How a Super Bowl party led to rape accusations against Durham music promoter
The story was always the same: a promise of a job or some sort of career help, then a round of shots to celebrate.
After one shot turned to several, investigators say, he’d offer a bed or couch to sleep on — sleep that would inevitably be broken by an unwanted touch. In at least three instances, they say, the touch turned into sexual assault.
Durham police eventually charged Kendrick Lynn Yates, 35, in four separate cases spanning almost a decade, The News & Observer previously reported.
Now, newly released search warrants show how one investigator’s probe into a Super Bowl Sunday assault turned up DNA evidence allegedly connecting Yates to the older cases.
How the cases came together
Just before 6 a.m. Feb. 9, Super Bowl Sunday, Durham police were called to a West Cornwallis Road apartment for a reported sexual assault, according to a search warrant.
A woman told officers she’d seen Yates assault her 20-year-old friend at a party he’d held that night. The victim was too intoxicated to consent, the warrant alleges.
“[The woman] saw that [her friend’s] pants were down, and [she] asked Kendrick Lynn Yates what he was doing,” the warrant states. “[The woman] said she picked up [her friend] to come outside and call the police. [She] stated that is when Kendrick Lynn Yates became irate and grabbed a gun and loaded it.”
Yates told investigators he was a promoter hosting a Super Bowl party, according to the warrant. The victim would later report Yates “got her drunk by giving her multiple shots of alcohol” and that “she felt like she was drugged,” the warrant states.
As the detective assigned to the case quickly discovered, this wasn’t the first time Yates had been accused of plying women with alcohol.
In January 2016, Durham police responded to a Chapel Hill Road apartment, where a crying woman reported being sexually assaulted by Yates after he had taken her to a Raleigh nightclub to celebrate signing her as a client, according to the search warrant.
And in February 2023, an 18-year-old told Durham police that Yates had raped her after offering her several shots of vodka and a massage, The N&O previously reported.
Yates was indicted on multiple charges of rape and forcible sex offenses in the February 2025 and January 2016 cases.
Then, on April 25, a report from the State Crime Lab found Yates’ DNA was tied to sexual assault kits in all three cases, according to the search warrant. He was subsequently indicted in the 2023 case and another case alleging he repeatedly raped a child over a 2-year period when the victim was 5 and 6 years old, court documents show. It’s not clear how police tied Yates to the child assaults.
Yates was being held in the Durham County jail without bond as of Tuesday morning. A hearing on whether a judge should set his bond is scheduled for May 19, according to court records.
If you have any information on these or other cases, contact Investigator C. Park at 919-560-4440 ext. 29321.
