Andrea Yates

[Anonymous]

Reported by Foti Kallergis

June 23, 2006 - 6:54PM

If you haven't been following the Andrea Yates trial, you'll have a second chance. That's because the Houston jury in her re-trial has been selected and will begin hearing arguments to determine her destiny on Monday.

Deborah Bell/Yates Support Coalition "She needs care and treatment, and she needs it in the right kind of place, not behind prison walls."

Whether in prison or a psychiatric hospital, Yates' punishment is likely to be as controversial as questions about her mental illness, and whether it caused her to drown her five children in a bathtub.

Beaumont Psychiatrist Dr. Sudheer Kaza says he's seen an increase in patients who say they suffer from post partum depression.

"This particular person is hearing voice that are telling her she's a bad mother, she doesn't know how to take care of her kids," said Kaza. "She thinks she's the bad mother so that's why if she is going to die she is going to kill the babies then kill herself."

It's reffered to as the baby blues, and it's an illness Kaza says is becoming more accepted.

"It's mainly because of the big movie stars and TV and newspapers more talking about this and especially the trials coming on the screen and how people are watching and Oprah talking about that."

And it's for that reason Kaza and Yates' defense believe the jury in the re-trial will see her as mentally ill and not guilty by reason of insanity, but not a murderer.

Testimony in the Yates capital murder retrial begins Monday in Houston.

In June of 2001, Yates drowned her five children in a bathtub in the family's home.

In 2002, a Houston jury convicted Yates of capital murder and sentenced her to life in prison. That conviction was overturned last year.


FOR COMMENTS OR QUESTIONS ABOUT THIS STORY E-MAIL foti@kfdm.com

[Anonymous]

New Trial for Andrea Yates Will Test American Attitudes on Mental Illness

By ANGELA K. BROWN Associated Press Writer
The Associated Press

HOUSTON - Since Andrea Yates first stood trial on charges of drowning three of her five children, the facts of the case haven't changed. What her defense teams hopes has changed is the public's view of mentally ill defendants.

Since Yates' 2002 conviction, which was overturned on appeal, several other Texas mothers have killed their children and been found not guilty by reason of insanity.

Those verdicts as well as community outreach and education efforts about mental illness are encouraging to Yates' attorneys and advocates, who say her severe postpartum psychosis prevented her from knowing her action was wrong.

"More people know it's a brain disorder and not just something you can snap out of," said Betsy Schwartz, director of the Mental Health Association of Greater Houston. "We can only hope the jury will have a keen awareness of the chemistry and physiology of what was going on in Andrea Yates' brain when this happened."

Yates' retrial was to begin Monday with opening statements. As in her first trial, she has pleaded not guilty 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.

A prosecutor in the case said the jury must consider only the evidence presented in this case not get caught up in public sentiment or try to send a message about mental health issues.

"This is not cookie-cutter justice," prosecutor Kaylynn Williford said. "I believe in the insanity defense, in which someone can commit a crime and not be held criminally responsible. I do not see that in this case based on the evidence."

Prosecutors say they will again call Dr. Park Dietz, the psychiatrist who testified that Yates knew her actions were wrong. Dietz, also a consultant to the "Law & Order" television series, told jurors 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.

Attorneys learned after Yates was convicted but before jurors sentenced her to life in prison that no such episode existed. That mistake caused an appeals court in Houston last year to overturn Yates' conviction.

Prosecutors say Yates planned the murders during the small window of time when she'd be home alone with the youngsters on June 20, 2001, after her husband went to work and before her mother-in-law arrived. Then she called her husband and 911 and later confessed, prosecutors say.

Other Texas youngsters' deaths at the hands of their mothers have drawn comparisons to the Yates case.

On the day before Mother's Day in 2003, Deanna Laney bashed her three sons' heads with rocks, killing the 8- and 6-year-olds and severely injuring the 14-month-old. The woman from the Tyler area said she believed God ordered her to kill her children, and she was found not guilty by reason of insanity.

Lisa Ann Diaz drowned her 3- and 5-year-old daughters in September 2003 in the bathtub of their Plano home. Diaz, tried only in the older child's death, was found not guilty by reason of insanity.

In 2004, Dena Schlosser cut off her 10-month-old daughter's arms in the family's Plano apartment, then called 911 while a church hymn played in the background. She, too, was found not guilty by reason of insanity.

Determining whether those verdicts indicate a trend is difficult because the cases were not identical or in the same county, said Fred Moss, an associate law professor at Southern Methodist University's Dedman School of Law in Dallas.

"This part of the country in particular is very retributive in their notions of justice and think somebody has to pay for a death," Moss said.

As in her first trial, Yates is being tried only in the deaths of 6-month-old Mary, 5-year-old John and 7-year-old Noah. She was not charged in the deaths of 2-year-old Luke and 3-year-old Paul, which is not uncommon in a case involving multiple slayings.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Copyright © 2006 ABC News Internet Ventures

[screann]

Why would anybody want her to get away with killing her children? Thats what will happen if she goes to some nut house. She Has to pay for her crime. Life if not Death.

[Anonymous]

On 2006-06-26 10:16:00, screann wrote:

"Why would anybody want her to get away with killing her children? Thats what will happen if she goes to some nut house. She Has to pay for her crime. Life if not Death."

Oh yes, you are absolutely right, why would anyone
who has no choice over her illness not fool the doctors to get no treatment and get to prison as fast as possible.

We know that staying in a psych hospital for the rest of one's life is better than skateboarding on
butter.

Let's hope those damn experts don't get their way
and she fools the snot out of them with no symptoms for the last 15 years or so.

[Anonymous]

Insanity defense raised at murder retrial for Houston housewife

By Lisa Sweetingham
CourtTV

HOUSTON, Texas (CourtTV) -- Shortly after Andrea Yates methodically drowned her five children in the bathtub, she told an investigator that she did it because she was such a bad mother she had doomed her young to eternal damnation.

The only way to save them, she said, was to kill them.

Yates' attorneys are now trying to save the former nurse and Texas housewife from a life in prison. (Watch opening arguments -- 1:50)

For a second time to a new jury, they are putting forth a case that Yates is not guilty of murdering her children because she was insane on June 20, 2001, the day she drowned them.

"There was no question she was psychotic, not depressed, but absolutely psychotic," defense attorney George Parnham told jurors Monday during his opening statement. Yates had a history of mental illness, Parnham said.

Records show Yates had twice attempted suicide, was diagnosed with recurrent postpartum depression, and had been hospitalized several times for psychiatric care.

When first asked by detectives why she killed her children, Parnham told jurors Yates was unable to "connect the dots" and she had no answer.

But she was put on medication for 24 hours, Parnham said, and she began to tell a doctor -- who is expected to testify for the defense -- the reasons for her unspeakable actions.
Mark of the beast

"She talks about a prophecy," Parnham said.

"These children of hers needed to die in order to be saved," he added, "because Andrea Yates was such a bad mother that she was causing these children to deteriorate and be doomed to the fires of eternal damnation."

Parnham said that Yates believed she had the sign of the devil, 666, burned on her scalp, and she begged therapists to look at her head. What they found, Parnham said, was not the sign of the beast, but scabbing from where Yates had tried to pick away the numbers she thought were there.

Defense experts are expected to testify that "knowing that something is illegal does not mean that you know something is wrong," Parham said.

But prosecutors say Yates understood what she was doing when she pinned each child to the bottom of the tub until they were dead. She knew what she was doing when she laid their lifeless bodies side by side in the bed she shared with her husband and called 911.

"It was wrong," Assistant District Attorney Kaylynn Williford said during opening statements.

Yates knew right from wrong that morning, prosecutors say, and therefore, by Texas law, should not be found legally insane.
Yates calm in court

Yates, 41, sat quietly at the defense table staring at her hands as Williford described how she called her children one by one into the bathroom to kill them.

She started with Paul, 3, then Luke, 2, John, 5, Mary, 6 months, and ended with Noah, 7. She later told investigators the boy asked, "What's wrong with Mary?" when he saw his baby sister floating face-down in water tainted by urine and feces.

Williford told jurors that all the children showed bruises and signs that they had struggled, even the infant girl.

Yates' ex-husband Russell "Rusty" Yates appeared in court Monday with his mother.

Andrea Yates' own mother was also in court, but sat at the other end of the row and did not speak to her former son-in law. As witnesses for the defense, they were ordered by the judge to leave the courtroom and will not be allowed back until they testify.

Rusty Yates, a NASA engineer, told Courttvnews.com that he remarried earlier this year but says he still speaks with his wife and is very supportive of her defense.

Andrea Yates was found guilty on March 12, 2002, of the capital murder of three of her five children by a jury that deliberated just under four hours. Prosecutors did not bring charges for the deaths of Paul and Luke. (Full coverageexternal link)
Conviction overturned

But Yates' conviction was overturned by an appeals court because a prosecution witness, forensic psychiatrist Park Dietz, testified about an episode of "Law and Order" in which a woman is acquitted of drowning her children by reason of insanity.

Prosecutors suggested to the first jury that the episode gave Yates the idea of how to get away with murder. After the verdict was reached, attorneys discovered that no such episode existed.

Her conviction was overturned in January 2005. Jurors in Yates' first trial rejected the death penalty, saving her from a potential death sentence in the second trial.

If she is found guilty, she faces life in prison. If jurors find her not guilty by reason of insanity, Yates will be sent to a psychiatric hospital and her case will be monitored by the court, which will determine when she could be released.

Jurors also listened Monday to Yates' 911 phone call, placed minutes after she drowned her last child. During the brief recorded conversation, Yates sounds calm, asks for an officer to come to the house, and tells the dispatcher that, no, her husband is not home.

But Yates' breathing is heavy, and she sounds disoriented when the operator repeatedly asks her why she needs police. "I just need them to be here," Yates finally replies. "You sure you're alone?" the operator asks. "No, my kids are here," Yates replies.
 
 
 
Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/06/26/yates.trial

[Anonymous]

June 27, 2006, 1:16PM

Yates sobs as video shows her dead children
By DALE LEZON
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle

Andrea Yates sobbed in a crowded courtroom this morning as a police video showed the bodies of her five drowned children where officers found them after she called them to her Clear Lake-area home.
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Yates ? on trial for a second time on capital murder charges ? had watched quietly along with jurors as the video opened with a view of the one-story home as it appeared on June 20, 2001.

The camera then moved to the back yard, where children's toys could be seen.

The video, recorded by Officer Glenn West, then turned to the front door and moved inside the house, panning across the living room and then moving to the kitchen.

There, viewers could see bowls on the kitchen table and countertop, half-full of cereal and milk. The sink was filled with unwashed plates, cups and drinking glasses.

The camera then moved along a hallway to a bedroom with wooden bunks beds, then proceeded along the hallway to the bathroom, where the hallway carpet was soaked.

At this point, Yates put a hand to her mouth, looked down and began to sob while the camera moved into the bathroom.

Jurors and courtroom spectators watched on two large-screen TVs as the camera panned across the bathroom, showing the body of Yates' 7-year-old son, Noah, dressed in white pajamas and face-down in the murky water in the bathtub.

Yates, 41, sobbed and her shoulders shook as she continued looking down.

The camera then moved down a hallway and into a bedroom, where Noah's four younger siblings lay in a bed, side by side, covered by a brick-red comforter.

Jurors and spectators remained quiet and showed no obvious emotional response, but Yates kept her gaze turned downward and wept.

The video, about 15 minutes long, slowly fades to black after someone off-camera pulls the comforter back to show the four small bodies, dressed in their pajamas. West, who shot the video and still photos of the home, testified today that the children and the mattress were wet, as was the hallway carpet leading from the bathroom to the bedroom.

Also this morning, Houston police Sgt. David Svahn testified that he saw Russell Yates, Andrea Yates' husband, running toward the house, screaming and crying about 10:00 a.m.

"He was running and hollering 'what did you do to my kids? What did you do to my kids?''' Svahn testified.

He said Russell Yates told them his wife had called him at work and told him to come home because "she had hurt all five of the kids'' and ''had finally did it."

Prosecutors also are expected to present testimony about the autopsies on the children's bodies as they continue presenting their case against Yates today.

Although they acknowledge that Yates is mentally ill, they maintain that she knew right from wrong when she drowned her children, one by one, in the bathtub after her husband left for work.

Defense attorneys contend that Yates is insane and should be in a mental hospital instead of a prison.

If she is convicted of capital murder, Yates will be sentenced to life in prison. Prosecutors cannot seek a death sentence this time because she was sentenced to life in her first trial and they are not presenting any new evidence in the retrial.

Although a large crowd turned out again today to see the trial, fewer spectators came to the Harris County Criminal Justice Center today than on the trial's opening day Monday.

The number of news media representatives also has dwindled somewhat, with fewer reporters from national media at the trial today.

http://www.HoustonChronicle.com | Section: Front page
This article is: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/4006092.html

[Anonymous]

July 1, 2006

Expert: Yates needs lifelong medication
Jury is told she wasn't faking her symptoms in 2001, she remains mentally ill

By PEGGY O'HARE and DALE LEZON
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle

While Andrea Yates' mental state has improved while she has been in jails and hospitals, she is not cured and will require treatment for the rest of her life, a psychiatrist told jurors Friday.

Dr. Debra Osterman, a staff psychiatrist at the Harris County Jail who has treated Yates occasionally for five years, said Yates was not faking her symptoms when she was brought to the jail in 2001, and she remains mentally ill.

Osterman's testimony came on the fifth day of Yates' capital murder trial after jurors heard a former jail nurse recall that he first met Yates as she mumbled to herself and tried to scratch away what she believed was a mark Satan had placed on her head.

State District Judge Belinda Hill gave jurors a four-day break at the end of Friday's testimony, telling them to return Wednesday morning.

Defense attorneys hope to convince the jury that Yates, who will turn 42 on Sunday, was insane when she drowned her five children in the bathtub of the family's Clear Lake-area home on June 20, 2001.

Prosecutors contend that she knew right from wrong and should be found guilty of capital murder.

Yates will automatically be sentenced to life in prison if she is convicted. If the jury finds her not guilty by reason of insanity, she will be sent to a mental hospital and remain under the supervision of Hill's court, likely for the rest of her life.

No matter what the jury decides, both sides agree Yates will not walk out of the courthouse a free woman.

Osterman, who began treating Yates 12 days after the drownings, said she eventually diagnosed the former homemaker and nurse with a type of bipolar disorder, or manic depression. Yates also has been diagnosed with postpartum depression with psychotic features and schizophrenia.

Yates fully believed her delusions were real and was convinced that drowning her children was the right thing to do at the time, Osterman said.

"My recollection is, she thought Satan was inside of her," Osterman told the jury. "She thought she was a bad mother and had irrevocably harmed the children ? and in order to save them, she had to kill them."

As another psychiatrist indicated Thursday, Osterman said Yates did not believe she was mentally ill or needed psychiatric medication after her arrest.

As she responded to medication and her psychosis began to dissipate, she could no longer recall why she had believed her children had to die, Osterman said. She said Yates also did not recall some of the bizarre statements she made during her early evaluations.

Yates' hallucinations gradually diminished, and she remarked two months after the drownings that she was "coming out of a cloud," Osterman said. At that point, Yates said she didn't understand the delusions that led her to kill her children.

During cross-examination by prosecutors, Osterman agreed that a psychotic person, despite the illness, could be capable of choosing a time to kill without interruption.

She also acknowledged that a psychotic person could hide evidence of a crime.

Yates drowned her children during a one-hour period when she was left alone with them, after her husband had left for work and before her mother-in-law arrived at the house.

A family member, speaking outside the courthouse Friday, agreed that Yates will never be cured or totally recall the drownings.

"She'll never, ever have a normal memory of that day ? never, ever," said the Rev. Fairy Caroland, an aunt of Yates' ex-husband, Russell.

Caroland, a Georgia resident who has been attending the trial, said Yates has suffered at least three psychotic breaks since going to prison.

"She's never going to be well," Caroland said. "It's kind of like alcoholism and drug addiction. ... It can't be cured, but you can control it."

She added that she does not believe Yates can get the medical treatment she needs in prison.

Jurors also learned that Yates was staring at the wall and mumbling when a nurse at the county jail's Mental Health and Mental Retardation Authority unit first saw her the morning after the drownings.

John Bayless, now a nurse in the Cypress-Fairbanks school district, testified that Yates' lips were moving rapidly, but he couldn't discern what she was saying.

"I pronounced her name. She paid no attention. She didn't even know I was there," Bayless said. "I used her full name. I used a louder voice. She then turned her head slowly toward me, looked at me and then turned her head back to the wall and resumed her conversation."

Bayless said Yates was picking at her scalp and told him that Satan had put a mark on her head.

Assistant District Attorney Joe Owmby noted that Bayless had not mentioned some of those details in Yates' first trial four years ago.

"Often, on progress notes, you don't write down everything you see," Bayless replied.

Yates was convicted in that trial and sentenced to life in prison, but an appeals court ordered a new trial because of erroneous testimony by the prosecution's mental health expert.

Defense attorneys expect to call Yates' former mother-in-law, Dora Yates, to testify Wednesday, along with other doctors and nurses familiar with Yates' mental health history.

dale.lezon@chron.com

[Anonymous]

Associated Press

Jail Psychiatrist Says Yates Improved

By ANGELA K. BROWN
06.30.2006

About a month after drowning her five children in the bathtub, Andrea Yates said she was no longer seeing Satanic ducks and teddy bears on her cell walls and was hearing fewer noises from hell, a jail psychiatrist testified Friday.

Dr. Debra Osterman, who started treating Yates 12 days after the June 20, 2001, deaths, said the remission of Yates' hallucinations indicated she was starting to respond to anti-psychotic and antidepressant drugs.

"She finally looked as if she had a little bit of life behind her eyes," Osterman told jurors in Yates' second murder trial. "While a very tiny step, it was a major improvement to how she had been."

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.

Prosecutors contend Yates knew her actions were wrong because she called 911 about the drowning deaths of Noah, 7, John, 5, Paul, 3, Luke, 2, and 6-month-old Mary and later told a detective she killed her children because she was a bad mother and wanted to be punished. She also said she did it when she would be alone with the youngsters, after her husband went to work and before her mother-in-law arrived.

Prosecutors rested their case Wednesday.

Osterman said that in mid-July, Yates didn't remember a prophecy she had talked about the day after the deaths, in which she thought Satan was inside her and the only way to save her kids from eternal damnation was to kill them.

"At the time of the killings, she thought she was doing the right thing ... based on a delusional belief," Osterman told jurors.

Osterman said Yates' inability to remember the prophecy meant that her mental state was improving.

Osterman testified that when she started treatment, Yates reported hallucinations such as Satanic ducks and teddy bears, showed no expression and rarely talked.

Under cross-examination, Osterman acknowledged that a lack of emotion was one side effect of the anti-psychotic medicine Yates was taking.

Yates, who remains medicated, is still severely mentally ill with bipolar disorder but is now "essentially well," Osterman said. She can make small talk and has a full range of emotions, she said.

Osterman has continued treating Yates since she recently returned to the mental health unit of the Harris County Jail. Yates left prison for a state psychiatric hospital after being released in February on $200,000 bond, which was revoked before the trial started.

The trial will resume Wednesday after an extended break for the Independence Day holiday.

Prosecutors said that during the trial's rebuttal phase, after the defense presents its case, they will call Dr. Park Dietz, the psychiatrist whose testimony caused Yates' conviction to be overturned.

Dietz, also a consultant to the "Law & Order" television series, told jurors in her 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.

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

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.



Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed

[Anonymous]

By GINA SUNSERI

June 26, 2006 ? Andrea Yates has trouble sleeping, and still fights deep depression, despite the medications she will be on for the rest of her life, her attorneys say.

Yates' mother, Karin Kennedy, says she still has hallucinations around the anniversary of her children's deaths. Andrea Yates finds some solace in art. She draws pictures of rainbows and flowers that her mother displays in her home.

For Harris County prosecutor Joe Ownby, the case against Yates is very simple. All he has to do is remember the five children who died when she drowned them in the bathtub of her suburban home five years ago.

The crime scene video tape that will once again be played in court haunts many who saw it during the first trial. The police photographer walks in the front door, shows the children's school room, the living room, the kitchen where cereal bowls sit on the table. The camera tracks through the home, showing a child's wet sock in the hallway, then turns into the bathroom where the body of one of her children is face down in the bathtub. The videotape ends in a bedroom where four tiny bodies were laid neatly on a bed and covered with a sheet.

Fairy Caroland, Andreas' relative from her marriage to Russell Yates, sees it differently.

"Andrea was very sick, is still very sick, and suffered from delusions that her children were irreparably harmed and damaged by her,"Caroland said. "And the only way for them to be 'saved' and go to heaven was for them to die at their young ages, so that they could immediately go to God."

A Second Trial, A Second Insanity Defense

Once again, Andrea Yates is being tried on two charges of capital murder in the deaths of three of her five children. Once again she has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

Her defense team and the prosecution agree on one issue: Yates was clearly a troubled mother. But prosecutors contend she knew what she was doing was wrong.

In Texas, that is all that is needed to convince a jury thatYates was mentally ill, but not insane when she decided to systemically down her children one-by-one, at a time when she knew her husband would be at work.

Yates is being tried again because her conviction was overturned on appeal. The appeals court was concerned that testimony from prosecution psychiatrist Park Dietz ? which was wrong ? may have influenced the jury's decision to convict Yates in the first trial.

Yates' attorney, George Parnham, is optimistic that he can persuade a jury this time to find her not guilty. He believes people are smarter about the postpartum depression, which triggered Yates into psychosis. Parnham says Yates is still a very sick woman.

"She is on a heavy dosage of antipsychotic medication to keep her from drifting into psychotic delusions," Parnham said. "She certainly appreciates what happened on June the 20 of 2001, and she understands that she has to go back through the cause of a trial. You can imagine the hell Andrea Yates lives with every day."

A jury of seven women and eight men has been chosen to hear this second trial. They will have to decide if Yates knew right from wrong when she drowned her children.

If Yates is convicted, this jury will not have to decide if she should be sentenced to death. Prosecutors are not asking for the death penalty this time.

[Anonymous]

Friday , June 30, 2006

HOUSTON  ? 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.

Click here to visit FOXNews.com's Crime Center.

"(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.

[Anonymous]

Psychiatrist had warned Yates against bearing more children

Testifies to thinking 'lives were at stake'

ASSOCIATED PRESS

July 8, 2006

HOUSTON ? A psychiatrist testified yesterday 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 trial.

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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.

Yates drowned her five children in a bathtub in June 2001, six months after the birth of her fifth child, Mary. She is being tried again because an appeals court overturned her 2002 murder conviction based on erroneous testimony that might have influenced the jury. She has again pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

Yates' attorneys have never disputed that she killed her children, but say she didn't know the drownings were wrong.

Prosecutors say Yates may be mentally ill but doesn't meet the state's definition of insanity, and that she planned the killings in advance. Along with Mary, Yates drowned Luke, 2; Paul, 3; John 5; and Noah, 7.

Starbranch said she treated Yates after she tried to kill herself by overdosing on sleeping pills in June 1999.

About a month later, Starbranch said, Yates' then-husband, Rusty, told her that Yates had held a knife to her own throat the previous day.

Starbranch said Yates had a bald spot on her head from scratching it, had not been taking her anti-psychotic medication, had filthy hair and couldn't function. Starbranch said she sent the couple immediately to a mental hospital so Yates could be admitted.

Over the next two weeks or so while hospitalized, Yates steadily improved while on anti-psychotic drugs, Starbranch said. But then in March 2001, Rusty Yates called Starbranch's office trying to make an appointment, saying his wife was getting worse since having the couple's fifth child in November, Starbranch testified.

?I knew that was a very ominous sign . . . that lives were at stake, so I asked that she be brought in immediately,? Starbranch said.

The couple never showed up, but Starbranch later learned that Yates was admitted to another mental hospital, the psychiatrist testified.

[Anonymous]

Andrea Yates had filled the tub before

HOUSTON Andrea Yates had filled the bathtub before -- and it apparently caused two of her sons to worry.

Her mother-in-law, testifying yesterday at her second murder trial in the drowning of her children, spoke of an incident from nearly two months before the drownings of all five Yates children in the tub.

Dora Yates said she was at the family's home when the two oldest boys rushed into the living room and asked her why their mother was filling the tub with water. She says she asked her daughter-in-law, who told her it was because she "might need it."

She testified for the defense at the trial, where Andrea Yates is once again pleading not guilty by reason of insanity. Her first conviction was overturned because of some erroneous testimony.

Dora Yates says she thought her daughter-in-law had simply forgotten she had turned on the water. She says she never imagined that she would hurt the children. But she says the incident indicated a relapse in Andrea Yates' mental condition, so she was re-admitted to a mental hospital where she had just spent a couple of weeks.

Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

[Anonymous]

Antidepressant Used by Yates Questioned

By ANGELA K. BROWN
Associated Press Writer
Last Updated:July 09. 2006 10:03PM
July 09. 2006

Andrea Yates is escorted after a court appearance in Houston in this Jan. 9, 2006, file photo. An antidepressant that Yates took in the months before she drowned her five children in 2001 recently had "homicidal ideation" added as one of its rare adverse events, but the drug's manufacturer says it believes there is "no causal link between Effexor and homicidality."


A widely prescribed antidepressant that Andrea Yates took in the months before she drowned her five children in 2001 had homicidal thoughts added recently to its list of rare adverse events. But the drug's manufacturer says it believes Effexor doesn't cause such phenomena.

Wyeth spokeswoman Gwen Fisher said that while Effexor was being studied for use in treating panic disorder, the company found one person reported having homicidal thoughts in its clinical trial.

"Homicidal ideation" was added last year as one of Effexor's rare adverse events, defined as something not proven to be caused by the drug. The Madison, N.J.-based company never notified doctors or issued warning labels because it found no causal link between its drug and homicidal thoughts, Fisher said.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration defines rare as occurring in less than one in 1,000 people. In the U.S. alone, about 19.2 million prescriptions for Effexor were filled last year.

"We believe there is no causal link between Effexor and homicidality," Fisher said. "In our minds, we've taken every precaution."

Dr. Moira Dolan, executive director of the watchdog group Medical Accountability Network, criticized Wyeth for not doing more to publicize it, saying "homicidal ideation" is listed on page 36 of Effexor XR's label.

Dolan said she discovered the labeling change about two weeks ago after stumbling across the FDA's MedWatch November newsletter.

"Families don't know to be aware of this possible effect," said Dolan, an Austin doctor who reviewed Yates' medical records after her first trial at the request of her then-husband. "As doctors we're not going to look through 36 pages of labeling."

Fisher said the warning about "homicidal ideation" also appears on the one-page package insert given to all patients.

Yates, 42, has pleaded innocent by reason of insanity in her second murder trial that started two weeks ago. Her 2002 capital murder conviction was overturned on appeal because some erroneous testimony may have influenced jurors.

Yates' attorneys have never disputed she killed the youngsters but say she didn't know that the drownings were wrong. Prosecutors say Yates may be mentally ill but does not meet the state's definition of insanity.

She had been prescribed Effexor in varying doses after her first suicide attempt in 1999 and after staying at a mental hospital in 2001. A month before the children's bathtub drowning deaths, her daily dose had increased to twice the recommended maximum dose, Dolan said.

Yates continues to take Effexor, according to a psychiatrist testifying in her retrial.

Yates' lead attorney, George Parnham, said Wyeth should have publicized information about the possible rare adverse event, but said that will not affect Yates' case.

"Obviously this is a severely mentally ill individual who was on a plethora of psychiatric meds," Parnham said. "There's no question mental illness killed those children."

In 2004, the FDA ordered that all antidepressants carry "black box" warnings that they increase the risk of suicidal thinking and behavior in children. That action was driven by data that showed that on average 2 percent to 3 percent of children taking antidepressants have increased suicidal thoughts and actions.

Effexor is Wyeth's top-selling drug, with $3.46 billion in 2005 sales worldwide, more than twice the total for its No. 2 product and 18 percent of its total revenues for last year.

---

AP Business Writer Linda A. Johnson in Trenton, N.J., contributed to this report.

[Carmel]

This woman makes me sick.  Plain and simple. Plain and friggin simple.

Sure, she checked out and killed her kids, but not because she couldnt help it. She made a choice.  She knew she made one, she called 911 and admitted what she did.

It makes me ill that people want to sit around and justify this horrific deviation. It wasnt her fault?  I guess the kids held their own heads under the water.  

Its not unlike the government keel-hauling Iraq over rumors off WMD's, all while watching North Korea shoot missles over our heads and wondering if we should do something about it.

Has anyone else on this thread lost a child besides me?  I didnt kill mine by the way.  

Fucking Morony.

[Anonymous]

I haven't been following this thread... FFS, PLEASE don't tell me there's really any debate about this...GUILTY!!!!!!!!!! ::both::