Bio

Melisa R. Bates was born in 1984 and grew up in St. Maries, Idaho. In school she was a good student and a strong athlete, according to people who knew her.

Mental health problems began showing in her early teens. Her defense attorney said mental illness started then and that she had multiple diagnoses. Her aunt, Deann Turcott, said Melisa began to disconnect from the world and from reality in her early teens. Turcott said Melisa came to believe people were abusing her when they were not.

Melisa married at 17 and later divorced. She is the mother of a son and a daughter.

Her aunt said Melisa spent nearly two years in a psychiatric hospital in Orofino and showed improvement while she was there. Turcott also said Melisa later stopped taking her medication and got off track again.

Melisa’s lawyer said that with proper medication and therapy she could be rehabilitated. Family members asked that she be kept safe because of her mental-health condition.

Murder Story

On May 15, 2011, at a home about eight miles south of St. Maries in Benewah County, Idaho, Melisa R. Bates shot and killed her uncle, Robert Dean Marek, 43. Investigators said human remains, mostly bone, were found in a hastily arranged fire pit in the middle of Marek's lawn. The body was burned along with tires, wood, and hay and was ringed by rocks and cinder blocks.

Evidence presented at the preliminary hearing said Bates also beat Marek with a metal rod. Deputies said the victim was unrecognizable when they found him. The case began as a missing person report from Stimson Mill when Marek did not show up for a shift.

Two witnesses said they saw Bates at Marek's home the night he was killed. They said she told them she had plumbing problems and both noticed the backyard fire burning in the rain. One witness said Bates kept saying the water flowing at Marek's was "blood red." Bates let one man inside the house and he went out back near the fire pit.

Bates was arrested two days after the murder at a boat launch in Bayview on Lake Pend Oreille as she prepared to cross the lake to Lakeview. Investigators said a video-recorded interview showed Bates admitted shooting Marek, burning his body, and throwing the gun into the St. Joe River. Items investigators found at the home included a wedding dress, a graduation certificate from a life-skills program, a court judgment document from a domestic violence case, and a Social Security document.

On April 4, 2012, Bates entered an Alford plea to a charge of second-degree murder. On May 25, 2012, a judge sentenced her to an indeterminate life term with the fixed portion set at 30 years. The judge cited a mental-health evaluation that said Bates suffers from severe mental illness and recommended she be held in a secure facility. Melisa R. Bates was born in 1984. The case lists one victim.