What Drove Her to Kill Her Own Kids? | Andrea Yates

From the prosecution’s closing argument: Officer Knapp was the first one that arrived. He knocked on the door, and said, what’s your emergency? She looked him eye to eye and said I killed my kids. Not I saved my kids. Not I am the great Satan and I need to be executed because of the cruel dilemma I have been in. I killed my kids. And he was shocked. What? I killed my kids.

Case Notes

Andrea Yates’ early life

Born Andrea Pia Kennedy
Valedictorian of HS class (608 students)
Captain of HS swim team
Member of National Honor Society
B.A. in nursing
Highly regarded registered nurse at MD Anderson Hospital in Houston, quit after 8 years due to birth of first child
Married Russell (Rusty) Yates, a NASA engineer, at age 29. Rusty described by Yates’ best friend, Debbie Holmes, as “controlling, critical, and demanding.” Yates allowed Rusty to make family decisions
Yates’ mother and Debbie Holmes: Andrea lost her own identity after marriage
Yates agreed to Rusty’s plan to have a large family, decided she would become “supermom”
Trial witnesses unanimously agreed that Yates was a great mother
Yates homeschooled the children because Rusty was worried that they would “pick up bad habits” at public school
Yates had four siblings: Two diagnosed with depression, another with bipolar disorder

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Early Marriage Years

1994 – After the birth of first son, Noah, Yates hallucinated a vision of a knife and her stabbing someone. She didn’t reveal this until after her arrest.
1995 – After becoming pregnant with second son, John, Yates gave up swimming and jogging and visited less often with friends
1996 – Rusty accepted a 6-month project with NASA that led to them driving to Florida in a 38-foot RV that would become their home. Yates miscarried but became pregnant again just as they were about to move back to Houston. Sometime in 1996, Yates wrote to Rachel Woroniecki, wife of Michael Woroniecki, about the loneliness she was feeling. Rachel Woroniecki directed Yates to read a part of the New Testament.
1997 – Third child, Paul, was born. Rusty wanted to live “light” and “easy” so they rented a lot for their trailer and continued to live in it.
1998 – After living in the trailer for several more months after their return from Florida, Rusty learned that Michael Woroniecki, an evangelist whose words had inspired Rusty’s strict religious beliefs in college, was selling a 1978 Greyhound bus that had been converted into a motor home. Andrea Yates and Noah preferred the 350-square-foot bus over the trailer, so Rusty sold their home and bought the bus. Noah and John slept in the luggage compartment. Andrea, Rusty, Paul, and Luke (born 1999) slept in the cabin.
Yates became dedicated to helping her father, who had Alzheimer’s. It was overwhelming, and Andrea Yates became more isolated from others in her life.

Russell (Rusty) Yates’ Family Involvement

According to Yates’ mother and friend Debbie Holmes, Rusty was a dominating force in the family and the couple’s decisions to have a lot of children
Knew of his wife’s hallucinations of TV cameras in the house and TV characters talking to her, but neither he nor Yates told doctors despite constantly being asked if she was hallucinating

February 25, 1999 – Fourth son, Luke, was born, and Yates felt overwhelmed and depressed

June 18, 1999 – Yates attempted suicide by overdosing on sedatives. She wanted to take her own life rather than risk harming her children

June 18-24, 1999 – First psychiatric hospitalization

July 26 to August 10, 1999 – Second psychiatric hospitalization, five weeks after she attempted to cut her own throat. During this time, Yates was given an injection that seemed to return Andrea to her old self. Later on, she claimed that the injection was a “truth serum” that led her to lose self-control. She was discharged with a diagnosis of Major Depressive Episode, severe, recurrent, with psychotic features. Did a couple months of psychiatric appointments, but quit because she was “feeling better.”

Yates returned home to a 3 BR / 2 BA house that Rusty had bought at the urging of Yates’ parents. Yates was swimming laps in the morning, baking and sewing, playing with the children, and tried to create a better environment for homeschooling. Yates admitted to Rusty that she had “failed” at bus life, but this new phase was a chance to turn things around.

The family was having Bible study three nights per week because Woroniecki’s “teachings” led Rusty to doubt organized religion. Yates bought into Woroniecki’s “repent or burn” approach to Christianity. From Woroniecki, Yates came to believe that “the role of woman is derived … from the sin of Eve” and that “bad mothers” create “bad children.”

August 18, 1999 – Dr. Starbranch warns the Yateses that having a fifth baby could trigger another psychotic episode. Starbranch’s notes read: “[a]pparently [patient] & husband plan to have as many babies as nature will allow! This will surely guarantee future psychotic depression.”

Spring 2000 – One of Yates’ psychiatrists, Eileen Starbranch, was alarmed at the Yates’ decision to have a fifth child. Starbranch warned that Andrea’s problems could be far more serious if they returned. This was echoed by Andrea’s mother, who consistently believed that Rusty’s demands led to Andrea’s breakdown. Debbie Holmes, a former nursing colleague of Andrea’s, shared this view of Rusty and claimed that Andrea depicted Rusty as controlling and manipulative, and that Rusty pushed her to have the fifth baby.

November 3, 2000 – Birth of fifth child, Mary.

March 12, 2001 – Andrea’s father dies and her condition begins to deteriorate

March 31 to April 12, 2001 – Third psychiatric hospitalization. Rusty’s mother, Dora, arrives from Tennessee for an extended stay to help with the family.

May 3, 2001 – Yates begins filling the bathtub for no reason, saying it was only “in case I need it.”

May 4-14, 2001 – Fourth psychiatric hospitalization, caused by Yates filling her bathtub.

Between her discharge on May 14 and drowning her children 5 weeks later, Yates had psychotic symptoms: She thought TV commercials for candy were referring directly to her, she believed a commercial said that she was a “fat pig” and that she gave her children too much candy, believed that TV cameras had been in her home since 1999 to monitor the quality of her mothering, thought her mother-in-law was part of the monitoring and that MIL had a camera in her glasses, saw a van near her house and believed her house was “bugged.” Also believed that Satan was literally within her. Yates kept all of these thoughts hidden from her family because she believed that Satan would use this info against her and force her to kill her children.

Yates came to believe that her kids were not properly developing “intellectually” and that they were not “righteous.” They had bad manners, and she believed that they would “never be right” because she had “ruined them” with her poor mothering. She thought her son Luke would become a “mute homosexual prostitute” and that John would become a “serial murderer.” Foresaw her son Noah dying a tragic death and that Paul would be hit by a truck. She had convinced herself that all of her children would be punished and “burn in hell.”

Yates was focused on the bible verse Luke 17:2, “It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown in the sea than that he should cause one of the little ones to stumble.” She related this to her own failure to make her children “respectful and righteous.” For 1-2 months before killing her children, she struggled with whether or not she should do it.

June 20, 2001 – Yates drowned all five of her children in the bathtub

Paul, 3 was drowned first. Apparently Yates’ greatest joy, and the least trouble. Drowning him was quick.
Luke, 2 was next.
John, 5 was next.
Mary, 6 months was next. Yates left her in the tub.
Noah, 7 was called to the bathroom. When he “saw his sister facedown in the water, he asked, ‘What happened to Mary?'” Noah tried to run, but Yates ran after him and dragged him back to the tub. Noah was left in the tub.
According to Yates’ confession, Mary was present for the drownings of Paul, Luke, and John. Mary was crying.

9 am: Rusty left for work at the Johnson Space Center, and Yates didn’t expect Rusty’s mom to come to help her with the kids until 10 am
After drowning each child, she placed the body on the double bed in the master bedroom
She placed 6-month-old Mary in the crook of John’s arm. John had been an especially good big brother, so Yates thought he could protect Mary in the afterlife
7-year-old Noah was the strongest and therefore difficult to drown. During the drowning, Noah managed to get his head above water and say, “I’m sorry Mommy.” Yates left him in the bathtub.
After the drowning, Yates called 911 and asked for a police officer to be sent.
Then she called Rusty and said, “It’s time.” She told him to come home and hung up. Rusty called back, alarmed, and asked if anyone was hurt. “It’s the kids,” she said. He asked which one. “All of them.”
When the police arrived, Yates appeared to be composed. She told them, “I killed my kids,” and she led them to the room with her four dead children.
Yates believed that Satan was within in her and tormented her and the kids.
She thought that she would be arrested and executed, indicating that Satan would be executed along with her
She believed it was right to drown her kids because she wanted to save their souls and didn’t want them to fall “in Satan’s hands”

Defense attorneys George Parnham and Wendell Odom claimed not guilty by reason of insanity

Psychiatrist for the defense, Dr. Phillip J. Resnick, and the psychiatric expert for the prosecution, Dr. Park Dietz both agreed on several points:

Mrs. Yates had a severe mental disease on June 20, 2001 when she drowned her children
Mrs. Yates knew that drowning her children was against the law
Mrs. Yates believed that killing her children was in their best interest

2002 – Found guilty, later overturned on appeal

2006 – New trial ends with insanity verdict

Rusty Yates

Rusty’s spiritual mentor was Michael Woroniecki

After Her Arrest

Yates said she had considered killing her children for 2 years
She saw satanic teddy bears and ducks on the walls of her jail cell
Said she was not mentally ill and had never been depressed because she had never cried

Prosecution psychiatrist vs. Defense
Taken directly from The Andrea Yates Case: Insanity on Trial

Prosecution – Dr. Park Dietz on whether Yates knew that what she was doing was wrong

Mrs. Yates believed that it was Satan who put the thought in her mind to drown the children and encouraged her to do so.
Mrs. Yates made the decision to conceal from everyone her beliefs about Satan’s presence and influence, her thoughts of harming the children, and her plan to drown the children.
Mrs. Yates believed that killing the children would be sinful.
Mrs. Yates knew at the time she killed the children that society and God would judge her actions as “bad.”

Defense – Dr. Phillip J. Resnick’s rebuttal

Mrs. Yates believed it was right to drown her children because she held a delusional belief that her children were not being raised “righteously” and that they would “burn in hell” if she did not take their lives. She faced a psychotic dilemma. She thought that she was doing what was right for her children by arranging for them to go to heaven while they were still “innocent.” She stated, “They had to die to be saved.”
Mrs. Yates loved her children so much that she was not deterred from “saving her children’s souls” by the fact that she expected to be executed by the state of Texas. She believed that because the one and only Satan was within her, that Satan would be executed along with her.
Mrs. Yates did not kill her children in 1999 in spite of command hallucinations to do so because she believed it was not in her children’s best interest to die at that time. When she heard the “voice of Satan” instructing her to stab her children in 1999, she, instead, twice attempted suicide rather than risk harming her children. It was only when her psychosis recurred in 2001 that she came to delusionally believe that it was in her children’s best interest to die. Only then did she take their lives “to save their souls.”
Mrs. Yates made no effort to hide her crime. Her delusional belief that TV cameras were monitoring her did not stop her from killing her children in her home. Immediately after the killings, she called the police, remained at the crime scene, and requested to be punished.
Mrs. Yates had no alternative motive to take the lives of her children other than the psychotic belief that she was saving their souls. She was a devoted mother. She stated in her audiotaped confession on June 20, 2001, that her children were not developing correctly. She added that she was not mad at her children because they had not done anything wrong.

Dr. Resnick’s testimony in 2006 trial:

Although Mrs. Yates received instructions from Satan to harm her children, she perceived Satan as wanting her children in hell. She believed that her children were destined to go to hell because they would be “not righteous” if she did nothing. Thus, Mrs. Yates believed that she was defeating Satan by taking her children’s lives and saving their souls while they were still innocent.
It was my opinion that Mrs. Yates did not conceal her homicidal plan because she knew what she was doing was wrong. Instead, Mrs. Yates did not reveal any of her psychotic thinking because she believed that Satan could hear her remarks and use them against her. She believed that if she revealed her thoughts out loud, Satan would force her to kill her children.
Although it is true that Mrs. Yates believed that drowning her children was a sin, she believed it was a greater sin “to cause a child to stumble.” She also believed that it was a sin to commit suicide. Nonetheless, Mrs. Yates twice attempted suicide in 1999 because she preferred to sacrifice her own life rather than risk harming her children. When she attempted suicide to protect her children’s lives in 1999 and when she drowned her children to save their souls in 2001, Mrs. Yates was choosing the lesser of evils. Thus, she believed that killing her children was right.
Although it is true that Mrs. Yates thought that society would think her homicides were bad, Mrs. Yates believed that society did not know what she “knew” about the fate of her children. She knew that if her children were allowed to reach the age of accountability, her children would “burn in hell.”
When Dr. Dietz asked Mrs. Yates, five months after the drownings, how God would judge her killing of the children, Mrs. Yates replied that God would think it was bad. However, it is not likely that Mrs. Yates, five months after the events, could fully recapture her original state of mind when she killed her children. After five months of antipsychotic treatment, Mrs. Yates could no longer recall that she believed that she was fulfilling a biblical prophecy or that she expected to bring about the death of Satan by her own execution. Even if one accepts the premise that Mrs. Yates could resurrect her prior state of mind, she believed that killing her children was a lesser evil than causing her children “to stumble,” which would cause them to “burn in hell.”
Finally, I reminded the jury of the psychotic dilemma that Mrs. Yates faced at the time she drowned her children. She believed that if she did not act, her children would burn in hell for all eternity. If she did take their lives before the age of accountability, her children would be with God in heaven for all eternity. Mrs. Yates believed that taking her children’s lives was the right thing to do in the face of this dilemma.

2006 jury took 12 hours to find Yates not guilty by reason of insanity.

The jury foreman, Todd Frank, stated, “We understand that she knew it was legally wrong. But in her
delusional mind . . . we believed that she thought what she did was right.”

Portions of Prosecution’s opening statement (Joe Owmby)

Luke, John, Paul, Mary, Noah. These are the Yates children. Noah is the oldest. He was seven years old when he was drowned by Andrea Yates. Mary was six months old when she was drowned by Andrea Yates. She was in the tub in the family house at 942 Beachcomber when Noah was drowned.

Prior to that time, in an order you will hear from the witnesses, Luke, Paul, and John had been drowned one at a time . The breath was taken out of their bodies by their mother, the defendant in this case, Andrea Pia Yates.

Andrea Pia Yates has pleaded not guilty to indictments in the deaths of three of those children. She is presumed to be innocent until the State carries the burden of proof of proving that she is beyond a reasonable doubt guilty of the deaths of Noah, John, and Mary Yates. She is presumed to be sane. To know right from wrong. The State bears no burden of proof to prove that she was sane.

At 9:48 on June 20th, in Houston, and there is one thing I think you can say without even
hearing it from a witness, that it was hot. Because if you take any June 20th in any era in Houston, it’s going to be hot. 9:48, Andrea Yates called the dispatch, and the way it works in the City of Houston, these calls go to one center and all that is asked is do you want police, fire, ambulance.

On this morning, Sylvia Morris took that call, and Andrea Yates told them she needed the police. Sylvia Morris routed that call to the 911 operator for the Houston Police Department, Doreen Stubblefield, and Doreen Stubblefield then took that call and began to speak to Andrea Yates about the problem.

Andrea Yates would not tell her why she needed the police. The dispatcher first dispatched the
police, recognizing there is some problem, and continued to speak to Andrea Yates for a minute or so about why she needed the police. Andrea Yates said she was ill. She said the kids are here. The dispatcher had on her mind that there might be some problem with this woman. It could have been anything. They are the 911 operators in the fourth largest city of the United States. It could have been a burglar. She could have been being held hostage by a man, someone in the house could have been bothering her. The dispatcher didn’t know.

She continued to investigate by talking to Andrea Yates what that was. She kept her on the phone
and she intended to keep her on the phone until the police arrived. What could it be? Even suicide, hurting the kids, no one knows, but this dispatcher continued to do her job until she hung up the phone because she couldn’t get any further.

Shortly after she hung up the phone, Officer Knapp of the Houston Police Department arrived
at the house and Andrea Yates told him that she had killed all of her children. He went to the back bedroom and saw in a bed on a mattress on the floor that was made up for a bed, those children layed out. Luke, John — Luke, Paul, John, Mary. Mary’s head cradled on John’s arm.

Luke was wearing a pajama outfit that had fire department on it. The child next to him, which the
Medical Examiners when they arrived, called child 2, had on a similar outfit with fire engines on it. Kind of a motif like that. John was wearing an Osh Kosh zip up pajama suit and Mary had on a red outfit, the kind for infants that buttons between the legs.

What Officer Knapp did not see and what Officer Stumpo saw as he proceeded to the back bedroom when he arrived was Noah still in the bathtub with his arms extended, floating face down wearing an outfit with pajamas and insects on there.

Andrea Yates sat in the love seat in the living room. The officers waited, or as they said, for back up to arrive. The first person to arrive was Officer, Sergeant Svahn, S-v-a-h-n. After a few moments, after he was briefed on the situation, he ordered that Andrea Yates be arrested for the murder of those children. And she was handcuffed and sat on the love seat.

In order, other officers begin to arrive. Before long the media was outside and there were officers outside handling the media. Officers King and Bacon arrived. The two detectives that it was their duty to inherit this case, sort of by the luck of the draw. Sometimes they ask you how did you get here, and the answer is it was my day to be there.

Officer King talked to Andrea Yates for a few moments. He will tell you that she was focused. She was only responding when spoken to. Officer King found, along with Officer West, who was the C.S.U. unit officer, and I’ll talk about him in a moment. Officer King found several things that indicated to him that
there was a problem. The fact that those five children were dead hadn’t indicated there was a problem. He found medications in the kitchen. Effexor, Remeron, Welbutrin , Risperidal. Risperidal, you will hear is an anti-psychotic medication.

He found a prescription from a Dr. Mohammed Saeed for those medications in the medicine cabinet at the home. He found a note there had been an appointment on June 18th, 2001 for Andrea Yates with
Dr. Saeed. He found a note on the back of Dr. Saeed’s card with the indication, June 26th, 2001 on that date on June 20th, 2001, on the back of Dr. Saeed’s card.

They proceeded with their investigation. They ask Andrea Yates for a consent to search the house
and they searched the house. Her clothing was wet from head to toe. Her hair was matted and clothing was wet. They acquired clothes from the bedroom for her to eventually change into. There was no female officer with them. So they formulated the plan to transport the dry clothes with her to the police station.

Officer King talked to her for that few minutes and Officer Bacon continued the scene investigation. The other officers were still there. They begin to take pictures. They took pictures of the hallway where Officer Knapp had seen the small foot prints when he came in, by this time, however, it’s two hours later, and you won’t see in those pictures those wet footprints that Officer Knapp will tell you that he saw when he entered the house.

The carpet was soaked. The water is still standing nine inches, I believe, in the bathtub. The children, the four of them still in that bed. Officer West of the C.S.U. unit took a video throughout the house to show the cereal bowls on the table where those children had eaten that morning.

Officer Stumpo transported Andrea Yates to the Houston Police Department on Travis Street. She had
been read her rights at the scene by Officer King. Miranda rights, told she had the opportunity to see a lawyer, told that she didn’t have to speak, and the other rights that Officer King will explain to you. She was taken to the Houston Police Department, Officer Frederick, a female officer, changed, accompanied her while she changed into dry clothes.

She met Sergeant Eric Mehl. And Officer Mehl asked her did she need something to eat. She told
him no. And he began to interview her and he interviewed her for awhile and then he stopped. And he left her under guard in a room and he went to get his tape recorder and he tape recorded again the interview of what she told him.

She told him that she wasn’t mad at the children, that she killed them because they weren’t developing correctly and she was a bad mother. She told him that she had been thinking about killing her children for two years. She told him the order in which she had drowned these children. She told him that they struggled. For a couple of minutes, as she described one child, she told him how she, she called Noah into the bathroom and put him in the water with Mary and drowned him and carried Mary and put Mary on the bed with the other three children that she had already drowned.

She was focused on his questions. There is a period where he will describe to you where he asked her a question that amounted to why did you do this and there was a 15-second pause and she did not answer. After he tape-recorded that statement, she was transported, transported to the HPD facility on Mykawa Road by Officer Stumpo, and during that ride, Officer Stumpo had his radio on and the rants of the talk shows began to come on. And he had a little moment of discussion with Andrea Yates about her new found celebrity.

Transferred her to Mykawa because the other facilities that HPD usually uses which are downtown and closer to the Harris County jail where she would eventually go were flooded out and inoperatable
because of flood. Mykawa Road is quite aways from downtown Houston, but he transferred her out there where eventually the booking process for the Houston Police Department was completed and she was eventually booked into the Harris County jail.

Andrea Yates told Eric Mehl that her husband was a good father, a good husband. She said he had left the home and she killed the children in the house from the time Dora Yates, her mother-in-law, was
expected to arrive and the time that Rusty Yates, her husband, left for work, between 9:00 and 10:00 o’clock.

We won’t call Rusty Yates, Russell Yates, Andrea Yates’ husband, as a witness. I think Dora Yates will tell you that he has been supportive of his wife and the State of Texas is not going to call Russell Yates to testify against his wife.

You will hear Officer Svahn say that Russell Yates arrived at the scene in an excited and upset condition, and told Officer Svahn that Andrea Yates had told him that it was time to come home. I finally did it.

Dora Yates will tell you that Andrea Yates had seemed to be doing better, and why would she say that, because she will also tell you that Andrea Yates had been in a facility, a mental health treatment facility, that she had a history of mental illness, that Dora Yates had arrived in Houston around April the 19th
to help with Mary. To help, because Andrea Yates’ father had died in March, and she seemed to be getting depressed. She was more than depressed. Some people call it clinical depression. You don’t give out medications for Effexor, like Effexor, you will hear, Welbutrin, and some of the other medications that they will mention because you are having a little depression. Those are prescribed medications.

So there is no question that Andrea Yates had some form of mental illness. Now I know none of you
are familiar with this chart. Andrea Yates had a mental illness. She also called the police after she had
killed these children. Andrea Yates had some type of mental illness.

We anticipate that the Defense will raise the affirmative defense of insanity as a result of severe mental disease or defect, does not know that his conduct was wrong. She told Sergeant Mehl that she needed to be punished, that she was going to hell for what she had done. She had a mental illness. She
planned to, she told Officer Mehl that she did this killing while Russell Yates was away because he would
stop her.

We anticipate that the affirmative defense of mental illness, the affirmative defense of insanity will be raised by the Defense. We anticipate that you will hear a history of Andrea Yates’ mental illness . We anticipate that there will be a more difficult time showing that her conduct was wrong. We anticipate that
you will, that you will hear that her motive was altruistic . The children were not developing correctly and she was a bad mother and needed to be punished. That this is not a motive like robbery or theft. It is an altruistic motive, meaning that she thought it was right and good to do this to these children, that that was a right thing.

You will also hear evidence that she knew it was an illegal thing. That it was a sin. That it was wrong . And that’s what the insanity defense says.

We anticipate that you may, if you don’t see each and every page, that you will see thousands perhaps, well, hundreds of pages of medical records. Hundreds of pages of medical records that stand maybe that high to show that Andrea Yates suffered a mental illness. Nurses, doctors, psychiatrists. We anticipate that you will hear about treatments that are effective. Treatments that are not effective. And what should have been done and what could have been done and whose fault this is.

What I read to you before I started to speak, and I don’t have very much more to say to you today, but it’s called the indictment. What I did was present the indictment to the jury. You will receive instructions on the law eventually at the end of the trial, but the indictment, presenting the indictment to the jury is the formal way that you are instructed on what the prosecution has to prove. And it’s good that that is part of the procedure. We don’t have to prove whose fault this is. We don’t have to defend the mental health system of the United States of America. We don’t have to agree or disagree whether postpartum depression is a problem. We know it is a problem. We don’t have to advocate for this treatment or that treatment.

The State of Texas has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, and while Andrea Yates is presumed to be sane, that she murdered her children. The medical examiners will testify to the bruises that were on these children from holding their heads under the water. The bruises that were on their legs, some of which appeared to be old bruises, some of which could be new bruises, from holding their legs possibly in an effort to keep them under the water.

You will see birth certificates proving that these children were born alive because that’s something the State has to prove. Andrea Yates is presumed to be sane . The evidence will show that beyond a reasonable doubt she is guilty of the murder of Noah, John, and Mary Yates.

Portions of Prosecution’s closing statements (Kaylynn Williford)

Let’s talk about what happened on June 20th. Rusty Yates leaves a little after 9:00. And according to her statement, she immediately begins to fill the tub. And the children are in the kitchen eating breakfast.

We know that she took Mary into the bathroom. Mary was somewhere in the bathroom while the children were eating breakfast. Paul is brought in there. And Paul is put into the tub, forced under the water for at least three minutes. That’s how long it takes for him to lose consciousness.

She took Paul into the back room and she covered his body. Why does she cover him? Because she doesn’t want to let the other children to know what’s going on in the household. Why? Because Noah and because John are old enough to get out of that house, get to a phone, get help if they discover what is going on.

What does she do next? She takes the smallest one, Luke, and she places him in the tub, and you know he struggles. And after he is taken out of the tub, she takes him and she lays him next to Paul and covers his body.

And then what does she do? She calls John in there. She tells John to get in the tub. Did he do what she told him? No. The deep bruises on his elbow, the bruises on his head, the pattern that Dr. Wilson told you as she pulls the legs out from under these children. She controlled him until he lost voluntary control over his body.

She takes him out. In John’s little fists is her hair. He fought. He didn’t want to die. And then what does she do? She puts Mary in the tub. Mary was the easiest. She just had to pin her down to the bottom of the tub and she leaves her there.

She calls Noah in. She leaves Mary’s body floating in the water when she calls him in there. What’s wrong with Mary? I didn’t answer him. Did he try to get away? Yes. Was he able to run or what? I got him. She got him. And the loving act of that mother was to leave his body floating in the tub.

Officer Knapp was the first one that arrived. He knocked on the door, and said, what’s your emergency? She looked him eye to eye and said I killed my kids. Not I saved my kids. Not I am the great Satan and I need to be executed because of the cruel dilemma I have been in. I killed my kids. And he was shocked. What? I killed my kids.

He told you … that as he looked at the tile floor, he saw two sets of wet footprints. Because Noah tried to get away. Those little wet footprints in confusion as he saw his sister floating in the tub, no words of comfort, as Dr. Dietz told you, tried to get away. He got as far as the dining room table before she took him back into that room.

And Officer Knapp told you she took him to the back bedroom and there he saw a small little arm, Luke’s arm, hanging out from the bed. The children completely covered. The Defense has said, oh, well, let’s look at Mary. She had her brother’s arms cupped around her, this act of comfort, this act of love . That’s no act of love. She didn’t even tell Officer Knapp where Noah’s body had been left, left floating in the vomit and feces and urine that had been expelled in the fright of the four that had gone in that tub before him . She didn’t drain the water . She didn’t put a pillow under his head. She didn’t cover him up.

Officer Stumpo tells you, I walked in there and I discovered Noah floating in the tub. And I walked over to her and I looked at her and I looked her eye to eye and I said, do you know what you have done? And she looked him eye to eye and said, yes. And she sat there in silence. Not that I’ve saved my children. I know what I have done.

Information Sources

Cleveland State Law Review
The Andrea Yates Case: Insanity on Trial
(written by Phillip J. Resnick, the primary forensic psychiatrist for the defense)

The Fordham Law Archive of Scholarship and History
Who is Andrea Yates? A Short Story About Insanity

The Lancet
Mental health and justice: the case of Andrea Yates

Texas Archival Resources Online
Guide to the Reporter’s Record,Yates v. State of Texas , No. 880205, 883590,2002-2003

Time Magazine
The Yates Odyssey