No Vancouver connection to U.S. prostitute murders

VANCOUVER — Vancouver Police say there is no evidence to link a Washington State murder suspect with the disappearances of prostitutes on Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

Forty-eight-year-old Robert Yates of Spokane has agreed to plead guilty to the murders of 13 women in Washington. Many of his victims were prostitutes. One of them was killed in Skagit County, south of Bellingham.

Vancouver Police Constable Anne Drennan says investigators have found no links between Yates and the 27 women who have disappeared on the Downtown Eastside.

"Our members liaised with Spokane, doing time tracking and all that kind of thing, and were unable to find any suggestion of a link between this party and any of our missing women," she says.

Yates was arrested in April. He pleaded guilty as part of a deal to avoid the death penalty.