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Offline Anonymous

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Jury Begins Deliberating in Yates Retrial
« Reply #225 on: July 24, 2006, 09:52:06 PM »
Jury Begins Deliberating in Yates Retrial

By ANGELA K. BROWN , 07.24.2006, 06:31 PM
   
A jury began deliberating in Andrea Yates' second murder trial Monday to determine whether she knew drowning her children in the bathtub was wrong.

After four hours of closing arguments, jurors began to sort through nearly a month of evidence and testimony from 40 witnesses.

During her closing, prosecutor Kaylynn Williford brought out the pajamas the children were wearing when they died. She also displayed the crime scene photos showing the four youngest children laid on a bed and 7-year-old Noah, who was killed last, 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 ... because she is criminally responsible."

The children's father stood and walked from 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 still supports Andrea and does not want her to be convicted, divorced her last year and remarried in March.

Andrea Yates showed no emotion during closing arguments until Williford showed the photos of the children's bodies. Then she cried for several minutes and wiped her nose with tissues.

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

Odom said that Yates was delusional when she killed Noah and 6-month-old Mary, 2-year-old Luke, 3-year-old Paul and 5-year-old John in June 2001. Yates thought the children were flawed because she was a bad mother and because Satan was inside her, and said she had to kill them to save them from hell, he said.

Odom noted Yates' long history of mental illness, including four hospitalizations since 1999 and two suicide attempts. He compared her case to a driver having a heart attack and running someone over, saying that person would not be charged with murder.

"Andrea Yates had a heart attack. It was a heart attack of the mind," Odom said. "The only reason we're here is there are five dead bodies, five precious children that have been killed. ... We want our pound of flesh. We want our accountability. We want someone to be punished."

Yates, 42, was convicted of capital murder in 2002 and sentenced to life in prison. But an appeals court overturned that verdict last year because some erroneous testimony may have influenced jurors.

Yates is charged in only three of the children's deaths, which is not unusual in multiple slayings. She has again pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

Prosecutor Joe Owmby said Yates behaved normally with her husband the morning she drowned the youngsters so he would not suspect what she planned to do after he left for work at NASA's Johnson Space Center.

Owmby said Yates, who was valedictorian of her high school class and a successful nurse before she quit to have children, was a perfectionist who felt she failed as a mother.

"Of course it's not sane behavior. It's criminal behavior," Owmby said. "It's not cruel in any regards to hold Andrea Yates accountable for what she did."

If acquitted by reason of insanity, Yates would be committed to a state mental hospital. She will be sentenced to life in prison if convicted of capital murder.



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

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Jury deliberates in Andrea Yates trial
« Reply #226 on: July 25, 2006, 06:27:43 PM »
This article is: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/ ... 70863.html

July 25, 2006, 1:59PM

Jury deliberates in Andrea Yates trial
By ANGELA K. BROWN Associated Press Writer
© 2006 The Associated Press

HOUSTON ? 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.
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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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Offline Anonymous

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Yates to become prisoner, regardless of verdict
« Reply #227 on: July 25, 2006, 06:31:27 PM »
Posted on Sun, Jul. 23, 2006   


Yates to become prisoner, regardless of verdict

SHEILA FLYNN and JAMIE STENGLE
Associated Press

DALLAS - Life as a prisoner looms on the horizon for Andrea Yates, whether she's convicted of murder or acquitted by reason of insanity.

If she is found innocent by reason of insanity, as she has pleaded, she will spend the rest of her life in a state-run, maximum-security mental hospital - and it's no Hollywood sanitarium with rolling green hills and a country-club feel.

Patients at Vernon State Mental Hospital in north Texas, where Yates would be initially sent, live their days under orders, forbidden to eat, sleep or do anything else on a whim. They're allotted a short amount of daily free time, just like inmates in the state prison where Yates would spend the rest of her life if convicted. The rest of patients' days are scripted at the hospital campus encircled on all sides by a 17-foot high curved fence dotted with guard towers.

"I would say that anyone who thinks it too cozy, go up there and spend two nights," said David Haynes, attorney for Dena Schlosser, who was acquitted by reason of insanity in the death of her infant daughter and has been living at Vernon since spring.

"They are in there ... and they can't come out," he said.

A jury in Houston is expected to begin deliberations Monday in Yates' second murder trial for drowning her children in the family bathtub in 2001. She has twice pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. She was convicted of murder in 2002, but an appeals court overturned that conviction because some erroneous testimony may have influenced the jury.

After her husband, Rusty Yates, left for work and before her mother-in-law, Dora Yates, arrived to help, Yates drowned 7-year-old Noah, 5-year-old John, 3-year-old-Paul, 2-year-old Luke and 6-month-old Mary on June 20, 2001. She then called police and Rusty Yates to the house.

The perception that people who plead insane somehow beat the system is dead wrong, said Jerry McLain, Vernon spokesman.

"Just because a person is found not guilty by reason of insanity ... doesn't really mean that they get off scot-free," McLain said. "The reason for that is because of the dangerousness issue."

An insanity plea admits that the defendant actually has committed a crime - and is consequently a threat to society. Patients undergo rigorous rehabilitation and evaluation processes to determine when, if ever, they can be transferred to a lighter security hospital - and when, if ever, they can be released.

"There's no simple measure of continuing dangerousness," said Dr. Paul Appelbaum, chairman of the council on psychiatry and law for the American Psychiatric Association.

"Among the things that would be taken into account would be the state of mind associated with the previous violence, whether those symptoms are still present," he said.

The evaluations are so complicated and comprehensive that they're almost guaranteed to drag on, officials said.

"It literally can end up being years and years ... maybe their entire life before they would be eligible to be discharged," McLain said.

And often that time period exceeds the prison sentence a defendant would have gotten if simply found guilty, said Beth Mitchell, a lawyer with Advocacy, Inc. in Austin. The non-profit group works to ensure the rights of people with disabilities and mental illnesses.

She said that, while doctors may determine that a patient has been rehabilitated enough to at least warrant outpatient treatment, judicial officials who oversee patient reviews will refuse to authorize a release.

"Especially if it's more heinous crimes, the judge just sees that as they've committed the crime, and it doesn't matter if they do or don't meet commitment criteria," she said.

And being left in an institution - even a facility with less stringent security - is still comparable to being imprisoned, Mitchell said.

"They don't have the big fence, they don't have guards sitting on high towers watching the grounds," Mitchell said.

But "you're still confined. The doors are still locked. You still have somebody watching your every move and documenting your every move. ... Even though you could refuse some of the classes, your refusal oftentimes will inhibit your ability to possibly have a recommendation to be released."

So patients, consequently, are forced to live every moment in a routine imposed upon them, alongside other mental patients "day in and day out that you don't care to live with," she said.

For a person without mental illness to spend time in such a facility, Mitchell said, "you'd go crazy."
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Offline Anonymous

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NGI verdict
« Reply #228 on: July 26, 2006, 01:35:08 PM »
Jury Finds Andrea Yates Not Guilty Of Murder


10:31 am PDT July 26, 2006

HOUSTON -- Andrea Yates showed little emotion, as a Houston judge told her jurors have found her not guilty by reason of insanity in the drownings of her children.

Yates is expected to be committed to a state mental facility where she'll receive periodic reviews to consider her health and possible release.

The verdict was returned during the jury's third day of deliberations, after Yates' lawyers argued their client was delusional when she drowned her five children in the bathtub. Yates has admitted drowning all five of her kids that day in 2001.

Prosecutors contended that Yates may have been mentally ill, but she still knew what was wrong -- a defining issue for proving legal insanity in Texas.

In 2002, a jury took just four hours to convict her of capital murder. That verdict was overturned because of inaccurate testimony. The death penalty remains off the table because no new evidence was presented.

The state defines insanity as mentally illness so severe that a person doesn't know while committing a crime that it's wrong.

Jurors earlier asked to see more evidence Wednesday as they deliberated for the third day in Houston.

They asked to see a family photo and candid pictures of her five smiling youngsters taken before she drowned them in the family bathtub.

They were to decide whether the one-time Houston-area homemaker was legally insane when she drowned three of her children in the family bathtub.

Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press.
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Offline Anonymous

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A chronology of events concerning Andrea Yates
« Reply #229 on: July 27, 2006, 02:42:04 AM »
Posted on Wed, Jul. 26, 2006   


A chronology of events concerning Andrea Yates

The Associated Press
Associated Press

Here's a look at milestones in Andrea Yates' life and her legal case following the drowning of her children:

_ April 17, 1993: Russell "Rusty" and Andrea Yates are married.

_ Feb. 26, 1994: Noah Yates is born. Yates later tells doctors that shortly after the birth that Satan told her to get a knife and stab someone.

_ Dec. 12, 1995: John Yates is born.

_ Sept. 13, 1997: Paul Yates is born.

_ Feb. 15, 1999: Luke Yates is born.

_ June 16, 1999: Andrea Yates calls her husband at work and asks him to come home. He returns to find her shaking and crying.

_ June 17, 1999: Yates overdoses on Trazodone, a prescription sleeping medicine given to her father after a stroke.

_ June 18, 1999: Yates is transferred to Houston's Methodist Hospital psychiatric unit and is diagnosed with a major depressive disorder.

_ June 24, 1999: Yates is discharged from Methodist.

_ July 20, 1999: Russell Yates wrestles knife away from his wife, who was holding it to her neck in the bathroom at her mother's house.

_ July 21, 1999: Yates is admitted to Memorial Spring Shadows Glen for psychiatric treatment and is prescribed Haldol, an anti-psychotic drug.

_ Aug. 9, 1999: Yates is discharged from Memorial Spring Shadows Glen.

_ Aug. 10, 1999: Yates begins daily outpatient care.

_ Aug. 18, 1999: Psychiatrist Eileen Starbranch warns the Yates couple that having another child could trigger another psychotic episode.

_ Nov. 30, 2000: Mary Yates is born.

_ March 12, 2001: Yates' father, Andrew Kennedy, dies. Rusty Yates later says his wife's condition begins deteriorating soon after.

_ March 31, 2001: Yates is admitted to Devereux Texas Treatment Network and begins taking anti-psychotic medication.

_ April 12, 2001: Yates is discharged and begins outpatient care at Devereux.

_ May 4, 2001: Yates is readmitted to Devereux and begins taking Haldol.

_ May 14, 2001: Yates is again discharged from Devereux.

_ June 4, 2001: Dr. Mohammad Saeed, a psychiatrist, tells Rusty Yates to have his wife taper off Haldol over next three days.

_ June 18, 2001: The Yates couple have follow-up visit with Saeed. Rusty Yates reports his wife is not improving.

_ June 20, 2001: Yates drowns her five children in the bathtub.

_ Feb. 28, 2002: Trial on two capital murder charges begins.

_ March 12, 2002: Yates is convicted of both charges.

_ March 15, 2002: Yates is sentenced to life in prison.

_ Dec. 14, 2004: Yates' attorneys argue her appeal before 1st Court of Appeals in Houston.

_ Jan. 6, 2005: 1st Court of Appeals in Houston overturns Yates' conviction, ruling that some erroneous testimony may have influenced jurors.

_ Nov. 9, 2005: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals upholds lower appeals court ruling overturning Yates' conviction.

_ March 17, 2005: Rusty Yates finalizes divorce.

_ March 18, 2006: Rusty Yates marries Laura Arnold.

_ June 26, 2006: Yates' second murder trial begins.

_ July 26, 2006: Yates found innocent by reason of insanity.



© 2006 AP Wire and wire service sources.
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Offline Anonymous

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Andrea Yates
« Reply #230 on: July 27, 2006, 09:39:30 AM »
i am thankful for the verdict of insanity of andrea. god knows this poor woman is insane, and now she will be able to get the help that she desperately needs. post-pardom depression is real, and have made some women insane. i am thankful for those women who live public lives that have come out and spoke on the seriousness that it can have on reality. for those of you who speak against andrea, judge not, for you have not walked a mile in her shoes. instead of being so angry at her for what she did, thank your lucky stars, for it could have easily been you whose hormones went wacky after giving birth. i have chosen empathy over anger, for she is the only one that truly has to live with herself.
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Offline Anonymous

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Andrea Yates
« Reply #231 on: July 28, 2006, 11:29:23 AM »
::bangin::
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Offline Anonymous

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Best friend testifies Yates became 'a total zombie' after 4t
« Reply #232 on: July 28, 2006, 08:59:38 PM »
Andrea Yates' defense rests its case

Best friend testifies Yates became 'a total zombie' after 4th son

Tuesday, July 11, 2006; Posted: 6:03 p.m. EDT (22:03 GMT)



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

Debbie A. Holmes met Yates about 20 years ago when both were nurses at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. She said she still visits Yates and writes her letters.

Yates, 42, is being retried in her children's 2001 bathtub drowning deaths because her capital murder conviction was overturned by an appeals court that ruled erroneous testimony might have influenced the jury.

She has again pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

Her attorneys say Yates 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' turn Tuesday

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

Dietz, also a "Law & Order" television series consultant, told the first jury that in one episode of the crime drama a woman was acquitted by reason of insanity after drowning her children in a tub.

He said the show aired before the Yates children died. But after her 2002 conviction, it was discovered no such episode existed.

Holmes testified that Yates was a sweet friend, dedicated nurse and loving mother, but that after the birth of her fourth son she turned into a "total zombie" who stared into space and couldn't finish sentences.

Holmes said she helped care for her friend's children in 1999 after Yates returned from a psychiatric hospital following two suicide attempts. Holmes said that a few months later she asked Yates why she had been so depressed.
Satan and mind-reading

"She asked me if I thought Satan could read her mind and if I believed in demon possession," Holmes said.

Earlier Tuesday, prosecutors cross-examined a neuropsychologist who evaluated Yates about six months after the drownings.

Dr. George Ringholz said Yates recounted a hallucination she had after the birth of her first child.

"What she described was feeling a presence ... Satan ... telling her to take a knife and stab her son Noah," Ringholz said.

Ringholz acknowledged that he did not perform certain tests to see if Yates was trying to make her mental illness appear worse, but he said other tests and safeguards as part of the extensive two-day evaluation indicated she was not faking. Ringholz diagnosed schizophrenia.

Ringholz said Yates was delusional the day of the drownings and did not know her actions were wrong, even though she called 911 and knew she would be arrested. Her delusion was that Satan had entered her and that she had to be executed in order to kill Satan, he said.

"Delusions cannot be willed away," Ringholz said.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press.
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Offline Anonymous

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He wonders why Andrea Yates' ex-husband didn't persist in
« Reply #233 on: July 28, 2006, 09:01:51 PM »
June 15, 2006, 6:08PM

Rusty Yates' actions puzzle acquaintance
He wonders why Andrea Yates' ex-husband didn't persist in getting her medical help
By TERRI LANGFORD
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle

Not many people have had to have their lives defined by one horrific life moment as Russell "Rusty" Yates has.
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"What happened in my family will always be with me and associated with me," Yates told the Houston Chronicle in 2004. "But I would like people to know we had a great family. I'd like people to know something good can come from all this, and I want to be a part of it."

What happened was the event few will forget.

On June 20, 2001, Yates' then-wife, Andrea, a woman with a history of suicide attempts and psychiatric hospitalizations, drowned the couple's five children ? Noah, 7; John, 5; Paul, 3; Luke, 2; and Mary, 6 months ? in a bathtub.

Since that tragic act, the 41-year-old NASA engineer's marriage has been scrutinized by the legal system and the court of public opinion.

To some, Yates is a conundrum.

In the years since the children were killed, Yates has been quite visible as a supportive spouse, attending his wife's 2002 capital murder trial, going to hearings, pleading her case before the media. However, he declined to be interviewed for this article.

"I'm absolutely appalled at our legal system," Yates said in June 2002. "They never tried to understand why this happened. They treated Andrea like a hardened serial killer for no reason."

Even after he divorced her last year, he continued a campaign to get her out of prison and into treatment. But some say that kind of support was hard to see before the children's deaths.

"You've got a pre-June 20th Rusty and a post-June 20th Rusty," said Bob Holmes, who met Yates in 1989, when the couple was dating.

Holmes insists that Rusty Yates, vilified on Web sites and radio and TV talk shows, "isn't a monster."

But Holmes is counted among those who knew the couple and who question the way he dealt with his wife's mental illness, which seemed to materialize in their marriage after the birth of their fourth child, Luke.

"Did he lose his children? Yes. Do I feel bad for him? Absolutely," said Holmes, who along with his wife, Debbie, met then-Andrea Kennedy 20 years ago. "But he's the one person who could have stopped it."

Couple seemed 'optimistic'

Debbie Holmes, who deferred questions about Yates to her husband, met Andrea Kennedy at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, where the two worked as nurses. Kennedy lived in an apartment complex not far from the Holmeses', and the three became friends.

Kennedy didn't date much, so the couple was supportive when she introduced them to Yates, a NASA engineer.

"We were just happy for her," Holmes said. "We thought they were optimistic."

Born in New York, raised in Tennessee, Yates' path in life seemed typical as he headed to Auburn University in the early 1980s.

"He and his family are great people, and I can't imagine anyone ever having a bad thing to say about any of them," Missy Ballentine, who knew Yates in high school, said via e-mail to the Houston Chronicle. "Our community growing up was a small one, everyone knew everyone and he's a great guy."

But at Auburn, Yates came into contact with itinerant campus preacher Michael Peter Woroniecki, a man whose evangelical teachings touched Yates and changed his world forever.

Woroniecki's beliefs were rigid ones: that women are subservient to men and most, if not all, the world is filled with evil. Woroniecki holds organized religion in disdain because he believes it has diluted God's message over time.

After they were married, Yates introduced his wife to Woroniecki, a move that he would later regret.

"If I had it all to do over again," Yates said in a 2003 interview with the Dallas Observer, "I would never have introduced Andrea to the Woronieckis."

The Yateses embraced Woroniecki as their spiritual guide, listening closely to his teachings of living free of material things and erasing evil from their lives. They moved into a trailer, dispensing with most of their things, then eventually bought Woroniecki's bus and lived in it with three children.

After the birth of their fourth child, Andrea Yates threatened to kill herself twice, and the couple traded the bus for a house. Subsequent hospitalizations for Andrea Yates followed, as did a variety of psychiatric medications.

Then Andrea Yates became pregnant a fifth time in eight years, and her father died in the spring of 2001, two events that seemed to pry loose her tentative grip on reality.

Yates has insisted he made decisions about his wife's care based on doctors' assessments and that there was nothing more he could have done.

"If I'd known she was psychotic, we'd never have even considered having more kids," Yates told the Dallas Observer. "But all the doctors ever told us was that there was a 50 percent chance that she might become depressed again after having another baby, that she might even require some treatment. But by then we knew that the medicine ? a drug called Haldol ? had worked."

'She was very scary'

Thirteen days before she systematically drowned her children, Bob Holmes saw the Yates family in the grocery store. The woman he had known for years as a "24/7" mom was alone with a cart. Her children, who had always gathered around her, grouped around their father.

"She looked like a paranoid animal," Holmes recalled. "A dangerous animal. If you see a dog in the corner, with that kind of look, do you care what's going on in his head? She was very scary during that period."

His wife, Debbie, visited the Yates home six days before the children were killed. She saw the same blank look.

Testimony from Andrea Yates' capital murder trial revealed that she walked in circles and failed to eat or feed the children in the weeks before their deaths. Other adults ? her mother and her mother-in-law ? took turns staying with her.

Holmes said the hardest thing to understand is why Yates did not intervene at that point. "Put himself between the children and her. He could've always had Andrea committed. I will say that until the day I die."

In March 2002, Andrea Yates was convicted of capital murder. Her conviction was overturned a year ago, and on Monday she heads to court for a retrial.

Yates, who remarried Saturday, will be called to testify.

Holmes said Andrea Yates earlier learned of her ex-husband's wedding the way most people did, from someone else.

"This just kind of blindsided her a bit," said Holmes, who spoke to Andrea Yates by phone last week.

Holmes said Yates had told his ex-wife months ago of his engagement but did not tell her when the wedding would take place. A Yates family member said the wedding was set before his ex-wife's retrial date was determined.

Holmes said Andrea Yates realizes Rusty needs to get on with his life. But the timing of the wedding is "cruel," he said. "It is a distraction she does not need."

http://www.HoustonChronicle.com | Section: 5 children drowned
This article is: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/spe ... 33316.html
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Offline Anonymous

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Michael Peter Woroniecki
« Reply #234 on: July 28, 2006, 09:10:32 PM »
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Peter_Woroniecki

Michael Peter Woroniecki, (A.K.A. Michael Warnecki, Worneki, Mike War and Shabar Ben), born February 4, 1954, is a self-ordained, itinerant, "fire and brimstone" preacher.[1]

One of his disciples was Andrea Pia Yates, to her detriment. His relationships with some of his disciples have been newsworthy.[2][3]
Contents
[hide]

    * 1 Early life
    * 2 Religious revival
    * 3 Religious training
    * 4 Preaching career
          o 4.1 Andrea Yates case
    * 5 Post-Yates career
    * 6 Notes
    * 7 References
    * 8 External links

[edit]

Early life

Woroniecki was the youngest of a large Polish Catholic family who was raised in the city of Grand Rapids, Michigan. His mother became involved in the Catholic Charismatic Movement in the early 1970s and was earnestly seeking to introduce her remaining children to the "born again" experience. In 1971, seeking a way out of Grand Rapids, he "made a deal with God" that he would attend spiritual prayer meetings with his mother if he could make All-City Tailback and get a scholarship for college. He got the title and the scholarship.

Woroniecki attended Central Michigan University (CMU) from 1972 to 1976. However, when he arrived at college, Woroniecki says he had a "wild streak" involving himself in sex, drugs and alcohol, once being arrested for assaulting someone in a nearby college bar. He suffered a disabling football injury that threatened to destroy his dreams. Around April 1974 Woroniecki's mother gave him a Bible, which he began reading.
[edit]

Religious revival

Woroniecki attended the annual Catholic Charismatic Conference at Notre Dame University the weekend of June 14, 1974 with his mother, Rose, and sister, Mariane. Michael was in the stadium when he told God that he didn't know what this saying "born again" meant, but that he wanted everything the Lord had for him. At that moment, Michael believes that he was infused with the Holy Spirit and was born again.

In his remaining years at CMU, Woroniecki met his then cheerleader girlfriend, Leslie Jean Ochalek of Detroit (renamed "Rachel" in 1992), who would become his wife in 1979. He became the president of his Fellowship of Christian Athletes chapter. According to his own recorded testimony, he was attending an FCA retreat when he began to call all of his Christian peers "phonies." Distraught with his inability to control himself, he sought the counsel of his director-minister Dave Van Dam who then suggested to him that maybe he was called to be a "Jeremiah" (the office of a prophet who preached destruction).

Woroniecki obtained a B.S. in Psychology from CMU in 1976.
[edit]

Religious training

Michael attended Melodyland School of Theology at Anaheim, California starting in 1976. His mother died in July 1977 from colon cancer. He made an attempt before many people to raise her from the dead, but he failed in tears and embarrassment. There is a hint from his teaching materials that suggests the church cited his failure to heal and raise her was due to a lack of faith on his part, a teaching that Woroniecki now abhors. He applied to the Dominican and Franciscan Orders of the Catholic Church thereafter, but he was rejected both times on the basis he was "too zealous."

In 1978, Woroniecki was accepted at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, CA. In 1980, he met a lone radical street preacher carrying a sign, possibly Robert Engel, (A.K.A. Bobby Bible and Bobby Biblestein) or one of his disciples from the now disbanded Christian Brothers Church formerly based out of Long Beach, CA. (Some former disciples of Engel run a website at www.preachtruth.org which Engel confirms is a faithful reproduction of his doctrines.) He criticized the students and faculty of Fuller Seminary for their comfortable "indoor" Christianity. He also carried a message that women are "witches" whose usurping nature of Eve was responsible for the fall of mankind, a teaching Woroniecki apparently gleaned from him. He assumed this same outdoor style, standing outside chapel criticizing his peers for what he perceived was their hypocritical confidence in their scholastic religious pride. He was again seen preaching several times at Fuller Mall. Woroniecki obtainied his Masters of Divinity degree in 1980.
[edit]

Preaching career

Michael returned to Grand Rapids in 1980 where he preached on the streets with a sign and a bull horn, starting his own unordained ministry called Cornerstone Christian Fellowship. He was arrested nine times for disorderly conduct and disturbing the peace. Faced with two upcoming trials in the first week of October, 1981, one of which involved a woman he allegedly followed for two city blocks, berating to tears, Woroniecki phoned the City District Attorney's office with a plea offer. He would leave town if the remaining six charges against him were dropped. The D.A. submitted his request to the District Court and the plea offer was accepted. He left for the city of Atlanta, Georgia where high volume street preaching was permitted. Woroniecki claimed in the Grand Rapids Press that he was coerced into leaving, but he later conceded in Suzanne O'Malley's book, Are You Alone? that he was the one who suggested the deal. Woroniecki returned to Grand Rapids in June of 1983 to once again preach there. He was arrested a tenth and final time. Woroniecki pleaded no contest, paid a $105 fine and never returned to preach there again.
Woroniecki is arrested at Brigham Young University in 1994.
Enlarge
Woroniecki is arrested at Brigham Young University in 1994.

Since then, Woroniecki has preached his gospel of "hellfire and damnation" throughout the continental U.S., Latin America and Europe. He and his family visited Casablanca in Morocco and preached on a streetcorner there. They were interrogated for eight hours by officials, then ordered to leave the country because attempting to convert a Muslim is considered a crime there. He went to Spain thereafter, where another confrontation with police resulted in Mr. Woroniecki physically wrestling with the officers and pushing one of them. Audio excerpt of Mr. Woroniecki's admission.

The central message Woroniecki has carried mainly to college campuses throughout the United States since 1980 is that all Christian churches are antichrist preaching a "false and polluted twentieth century gospel" which he believes has no redemptive power. Consequently, the only people on earth that he believes are saved are himself, his wife and his six children. When people ask him if anyone else is saved, Woroniecki often replies quoting Jesus from the gospels, "As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be at the coming of the Son of Man" (a time in which only eight persons were saved in an ark from a worldwide deluge, he says, emphasis on "eight.") If anyone else happens to be saved, he has told his disciples, he just hasn't met them yet.

He believes that "institutionalized education, along with employment and secular social activities, is a waste of time in God's eyes." Woroniecki preaches "that unless a person lives a jobless life spent preaching the gospel, he is damned to hell."

In 1989, when Woroniecki was confronted with the fact that one of his followers was hospitalized for attempting suicide, the follower claiming that the attempt was a consequence of the preacher's persistent condemning rebukes, Woroniecki countered on a widely distributed teaching tape saying that "suicide is the greatest self obsession." He dismissed the suicidal Texas A&M student with mockery for projecting blame onto his gospel message and for refusing to accept responsibility for his own emotional state. Audio Excerpt

Others have claimed to become depressed or anxious to the point of contemplating or attempting suicide after dwelling upon Woroniecki's messages. David De La Isla of Houston Texas claimed on national television that he also became suicidal as a result of Woroniecki's beratings. Woroniecki dismissed De La Isla on ABC Good Morning America saying that he only knew him for "fifteen minutes in a McDonalds fifteen years ago," despite the disciple's possession of a stack of letters he received from him over a period of twelve years, ABC host Charles Gibson pointed out.

Woroniecki was arrested at Brigham Young University in 1994 for disturbing the peace and preaching without a permit.[4]

In a video sent to followers in 1996, Michael Woroniecki emphatically warns followers who are parents that unless they abandon their "husband goes to work, wife just exists" Christian lifestyle (like the Yates were living), quit their jobs and take up his prophetic, itinerant lifestyle, their children would not be properly trained "in the Lord," reach accountability and "perish in hellfire." He also added that because of Mt. 18:6 the parents would suffer the "most severe judgment" for allowing an innocent child to stumble in this way. He also taught that it was better for parents to commit suicide than cause their offspring to stumble and go to hell.


[edit]

Andrea Yates case

On June 20, 2001, one of Woroniecki's disciples for the previous nine years, Andrea Pia Yates killed all five of her children. Eventually, Woroniecki surfaced in the media when evidence was admitted in court implicating Woroniecki's teaching in a newsletter called The Perilous Times as having negatively scripted Andrea's psychotic mind.[5][6]

Woroniecki became the focus of national media attention in March of 2002 for his influence on Yates.Letters from the Woroniecki family were found by investigative author Suzy Spencer that berated Andrea over her unrighteous standing before God. Only two months after receiving the harsh letters from the Woroniecki's, Andrea was hospitalized twice for two separate suicide attempts.[7][8][9]

Woroniecki's wife said on a March 27, 2002 interview of ABC's Good Morning America that the greatest problem they have with disciples is that "they try to emulate their lifestyle without coming to Jesus," suggesting that their disciples mistakenly choose to place themselves under the "yoke" of the Law of God, consequently crushing themselves under its burdensome weight.

Woroniecki denies that he had anything at all to do with negatively influencing Yates. He claims in a letter postmarked October 24, 2002 to author Suzanne O'Malley that Andrea's motive for killing her children was based on a deep and intense hatred for her husband that he learned from prior ministerial conversations with her and that she and the media conspired to use "religious rhetoric" to cover up her true motive. Only five months earlier, Woroniecki told the Leslie Primeau Show at CHED AM 630 in Edmonton, Canada that he had "no idea" what Andrea's true motive was, according to a recorded excerpt of the broadcast at an ex-follower's website.
[edit]

Post-Yates career

Woroniecki and his family remain active with their message.[10][11][12][13][14][15]

Two daughters of Mr. Woroniecki preached in 2005:

    "You are on the wrong path, and there is nothing you can do about it... God's message is not unconditional love. It's unrelenting anguish and hopelessness!"[16]

[edit]

Notes

   1. ^ *Oregon family delivers fire, brimstone sermon Oct. 1, 1998, PSU
   2. ^ Eyes of a Recovering Mike-a-holic
   3. ^ The Ultimate False Prophet by ex-follower
   4. ^ *Anti-Mormon Protest Disturbs Campus BYU Press, October 6, 1994
   5. ^ ABC NEWS, The Evil Inside, Jan. 21, 2002
   6. ^ CrimeLibrary review of Yates case
   7. ^ Rick A. Ross Institute News Summary March 18, 2002
   8. ^ World Net Daily, Beware of Poisonous Preachers Mar. 23, 2002
   9. ^ Archived Dallas Morning News Article April 6, 2002
  10. ^ Traveling preachers descend onto PSU Sept. 23, 2004
  11. ^ Zealots preach in Oak Grove September 27, 2004 The Penn, Indiana University of Pennsylvania
  12. ^ Yates was one of Woroniecki's followers Sept. 30, 2004
  13. ^ Relgious solicitors harass students October 5, 2004 The Collegiate Times, Virginia Polytechnic & State University
  14. ^ Religious enthusiasts identified October 6, 2004
  15. ^ Family warns, preaches: 'We are ... going to Hell'Oct. 18, 2005 The Digital Collegian, PSU
  16. ^ The overture to Hell? The Collegian - student newspaper of the University of Richmond, Sep. 29, 2005.

[edit]

References

    * "Are You Alone?" by Suzanne O'Malley
    * "Breaking Point," by Suzy Spencer
    * Dallas Morning News, Religion Section, April 6, 2002
    * KTRK NEWS-Houston (ABC Affiliate), 15 broadcasts in 2002 investigating blame in the Yates tragedy: Jan. 21; Feb. 26; Mar. 4,17,18,21,27,28.

[edit]

External links

    * Countercult.com profile of Michael Woroniecki

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Peter_Woroniecki"

Categories: 1954 births | Christian fundamentalism | Living people
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »

Offline Anonymous

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Andrea Yates
« Reply #235 on: July 29, 2006, 11:04:18 AM »
Did price for prosecuting Yates twice exceed public benefit?

Thursday, July 27, 2006

By Dan Lauck

Never had the Harris County District Attorney?s Office paid as much money to hot-shot experts as it did in the prosecution of Andrea Yates.  And still, it lost the case.

KHOU-TV

The district attorney's star witness, psychiatrist Michael Welner, was paid $200,000 for his testimony.

?We find the defendant, Andrea Pea Yates, not guilty by reason of insanity,? the jury foreman said as he read the verdict Wednesday.

It was a hopeless formality, but the prosecutors still wanted each juror asked publicly if this was his or her vote.

What followed was a roll call of rejection in this, the most expensive prosecution in the history of the Harris County District Attorney?s Office.

?These people need to get a dose of reality,? said George Parnham, Yates? attorney.

Reporter:  ?Did they get a dose yesterday?

Parnham: ?Well, I sure hope so.?

George Parnham was speaking, specifically, about the D.A.?s star witness, psychiatrist Michael Welner, who testified the way prosecutors wanted.  

?She absolutely knew it was wrong,? said Welner.

And, for saying that much, he was paid $200,000.

?I don?t know if people were turned off by that or not,? said District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal.  ?I haven?t talked to any of the jurors.?

Rosenthal conceded the county had its own experts right around the corner at the county jail.  But, instead, wanting the best, went for the doctors with the biggest reputations.

Park Dietz was paid a $100,000.

?What?s a child?s life worth?? said Rosenthal.

Or what?s a doctor?s opinion worth?  For $200,000, is it like one of those circus balloons that can be twisted into a dog, a cat or even a rat.

?Clearly Dr. Welner is for sale,? said Wendell Odom, Yates? attorney.  ?He was willing to be our witness and when that didn?t work out, he became their witness.?

?It?s a business.  There?s no question about it.  It?s money driven,? Parnham said.

It may be driven a new direction now that Andrea Yates has been found not guilty.

Rosenthal said the money for the expert witnesses came from a special fund, generated principally by seizures of drug money.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »

Offline Anonymous

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Yates foreman: 'It was pretty hard'
« Reply #236 on: July 29, 2006, 11:11:56 AM »
Yates foreman: 'It was pretty hard'

08:58 PM CDT on Wednesday, July 26, 2006

By Amy Tortolani / 11 News

The six men and six women on the Yates jury were together for 36 days. They spent so much time together, they now call each other family.

KHOU

Foreman Todd Frank said some jurors would have preferred to find Yates "guilty, but insane."

"To bring 15 people from such diverse backrounds, from different areas of town, different age groups -- and we absolutely all like each other -- absolutely," said jury foreman Todd Frank. "I was corrected last night. We don't like each other, we love each other."

But just like any relationship, this one was not easy: They had to decide the fate of Andrea Yates.

She sat in front of them every day on trial for drowning her children in the family bathtub.

KHOU

Other Yates jurors listen as the foreman speaks to the media.

"I can tell you I don't think any of us will ever forget it," said Frank. "Speaking for me personally, I have a 6-and-a-half- month old at home and it was pretty hard. But we paid attention for 36 days and, like I said, we all feel we made the right decision."

Frank said they did not believe what prosecutors had maintained -- that Yates failed to meet the state's definition of insanity: that she did not know her actions were wrong.

"It was very clear to us all -- as was presented by the majority of the doctors in the case, on both sides -- that they did believe she did have psychosis before, during and after," said Frank.

We learned one of the the tough discussions centered around whether that psychosis necessarily meant Yates wasn't guilty.

"The words are, 'not guilty by reason of insanity.' There were certain of us would rather it would have said, 'guilty but insane'," said Frank.

But in the end, the jurors agreed on a final decision -- not guilty by reason of insanity.
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Offline Anonymous

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Mental-Health Advocates Say Acquittal Reflects Awareness
« Reply #237 on: July 29, 2006, 11:18:35 AM »
Mental-Health Advocates Say
Acquittal Reflects Awareness

Houston Chronicle (KRT) - July 28, 2006

HOUSTON--Mental health advocates saw the acquittal of Andrea Yates as vindication of sorts for their long campaign to increase public appreciation of mental illness and how drastically it can affect human behavior.

Joe Lovelace, longtime mental health policy adviser in Texas and the immediate past executive director of the state?s chapter of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, called Wednesday "a fine day for Harris County," which he attributed in part to years of media attention to mental illness, especially among mothers.

"I think this verdict sends a clear message that people understand how profoundly ill Andrea Yates was," added Betsy Schwartz, president of the local chapter of National Mental Health Association.

But others said another human tendency played a role.

"It?s easy to forget what happened five years ago," said local victims rights activist Dianne Clements. "The public consciousness has dimmed. There may have been jurors this time who weren?t even living here then."

Public reaction -- from radio talk shows to Internet blogs to the Houston Chronicle?s own reader forums -- was mixed. While many agreed with the jury?s verdict, others said Yates should have been held accountable for drowning her five children in 2001. The latter sentiment was echoed by Clements, president of Justice For All.

"I think it?s a black day," she said. "I think it?s disconcerting and unjust when five children can be murdered by their mother, and there?s a statute that clearly defines what she did and the jury ignored it."

Clements said she felt the evidence was clear that Yates knew her conduct was wrong, the lone requirement for finding a defendant sane.

"She planned the murders. She did not hallucinate the day of or the day before. She did not hear voices. She hid her actions because she knew it was wrong," Clements said.

NAMI?s national director, Michael J. Fitzpatrick, praised the Yates jury for not "compounding one tragedy with another" and pointed out that insanity defenses fail far more often than they succeed.

Three others in state

Though still a difficult defense to mount, Yates is the fourth woman in Texas in the last few years to be acquitted of murdering their children by employing it.

One chopped her baby?s arms off; another bludgeoned her sons with a rock; the third, like Yates, drowned her two girls in a bathtub. The common thread was religiously oriented delusions by a mother who had never shown any inclination to harm. The juries in each case came to the conclusion that the defendants did not know their conduct was wrong, even if they knew that the law and others would consider it so. The statute does not offer juries specific guidance on how to interpret or define its language.

"The state (penal code) has not defined what knowing right or wrong is -- that?s left to the juries to discern," said veteran Houston forensic psychiatrist Vincent Scarano, who also is a lawyer. "They are still allowed to determine whether the moral rightness of what she did outweighed the legal wrongness. In this case, the jury had a tough job. She clearly seemed to be wrong on the legal side -- meaning she knew that it was legally wrong -- but there was a strong argument to make that she felt it was morally right what she did."

Attorney Robert Udashen, who represented Lisa Diaz of Plano after she drowned her children, had to convince jurors in Collin County of exactly the same thing.

"She waited for her husband to leave, drew the blinds, and did not answer the door when her mother came over," Udashen said. "The state argued she had to know it was wrong if she did that, but there?s a difference between knowing that other people think it?s wrong and you thinking it?s wrong. It?s a fine distinction there. You win or lose the case on such a fine point."

University of Texas law professor George Dix, an expert on mental health issues, said the recent track record of prosecutors in such cases should give them pause in bringing obviously ill defendants to trial.

"If conscientious prosecutors can tell in advance what will be presented," he said, "elaborate trials like this ought not to be necessary. Yes, that?s a difficult decision to reach. But they make difficult decisions in other types of cases."

Wendell Odom, one of Yates? attorneys, and others agreed that two other things helped in Yates? defense: the passage of time and the fact that this jury, unlike the first, did not come from a pool who had to declare their willingness to impose a death penalty. Prosecutors did not ask for death in the retrial.
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Offline Anonymous

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New Yates verdict points to reform
« Reply #238 on: July 29, 2006, 11:22:11 AM »
New Yates verdict points to reform

By Boston Herald editorial staff
Saturday, July 29, 2006

There were six victims in the case involving Andrea Yates, a fact hard to hold onto when considering the horrible deaths suffered by the five Yates children at their mother?s hands.
    It is nothing short of remarkable that the jurors who endured more than 30 days of testimony, including an excruciating recounting of one child struggling to the surface of the bathtub to apologize to his mother for whatever he did wrong, could still render the just verdict that Yates was not guilty by reason of insanity.
    ?Today?s verdict affirms that individuals with severe mental illnesses cannot be held to the same standards of criminal responsibility as other Americans. It demonstrates we as a nation are rightfully reassessing our treatment of people with mental illnesses in the justice system,? said David Shern, president of the National Mental Health Association.
    The father of Yates? children, makes the point even more simply: ?Andrea was ordinarily a loving mother, who was crippled by disease. Yes, she was psychotic on the day this happened,? said Rusty Yates.
     And yes, the conclusion of Yates? retrial is a watershed moment in the understanding of mental illness. But it is also an opportunity for states, including Massachusetts, to consider their own laws governing the insanity defense.
    Massachusetts? law, like that of many states including Texas, is based on the standard of whether or not the defendant can appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct.
    In response to some verdicts which outraged the public, such as John Hinckley?s successful insanity defense, some states eliminated the option altogether. Others put the burden of proof on the defense rather than the prosecutors and still others adopted a ?guilty but insane? model.
    Under the ?guilty but insane? standard, also called ?guilty but not criminally responsible,? defendants can receive the treatment they need from mental health providers but, if they recover, serve a normal prison sentence for their crimes.
    The Yates jury foreman noted after the trial that some jurors would have preferred this option. Understandably, it is difficult to apply the words ?not guilty? on the self-confessed perpetrator of such a horrific crime.
    ?Guilty but insane? bridges that semantic gap, but it does more than that. It strikes a balance between mercy and justice. Given the tools they had before them, the Yates jury accomplished that. Future juries here and around the country deserve sharper tools.
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Offline Anonymous

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Andrea Yates
« Reply #239 on: July 29, 2006, 11:37:08 AM »
I think you're the only one who is reading this anymore.
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