Crime Documentary - The Andrea Yates story
- 7 years ago
Viewer discretion is advised. Some may find this content disturbing. This is a documentary I found interesting.
Andrea Pia Kennedy Yates (born July 2, 1964) is a former resident of Houston, Texas, who confessed to drowning her five children in their bathtub on June 20, 2001. She had been suffering for some time with very severe postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis. She was represented by Houston criminal defense attorney George Parnham. Chuck Rosenthal, the district attorney in Harris County, asked for the death penalty in her 2002 trial. Her case placed the M'Naghten Rules, along with the Irresistible Impulse Test, a legal test for sanity, under close public scrutiny in the United States. She was convicted of capital murder. After the guilty verdict, but before sentencing, the State abandoned its request for the death penalty in light of false testimony by one of its expert psychiatric witnesses. She was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 40 years. The verdict was overturned on appeal.
On July 26, 2006, the Texas jury in her retrial found that Yates was not guilty by reason of insanity. She was consequently committed by the court to the North Texas State Hospital, Vernon Campus, a high-security mental health facility in Vernon, where she received medical treatment and was a roommate of Dena Schlosser, another woman who committed filicide by killing her infant daughter. In January 2007, she was moved to a low security state mental hospital in Kerrville.
At the time of the murders, Yates' family was living in the Houston suburb of Clear Lake City. She continued under Dr. Saeed's care until June 20, 2001, when Rusty left for work, leaving her alone to watch the children against Dr. Saeed's instructions to supervise her around the clock. His mother, Dora Yates, had been scheduled by him to arrive an hour later to take over for her. In the space of that hour, she drowned all five children. She started with John, Paul, and Luke, and then laid them in her bed. She then drowned Mary, whom she left floating in the tub. Noah came in and asked what was wrong with Mary. He then ran, but she soon caught and drowned him. She then left him floating in the tub and laid Mary in John's arm in the bed. She then called the police repeatedly saying she needed an officer but would not say why. Then she called Rusty, telling him he needed to come home right away.
Yates confessed to drowning her children. Prior to her second trial, she told Dr. Michael Welner that she waited for Rusty to leave for work that morning before filling the bathtub because she knew he would have prevented her from harming them. After the killings, police found the family dog locked up; Rusty advised Welner that it had normally been allowed to run free, and was so when he had left the house that morning, leading the psychiatrist to allege that she locked it in a cage to prevent it from interfering with her killing the children one by one. Rusty got a family friend, George Parnham, to act as her attorney.
Andrea Pia Kennedy Yates (born July 2, 1964) is a former resident of Houston, Texas, who confessed to drowning her five children in their bathtub on June 20, 2001. She had been suffering for some time with very severe postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis. She was represented by Houston criminal defense attorney George Parnham. Chuck Rosenthal, the district attorney in Harris County, asked for the death penalty in her 2002 trial. Her case placed the M'Naghten Rules, along with the Irresistible Impulse Test, a legal test for sanity, under close public scrutiny in the United States. She was convicted of capital murder. After the guilty verdict, but before sentencing, the State abandoned its request for the death penalty in light of false testimony by one of its expert psychiatric witnesses. She was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 40 years. The verdict was overturned on appeal.
On July 26, 2006, the Texas jury in her retrial found that Yates was not guilty by reason of insanity. She was consequently committed by the court to the North Texas State Hospital, Vernon Campus, a high-security mental health facility in Vernon, where she received medical treatment and was a roommate of Dena Schlosser, another woman who committed filicide by killing her infant daughter. In January 2007, she was moved to a low security state mental hospital in Kerrville.
At the time of the murders, Yates' family was living in the Houston suburb of Clear Lake City. She continued under Dr. Saeed's care until June 20, 2001, when Rusty left for work, leaving her alone to watch the children against Dr. Saeed's instructions to supervise her around the clock. His mother, Dora Yates, had been scheduled by him to arrive an hour later to take over for her. In the space of that hour, she drowned all five children. She started with John, Paul, and Luke, and then laid them in her bed. She then drowned Mary, whom she left floating in the tub. Noah came in and asked what was wrong with Mary. He then ran, but she soon caught and drowned him. She then left him floating in the tub and laid Mary in John's arm in the bed. She then called the police repeatedly saying she needed an officer but would not say why. Then she called Rusty, telling him he needed to come home right away.
Yates confessed to drowning her children. Prior to her second trial, she told Dr. Michael Welner that she waited for Rusty to leave for work that morning before filling the bathtub because she knew he would have prevented her from harming them. After the killings, police found the family dog locked up; Rusty advised Welner that it had normally been allowed to run free, and was so when he had left the house that morning, leading the psychiatrist to allege that she locked it in a cage to prevent it from interfering with her killing the children one by one. Rusty got a family friend, George Parnham, to act as her attorney.