DNA tests linked him to a 1986 Pasco murder. He says he’ll plead guilty

Seven relatives and friends of a Richland contractor murdered in 1986 were in court Tuesday to see the man who ultimately is expected to admit to killing him.

The body of Robert J. McDonald, 40, was found by two kids floating in what then was known as the Pasco Boat Basin.

The case went unsolved for 32 years until state forensic scientists got a hit from recent DNA testing and notified Pasco detectives they had a suspect.

On Tuesday, McDonald’s loved ones who have long awaited justice stared at Milam as they walked by him one-by-one and left the courtroom.

Milam, now 56, will return to court Feb. 4.

Franklin County Prosecutor Shawn Sant said that’s when Milam will plead guilty to a reduced charge of first-degree manslaughter as part of a “global resolution” that included a violent rape case out of Spokane County.

Milam already is serving a 10-year sentence ordered in the rape case. If he admits to manslaughter, he will get a recommended prison term of 8 1/2 years, which will be served after the rape sentence.

But, just in case, the judge on Tuesday set a March 4 trial date after Milam formally pleaded innocent in Franklin County Superior Court to first-degree murder.

Milam is locked up with $500,000 bail on the murder charge.

He was booked into the Franklin County jail one week ago after the Spokane case was finished.

In that case, he attacked a woman at her home near Shadle Park in 1999, put a bag over her head, tried to tie her hands and dragged her into her bedroom.

Thirteen years earlier, investigators say Milam was living in Pasco when he killed McDonald.

McDonald reportedly had been hit on the head, causing a brain bleed and loss of consciousness, and sexually assaulted before being thrown into the Columbia River.

He died from drowning, according to autopsy results.

He was found in February 1986 in the shallow bay of what is now known as Schlagel Park, near Fourth Avenue and Washington Street.

Detectives found evidence of a struggle on the riverbank.

The got DNA swabs from McDonald at the time and later entered the evidence into a database. But it wasn’t until Milam was convicted in Spokane on a separate investigation that his DNA was collected and added to the database.

The DNA profile match was made once state scientists ran a regular search of unsolved cases. It solved not only Pasco’s 1986 case but the 1999 Spokane rape case.

Milam, when questioned two years ago after his arrest, told detectives he had not been at the boat basin since he was 12. He would have been 22 when McDonald was killed.

Attorney Peyman Younesi has been appointed to represent Milam on the Pasco case.

Younesi said Tuesday he had been working with his client’s lawyer in Spokane on the plea agreement that is supposed to wrap up both cases without a trial.

This story was originally published January 21, 2020 at 12:51 PM.