10 years later: The legacy of Andrea Yates' crime [from 2011]

HOUSTON Since then, there have been two trials, plenty of opinions and some changes to how the mentally ill are treated both in and out of a courtroom. George Parnham is perhaps the man who now knows Andrea Yates best.

Since she still turns down interviews, Parnham is the closest you'll get to the now 46-year-old woman.

Her day consists of group and individual therapy sessions and a regimented schedule, although in many ways she's like any woman of her age.

"She wears makeup, wears blue jeans, she wears earrings when she wants to," Parnham said.

Her occupation: artist. "She devises little arts and crafts and sells them anonymously at trade shows," Parnham said.

Moments after her then-husband Russell Yates left for work, Andrea drowned each of her five children in five separate acts.

Very quickly, we heard about Andrea's previous suicide attempts, hospital stays, medications, postpartum depression and psychosis -- and her motive.

"Under the law and the evidence in that case, it was shown that Andrea Yates knew her conduct was wrong, and it's OK for you to say that's the wrong standard to apply, but that is the standard in Texas and that was the law we were applying," attorney Joe Owmby said.

Andrea was spared the death penalty, but sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole in 40 years.

Based on expert testimony deemed false, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reversed Andrea's conviction and ordered a new trial.

That jury found her not guilty by reason of insanity, and she was committed to a state mental hospital.

"If it were not for the Andrea Yates case, we would not have had the needed attention to these issues," said Betsy Schwartz with Mental Health America of Greater Houston.

Today, both sides agree the Yates children's tragic deaths have brought about some good.

"Mary would be coming up on her 11th birthday," Schwartz said. "Since that time, a huge amount of progress has been made."

With both Andrea and Rusty's blessings, Parnham partnered with Mental Health America of Greater Houston to create the Yates Children Memorial Fund, a driving force behind a brochure focused on postpartum depression prevention that has been distributed to more than a half a million moms.

"We don't want moms to fear they're going to harm their children. Just because you're having PPD does not mean you're going to harm your child," Schwartz said.

We know Andrea has contributed to her children's fund with money she's made from selling her art.

Parnham says she thinks about them every day, and both yearns for and fears a time when she is no longer confined. He recognizes that, for some, that notion will be hard to take.

In November, she's up for re-evaluation for release to an outpatient facility. Parnham's hope is that she gets to move into a residential facility. He's certain her potential release will not come without protest and without concerns for her safety.

"She's very afraid of that," he said. Meanwhile, she's still at the Kerville facility, where she gets few visitors including Parnham, a couple of old friends and her ex-husband Rusty also visit. Though he's remarried with a three-year-old son and a teenage stepson, we've learned he still stays connected through visits. Andrea Yates declined to be interviewed for the piece. Rusty didn't return our calls.

In any case, she certainly was not rational. Excerpts:

Following the birth of her fourth child, Luke, Yates's depression resurfaced. On June 16, 1999, Rusty found her shaking and chewing her fingers. The next day, she attempted suicide by overdosing on pills, leading to her being hospitalized and prescribed antidepressants. Soon after her release, Yates begged Rusty to let her die as she held a knife up to her neck. Once again hospitalized, she was given several medications, including Haldol, an anti-psychotic drug. Yates's condition improved immediately, and she was prescribed it upon her release. After this incident, Rusty moved the family into a small house for the sake of her health. She appeared temporarily stabilized.[9]

In July 1999, Yates had a nervous breakdown, which culminated in two suicide attempts and two psychiatric hospitalizations that summer. She was subsequently diagnosed with postpartum psychosis.[10]

Yates's first psychiatrist, Dr. Eileen Starbranch, testified that she urged her and Rusty not to have any more children, as it would "guarantee future psychotic depression." They conceived their fifth and final child approximately seven weeks after her discharge.[11] Yates stopped taking Haldol in March 2000 and gave birth to her daughter, Mary, eight months later on November 30, 2000.[12]

Yates seemed to be coping well until the death of her father on March 12, 2001. She then stopped taking medication, mutilated herself, read the Bible feverishly, and stopped feeding Mary.[9] She became so incapacitated that she required immediate hospitalization. On April 1, 2001, Yates came under the care of Dr. Mohammed Saeed; she was treated and released. On May 3, 2001, she degenerated back into a "near catatonic" state and filled the bathtub in the middle of the day; she would later confess to police that she had planned to drown the children that day but had decided against doing it then. Yates was hospitalized the next day after a scheduled doctor visit; her psychiatrist determined she was probably suicidal and assumed she had filled the tub to drown herself.[12][1]

Yates continued under Dr. Saeed's care until June 20, 2001, when Rusty left for work, leaving her alone to watch the children against Dr. Saeed's instructions to supervise her around the clock.[13] Rusty's mother, Dora Yates, had been scheduled to arrive an hour later to take over for Andrea. In the space of that hour, Andrea Yates drowned all five children.[14]

Yates started with Paul, Luke, and John and then laid them in her bed. She then drowned Mary, whom she left floating in the tub. Noah came in and asked what was wrong with Mary. He then ran, but Yates soon caught and drowned him. She left him floating in the tub, and laid Mary in John's arms in the bed. She then called the police, repeatedly saying she needed an officer but refusing to say why. She then called Rusty and told him to come home right away.[9]

Although the prosecution had sought the death penalty, the jury refused that option. The trial court sentenced Yates to life imprisonment in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice with eligibility for parole in forty years.[17]..She told her jail psychiatrist: "It was the seventh deadly sin. My children weren't righteous. They stumbled because I was evil. The way I was raising them, they could never be saved. They were doomed to perish in the fires of hell."[49]

On January 6, 2005, a Texas Court of Appeals reversed the convictions, because California psychiatrist and prosecution witness Dr. Park Dietz admitted he had given materially false testimony during the trial.

On February 1, 2006, she was granted release on bail on the condition that she be admitted to a mental health treatment facility.[22] On July 26, 2006, after three days of deliberations, Yates was found not guilty by reason of insanity, as defined by the state of Texas. She was thereafter committed to the North Texas State Hospital–Vernon Campus.[23] In January 2007, she was moved to the Kerrville State Hospital, a low security mental facility in Kerrville, Texas.[

Media outlets alleged that Michael Woroniecki, an itinerant preacher whom Rusty had met while attending Auburn University, bore some responsibility for the deaths due to certain teachings which were found in his newsletter titled The Perilous Times - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_Yates

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