Andrea Yates

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Andrea Yates
Born Andrea Pia Kennedy
July 2, 1964 (1964-07-02) (age 43)
Spouse Russell Yates (divorced, 2004)
Children Noah, b. February 26, 1994
John, b. December 15, 1995
Paul, b. September 13, 1997
Luke, b. February 15, 1999
Mary, b. November 30, 2000

Andrea Pia Yates (born July 2, 1964) killed her five young children on June 20, 2001, by drowning them in the bathtub in her house. Convicted of capital murder in 2002 and sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 40 years, Yates' conviction 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,[1] 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. In January 2007, Yates was moved to a low security state mental hospital in Kerrville, Texas.[2]

Contents

[edit] Background

Andrea Pia Kennedy was born in Houston, Texas to Jutta Karin Koehler, a German immigrant, and Andrew Emmett Kennedy, whose parents were born in Ireland.[3] Kennedy attended Milby High School, where she graduated as class valedictorian in 1982. She married Russell "Rusty" Yates, a computer programmer for NASA, on April 17, 1993, and the couple moved to the community of Clear Lake City, in southeast Houston.

The Yateses announced at their wedding in 1993 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. Woroniecki had been mentoring Russell Yates since meeting him at Auburn University in 1984, and Russell had introduced the preacher to Andrea in 1992. In 1996, after several children, Andrea Yates began showing outward signs of exhaustion, which became more obvious in 1998 after three children and one miscarriage.

In May 1998, the Yateses were in Florida, and they visited there with 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 the preacher 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.[4]

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 depression and psychosis. She was successfully treated and discharged in January 2000.

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 child one month after her discharge.

Yates' mental illness resurfaced in March 2001, three months after the birth of her fifth child. Her illness was further exacerbated by the death of her father in mid-March 2001. Two weeks later, she 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 suspiciously drew a bath in the middle of the day for no apparent reason. Andrea was hospitalized the the next day after a scheduled doctor visit. Her psychiatrist determined she was probably suicidal and had drawn the tub to drown herself. Andrea would later confess to police that she had planned to drown the children that day, but she had decided against doing it then.[5]

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. Saaed's instructions to supervise her around the clock. Mr. Yates' 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.

[edit] Religious influence

Andrea Yates was raised Roman Catholic, but she recanted her former beliefs in 1992 when she submitted to Russell's mentor, travelling preacher Michael Peter Woroniecki, whom he had met at Auburn University in the fall of 1984. He introduced his wife to the preacher in 1992, before they married. Woroniecki promoted a doctrine that his followers should have "as many children as nature allows", which the Yateses both announced at their wedding they were going to pursue. (See Quiverfull.)

In the aftermath of the drownings, investigative reporter Suzy Spencer discovered letters written to Yates by the Woroniecki family that berated her for her "unrighteous standing before God". A newsletter called Perilous Times, authored by the Woronieckis the first month of 2000, was introduced into evidence at her trials to help establish the central motivating content behind her psychotic delusions.[6]

Also introduced at the retrial was a video produced by the Woronieckis in 1996. In this video, the preacher condemns what he calls the modern "husband goes to work, wife just exists, hypocritical Christian lifestyle." Although the Yateses were not mentioned by name in the video, the Yateses did receive a copy mailed directly to them from the Woronieckis when it was first distributed. The defense argued that Yates' delusions followed the video's rationale that the life she was living would ensure her children's fate in hell.

Woroniecki taught in the video that parents must preach full time on the streets, "training" their children by example, so they could be "saved;" however, Russell continued to work at NASA contrary to Woroniecki's instructions.[7]

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."[8]

Yates told Dr. Michael Welner, who interviewed her at length before her second trial, that her husband and his mother spoke openly about his mother leaving the home within a couple of weeks, and that she felt incapable of caring for the children.PPT

[edit] Psychiatric care

 This section needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.

Yates had been under psychiatric care for major depressive disorder since the birth of her fourth child in July of 1999, up until she became pregnant with another child in early 2000. In March 2001, her fifth child still an infant, and after a radical descent into severe depression following the death of her father about two weeks earlier, Yates was forcefully transported to Devereux-Texas Treatment Network by her brother and husband. She was admitted, treated and assigned to Dr. Saeed's care the following day. There began a series of various psychotropic drug treatments that, according to Russell Yates, culminated with an abrupt change to her prescribed medication two days before the filicides. He had also abruptly tapered off the antipsychotic Haldol two weeks earlier. On June 18, Dr. Saeed abruptly increased her dosage of Effexor, much faster than Russell's research indicated was appropriate. On that visit, despite Mr. Yates' reports that she was not improving, Dr. Saeed wrote in his notes that she was doing well, that he told her to focus on "positive thoughts" and suggested that she see a psychologist. Two days later, on June 20, Russell administered her medication and then went to work, leaving his wife alone with the children. In the hour between her husband leaving and her mother-in-law arriving, Andrea drowned all five children.

[edit] Filicides

On June 20, 2001, after her husband left for work at 9:00 a.m., Yates filled the family bathtub, and proceeded to drown her three youngest sons, Luke, Paul and John, placing their bodies next to each other on a bed, an arm of one of the children was placed around another. The infant, Mary, had been in the bathroom in her bassinet, crying during this time. She became the fourth victim. When the oldest, Noah, entered the room, Mary's body was still in the bathtub; after asking his mother what was wrong with Mary, Noah attempted to flee the room.[9] Noah was caught and then drowned next to his sister's body. Yates took Mary's body into the other room, laid it next to the first three, and covered all four with a sheet. Noah was forgotten in the tub.

Andrea then 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. Yates then called her husband at work saying, "You need to come home...." Rusty asked her if anyone was hurt and she replied "Yes." He then asked who and she replied "It's the children ... all of them." When Russell Yates rushed home, he found police and medical personnel had already surrounded his house.

Mr. Yates, visibly distraught, was kept waiting outside the crime scene inside his home for five hours as the medical examiner processed the children's bodies. At this time, Mr. Yates told reporters he believed it was "the illness" that led his wife to kill the children, and swore to stand by her. Nevertheless, he divorced her three years later and married another woman in 2005.

Andrea 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 from the scene.

In her second trial in 2006, her defense lawyer successfully argued that she was suffering from a severe case of recurrent postpartum psychosis, which prevented her from appreciating the irrationality of her actions.

[edit] Trials

Yates immediately confessed to drowning her children. She told Dr. Michael Welner that she waited for her husband to leave for work that morning before filling the bathtub because she knew he would have prevented her from harming the children.[10] Police found the family dog locked up after the killings; Russell Yates advised Welner that the dog had normally been allowed to run free, and was free when he had left the house that morning, leading the psychiatrist to conclude that Andrea locked the dog in a cage to prevent the dog from interfering with her killing the children one by one. 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.[11]

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;[12] 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' 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.[13]

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 has since been committed to the North Texas State Hospital - Vernon Campus.[14]

[edit] Responsibility

According to trial testimony in 2006, Dr. Saeed advised Russell Yates not to leave his patient unattended. Mr. Yates left his wife alone with the children for an hour which resulted in the deaths of the children.[15] Without consulting the doctor about his plans, and against medical advice, Russell had announced to a family gathering the weekend before the tragedy 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.[16] Andrea Yates' 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".[17] Mrs. Yates' 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 safe enough to care for the children. She said 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.[18] 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.[19]

Russell Yates contended that as a psychiatrist, Dr. Saeed was responsible for recognizing his wife's psychosis, not him. 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.[20] Andrea's birth family with the assistance of a Scientology support group and her former husband believe that the combination of antidepressants were improperly prescribed by Dr. Saeed in the days before the tragedy, was responsible for Andrea's violent behavior.[21][22]

Dr. Lucy Puyear, an expert witness hired by Yates' 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' psychosis returned as a result of the Haldol having been discontinued two weeks earlier.[23] The oral form of Haldoperidol 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.[24] Puryear also told Houston's KTRK-13 News and Good Morning America that she didn't believe Yates would have killed her children had it not been for Woroniecki's religious influences.[25]

According to medical records revealed at both trials, Russell Yates was advised by Dr. Eileen Starbranch, Andrea's first psychiatrist in 1999, that having more children would "guarantee future psychotic depression." Despite this warning, Andrea Yates became pregnant with her fifth child, Mary, only two months after being discharged from Starbranch's care in January 2000.[26] Despite Russell Yates' statement to the media that he was never told by Andrea's 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, Andrea revealed to her jail psychiatrist Dr. Melissa Ferguson that prior to their last child, she had argued with her husband against further pregnancies, citing that they had been warned by Dr. Starbranch that she might hurt the children if they did.[27]

[edit] Influence

  • Metalcore band Trivium wrote a song about the Andrea Yates case called "Entrance of the Conflagration" on their album, The Crusade. Lead Singer/Guitarist Matt Heafy wrote the song claiming that Yates was mentally mutilated.
  • Marc Cherry, the creator of the ABC-TV show Desperate Housewives was inspired by the story of the Andrea Yates drownings.[28]

[edit] References

  • Bienstock, 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

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ Not Guilty Verdict for Andrea Yates; Missing Girl's Body Found in Utah; Nancy Grace; CNN; July 26, 2006
  2. ^ KTRK-News, Houston, January 26, 2007
  3. ^ Ancestry of Andrea Yates
  4. ^ "So when the Warneckis (ph) from what I see in the letters I have from the summer of '98 to the spring of '99, they started really hammering Andrea about her faith, saying you've got to do it now, you know, believe now. The window of opportunity is closing. We won't be in your lives much longer. And it was in the summer of '99, after having been hammered for months about this, that she attempted suicide the first time believing that she was trying to save the kids, you know, because she was bad, she was evil and she wanted to kill herself rather than them." Suzy Spencer, Emotional Week Ends in Dog Mauling, Yates Trials, CNN Transcripts, March 1, 2002 Transcript
  5. ^ Suzanne O'Malley, Are You There Alone?, p. 20
  6. ^ Excerpt of Perilous Times Newsletter introduced at trial The Perilous Times Newsletter was dated January, 2000 according to Susanne O'Malley in her book "Are You There Alone?",(see footnote on p. 29)
  7. ^ 30-minute audio excerpt of the teaching portion of the video Audio clip
  8. ^ Christian, Carol; Lisa Teachy. "Yates Believed Children Doomed", Houston Chronicle, 2002-03-06. Retrieved on 2006-07-26. 
  9. ^ Although Time reported Houston police saw child-sized footprints of water throughout the house implying a chase, Yates later denied chasing Noah in a letter to author Suzanne O'Malley in November 2001. Police interview by Officer Mehl: "Did he try to run from you? Yates: "Yes." Mehl: "Did he get out of the bathroom OR were you able to catch him?" Yates: "I got him." Yates would later say that she had not chased her eldest son around the house as detectives and prosecutors later alleged and Time reported. Suzanne Omalley, Are You Alone? p.18
  10. ^ Dr. Michael Welner, who examined Yates, lists 68 reasons she knew right from wrong
  11. ^ Andrea Yates: More To The Story Time By Timothy Roche March 18, 2002
  12. ^ '"Law & Order'saved Yates," New York Post, Friday, March 22,2002, p10
  13. ^ Psychiatrist: Yates Thought Drownings Were RightJuly 19, 2006
  14. ^ Brown, Angela K.. "Jury finds Yates not guilty in drownings", Houston Chronicle, 2006-07-26. Retrieved on 2006-07-26. 
  15. ^ Yates not Grossly Psychotic before Drownings Dietz testifies; Dale Lezon; Houston Chronicle; July 13, 2006
  16. ^ Suzy Spencer, Breaking Point, p. 300
  17. ^ CNN-Larry King Live, January 16, 2005 Transcript
  18. ^ Cynthia Hunt, "Andrea Yates' Mother Recalls Conversation Days before Drownings," KTRK News, Houston, 3/18/2002[1]
  19. ^ Spencer, p. 18; O'Malley, p. 23
  20. ^ "The real question to me is: How could she have been so ill and the medical community not diagnose her, not treat her, and obviously not protect our family from her." "Rusty testified that he never knew that Andrea had visions and voices; he said he never knew she had considered killing the children. Neither did Dr. Saeed, even though the delusions could have been found in medical records from 1999...Dr. Saeed reluctantly prescribed Haldol, the same drug that worked in a drug cocktail for her in 1999. But after a few weeks, he took her off the drug, citing his concerns about side effects...Though Andrea's condition seemed to be worsening two days before the drownings, when her husband drove her to Dr. Saeed's office, Rusty testified, the doctor refused to try Haldol longer or return her to the hospital." Andrea Yates, More to the Story, Timothy Roche, Time Magazine, March 18, 2002 Article pp.1,3
  21. ^ Dale Lezon, "Yates not Grossly Psychotic before Drownings Dietz testifies," Houston Chronicle, July 13, 2006 Article
  22. ^ Rusty Yate's Commentary on "Are You Alone"
  23. ^ Dale Lezon, "Yates not Grossly Psychotic before Drownings Dietz testifies," Houston Chronicle, July 13, 2006 Article
  24. ^ Haldol Data Sheet; Half life drug standard
  25. ^ ABC's Good Morning America, March 27, 2002 Audio Excerpt
  26. ^ Yates Timeline, Houston Chronicle, January 6, 2005 Timeline
  27. ^ A few months before 11/6/01, Mrs. Yates had recalled that prior to Mary’s birth, she had told Rusty that she did not want to have sex because Dr. Starbranch had said she might hurt her children. Rusty had said, “The Lord tells us to go forth and multiply. You’re a good mother. You can handle more children.” After recounting this, Mrs. Yates asked Dr. Ferguson, “Did I do the right thing?” [Interview of Melissa Ferguson, M.D., 11/6/01.] Forensic Psychiatric Evaluation, Park Dietz, Feb. 25, 2002
  28. ^ Writer's Bio

[edit] External links

Languages