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

[Jeana (DP)]

But in her interview she said she killed them and she thought that they would go to heaven. Then the person asked her if it was God who told her that and she said "no, it was Satan" that told her to kill them. This just doesn't compute to me why she would do what Satan wanted her to as opposed to doing what God would want her to.

Good point. Maybe she knew that God wouldn't tell her something like that, but Satan would??? I don't know. I don't speak whatever language she was listening to, thank goodness.

 

[Jeana (DP)]

Defense rests in Andrea Yates' retrial

HOUSTON (AP) — The defense in Andrea Yates' murder trial rested Tuesday after her best friend tearfully told jurors that the woman who drowned her five children in the bathtub "misses them terribly."

* * *

Prosecutors began their rebuttal case Tuesday. They have said they plan to call Dr. Park Dietz, the psychiatrist whose testimony led to Yates' conviction being overturned.

* * *
http://www.courttv.com/trials/yates/071206_ap.html

 

[tezi]

Good point. Maybe she knew that God wouldn't tell her something like that, but Satan would??? I don't know. I don't speak whatever language she was listening to, thank goodness.

Thankfully, most of us can't speak whatever language she was listening to.

I hope they find her not guilty by reason of insanity. She was clearly "not here" when she killed her children. By the same token, I think Rusty should be charged with something. Child endangerment maybe, since he knew she was incapable of taking care of them, but he still left them in her care.:furious:

 

[kk's mom]

Thankfully, most of us can't speak whatever language she was listening to.

I hope they find her not guilty by reason of insanity. She was clearly "not here" when she killed her children. By the same token, I think Rusty should be charged with something. Child endangerment maybe, since he knew she was incapable of taking care of them, but he still left them in her care.:furious:

I don't know, I have a gut feeling she's going to be charged guilty and will be sent to life in prison. Whether she should be locked up in prison can and will be debated by everyone for a long time. All I know is that 5 little angels are no longer here. And if they should charge Rusty with something, than they might as well charge his mother, her mother, her brother, the neighbors, all those doctors that she saw, the hospitals, etc. They all knew she was sick too. :furious:

 

[Jeana (DP)]

I don't know, I have a gut feeling she's going to be charged guilty and will be sent to life in prison. Whether she should be locked up in prison can and will be debated by everyone for a long time. All I know is that 5 little angels are no longer here. And if they should charge Rusty with something, than they might as well charge his mother, her mother, her brother, the neighbors, all those doctors that she saw, the hospitals, etc. They all knew she was sick too. :furious:

She'll never see one day in the prison. She's been this entire time in the psych ward in the hospital and that's where she would return. The only difference between a guilty verdict and a not guilty by reason of insanity is the hospital where she'll live. One day, she may be "sane" enough to release, but doctors seriously doubt it. She will ALWAYS be a suicide risk because when she starts to feel better after medication, etc., she realizes what she's done and wants to die. So, she'll try to kill herself. That means, she's always going to be too sick to be released. Hopefully, the jury will realize this because usually what you hear people say when they hear that there's a possibility of being released one days is that they don't want them back on the street. Well, Andrea never will be.

 

[dark_shadows]

Some links of Yates knowing right from wrong;

link
Parts of it;
Psychiatrist Park Dietz told jurors Thursday that he agreed with defense witnesses who said Yates was depressed, dysfunctional and schizophrenic, but said she still knew that what she was doing was wrong. He reiterated this claim in his testimony Friday.
Under Texas law, if jurors believe Yates knew right from wrong at the time of the killings, they cannot find her legally insane.


In the videotape shown Friday, the mother of five said, "I killed them because I wanted to save them."

But Dietz said that statement was contradicted by another one in which Yates told him she had told no one of her plans because she believed doing so would lead her to carry out the plan. "If I talked about it, it (the killings) would happen," she told the psychiatrist on the tape.

Dietz then told the court, "If it's true she believed killing the children would save them, then why wouldn't she want it (the killings) to happen?"

Of the plan to kill her children, he added, "I conclude she kept it secret because she knew it was wrong."



news link
Stephens said he overheard Yates become very agitated when she talked about the deaths to MHMRA Director Dr. Melissa Ferguson. Stevens testified that Yates told Ferguson she shouldn't have killed all of the children and that killing her daughter, the youngest, would have been enough.

In response to a question from Ferguson, Stephens testified, "she responded by saying that she knew what she was doing was wrong."


news link
HOUSTON, Texas (CNN) -- A sheriff's deputy testified Saturday he heard Andrea Yates tell a jail psychiatrist that she knew she was wrong when she drowned her five children last June.

According to the deputy, Yates told the doctor, "'I didn't mean to hurt them. I'm so stupid. I'm such a monster.'"

 

[WhiteWolf]

She'll never see one day in the prison. She's been this entire time in the psych ward in the hospital and that's where she would return. The only difference between a guilty verdict and a not guilty by reason of insanity is the hospital where she'll live. One day, she may be "sane" enough to release, but doctors seriously doubt it. She will ALWAYS be a suicide risk because when she starts to feel better after medication, etc., she realizes what she's done and wants to die. So, she'll try to kill herself. That means, she's always going to be too sick to be released. Hopefully, the jury will realize this because usually what you hear people say when they hear that there's a possibility of being released one days is that they don't want them back on the street. Well, Andrea never will be.

Jeanna, you said Andrea starts to feel better when she is taking her meds and then she knows what she has done and wants to die. Well, I think there were times she felt better on her meds during the two years she thought about killing her children, and she never said a word to anyone about what she was thinking. To me, her actions on the day she drowned her 5 children, looked to me like she had thought long and hard about a solution to her problem, and she decided she didn't need any imput from anyone else before she killed her children. Why didn't she say anything to anyone about her thoughts for two whole years? She had to have lucid moments where she should have been horrified about her thoughts.

 

[Texana]

What I don't get is if she was so religious why was she listening to Satan in the first place? If Satan was telling her to do something, why would she think that would send her boys to heaven? Satan wouldn't have any interest in their whether they went to heaven or not?

Because she's insane. Actually, if she kills them before the "age of accountability" in which they are old enough to choose for themselves, they would automatically go to heaven. The Baptist/free will/Armenian theological branch of Protestant Christianity teaches this. (as opposed to, say, the Calvinist /reformed theology, which teaches that the elect/chosen are saved no matter what age (and conversely do not go to heaven no matter how old) or the Catholic theological view, which would have more to do with baptism/confession/communion issues. (I'm fuzzier on the exact Catholic stance, so I'll hedge a little.)

Seriously, if you believe you are hearing Satan talk to you from the cartoon character voices on the television screen, does it follow that you have enough rational ability to decide that following Satan isn't a good idea?

The very point that what she did doesn't make sense (if you are trying to work out the logic of killing them to save them) seems to be an obvious point in favor of how sick and mentally ill she was/is.

The jury that convicted Rafael Resendez Ramirez (the Railway Killer that criss-crossed Texas about 6 years ago beating and bludgeoning perfectly nice strangers--from a pastor and his wife, to a school teacher, to a doctor home alone--to an elderly woman-- he targeted for reasons of his own) said that they decided he was guilty and not innocent by reason of insanity, because he was obviously eluding the police and taunting them, so he knew what he was doing was wrong. (He left behind newspaper clippings and even a toy train at one crime scene.) But Yates called 911 and therefore, she must have known what she was doing was wrong.

So jurors from the same county (Harris) do not apply the M'Naughton standard with consistent results.

 

[Adalena935]

Isn't it interesting that she was unsuccessful at two suicide attempts yet was able to kill five children. Obviously her desire for self preservation was much stronger than the need to destroy herself and hence save her children from a bad mother/residence of satan.

Have you ever heard of the phenomena known as suicide by cop, where suicidal depressed persons force law enforcement to shoot and kill them to achieve their goal of wanting to be dead?

I believe Andrea Yates was committing suicide by trying to force the state to execute her.

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/special/drownings/1266294



Transcript of Andrea Yates' confession

Associated Press


MEHL: "..Did you want the criminal justice system to punish you ..

YATES: Yes. ..."

 

[Jeana (DP)]

Jeanna, you said Andrea starts to feel better when she is taking her meds and then she knows what she has done and wants to die. Well, I think there were times she felt better on her meds during the two years she thought about killing her children, and she never said a word to anyone about what she was thinking. To me, her actions on the day she drowned her 5 children, looked to me like she had thought long and hard about a solution to her problem, and she decided she didn't need any imput from anyone else before she killed her children. Why didn't she say anything to anyone about her thoughts for two whole years? She had to have lucid moments where she should have been horrified about her thoughts.

How do you know that? She was hospitalized and treated much of that time. I don't think we've been privy to all of her medical records from those two years, only the testimony of her physicians that she was indeed suffering from a very serious post partum psychosis.

 

[Jeana (DP)]

Have you ever heard of the phenomena known as suicide by cop, where suicidal depressed persons force law enforcement to shoot and kill them to achieve their goal of wanting to be dead?

I believe Andrea Yates was committing suicide by trying to force the state to execute her.

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/special/drownings/1266294



Transcript of Andrea Yates' confession

Associated Press


MEHL: "..Did you want the criminal justice system to punish you ..

YATES: Yes. ..."

You're absolutely right. She said she had to die in order for Satan, who was living inside of her, to die.

 

[Adalena935]

Because she's insane.

I don't believe she's insane (a legal term). Depressed & suicidal, yes. Legally insane, no.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/special/drownings/4042209.html
A deputy who overheard Yates' interview with MHMRA staff the day after she arrived at the jail following the deaths of her children testified she decided to kill the children the night before.

In response to a question from Ferguson, Stephens testified, "she responded by saying that she knew what she was doing was wrong."

 

[Adalena935]

You're absolutely right. She said she had to die in order for Satan, who was living inside of her, to die.

well yeah, what else can the defense team go with but insanity? She called the cops & gave a full confession with the 5 bodies still in the house after all.

It's all they got.

I'm not buying what what they're peddaling though.

When she said the devil is in me she was telling the truth then too. what she did WAS bad. VERY BAD.

evil = bad
dictionary.com

 

[Adalena935]

How do you know that? She was hospitalized and treated much of that time. I don't think we've been privy to all of her medical records from those two years, only the testimony of her physicians that she was indeed suffering from a very serious post partum psychosis.

A juror would have to totally dismiss ALL her medical records to believe that.

Her med records say no. she was depressed but not psychotic at the time of the commission of this crime.

 

[TexMex]

You're absolutely right. She said she had to die in order for Satan, who was living inside of her, to die.

Hi Jeana

First encounter with jail psychiatrist:

Ferguson saw Yates again at 11:40 AM. "Mrs. Yates, how could this have happened?" the doctor asked.

Yates talked guardedly about a "prophecy" but couldn't explain what she meant.

"I'm so stupid," Yates wailed, hitting herself in the head with her fist. "Couldn't I have killed just one to fulfill the prophecy? Couldn't I have just offered Mary?"

"Mrs. Yates, could I tell you the truth about what's going on here?" Dr. Ferguson asked. "Your mind is playing tricks."

"No, it's not. I'm not mentally ill. It's real....The state will impose the death penalty on Satan....The drowning was the way,...Are they in heaven?"

Dr. Ferguson had treated more than six thousand patients since becoming a psychiatrist. When she saw Andrea Yates on June 21, 2001, "she was one of the sickest patients" she'd ever seen. To date, not a single doctor has disagreed with that characterization. Ferguson terminated the interview when Yates disintegrated into moaning and crying. She prescribed an additional dose of Ativan to calm her.


Houston Chronicle 6/29

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl...gs/4012569.html

Andrea Yates believed she was receiving messages from her children's cartoons and from at least two popular movies before she drowned her five children in June 2001, a psychiatrist testified today.

The former Clear Lake-area homemaker also believed she could hear Satan growling within the walls of the Harris County Jail, Dr. Melissa Ferguson said.

Jurors in Yates' capital murder trial listened closely this morning as Ferguson, the first psychiatrist to assess Yates in the jail's Mental Health and Mental Retardation unit, recounted their discussions. Ferguson was the jail's medical director of psychiatric services at the time.

She said she made her initial assessment of Yates on June 21, 2001, the day after Yates drowned her children in the bathtub at their home.

Ferguson said that, after their first meeting, she concluded that Yates "had major depressive disorder, severe, with psychotic features with onset in (her) postpartum period."

Yates told her that "she was hearing a message from the TV while the children were watching cartoons," Ferguson said.

"She said that the message had something to do with the children and herself. It was sometime in the weeks leading up to the drownings."

In addition to telling Yates that she was a bad mother, they delivered messages to the children, Yates told Ferguson.

She said she could hear the cartoons telling the youngsters, "Don't eat so much candy. Your mother is feeding you too much cereal."

Yates also told Ferguson that she had received messages from the movies The Matrix and O Brother, Where Art Thou?

She believed The Matrix had a "savior character" who spoke about "a sound of inevitability," Ferguson said.

When she asked Yates to explain, Ferguson said, "She told me it meant something, and she used the word 'ominous.'"

In O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Ferguson said, "There was what she characterized as a satanic character who told her 'You've eluded me long enough.'"

Ferguson said Yates also told her that she had heard growling noises from behind the walls of her jail cell.

"She said Satan was there," Ferguson testified.

She added: "It was indicative of the presence of delusions and the behavior of delusions."

I think she was crazy when she did this but I still believe she needs to be locked up for life where she can take her meds.

Her last Dr. took her off Haladol --an anti-psychotic two weeks prior to the killings...but left her on anti depressants. Some say this exacerbated her psychosis and delusions...

 

[Jeana (DP)]

Thanks TexMex. Either people will believe it or not. I'm not here to change minds.

 

[TexMex]

Thanks TexMex. Either people will believe it or not. I'm not here to change minds.

I live not too far from where this happened. Every doctor who has seen this woman says she's sick. But in Texas that's not necessarily legally insane.

IMO the first jury (who were death qualified, btw) knew she was nuts but there's no way a Harris Co. jury was gonna let her 'walk' from such a terrible crime so their 'compromise' was to find her guilty but give her LWOP and not the DP. This new jury is not death qualified but I still think she'll be found guilty....


Until Texas gets a "guilty but insane' type law I think AY should remain in jail for life. What if 5-10 yrs from now someone decides she's 'all better' and the court sends her home and she has flushes her meds down the toilet again (she had done it before ).....what is she capable of when off her meds? I would not be willing to take that chance. I do think she's sick but needs to stay in jail where she can be monitored, receive psych help and yes, be punished for killing five kids.

 

[TexMex]

This was interesting

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/special/drownings/4035681.html

An antidepressant that Andrea Yates had been taking before she drowned her five children in 2001 has recently been found to possibly increase the risk of homicidal thoughts, according to a medical watchdog group that says Effexor's manufacturer has not warned the public.

"Homicidal ideation" was added last year as one of the drug's rare adverse events on Effexor XR's label and on the Web site of its manufacturer, Wyeth.

Parnham said Yates suffered from postpartum psychosis and drowned the children in the family bathtub while in a delusional state, which likely was exacerbated after she was suddenly taken off Haldol, a strong anti-psychotic drug.

 

[Jeana (DP)]

I live not too far from where this happened. Every doctor who has seen this woman says she's sick. But in Texas that's not necessarily legally insane.

IMO the first jury (who were death qualified, btw) knew she was nuts but there's no way a Harris Co. jury was gonna let her 'walk' from such a terrible crime so their 'compromise' was to find her guilty but give her LWOP and not the DP. This new jury is not death qualified but I still think she'll be found guilty....


Until Texas gets a "guilty but insane' type law I think AY should remain in jail for life. What if 5-10 yrs from now someone decides she's 'all better' and the court sends her home and she has flushes her meds down the toilet again (she had done it before ).....what is she capable of when off her meds? I would not be willing to take that chance. I do think she's sick but needs to stay in jail where she can be monitored, receive psych help and yes, be punished for killing five kids.

I know. Here in Dallas, two women were recently found not guilty by reason of insanity and in one of them, I almost fell over. The other it was obvious, as it is with Yates.

What you said about her getting better simply isn't going to happen. She becomes suicidal. That will never be a condition in which she would be released from the prison hospital.

 

[TexMex]

I know. Here in Dallas, two women were recently found not guilty by reason of insanity and in one of them, I almost fell over. The other it was obvious, as it is with Yates.

What you said about her getting better simply isn't going to happen. She becomes suicidal. That will never be a condition in which she would be released from the prison hospital.

Sorry I meant if she's found NG by reason of insanity and put in a private facility and someday the court decides she's better. Probably it would never happen but then again with courts and lawyers involved you never know

I think AY was crazy and was let down in some ways by the health care /insurance system and her husband Rusty ....

I think RY did try and help his wife. But when the doctors advice
conflicted with his plans he ignored it. He wanted another child
even after a psych told him it WOULD bring on another bout of PPP. RY decided he would recognize the signs and start the meds and everything would be fine.

Another doc told him not to leave his wife alone --Dr. had just taken her of Haladol, an anti-psychotic. RY did get his mother to come help but for some reason he decided AY would be OK on her own for an hour every day. That was a huge gamble and one he lost big time.