the girl riding east on Sprague Avenue in a white car described as a Corvette, possibly a 1975 model, according to the affidavit.

Five weeks later, Yates was stopped by a city police officer in the same area driving a white 1977 Corvette, the affidavit states.

Yates was pulled over in the area again a year later, driving a different car. A city police officer told detectives he'd watched Yates pick up a known prostitute about 1:25 a.m.

When stopped, Yates told the officer he was giving the woman a ride home. Last September, that woman told detectives Yates had agreed to pay her $20 for a sex act the night in 1997, and that she had made up the story he gave police when stopped.

Acting on evidence collected to that point, two task force investigators interviewed Yates at the city-county Public Safety Building in September 1999, according to the affidavit. "It was noted by both investigators upon initial contact that Yates seemed to be sweating profusely," the affidavit states.

Detectives later determined that Yates had purchased the Corvette in 1994 and sold it in May 1998.

They seized the car earlier this year and found blood stains on the passenger seat and a mother-of-pearl button in the floorboards.

A DNA test found that it was highly probable the blood came from Joseph, the affidavit states.

"The button recovered from the Corvette either came from Jennifer Joseph's jacket or an article of clothing with identical buttons," detectives wrote.

That gave them enough evidence to arrest Yates in Joseph's death and obtain a search warrant for his blood, which linked him to the serial killer, Sterk said Wednesday.

"The white 'Vette was really the link to Mr. Yates," the sheriff said.

WHO TO CALL

Leads sought