HOUSTON, Texas (AP) -- Seven-year-old Noah Yates struggled so hard as his mother drowned him that his small fists remained stiff and raised over his head hours later, the medical examiner testified Wednesday.

Noah also had deep bruises consistent with someone holding him down, as did 6-month-old Mary and 5-year-old John, Dr. Luis Sanchez said at the third day of Andrea Yates' murder retrial.

Prosecutors have said they will rest their case after Sanchez testifies. During the trial's rebuttal phase, they plan to call Dr. Park Dietz, the psychiatrist whose testimony inadvertently caused Yates' conviction to be overturned.

Dietz, also a consultant to the "Law & Order" television series, told jurors in Yates' first trial that one episode depicting a woman who drowned her kids in a bathtub and was acquitted by reason of insanity aired before the Yates children died.

No such episode existed, attorneys learned after Yates was convicted but before jurors sentenced her to life in prison.

Yates again has pleaded innocent by reason of insanity.

The defense says she suffered from severe postpartum psychosis and did not know that drowning her children was wrong.

Yates is being tried only in the deaths of three of the five children, a common practice in cases of multiple slayings.

The judge is not allowing prosecutors to show evidence about the injuries suffered by the other two children, 2-year-old Luke and 3-year-old Paul.

If convicted, Yates will be sentenced to life in prison because prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty. After the first jury rejected death, prosecutors could not seek execution again because they did not find any new evidence.
Source
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She should be shot.

Better, she should be drowned just like what she did to her poor children.

You know, while I absolutley abhor what she did, I am torn on this one. If she was indeed suffering from PPP (post partum psychosis), then her husband is equally culpable (or more so) for leaving her alone with the children.

I had PPP after my second kid was born. I spent hours locked in the bedroom screaming until my voice gave out. I was completely irrational. My doctor said "It will pass." Having experienced the temporary insanity of it, this one is such a tough call for me.

I'm with you on this one. It's so completely obvious and documented that she was mentally ill. I have a hard time with this one too.

I just cannot imagine being so depressed that you would kill all of your children... My 2 drive me insane at times...but dang...

It's not depression Nyx, its psychosis - as in psychotic - as in hearing voices and not recognizing reality. The woman was mentally ill and her husband knew and left her alone with the kids.

Yeah AY was bad off. She'd been in and out of mental institutions and advised not to have any more children yet they still kept having children! Then she got involved with that religious maniac that her husband followed and for a while they all lived in a van....she was just really bad off. Horrible situation. She should have been in an institute and this never would have happened, IMO.

I don't think he is to blame. She has had it with past kids and she should have taken the proper steps before the child was born to ensure herself. She was probably telling him everything was alright and he wasn't in her head before hand or then, so he couldn't have known she was going to flip out to be a bad mother and kill their children.

Update: Yates was psychotic, former jail nurse says

HOUSTON, Texas (AP) -- Andrea Yates stared at her cell wall the day after she drowned her five children in a bathtub and appeared to be talking to someone who wasn't there, a psychiatric nurse testified Friday.

John Bayliss, who worked in the mental health unit of the Harris County Jail, testified in Yates' second murder trial that the suburban Houston woman slowly turned to look at him only after he repeatedly called out her name. She then turned back to the wall and continued rapidly mumbling and picking at her hair, he said.

"(It) is something I had not observed in any other patient I had dealt with," Bayliss said.

Yates was convicted of murder in 2002, but the conviction was overturned last year because of erroneous testimony. She has again pleaded innocent by reason of insanity.

Dr. Melissa R. Ferguson testified Thursday that she evaluated Yates the day after the children -- 6-month-old Mary, 2-year-old Luke, 3-year-old Paul, 5-year-old John and 7-year-old Noah -- were drowned in their home in June 2001. Ferguson, then the medical director of psychiatric services at the Harris County Jail, said Yates at first showed no emotion but then started crying and yelling.

"She screamed, 'Couldn't I have killed just one to fulfill the prophecy? Couldn't I have offered Mary? Are they in heaven?"' Ferguson said.

Ferguson testified that Yates said her children were not righteous and had stumbled because she was evil, and they could never be saved because of how she was raising them. Yates then paraphrased Luke 17:2, saying, "It is better for someone to tie a millstone around their neck and cast them into a river than to stumble," Ferguson told jury.

She added that Yates did not believe she was mentally ill.

Prosecutors, who rested their case Wednesday, contend Yates knew her actions were wrong because she called 911 after the crime and later told a detective she killed her children because she was a bad mother and wanted to be punished. They also said she did it after her husband went to work and before her mother-in-law arrived.

Ferguson testified that Yates showed signs of paranoia when she reported hearing voices and said the media had put cameras in her cell, but prosecutors showed the jury pictures of Yates' cell that had a surveillance camera and intercom.

When she asked Yates if she was suicidal, Ferguson testified, Yates said, "I cannot destroy Satan; only the state can." Ferguson said Yates believed President Bush was still the Texas governor, and that Yates said that he would destroy Satan.

On Thursday, a former case worker testified that the day after the drownings, Yates asked for a razor to shave her head. She said "666" -- the "Number of the Beast" in the Book of Revelation -- was on her scalp, Corey Washington testified.

Washington said he stood to look at the back of Yates' head and noticed three marks that he was told were scabs where she had picked at her scalp.

"I kind of buckled a little bit," Washington said.

Prosecutors still plan to call Dr. Park Dietz, the psychiatrist whose testimony inadvertently caused Yates' conviction to be overturned. They said that he would testify during the trial's rebuttal phase, after the defense presents its case.

Dietz, also a consultant to the "Law & Order" television series, told jurors in Yates' first trial that one episode depicting a woman who drowned her kids in a bathtub -- and was acquitted by reason of insanity -- aired before the Yates children died. No such episode existed.

Yates, who turns 42 on Sunday, will be sentenced to life in prison if convicted. She is being tried in only three of the children's deaths, a common practice in cases involving multiple slayings.
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Seemly any idiot can have kids... I'm still hoping for her to be put to death.

She deserves it

The husband should be jailed too. He kept pushing her to have more kids even though he knew she was mentally ill.
I don't care if she was ill during the murder. Some crimes should mandate execution no matter what.

Update: Yates was warned not to have 5th child

quote:
HOUSTON, Texas (AP) -- A psychiatrist testified Friday that she warned Andrea Yates not to have any more children after she tried to commit suicide twice within months of having her fourth child in 1999.

"I could pretty much predict that Mrs. Yates would have another episode of psychosis," Dr. Eileen Starbranch told jurors in Yates' second murder retrial.

Starbranch said Yates suffered from postpartum psychosis, which she said causes a mother to have delusions and lose touch with reality, making it much more severe than postpartum depression.
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She knew at the time she would be a danger of having another child, yet she did and all those innocent children died at the hands of her.

Surely her husband had something to do with her having another child?

I do not remember the entire case, nor did I follow it exceptionally closely, but I believe I remember something about her husband making a statement that he understood that she was unbalanced (after having the last child) but he had to go to work and she looked fine to him. Surely the doctor shared with him that his wife was having mental illness issues. He should, I believe, at least have gotten in some sort of trouble for child endangerment - leaving the children with someone he knew was unsuitable - even though it was his own wife and their mother.

u shouldnt be able to plead for insanity, its a sad accuse for murder.

So the husband was just suppose to drop everything in his life, including work?

I don't know if the shrink even had permission to give out details of their client to her husband. Privacy laws are enforced.

DA: Yates' Husband Not Criminally Responsible

"Russell Yates is a victim," Mallett said. "He is a victim of a system that didn't care for his wife when he was trying to get care for her. And he will carry this memory with him for the rest of his life."

Yates' Husband Offended By Prosecution

Yates was asked if he saw the signs and possibly could have prevented the murders.

"No. People have said, 'Why did you leave her at home that day?' A lot of people have talked about responsibility and what is the responsibility of a loved one when they have a sick family member? What's the responsibility of the family member who is sick? What is the responsibility of the doctor and the hospital and the insurance company?" Russell Yates said.

"Andrea's responsibility in this was just to take her medication, try to dress herself, take a shower when she could. She didn't really have much responsibility -- eat, drink. We relieved her of all other responsibility -- Mom and I did at home. Our responsibility in this was to seek medical treatment for Andrea, which we did and offload her responsibility at home so Mom and I cared for the kids that entire period," Russell Yates said.

Russell Yates said that no one realized that Andrea Yates was dangerous.

"She didn't step up and say anything that was so outrageous that made us concerned. She just was quiet and stared ahead. We didn't know she was psychotic. We just thought she was depressed. But she was staring ahead and we would see her the same way we'd always seen her," Russell Yates said.

"We knew how much she loved the children and if she didn't say anything, we assumed she was thinking the same thing she always thought. So, no, we didn't see her as a danger," Russell Yates said.

The medical community is partly to blame, according to Russell Yates.

"The real question to me is how could she have been so ill and the medical community not diagnose her, not treat her and I'll say, not protect our family from her," he said. "My responsibility was to protect our family from people outside our house. You never think you have to protect somebody from inside your house. It's really the medical community's responsibility to identify psychosis. I'm not a medical professional. I don't even know what psychosis is. I know now, but didn't then."

Yates believes that there was nothing he could have done to prevent the tragedy.

"A family can't protect itself from a psychotic person. (Andrea) had delusional thinking. She was psychotic. She thought it was imperative that she kill the children. And if it hadn't been about drowning when we were gone, it would have been by smothering at night or poisoning them at breakfast. It would have been some other way," Russell Yates said.

suerly after finding her guilty of killing her first child, they should have locked her up in a mental home or taken her other kids, that she would soon have, off her.

Thanks for that article Kratos. Like I said, I didn't follow the case very closely.

It still just strikes me as wrong that they just 'assumed' she was depressed and because she didn't say anything out of the ordinary, that she was fine. I mean, if I hire some person out of a mental institution who didn't start yelling somethig crazy in the interview, wouldn't I be responsible if something happened to my children?

The father is just as responsible for his children as the mother is. And more so than the medical community.

Its just a tragedy.

If she had postpartum psychosis that bad then why didn't she give them away or do something else besides drown them. I have memories from time I was a toddler so I anyone that is human can only imagine what those children were put thru. Murder is murder. She should be tried on all counts. She should be drowned to point of not dead yet and it should be performed over and over. She may have been sick at the time but she lived a normal life still. So for her to now say she is pleading innocent by sanity-is a bunch of crock. I think mothers that kill they're children are severly depressed and need help but you also know when to cross the line. I had postpartum after my first child was born but not that kind of P.D. stage. And I never once wanted to hurt my child. That womans kids were angels and are now in a better place with God where they can't be hurt.
I just don't see how someone could do this.

What no one seems to grasp is that the woman was psychotic. She didn't just have a bit of depression. Also she'd been in mental hospitals before. It's not like she just killed them out of the blue. Unless you've been psychotic you have no idea what you're capable of doing.

Update: 'I thought they would go to heaven'

HOUSTON, Texas (AP) -- A videotaped jail interview played for jurors Monday showed Andrea Yates weeping after she told a psychiatrist why she drowned her five children in a bathtub.

"In their innocence, I thought they would go to heaven," Yates told Dr. Lucy Puryear about five weeks after the June 20, 2001, drownings. "I just -- since they were so young," she stammered before trailing off and starting to cry.

Puryear, an expert on reproductive-related psychiatric disorders, was called by the defense at Yates' murder trial.

Yates has again pleaded innocent by reason of insanity. If the jury agrees, she could be committed to a state hospital, with periodic hearings to determine whether she should be released. A guilty verdict would mean life in prison.

An appeals court overturned her 2002 conviction because erroneous testimony might have influenced the jury.

Her attorneys say Yates suffered from severe postpartum psychosis and did not know that killing 6-month-old Mary, 2-year-old Luke, 3-year-old Paul, 5-year-old John and 7-year-old Noah was wrong.

Court ended at midday Monday because of a scheduling conflict. Testimony resumes Tuesday. Defense attorneys had said they planned to wrap up their case this week.

On Friday, Dr. George Ringholz, a neuropsychologist who evaluated Yates about six months after the children were drowned, told jurors that Yates was suffering from a delusion and thought killing the children was right.

Yates' attorney Wendell Odom said Friday he is not sure whether the defense or state will call Rusty Yates, who divorced Andrea Yates last year and remarried in March.

Rusty Yates, who was sworn in as a witness before the trial began, has repeatedly said he believes Andrea Yates was insane at the time of the killings, and he testified for the defense at the first trial. If the defense calls him this time, it may wait until the rebuttal phase.

Prosecutors say Andrea Yates may be mentally ill but did not meet the state's definition of insanity, because she called 911 to report the crime and later told a detective that she killed the youngsters because she was a bad mother and wanted to be punished.

After the defense rests its case, prosecutors will begin rebuttal testimony.
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Make the world a better place, kill her.

Update: Psychiatrist: Yates didn't seem psychotic

A psychiatrist who treated Andrea Yates about three months before she drowned her five children told a jury Tuesday that she never appeared psychotic, not even at an office appointment two days before the killings.

Dr. Mohammad A. Saeed, who treated Yates at a mental hospital for 24 days in April and May 2001, said he nonetheless prescribed an anti-psychotic medication because Yates' husband said she had responded well to it previously.

Saeed said he later switched Yates to another anti-psychotic drug, Haldol, but tapered it off during an office visit in early June, three weeks after she had been released from the Devereux Texas Treatment Network.

He said he thought she was suffering side effects but should stay on antidepressants because he believed she was depressed.

"I did not personally observe any signs of psychosis," said Saeed, a witness during the prosecution's rebuttal phase, which started Tuesday after the defense in her murder trial rested its case.

Yates, 42, is being retried because her 2002 capital murder conviction was overturned by a court that ruled erroneous testimony might have influenced the jury. She has again pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

Her attorneys say she suffered from severe postpartum psychosis and did not know it was wrong to kill 7-year-old Noah, 5-year-old John, 3-year-old Paul, 2-year-old Luke and 6-month-old Mary.

Prosecutors say Yates knew her actions were wrong because she waited until her husband left for work to drown the children in the tub and then called 911, and later told a detective that she was a bad mother and wanted to be punished.

Under cross-examination, Saeed maintained that he did not see Yates in a psychotic state. His notes from a May 2001 office visit indicate Yates was almost catatonic, had not been eating and drinking, and did not answer any questions – and he had recommended that she undergo shock therapy.

He was also questioned about a June 18 office visit – two days before Yates drowned her children.

During that visit, Saeed said, Yates was quieter than usual, and her husband said she initially improved after discontinuing Haldol but had started to decline. Saeed said she denied any psychotic symptoms or suicidal thoughts.

Saeed acknowledged that if someone is psychotic, discontinuing an anti-psychotic medicine could make the person's condition worse.

Earlier Tuesday, Yates' defense rested after her best friend tearfully told the jury that Yates still talks about activities she did with her children and "misses them terribly."

Debbie A. Holmes, who met Yates about 20 years ago when both were nurses at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, said she continues to visit Yates and writes her letters.

Holmes said that in the spring of 2001, after Yates' father died and her fifth child was an infant, Yates appeared to spiral downward. Yates lost weight, could not concentrate and did not bathe or brush her teeth for days before she was hospitalized again, Holmes said.

"She says, 'I feel the darkness coming back. Please pray that God will come into my heart,'" Holmes testified. "She made a comment about not letting Satan come back."
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Even her own doc is saying she is lying now.

Yes exactly, I think she was being a selfish b**ch!! Like the docs said-she was sick but not mentally ill. Grant ya you would have to be sick to kill your kids but she killed them and called 911 and drowned them all before her mother n law arrived to help with the kids. She didn't snap and do this. She knew what she was doing!!

Well either way it's a no win situation. We know she had been mentally ill because she had been in hospitals and she had been on anti-psychotic meds. Of course the doc is going to say she didn't seem psychotic NOW because he wants to keep his license. I'm not trying to defend her, I'm just saying that we need better care for the mentally ill. It needs to be recognized. It just needs to be recognized.

My feeling is that (1) She was NOT insane at the time although was suffering terribly from various mental afflictions. If she were insane I can't see how she would ever have phone 911 to report what she had done (she woudn't have been aware it was wrong - according to the legal definition of insane - the McNaghton Rule)
(2) Her husband, the aptly named RANDY, should have kept his pecker in his pants and clearly seen she needed desperate help and instead of inflicting more children on her should have had her taken to a hospital LONG ago.
3) she should receive the death penalty and he should be charged with culpable homicide.

I am aware of the McNaughton Rule but who is to say that she knew what she had done was wrong? She believed that she was sending them to Heaven because how she was raising them was wrong. I think that the McNaughton Rule needs a bit of re-vamping myself since a psychotic person is going to go from one extreme to the next.
Again I'm not trying to defend her but anyone who hasn't ever had a pyschotic episode won't ever understand. Just what I believe.

Indeed, I hink she was in the depths of a psychotic episode during the actual murder process, then when she came out of it, she called the police. I don't think the death penalty is warranted here, life without parole, yes. Not death.

This woman disgusts me.
I stand by what I originally said when I first heard about this case:
"Take her to the edge of death four times, bringing her back to complete health and kill her the fifth time. The death penalty is the only answer for her. Killing kids has no excuse, even insanity.
When will the husband be prosecuted as an accessory for having his head up his a$$ and letting this happen?"

Well thanks! Finally someone else with a viewpoint similar to mine! I think life w/o parole and I think she should be treated for her mental illness. I know she had to be psychotic. Mental illness is such a tough issue that I don't think her husband should be charged with anything, he's going to suffer enough w/o his 5 children. I think her pdoc needs to look at his practices, because that woman should have been institutionalized. This would never have happened if she was. And if she hadn't fallen in with religious zealots.

You're just nicer than me. Although, I wouldn't blame the doc -- I imagine he told them to lock up the crazy lady up, since it is the family's responsibility to take care of her. Basically, to drag her to the nut hatch and chunk her in for good.
And I will just hush about the religious angle, in enough fights about religion today like it is.

Someone made an excellent point in the Annelise Michael thread in the Ghost section that religion just exploits the mentally ill and I totally agree with that.
I just think mental illness is a hot issue with me. I've had to grow up around it and everything and I know how the mentally ill are looked at. But it is also the doc's responsibility to institutionalize her when she needs it because the family isn't trained to know when she needs to be locked up for her own protection. She'd been in more than once already.

I dunno. I just get bent outta shape on these cases involving the mentally ill because so many people just write mental illness off or they just blame the mentally ill person. Blah.

I grew up next to an uncle who is a schizophrenic, so I usually sympathize with the mentally ill. Usually.
In this case however, the sheer determination it takes to drown your own children, one of which struggled against you, don't make me think she was in the grips of her illness. It is more likely she was in the grips of some kind of fervent religious belief, and therefore not crazy, but determined to do what she thought she had to, whatever the results.
Who knows, maybe she thought God was testing her, like Abraham. Whatever her motivation, I don't buy the poor, crazy Andrea argument. Crazy people sit in the corner and giggle at the jokes their voices tell them, or run naked through the woods, or eat Cheetos out of a doggy-dish, they don't methodically drown their own offspring. If a mentally ill person goes from being self-destructive, as most violent mentally ill people are, to destroying those around them, then I can only equate them with the criminally insane. Hence, my belief that she deserves the death penalty, about five times over, but I would settle for life without parole, just to get her off the streets.
And I still believe the husband is responsible, not only for allowing it to happen, but didn't I read somewhere that the religion thing was his idea. I'm not sure, I could be wrong...

Yes but fervent religious beliefs can harm the mentally ill. That's why it's called a religious mania. My natural dad and uncle were both schizophrenics and there's a lot of mental illness in my family. I myself suffer. It's really hard to determine what a person would do in a psychotic state.
I think you're right about the husband and the religion thing. I'm not a big fan of extremism or fanaticism and I think the religion they were part of was both of these things.
I'll accept whatever the jury decides but you must agree that there are a lot of truly mentally ill people who really belong in psychiatric wards who are in prisons. Our society still just doesn't get the mentally ill yet. That's my real point. I mean she was in a mental hospital more than once and she was on Haladol so she did at least suffer from some delusions at one point.
I dunno. I guess we never truly will.
Now agree with me or I can drive to Texarkana TX because I'm just over here in Little Rock, dammit.

Old West shoot-out?
I don't think anyone understands mentally illness, and yes there are people in prison who probably would be better served by being some where they can be helped. But, as someone was a education/psyche major for two years in college, I don't know where those places are. Seems to me patients are often over-medicated for simple problems since too many psychologists and psychiatrists are just plain lazy. It works on schizophrenics, my uncle at least, but I am not sure about other disorders. For example, had a friend in high school whose mother had her on Xanax, among other things, because she was bisexual. I can forgive the mother her ignorance, this was in Maine -- hence why I am a big fan of the people up there, but I cannot forgive the psychiatrist that diagnosed my friend as delusional. We can map genomes, we can go to the moon, but we can't figure out to help most mentally ill people. Pretty sad state of affairs.

i hate this case exspecially because the husband still stands beside his wife after what she did to them, also when he first heard what she did he said 'i forgive her!" wtf? i would be angry

No - I have to give you that coldethyl, I have also never had a psychotic episode and if that is really what she was in the grip of then I cannot presume to judge how she must have felt or why she did what she did. Maybe the death penalty is a little harsh here but I certainly think she should pay with her life, in terms of a full life sentence with no mucking about with parole for good behaviour.

I agree! Xanax for bisexuality!?! Some of these pdocs need a good smack! That's just plain ridiculous! I know exactly what you mean tho. I don't know where to put them or how to treat them either. But maybe if they had been treated before they offended they may never have offended. Who knows?
It's funny too. The meds never really worked for my uncle and he was hilarious. I never grew up fearing the mentally ill just because I got a real kick out of him. My natural father however was a different story. He was really sick and he used to think my mom was always trying to poison him. He was horrid.
Anyway I also agree with you about the pdocs being lazy at times. The pdoc I see now is lazy. He is just not the kind of psychiatrist I'm used to. I'm not too fond of him, really.



Too true.

I have a real soft spot for rhis lady and her idiot husband. It is next to the oak tree in my back yard. Let us stop mucking around and do what needs to be done. Give them what they deserve a .38 hollow point in the back of there heads and a burial in the previously mentioned soft spot. Mentally ill my dimpled butt. They knew what they were doing when they both agreed to stop her medications. By the way I have lots of soft spots for all those sittiing on death row, line them up I also have a whole bunch of those .38 hollow points I mentioned.

she should definately be drowned. i heard death by burning is more painful...

Update: Jury Deliberates in Andrea Yates Trial

HOUSTON (AP) -- Jurors deliberating for a second day in Andrea Yates' murder trial asked Tuesday to review evidence from a key prosecution expert who said he found 60 examples of Yates knowing that drowning her five children in their bathtub was wrong.

The jury, which was sequestered for the night, already had deliberated longer than the four hours it took a first jury to convict her of murder in 2002. An appeals court overturned that conviction because erroneous testimony may have influenced jurors.

Shortly before a lunch break, jurors asked to review the slide presentation by Dr. Michael Welner, a forensic psychiatrist who evaluated Yates in May and testified that she did not kill her children to save them, as she claims, but because she was overwhelmed and felt inadequate as a mother.

Welner said that although Yates was psychotic on the day of the June 2001 drownings, he found multiple examples of how she knew that killing 6-month-old Mary, 2-year-old Luke, 3-year-old Paul, 5-year-old John and 7-year-old Noah was wrong.

Yates, 42, who has pleaded innocent by reason of insanity, is charged in only three of the children's deaths.

If the jurors find her innocent by reason of insanity, Yates will be committed to a state mental hospital, with periodic hearings before a judge to determine whether she should be released -- though prosecutors weren't allowed to tell that to the jury. If convicted of murder, she will be sentenced to life in prison.

During closing arguments, Prosecutor Kaylynn Williford described Yates as a woman who was overwhelmed, failing at home-schooling and feeling hopeless and helpless.

Williford brought out the pajamas that the children died in. She also displayed the crime scene photos showing four of the children laid out on a bed and 7-year-old Noah still floating face down in the bathtub.

''Is that the act of a loving mother? Were there words of comfort? Were there prayers? They didn't want to die,'' Williford said. ''The legacy of this case should be that you will hold her accountable for the deaths of these children.''

The children's father, Rusty Yates, walked out of the courtroom as Williford described Noah's intense struggle in the water and showed a close-up photo of his face after he was removed from the tub. Rusty Yates, who has said he does not want Andrea to be convicted, divorced her last year and remarried in March.

Andrea Yates started to cry after those photos were shown, but at other times looked down at the defense table without showing emotion.

Yates' attorneys said she meets the state's definition of insanity: that a severe mental illness prevents someone who is committing a crime from knowing it is wrong.

Defense attorney George Parnham said Yates suffered from severe postpartum psychosis. He said Yates thought she was a bad mother and that Satan was inside her, and that she had to kill the children to save them from hell. He said logic cannot be applied to a psychotic mind.

''It leaves intact the natural instincts of motherhood. You love. You nurture. You want to make certain that your child is safe from dangers. Every mother wants that,'' Parnham said. ''But the danger that the mother perceives is twisted, and mom sees the danger where there is no danger.''
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*crosses fingers* Please find this witch guilty!

Not guilty.

You want her to be cleared? WTF?

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Jury: Yates not guilty by reason of insanity
Mother who drowned her five children to be committed to mental hospital

HOUSTON - Andrea Yates was found not guilty by reason of insanity Wednesday in her second murder trial for the bathtub drownings of her young children.

Yates, 42, will now be committed to a state mental hospital, with periodic hearings before a judge to determine whether she should be released. An earlier jury had found her guilty of murder, but the verdict was overturned on appeal.

The defense never disputed that Yates drowned her five children one by one in the bathtub of their Houston-area home. But they said she suffered from severe postpartum psychosis and, in a delusional state, believed Satan was inside her and was trying to save them from hell.

Yates stared wide-eyed in court Wednesday as the verdict was read. She then bowed her head and wept quietly.

The children’s father said the jury had reached the right conclusion.

“The jury looked past what happened and looked at why it happened,” Rusty Yates told reporters outside the courthouse. “Prosecutors had the truth of the first day and stopped there. Yes, she was psychotic. That’s the whole truth.”

Rusty Yates divorced Andrea Yates after the children’s June 2001 deaths and recently remarried. He said they are still “friends” and reminisce about the children.

Prosecutor: ‘I'm very disappointed’
The jury, split evenly men to women, deliberated for about 12 hours over three days before reaching its verdict. On Wednesday, the jurors listened again to the state definition of insanity and asked to see pictures of the five young children: baby Mary, 2-year-old Luke, 3-year-old Paul, 5-year-old John and 7-year-old Noah.

Prosecutors had maintained that Yates failed to meet the state’s definition of insanity: that a severe mental illness prevents someone who is committing a crime from knowing that it is wrong.

The jury had not been told that if they found her insane that Yates would be committed to a mental institution for treatment. If found guilty of murder she would have faced life in prison.

“I’m very disappointed,” prosecutor Kaylynn Williford said. “For five years, we’ve tried to seek justice for these children.”

In her first trial, Yates was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to life in prison. An appeals court overturned the conviction last year because erroneous testimony about a “Law & Order” television episode that didn’t exist could have influenced the jury.

Yates hospitalized previously
Defense attorneys presented much of the same evidence as in the first trial, including half a dozen psychiatrists who testified that Yates was so psychotic that she didn’t know her actions were wrong. They said that in her delusional mind, she thought killing the youngsters was right.

Some testified about her two hospitalizations after suicide attempts in 1999, not long after her fourth child was born. At the time, the family lived in a converted bus. Dr. Eileen Starbranch, a psychiatrist, again testified about how she warned Yates and her husband not to have more children because her postpartum psychosis would probably return.

Yates’ stayed in a mental hospital for about two weeks in April and 10 days in May 2001. Psychiatrists testified that she was catatonic and wouldn’t eat and that her postpartum condition from Mary’s birth in November worsened after her father died in March.

Yates did not testify. But a few state and defense psychiatrists who evaluated Yates played some videotaped segments for jurors.

Satan hallucinations
During a July 2001 jail interview, Yates told psychiatrist Lucy Puryear that her children had not been progressing normally because she was a bad mother, and that she killed them because “in their innocence, they would go to heaven.”

The state’s key witness was Dr. Michael Welner, a forensic psychiatrist who interviewed Yates for two days in May. He testified that Yates killed the youngsters because she felt overwhelmed and inadequate as a mother, not for altruistic reasons.

Welner said that although Yates may have been psychotic on the day of the murders, it wasn’t until the next day in jail that she talked about Satan, wanting to be executed and saving her kids from hell. He said the hallucination may have been triggered by the stresses of being naked in a cell on suicide watch and realizing what she had done.

Welner said Yates knew her actions were wrong and showed it in multiple ways: waiting until her husband left for work to kill them, covering the bodies with a sheet and calling 911 soon after the crime.

Prosecutors also brought back a key witness from the first trial, Dr. Park Dietz, the forensic psychiatrist whose testimony led to her conviction being overturned. The judge barred attorneys in this trial from mentioning the earlier testimony problem.

Dietz again testified that Yates knew killing her children was wrong because she knew it was a sin.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14024728/
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I totally disagree with that...at least she'll be a prisoner for the rest of her life.

No. Just letting people know the decision.

She's not guilt on ACCOUNT of insanity...she'll spend the rest of her miserable life in a mental institution.

Yes, I know.

I think the jury is insane... That crazy ----- should be shot in the head! Not given a lifetime on the tax payers dollar.

Not at all happy with that verdict!! I still maintain she knew she did wrong because she phoned 911 herself!!!

This is a travesty of justice!!!!

I would have went with what the jury decided either way.

she should have been kept away from the children when she was diagnosed with PPP or have someone stayed with her. being alone with 5 children to take care of will certainly aggravate her condition.