It is my understanding that Andrea is divorced.
Why again is this cold, calculated murderer still stealing our oxygen?
Isn't this the lady who drowned her 3 kids? This is sad, a very sad day.
You can be bailed out of a mental institution?
Bump
You've got to be kidding me...
I'm hardly forgiving of her crimes, but she is clearly a nutjob on many levels --- medically crazy long before this and also had a weird preacher all but controlling the family (the guy dressed up like the devil as part of his act; nutty and probably crooked).
Note, I am NOT condoning or forgiving her actions or saying she needs to be free - ever.
Just stating there is at least a grain of truth in the defense.
Husband? Huh?
She should have been executed years ago. No understanding and mercy for mass murderers. She killed five children. I don't need to know anything past that
I hope someone dunks her fat head under a bathtub until bubbles stop floating up.
Kids in the neighborhood are issued scuba gear.
Feb. 1, 2006, 11:08AM
Bond set for Andrea Yates
By DALE LEZON
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle
Bond was set at $200,000 today in the case of Andrea Pia Yates, the mother accused of drowning her five children, but she must remain at a state mental hospital until her second trial begins.
Yates, 41, has admitted drowning her five children in a bathtub in her Clear Lake-area home in 2001. She is scheduled for retrial March 20 on capital murder charges stemming from the deaths of three of the children.
State District Judge Belinda Hill agreed to the bond, as long as Yates is voluntarily committed to Rusk State Hospital, where her attorney has wanted her placed.
Yates was found guilty in her first trial in 2002 and sentenced to life in prison, but the state's First Court of Appeals overturned the conviction in January last year and sent the case back to district court, saying erroneous testimony by a prosecution witness could have prejudiced jurors.
In November, the Court of Criminal Appeals, the state's highest court for criminal cases, let that decision stand.
At her first trial, Yates pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. Prosecutors sought the death penalty and she was not allowed a bond. The jury found her guilty but said that mitigating circumstances — her mental state — precluded her execution and she was sentenced to life in prison.
Now, prosecutors can't seek the death penalty against her again because a jury in the first trial said she did not deserve it. Since she can't be executed, she can be granted a bond.
Yates was jailed at the Texas Department of Corrections Skyview unit, a psychiatric facility, until her conviction was overturned and she was moved to the Harris County jail in January. She is in the jail's psychiatric unit.
The First Court of Appeals ruled that Hill had erred in the first trial when she refused to declare a mistrial based on mistaken testimony from the state's expert witness, psychiatrist Park Dietz..
Dietz testified that one episode of the "Law & Order" TV series depicted a mother prosecuted for drowning her children who was found not guilty by reason of insanity.
A consultant to the series, Dietz said the episode aired shortly before Yates killed her children. Prosecutors told jurors that Yates watched the program regularly.
After Yates was convicted but before jurors decided her sentence, it was discovered that no such episode was ever produced. Dietz insisted that he had made an honest mistake and jurors were told of his mistake before deliberating about Yates' sentence.
Yet, the appeals court ruled that Dietz' error may have swayed jurors and tossed out the conviction.
Soon after her husband, Russell Yates, left for NASA where he worked as an engineer, Yates called Houston police to their home near Clear Lake June 20, 2001. Officers found the children dead in the house.
Yates told them she had drowned all five of her children in a bathtub. She had put the bodies of John, 5; Paul, 3; Luke, 2; and Mary, 6 months, on a bed and covered them with a sheet, police said. She left Noah, 7, in the tub.
I used to live in the area where all this happened. It was utterly unbelievable that something like that could happen there.
I could only assume that for someone to do what she did that she had to be completely insane at the time. Of course I've never thought that that should stand in the way of an execution.
As a comedian (Carlin???) once said--"if they're insane isn't that all the more reason to kill 'em."
Texas turns pc.
Texans can no longer laugh at California for the OJ and Blake verdicts.
Unbelievable -- that this would happen in Texas.
This is crazy beyond all belief. She is a worse criminal than Scott Peterson and what chance does he have for bail or a new trial, zero. As it should be.
"Katie Couric line 1, Katie Couric line 1... and bring the checkbook."
Maybe there's some water left in the tub...
Keep in mind that WABC news is not a credible source, but that's what they are reporting.