What a beautiful family she had :(
Posted on 02/02/2006 10:59:32 AM PST by presidio9
Andrea Yates left jail early Thursday for a state mental hospital where she will await her second capital murder trial for the drowning deaths of her young children.
Yates' attorney posted her $200,000 bond, releasing her from incarceration for the first time since the five children were drowned in the family bathtub in June 2001.
State District Judge Belinda Hill set the bond Wednesday.
Yates, 41, didn't speak as she left the jail. She carried a brown paper sack and wore jeans and a blue-and-white striped shirt as she entered a car with her attorney and a private investigator for the drive to the mental hospital.
Her attorney, George Parnham, said he would answer questions after returning Yates to East Texas, where she previously spent more than three years at a prison psychiatric unit.
The judge said she couldn't order Yates to commit herself to the Rusk State Hospital, but said she set the bond based on Yates remaining there until her March 20 trial. Once the trial begins, Yates will return to the Harris County Jail. The trial is expected to last four to six weeks.
Yates faces capital murder charges for drowning three of the children and has pleaded innocent by reason of insanity.
A jury rejected her original insanity defense in 2002 and sentenced her to life in prison for the drowning of 7-year-old Noah, 5-year-old John and 6-month-old Mary. Prosecutors presented evidence about the drownings of Paul, 3, and Luke, 2, but Yates was not charged in their deaths.
An appeals court last year overturned the convictions based on testimony by the state's expert witness about a nonexistent episode on television's "Law & Order" series. The expert, Park Dietz, said a show about a woman with postpartum depression who drowned her children had aired shortly before the Yates children were drowned.
Remember:
The Houston area chapter of NOW established the Andrea Pia Yates Support Coalition, which held vigils for Yates, provided courtroom supporters, and raised money for a legal defense fund that Yates' lawyers had set up.
Deborah Bell — president of the Texas state NOW and moderator of HANOW's e-group HoustonNOW — posted a message Feb. 20 on that forum from Winnie Howard, identified in the header as "Mr. Parnham's assistant." In message #175, Howard provided instructions on how members of HANOW could obtain a pass for seats in the Yates courtroom, perhaps avoiding the public lines. She ended, "It would be great if Andrea's supporters could fill the courtroom."
At NOW's 2001 national conference last summer, then-President Patricia Ireland declared that Yates revealed America as a "patriarchal society" where "women are imprisoned at home with their children."
http://tinyurl.com/9a695
August 31, 2001
The Texas National Organization for Women has helped establish the Andrea Pia Yates Support Coalition, a group of organizations that support confessed murderer Andrea Yates, a Houston-area woman who systematically murdered all five of her children in their bathtub. Information on supporting the coalition has been featured by Katie Couric on The Today Show.
Deborah Bell, the coalition’s organizer and president of the Houston NOW chapter stated that the coalition "may be some of the most important work of my life." She also explained, "One reason I am able to do so much [for the coalition] is that I am actually being paid a small amount from the Texas NOW State Chapter."
http://tinyurl.com/cq2kb
From what Parnham just said a while ago, it was the bondsman himself who went ahead and made the bond without any money put down at all.
Here, here's the name:
"George Parnham said his friend Billy Pastor agreed to write the bond and only charge his costs for it ... "
A couple of excerpts from local TV tell more of the bond story:
http://www.click2houston.com/news/6676962/detail.html
[snip]
....
State District Judge Belinda Hill said she couldn't order Yates to commit herself to the east Texas hospital, but said she set the bond amount based on Yates remaining at the hospital while she awaits her March 20 trial.
A bondsman, who has been friends with Yates' attorney for years, posted her $200,000 bond.
Parnham said his friend Billy Pastor agreed to write the bond and only charge his costs for it, which will be far less than the 10 percent or $20,000 normally required for such a bond.
"The conditions we've set up aren't much of a risk to him," said Wendell Odom, another of Yates' attorneys. The bond requires Yates to remain at the state hospital until her retrial.
"We are committed to him to come up with the costs of that bond, but he has given us some time to do it," he added.
Yates attorneys are talking with individuals who may cover the cost of the bond, but would not disclose who those individuals are nor what Pastor is charging to write the bond.
....
Prosecutors had asked that bond be set at $1 million.
Parnham had asked for a $50,000 bond, which would have required $5,000 in cash to release Yates from jail.
Prosecutor Joe Owmby said he was worried that the court and the bondsman would have no recourse if Yates left the state hospital.
Parnham said that if Yates tried to leave, the hospital would notify him and he would pick her up and return her to the custody of the Harris County Sheriff's Department.
~~~~~
*Just trust me*
Bondsman Billy Pastor testified that the bond would be written on the condition that Yates be committed to Rusk State Hospital to await trial. But prosecutor Joe Owmby said he worried that the court and bondsman would have no recourse if Yates left the state hospital.
Thanks.
Yeah, I trust them. /sarcasm
both users w/OCD imo.
Reporters are always talking about people "pleading innocent." No one ever pleads "innocent." In adult criminal cases people plead guilty, not guilty, or no contest. If you ever read about someone pleading innocent, you are reading something written by a reporter who doesn't know what he or she is talking about.
"What messege are they sending?"
---Just a figure of speech. Not meant to be actually answered, friend. :)
I remember several interviews with ol' Rusty. The first one, I attributed his behavior to severe shock. The one where he said he wanted to remarry and have more children, just made me ill. His babies hadn't been dead all that long, after all.
I did a lot of reading on this. The whole family shares the blame, imo. Imagine a family member stating (paraphrasing here)that some days Andrea actually pulled a comb through her hair. What kind of idiots would let her take on the burden of five little kids, much less homeschool them? The doctors also warned them that Andrea should not have any more children. Can't remember when they said that, but it was definitely before the last pregnancy.
Just a damn shame. Any woman who gets involved with Rusty Yates ought to have her head examined.
OCD? Hmm, I don't know, but they both love those tv cameras.
Postpartum depression is NOT a fraud. Hi Tom, how's Katie doing?
Btw, shrinks and therapists have nothing to do with medical conditions.
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