TX - Five Yates children drowned, Houston, 20 June 2001 *Insanity*

[IdahoMom]

There's no danger of her ever being released.

I am saying that across the board- once a crime of this nature is committed, the offender needs to be removed permanently.

The problem is when the ill go off of their meds...they could be law-abiding citizens right up until the crime is committed. ( I don't know the answer to keeping them on their meds.) The Mom that dropped her 3 babies off the pier in SF is a prime example.

 

[Jeana (DP)]

I was following this case as well, and my heart breaks listening to how she drowned her children... I believe she is mentally ill but I also believe she knew what she did was wrong. She called the police right after the drownings and confessed.. That tells me she knew she had committed a crime..

Darlin, you just proved my point above. I think the prosecutor could find 12 people who think the way that you do pretty easily.

 

[IdahoMom]

I was following this case as well, and my heart breaks listening to how she drowned her children... I believe she is mentally ill but I also believe she knew what she did was wrong. She called the police right after the drownings and confessed.. That tells me she knew she had committed a crime..

I struggle with that too.

 

[michelle]

Idaho mom, that is the stuff that freaks me out and why i am so protective of my little one. You never know what is going on with your neighbors who "seem to be normal" or anyone for that matter....Its a scary place for kids these days...

 

[nanandjim]

...The one I do believe should be sitting in jail is her azz of a husband, Rusty. :furious:

:clap: :clap: I agree. I think that Andrea is sick and should be hospitalized. However, I think that her husband is sane and should go to prison.

 

[Jules]

:clap: :clap: I agree. I think that Andrea is sick and should be hospitalized. However, I think that her husband is sane and should go to prison.

Opps, just noticed I wrote husband - should be ex-husband - or husband-at-the-time. Or how about just :loser: .

 

[michelle]

I watched the andrea yates E true story this monday and i couldnt help but notice how rustys demeanor was when he talked about the children, it was almost like it hasnt sunk in or something, i remember seeing david smith, susan smiths ex hubby talk about his boys and he would bawl like a wild man, i would cry everytime i seen him on tv....

 

[BillyGoatGruff]

NO WAY!


omg...has she no remorse? Why can't she just take the punishment that was doled out to her?

Since it's been pretty clear from the start the woman is clinically insane, this is actually more justice than I expected from the state of Texas. If the mom who bashed her kids' brains out because God told her to can be found insane, then Yates deserves a retrial. As it is, she'll never walk outside institutional walls again in her life. And state mental hospitals are no picnic.

 

[PaperDoll]

I struggle with that too.

Maybe a part of her wanted to get locked up.. :waitasec: maybe she was that mentally ill... if she knew she was going to kill her kids, I'm wondering why she didn't call the police before she did it to help stop her and maybe she would have gotten some help.. I know she was showing signs of needing help and it seemed like everyone around her were ignoring it.. I can only answer for how I think I would be if I were that mentally ill... I would hope someone would lock me up from doing something so terrible...

 

[IdahoMom]

Since it's been pretty clear from the start the woman is clinically insane, this is actually more justice than I expected from the state of Texas. If the mom who bashed her kids' brains out because God told her to can be found insane, then Yates deserves a retrial. As it is, she'll never walk outside institutional walls again in her life. And state mental hospitals are no picnic.

Her babies still got worse (killed at the hands of their mother), than she ever will. IMO

 

[michelle]

Maybe a part of her wanted to get locked up.. :waitasec: maybe she was that mentally ill... if she knew she was going to kill her kids, I'm wondering why she didn't call the police before she did it to help stop her and maybe she would have gotten some help.. I know she was showing signs of needing help and it seemed like everyone around her were ignoring it.. I can only answer for how I think I would be if I were that mentally ill... I would hope someone would lock me up from doing something so terrible...

I agree paperdoll, i have always struggled with the fact that andrea knew she was going to kill these kids and waited until she was in the clear and then she did it....I wonder too why she didnt call and say to someone, "look i am having these thoughts, ect..."

 

[Jeana (DP)]

Maybe a part of her wanted to get locked up.. :waitasec: maybe she was that mentally ill... if she knew she was going to kill her kids, I'm wondering why she didn't call the police before she did it to help stop her and maybe she would have gotten some help.. I know she was showing signs of needing help and it seemed like everyone around her were ignoring it.. I can only answer for how I think I would be if I were that mentally ill... I would hope someone would lock me up from doing something so terrible...

From what I remember, she was of the mind that she was destroying them spiratually or something to that effect because she was a bad mother. She thought she had to kill them before their souls were evil. She didn't want to be stopped because that meant the kids going to hell. Now she is merely a danger to herself.

 

[Casshew]

IdahoMom, that story about your friend's neighbour gave me chills - that poor little girl, I am so glad she recovered, what a nightmare!

 

[michelle]

I remember her saying something like she had to kill them to save their souls, pretty much on the same line as susan smith..

 

[BillyGoatGruff]

Her babies still got worse (killed at the hands of their mother), than she ever will. IMO

Only if you equate suffering and pain with the immediate physical realm.

 

[NewMom2003]

I have a friend, who had a neighbor that was mentally ill. This woman when on her meds (no one knew)was a little vacant, but was well known in the community, and seemed to dote on children. One day, she walked over to my friend's house. My friend and her 3 kids were playing around on the front lawn. Her neighbor said- "Do you want to come down to my house and feed the squirrels? They're practically eating out of my hands today." My friend and kids went to the neighbor's. The neighbor lady said "I have a treat inside for _ _ _ _." She took this little girl by the hand and proceeded downstairs to a bathroom. She took her into the bathroom, locked the door and proceeded to slit my friend's daughter's throat, and stab her in the neck several times. She then went back outside and said to my friend, "I just killed your baby".

My friend screamed for help, ran in the house, grabbed her daughter and ran with her into the middle of the street, screaming for help. Luckily a few people came out and held the gaping wound shut, while paramedics came. My friend's daughter is alive by the grace of God...all major veins/arteries were missed by fraction of an inch.

This woman went to court, and her attornies fought to keep her in the home while waiting for trial- said she was mentally ill, temporarily off her meds and a mental hospital would further her decline.To the dismay and disgust of the community, this woman was returned to her house. It came out she was left at home alone, unmedicated again. Her PO said she started having impulses to harm people with scissors/knives.

Eventually, she was held in a hospital for a short period of time. She is now living in a different neighborhood-probably with unsuspecting neighbors.

I am very sorry, but I think that once someone commits a crime of this nature, they forfeit any chance of ever returning to society again. I don't mean to sound harsh, but Andrea Yates needed to be out of the house long before any of the damage occurred. Her kids were scared of her! People said she had the look of a wild animal at times! My God, someone needs to protect the innocent people in our society, rather than slap a bandage on the mentally ill and put them back in the home. IMO

OMG IdahoMom. This is one of the most heartbreaking and scariest things I've ever read. Thank God your friend's daughter survived this. This story sent shivers down my spine.


About Andrea Yates, I'm happy to hear that she will be getting a new trial. No, I don't think she should ever be released back into society. I think she needs serious psychiatric help that she should have gotten years ago. If that a$$hole ex-husband of hers had paid more attention to her, their children, and the situations they were living in maybe this horrible tragedy would have never happened. I place alot of blame on Rusty and I think he needs to be in prison. I feel sorry for the next woman he marries.

 

[michelle]

I wouldnt want to be in andreas shoes or any mom who has killed their children....I cant imagine, death would come as a relief...

 

[BillyGoatGruff]

I agree paperdoll, i have always struggled with the fact that andrea knew she was going to kill these kids and waited until she was in the clear and then she did it....I wonder too why she didnt call and say to someone, "look i am having these thoughts, ect..."

She didn't call anyone for help with her mental state because she was a complete and utter hollowed out shell by that point,thanks largely to a non-supportive and isolating family structure, exemplified by her grinning knuckle-knob of a husband.
Insanity is far more subtle (and insidious) than simply acknowledging the difference between what SANE people know is right and wrong. That's why they need "guilty but insane" added to the jury choices. We've made immense leaps and bounds in understanding brain chemistry and mental illness over the last 30 years, but the judicial concept of insanity is mired in the late 19th century, where they expect the insane to be drooling, crapping themselves in public , and incapable of coming in from the poring rain (which sounds more like they were describing mental retardation than insanity, to me--since back then they made no distinction between the two conditions and would lock the mentally handicapped up with the insane).

 

[littlefeet]

You know most of the cases where the mother kills her children that I have heard of over the years, excluding Susan Smith of course, have involved insanity, mixed together with weird religious beliefs or some other belief about "saving" the child, whether it be their soul or just their lives.

I knew a man here locally who was one of the oldest of 6 children and luckily for him one of the two who were old enough to have been in school the day that his mother became delusional and thought that the world was on fire and threw the other four children into the well drowning them all.

I also watched a talk show about women prisoners who a governor who was on his last term pardoned from their life sentences for crimes to do with killing their abusive spouses and one woman who had drowned her baby. She too had been diagnosed with PP depression and had become delusional, that a demon was possessing her child and believed that by holding him underwater until he drowned that she would kill the demon inside him and that he would then be saved. At least that's what she said the voices in her head told her.

 

[Jeana (DP)]

She didn't call anyone for help with her mental state because she was a complete and utter hollowed out shell by that point,thanks largely to a non-supportive and isolating family structure, exemplified by her grinning knuckle-knob of a husband.
Insanity is far more subtle (and insidious) than simply acknowledging the difference between what SANE people know is right and wrong. That's why they need "guilty but insane" added to the jury choices. We've made immense leaps and bounds in understanding brain chemistry and mental illness over the last 30 years, but the judicial concept of insanity is mired in the late 19th century, where they expect the insane to be drooling, crapping themselves in public , and incapable of coming in from the poring rain (which sounds more like they were describing mental retardation than insanity, to me--since back then they made no distinction between the two conditions and would lock the mentally handicapped up with the insane).

EXACTLY.