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Andrea Pia Yates (born July 2, 1964), a former Houston, Texas resident, killed her five young children on June 20, 2001 by drowning them in the bathtub in her house.^[1] She had been suffering for years with very severe postpartum depression and psychosis. Her case placed the M'Naghten Rules, a legal test for sanity, under close public scrutiny in the United States.^[2] Yates's 2002 conviction of capital murder and sentence to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 40 years was later overturned on appeal.

On July 26, 2006, a Texas jury ruled Yates to be not guilty by reason of insanity. She was consequently committed by the court to the North Texas State Hospital, Vernon Campus,^[3] a high-security mental health facility in Vernon, Texas, where she received medical treatment and was a roommate of Dena Schlosser, another woman who committed filicide by killing her infant daughter. In January 2007, Yates was moved to a low security state mental hospital in Kerrville, Texas.^[4]

Overview

Andrea Yates was born in Houston to Jutta Karin Koehler, a German immigrant, and Andrew Emmett Kennedy, whose parents were born in Ireland.^[5] Andrea has one older brother, Andrew. Kennedy attended Milby High School,^[6] where she graduated as class valedictorian in 1982. She met Russell "Rusty" Yates, a computer programmer for NASA, at Auburn University in 1984, and the couple married on April 17, 1993 and moved to the community of Clear Lake City, in southeast Houston.^{[citation needed]}

Although Andrea was originally raised Roman Catholic, she and Rusty announced at their 1993 wedding that they "would seek to have as many babies as nature allowed", a cornerstone of their newly shared religious beliefs, which were formed by the itinerant preacher Michael Peter Woroniecki. In 1998, after three children and one miscarriage, Andrea began showing outward signs of exhaustion.^{[citation needed]}

In May 1998, the Yateses were in Florida, and they visited there with the family of their preacher. Woroniecki verbally chastised Andrea and her husband, telling them that despite many years of counsel under his ministry, they were still "headed for hell." Russell would soon have a falling out with Woroniecki over the dilapidated bus he had purchased from the preacher while in Florida, but Andrea would continue to correspond with the Woronieckis through to the spring of 1999, when she received several condemning and pressuring letters from them.^[7]

In July 1999, Yates succumbed to a nervous breakdown, which culminated in two suicide attempts and two psychiatric hospitalizations that summer. She was diagnosed with postpartum psychosis.^[8] She was successfully treated and discharged in January 2000.^{[citation needed]}

Her first psychiatrist, Dr. Eileen Starbranch, testified that she urged the couple not to have more children, as it would "guarantee future psychotic depression". The Yateses conceived their fifth and final child approximately 7 weeks after her discharge.^[9]

Yates's mental illness resurfaced in March 2001, the same month her father died. Yates became so incapacitated that she required immediate hospitalization. On April 1, 2001 she came under the care of Dr. Mohammed Saeed. She was treated and released. On May 3, 2001, she degenerated back into a "near catatonic" state and drew a bath in the middle of the day; Andrea would later confess to police that she had planned to drown the children that day, but had decided against doing it then. Andrea was hospitalized the next day after a scheduled doctor visit; her psychiatrist determined she was probably suicidal and had filled the tub to drown herself.^[10]

Yates continued under Dr. Saeed's care until June 20, 2001, when her husband left for work, leaving Andrea alone to watch their five children against Dr. Saeed's instructions to supervise her around the clock.^[11] Mr. Yates's mother, Dora Yates, had been scheduled by Russell to arrive an hour later to take over for Andrea. In the space of that hour, Andrea Yates drowned all five of her children.^{[citation needed]}

The drownings

On June 20, 2001, after her husband left for work at 9:00 a.m., Yates filled the family bathtub and drowned her three youngest sons, Luke, Paul and John. She placed their bodies next to each other on a bed, placing an arm of each boy over another. The infant, Mary, had been in the bathroom in her bassinet, crying. When the oldest child, Noah, entered the room, Mary's body was still in the bathtub; after asking his mother what was wrong with Mary, he attempted to flee.^[12][13] Yates caught him and drowned him next to Mary. Yates took Mary into the other room, laid her next to the first three, and covered all four with a sheet. Yates left Noah in the tub.^{[citation needed]}

Yates called 9-1-1 and calmly asked for a police officer to come, asking for an ambulance only after it was suggested by the operator. She then called her husband at work, ordering him to come home. Russell pressed her until she told him she had hurt the children. When Russell rushed home, he found police and medical personnel had already surrounded his house.^[14]

Russell was kept waiting outside for five hours as the medical examiner processed the children's bodies.^{[citation needed]}

Yates received the officers at the door, telling them she had just killed her children. She led them to the master bedroom where they found the four youngest children covered with a sheet, lying face up on the bed, eyes still open. Noah was discovered by another officer face down in the bathtub. Yates calmly explained what she had done, and offered no resistance to the officers as she was led away.^{[citation needed]}

All five children were buried on June 28, 2001.^[15]

Trials

Although the defense's expert testimony agreed that Yates was psychotic, Texas law requires that, in order to successfully assert the insanity defense, the defendant must prove that he or she could not discern right from wrong at the time of the crime. In March 2002, a jury rejected the insanity defense and found Yates guilty. Although the prosecution had sought the death penalty, the jury refused that option. The trial court sentenced Yates to life imprisonment with eligibility for parole in 40 years.^[16]

On January 6, 2005, the Texas Court of Appeals reversed the convictions, because California psychiatrist and prosecution witness Dr. Park Dietz admitted he had given materially false testimony during the trial. Dietz stated that shortly before the killings, an episode of Law & Order had aired featuring a woman who drowned her children and was acquitted of murder by reason of insanity. Author Suzanne O'Malley, who was covering the trial for Oprah magazine and had previously been a writer for Law & Order, immediately reported that no such episode existed;^[17] the appellate court held that the jury may have been influenced by his false testimony and that thus a new trial would be necessary. (Later, in 2004, Law & Order: Criminal Intent did air the episode "Magnificat", based in part on Yates's case.)

On January 9, 2006, Yates again entered pleas of not guilty by reason of insanity. On February 1, 2006, she was granted release on bail on the condition that she be admitted to a mental health treatment facility.^[18]

On July 26, 2006, after three days of deliberations, Yates was found not guilty by reason of insanity, as defined by the state of Texas. She was thereafter committed to the North Texas State Hospital - Vernon Campus.^[19] In January 2007, Yates was moved to a low security state mental hospital in Kerrville, Texas.^[4]

Responsibility for children's deaths

Russell Yates

According to trial testimony in 2006, Dr. Saeed advised Russell Yates not to leave his patient unattended. Without consulting the doctor about his plans, and against medical advice, Mr. Yates began leaving his wife alone with the children in the weeks leading up to the drownings.^[11] Russell had announced to a family gathering the weekend before the drownings that he had decided to leave Andrea home alone for an hour each morning and evening, so that she would not become totally dependent on him and his mother for her maternal responsibilities.^[20] Andrea Yates's brother, Brian Kennedy, told Larry King on a broadcast of CNN's Larry King Live that Russell expressed to him in 2001 while transporting her to Devereux treatment facility that all depressed people needed was a "swift kick in the pants" to get them motivated.^[21] Mrs. Yates's mother, Jutta Karin Kennedy, expressed shock when she heard of Russell's plan while at the dinner gathering with them, saying that she wasn't stable enough to care for the children. She noted that her daughter demonstrated she wasn't in her right mind when she nearly choked her still-toothless infant Mary by trying to feed her solid food.^[22] According to authors Suzy Spencer and Suzanne O'Malley, who investigated the Yates story in great detail, it was during a phone call Dr. Saeed made to Russell Yates during the breaking news of the killings that he first learned that Andrea was not being supervised full time.^[23]

On August 16, 1999, during an office visit with the Yateses, Andrea's first psychiatrist, Dr. Eileen Starbranch, says she was shocked to disbelief when the Yates expressed a desire to discontinue Andrea's medications so that she could become pregnant again. She warned and counseled the couple against having more children, and noted in the medical record two days later, '"Apparently patient and husband plan to have as many babies as nature will allow! This will surely guarantee future psychotic depression."'^[24] Nevertheless, Andrea Yates became pregnant with her fifth child, Mary, only 7 weeks after being discharged from Dr. Starbranch's care on January 12, 2000.^[25] Despite Russell Yates's statements to the media that he was never told by psychiatrists that Andrea was psychotic nor that she could harm her children, and that he would have never had more children had he known otherwise,^[26][27][28] Andrea revealed to her jail psychiatrist, Dr. Melissa Ferguson, that prior to their last child, "she had told Rusty that she did not want to have sex because Dr. Starbranch had said she might hurt her children." Russell, she said, simply asserted his procreative religious beliefs, complimented her as a good mother, and persuaded her that she could handle more children.^[29]

Author Suzanne O'Malley highlighted Russell Yates's continuing sense of unreality regarding having more children:

"During the trial, he'd successfully maintained the position that Andrea would be found innocent. He had fantasies of having more children with her after she was successfully treated in a mental health facility and released on the proper medication. He worked his way through various fixes for their damaged lives, such as a surrogate motherhood and adoption (horrifying Andrea's family, attorneys and Houston psychiatrists) before giving in to reality."^[30]

Medical community

Russell Yates contended that as a psychiatrist, Dr. Saeed was responsible for recognizing and properly treating his wife's psychosis, not a medically untrained person like himself.^[31] He also claimed that, despite his urgings to check her medical records for prior treatment, Dr. Saeed had refused to continue her regimen of the antipsychotic Haldol, the treatment that had worked for her during her first breakdown in 1999.^[32] Mr. Yates added that his wife was too sick to be released from her last stay in the hospital in May, 2001. He said he noticed the staff lower their heads as if in shame and embarrassment, turning away without saying a word. The hospital had had no other choice due to the ten day psychiatric hospitalization insurance constraints of the Yates's provider, Blue Cross-Blue Shield, subcontracted by Magellan Health Services.^[33][34]

Andrea's former husband and her birth family, with the input of the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (a mental health watchdog group established in 1969 by the Church of Scientology) came to believe that the combination of antidepressants were improperly prescribed by Dr. Saeed in the days before the tragedy was responsible for Andrea's violent, psychotic behavior.^[35][36] According to Dr. Moira Dolan, executive director of the Medical Accountability Network, "homicidal ideation" was added to the warning label of the antidepressant drug Effexor as a rare adverse event, in 2005. Yates, she said, had been taking 450 mg, twice the recommended maximum dose, for a month prior to killing her children. Dr. Dolan reviewed Yates's medical record at the request of her then-husband, Russell Yates.^[37]

Dr. Lucy Puyear, an expert witness hired by Yates's defense team, countered the family's contention regarding the administration of her antidepressants, saying the dosages prescribed by Saeed are not uncommon in practice and had nothing at all to do with her reemergent psychosis. She suggested rather that Yates's psychosis returned as a result of the Haldol having been discontinued by her doctor two weeks earlier.^[35] The oral form of haloperidol (Haldol) takes 4–6 days after discontinuation to reach a terminal plasma level of under 1.5%--a medical standard for "complete" elimination of a drug from the body.^[38]

Religious minister

Numerous media outlets alleged that Yates's minister, Michael Peter Woroniecki, bears some responsibility for the deaths, reporting that he and his wife built a framework of homicidal and suicidal delusions in Yates's impressionably ill mind through "relentless gloom and doom sermonizing."^{[39][40][41][42]} She had come to believe that she was a "bad mother" who was spiritually and behaviorally damaging her children, and that it was better to kill herself and her offspring rather than to allow them to continue "stumbling" and go to hell^[43]--a staple of her minister's teaching to parents found on his 1996 video, which the Yates both received from him and watched. On the video, Woroniecki expounded that a jobless, itinerant, preaching lifestyle such as his was the only way parents could successfully train their children in the name of Jesus and save them from hell, a lifestyle Russell Yates continued to fall short of by maintaining a career with NASA.^[44][45] After viewing this video, Dr. Lucy Puryear told Houston's KTRK-13 News and Good Morning America that although Andrea would have still been mentally ill, she didn't believe Yates would have ever drowned her children had it not been for Woroniecki's religious influences.^[46]

Andrea Yates

Although psychiatrists for both the Texas State prosecutors and Yates's defense lawyers agreed that Andrea was severely mentally ill with one of several psychotic diseases at the time she killed her children,^[47] the state of Texas asserted that she was by legal definition aware enough to judge her actions as right or wrong despite her mental defect. The prosecution further implied spousal-revenge as motive for the killings, despite the conclusion of defense experts that there was no evidence to support such a motive.^[48] Although the original jury believed Yates was legally aware of her actions, they disagreed that Yates's motive was spousal-revenge.^[49] The jury in 2006 completely disagreed with the prosecution's assertions and her earlier conviction from 2002 was overturned.

In a letter to "Are You There Alone?" author Suzanne O'Malley postmarked Oct. 24, 2002, Yates's preacher, Michael Woroniecki, accused Andrea Yates of killing her children with the "sole motive" of revenge against her husband, who he claimed told him on several occasions of her "intense hatred for Rusty."^[50] In question as to why he did not come forward with such damaging testimony before or during the trial, Woroniecki claimed simply that no one had asked him.^[50] Woroniecki's accusation of Yates contradicted public testimony he made only five months earlier in a radio broadcast of the Lesley Primeau Show at CHED AM 630 in Edmonton, Canada, when he denied having any knowledge of Yates's motivations, whatsoever.^[51]

While in prison, Andrea stated she had considered killing the children for two years, adding that they thought she was not a good mother and claimed her sons were developing improperly. Yates told her jail psychiatrist, "It was the seventh deadly sin. My children weren't righteous. They stumbled because I was evil. The way I was raising them, they could never be saved. They were doomed to perish in the fires of hell."^[52]

Popular culture

• The ABC-TV show Desperate Housewives was inspired by the story of the Andrea Yates drownings, according to creator Marc Cherry.^[53]
• The Law & Order: Criminal Intent episode "Magnificat" was based on the Andrea Yates case.
• The 2008 film Baby Blues (AKA Cradle may Fall in U.K.) is based on the killings,^{[citation needed]} although the story is largely changed from the true events.
• On his song "World Gone Crazy" rapper Aaron Yates (AKA "Tech N9ne") references his last name being the same, and also references a lady drowning her babies in the lyrics: "Sick mothers drowning they babies" & "Why I got the same last name as Andrea?"
• A song by the band Trivium "Entrance of the Conflagration" is about the children downing’s. It's mostly based in Andrea's testimony.

References

• Bienstock, Sheri L. Mothers Who Kill Their Children and Postpartum Psychosis, (2003) Vol. 32, No. 3 Southwestern University Law Review, 451.
• Keram, The Insanity Defense and Game Theory: Reflections on Texas v.Yates, (2002) Vol. 30, No. 4 Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, 470.
• O'Malley, Suzanne, '"Are You There Alone?:" The Unspeakable Crime of Andrea Yates' ISBN 0-7434-6629-2, See also author website
• Spencer, Breaking Point ISBN 0-312-93871-3, See also author website

Footnotes

External links

Houston portal

• Father's website for the family
• Father's Blog (formerly a fact gathering database concerning the tragedy)
• Are You There Alone? website for Edgar-nominated book and blog on the Yates case
• Timeline of Andrea Yates' Life and Trial
• Who is Andrea Yates? A Short Story of Insanity, Deborah Denno
• CrimeLibrary review
• About.com profile
• CNN review of case
• Dr. Michael Welner, who examined Yates, lists 68 reasons she knew right from wrong. ABC News.
• PowerPoint evidence presented by expert witness Dr. Michael Welner during trial.