One year later: Family remembers fallen Clark County Deputy Matt Yates

Investigators later determined that Cole White, 27, shot and killed his mother, Jodie Arbuckle, 47, and then ambushed Yates as deputies entered the trailer. Arbuckle went to the trailer to check on her son, who had mental health issues.

White engaged in a standoff with law enforcement for hours before teams could remove Yates’ body. The trailer erupted in flames shortly after.

Since then, the deputy has been commemorated in memorial benches, dedicated rooms, a dedicated road, memorial walls and, on Monday, Springfield will celebrate its first Deputy Matthew Yates Day.

“I think it’s a day we want to celebrate in some ways because it’s Matthew Yates’ Day ... which is huge and big, but at the same time, I feel like what am I celebrating? Am I celebrating him being gone?” Tracy Yates said. “We’re just going to surround ourselves around people that are close to us. We’re going to have cookies, and we’re going to have Pepsi, and we’re going to of course be at the grave for a period of time and just try to make the best of the day.”

Milestones without Matt

The Yates family has experienced several milestones without Deputy Yates, which has been “really hard,” Tracy Yates said.

She said the family goes on a vacation together each year — usually to Florida — and after much debate, they decided to go this year without him.

“For me, I was just miserable the whole time,” Tracy Yates said. “I hate to say that but you know, you’re feeling like you’re missing that one piece.”

His daughter, AK, wanted to share the experience with her dad, bringing back some sand from the beach to lay at his grave.

Mother Lisa Yates spent her first Mother’s Day without her son, visiting the grave of her only child, who died on her late mother’s birthday.

“My heart hurts,” she said through tears. “I want my mommy and my son. It’s hard.”

Matt and Tracy Yates’ seventh wedding anniversary was May 21, though the couple was together for 18 years, Tracy Yates said.

The two met at Oesterlen Services for Youth, where they both worked in the male unit. They went to the police academy together, graduating in 2007 — the same year they started dating.

“I said, ‘Yeah, (police work) isn’t for me’ but he went on to do it, and I went back and did my business degree,” she said. “We just have always been together since — inseparable.”

On May 21 this year, someone sent flowers to the Yates’ home and Tracy Yates stayed home and spent time with her kids.

AK made the basketball team shortly after her father’s death, and she called her dad’s number to share the news out of habit, Tracy Yates said. The family is big into sports, and Matt Yates played basketball three days a week, so he would have been proud of his daughter.

Coping in the year since

Lisa Yates has found comfort in her Christian faith and in support from family members with whom she remains close and in regular contact, she said. Her older brother, Otis Williams, has always championed his little sister, and the two have become even closer over this past year.

A support system is critical following a loss like this, Tracy Yates said. Having someone to talk to during difficult moments eases some of the pain.

“There’s days I wake up and I’m like, ‘OK, I’m good,’ and by 2:00 something has triggered me, whether it be I can’t reach the syrup that’s on the top shelf of the cabinet that I would yell for him, whether it’s I had a flat (tire),” she said. “Just the things that you’re used to calling on your spouse.”

The deputy was known for his compassion and gentleness, and his family hears a story about him “everywhere we go,” Tracy Yates said.

Many of these stories were unknown to her, she said, and in one case, a woman at the grocery store told her that Matt Yates paid for her groceries at Kroger when her card wasn’t working. She said the woman sent her the same amount that the deputy had paid and told her to take her children to dinner.

“It was just an everyday thing for him that he did, and he just went on about his business; he never shared it when he came home like, ‘Oh guess what I did today?’ Tracy Yates said.

The deputy’s mother said she is grateful for the accolades and honors bestowed upon her son in the year since his passing, but says she is most grateful for her memories and the love she and her son shared.

“People still tell me how kind he was, how they loved him,” Lisa Yates said. “He was brought up with a Christian background and love for all people. My mother instilled love in us and a desire to help people, and she stressed the importance of being there for your family. That’s what we tried to instill in Matt.”

Having her husband be recognized and celebrated so often has been great, Tracy Yates said, but it can also be difficult to replay those memories time after time.

“(AK and I) talk about this; there’s some things that she’s like ‘I just don’t want to go,’ to and I’m like ‘That’s fine,’ because I have to think about her, and it’s kind of like when a scab heals ... it just replays all over,” Tracy Yates said.

The family is grateful to have the physical places memorializing Matt Yates, though, having a variety of places to go to remember him. Tracy Yates said she and AK often drive by and look at his sign on National Road.

“It’s the same sign that was there yesterday, but we planted flowers there, we hung a flag,” Tracy Yates said.

Tecumseh Local Schools, which has served chocolate chip cookies on Fridays, named their cookie after him, Tracy Yates said. She said he loved chocolate chip cookies and Pepsi.

“Every Friday was cookie day at Tecumseh, and he wasn’t supposed to be in that area, but he made his way out there to get that cookie,” she said.

July 24, 2022

The morning that Matt Yates was shot and killed, he was dispatched to a call unrelated to the Harmony Estates shooting, Tracy Yates said. He got up from bed, put on his vest and took the trash out on his way to work.

The deputy was rerouted to the trailer park to respond to shots fired.

Tracy Yates said shortly after her husband left, she got a call from a friend who asked if he was OK.

“I said, ‘Yeah, he just left here. Like, what are you talking about?’” Tracy Yates said. “She’s like, ‘OK.’ Well then that obviously had my mind racing like ‘What the heck is she talking about?’ so I immediately call Matt’s phone — no answer. I’m calling him back — no answer. I’m texting like, ‘Really, babe? Answer the phone.’ Something’s going on.”

She said that the couple had an agreement that if something bad happened, he would pick up the phone to say “I’m good” before hanging up.

Then Tracy Yates said she did the “worst thing ever.” She went to a local crime page on Facebook.

There, she saw that a deputy was down at Harmony Estates, which was in her husband’s response area. She called another deputy, who said he wasn’t sure if her husband was OK and was going to help.

“And then a few minutes later SPD showed up and so that kind of just sealed it for me that it was him,” Tracy Yates said.

She met deputies at Miami Valley Hospital, where a doctor told her that her husband had died. Everything was “a blur” after that, Tracy Yates said.

On the day of her son’s death, Lisa Yates and her brother shared a phone call in the morning marking the birthday of their late mother. Together, they celebrated her memory.

Then, two hours later, came the phone call from a member of the sheriff’s department telling her that “Matt’s down.”

Tracy Yates said her daughter, who was with her maternal grandmother at the time, found out that her dad had died when she saw a Facebook post.

“She comes downstairs and she asked, ‘Did my dad die in the trailer park?’ And my mom lost it of course, and mom’s like ‘Your mom’s on her way here.’ She’s like ‘No, nana, was that my dad that died in the trailer park? They’re saying rest in peace Deputy Yates.”

Carrying on Yates’ legacy

Matt Yates’ spirit of giving and positive outlook lives on, his wife said. She said a variety of scholarships, including one for Clark State and one given by the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 209 for people going into law enforcement, have been established in his honor. Tracy Yates has helped raise money for these.

She also led an effort to raise money to purchase 60 ballistic shields for every deputy’s cruiser.

Enon-based Brandeberry Winery in October last year raised $13,000 through the sale of its “Hero in Blue” bottle, of which it promised to donate $4 of each purchase to the Clark County sheriff’s office for the purchase. The Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 209 also helped fund the purchase.

“Matt served on the special operations team, so he was trained in shields (and) he knew how to use them, but he didn’t carry it in his everyday vehicle; that was always on the SWAT truck. So I believe when he went to the cruiser to get his hat, his helmet, that if it was there he would’ve grabbed it. If he would’ve had that he would be here,” Tracy Yates said through tears.

Otis Williams, the deputy’s uncle, said his nephew would want positive change to come from his death.

“He wouldn’t have wanted special attention. He would love it if the community would act on how he shared his love for the community. He sacrificed himself trying to make the community safe and a better place,” Williams said.

The deputy was kind, caring and goofy, his wife said. He liked to go on nightly drives to Walmart with AK, sing out of tune and have dance parties.

“I miss those times, I miss the fun things and the silly Matt,” Tracy Yates said. “He was always joking, playing, always had something to crack a joke about. (AK) reminds me so much of him because she just acts like him with the joking and stuff, so I have that piece of him, which I’m grateful for.”

Contributing writer Vicky Forrest contributed to this report.