Posted on 06/28/2006 12:38:46 PM PDT by presidio9
Exactly.
That plus mental illness, the chemical changes etc. You never know how someone will behave.
So what punishment should Andrea Yates get?
There was a recent cast in NC where a father shot his two sons and then himself because the wife wanted a divorce. I don't mean there is a connection, except that perhaps some people really want to punish the spouse SO much they are willing to kill their precious children to do it. I don't know, I have a very difficult time understanding any of that. I think it's the cold bloodedness of it. Probably virtually anyone can snap in a moment of anger and lash out and kill another, even a child. However, to plan and execute something like she did (or like the father in NC did) just is not something I can even begin to understand.
susie
I think she belongs in a mental institution for life. I hardly doubt she'll become sane one day. If she does, it's off to prison for her. Personally, I think she'd be the perfect research subject for postpartum psychosis and schizophrenia. Which one does she have, if not both? Were there contributing factors, etc. It would be worth it to try and prevent something like this from happening again.
As for Susan Smith, why is she still breathing? Why was she allowed to post coy little pics of herself on some website featuring women in prison? Does her state not have the death penalty?
"He's married again so he can father another clan"
I was actually relieved, reading a news account of the wedding, to see that the bride is in her forties, so the size of the clan is going to be limited, at best.
You're bringing up some good points. Remember the first time Rusty talked to reporters? I chalked his attitude up to extreme grief. The second time, I thought he was on meds, or drunk. That was at the courthouse. Then information started surfacing about what was going on in their home life. A good day was when she could comb her hair, but she's homeschooling? Who's harebrained idea was that?
After the trial was over, remember the interview Rusty gave on some talk show? Can't remember which one. That's when he casually mentioned his intent to remarry and have another family. Hey chowderhead, you cannot replace your dead children with new ones! In fact, I can't believe he found someone stupid enough to marry him.
I can understand everyone's anger and disgust with Andrea Yates, but she should have been in an inpatient facility. I also believe that the doctors who attempted to treat her, and advise Rusty(Andrea was legally incapable of deciding her own treatment plan)not to have any more children, did the best they could. Imo, Rusty has made some calculated misleading statements, and omissions regarding Andrea's condition.
I save my anger and disgust for Susan Smith. She who murdered her babies to be with another man, then went as far as to draw composite sketches of two Black men. Can you imagine if the police had "found" those two black men? Evil compounded! Here is some irony: what if that man used her kids as an excuse to break up with her, because he had the problem with her and not her kids. The kids were an excuse. I guess her state does not have the death penalty. If anyone deserves it, that cold blooded bitch sure does. She can't get out on parole, can she????
Ditto,
Susan Smith is pure evil and deserves the death penalty.
In the Yates situation, all the docs were going on most times were what they were told by the family. The woman was psychotic years before the deaths of those children and it was like everything was done to make her even more insane, not less.
"She's not acting like herself" can mean a lot of things. In her case, it meant harm to herself and a threat to those around her (again, LONG before even child 5 was born). And yeah, Rusty was the one that even Ozzy Osborne didn't want to be on the same talk show with him, saying he was using his kids deaths for fame.
Rusty and that preacher were in control over Andrea. I'd use passive, and foolish, to describe both families who were watching this unfold. I have no idea if there was anything legally they could have done, or whether any of them bothered to explore their options.
Andrea is insane,
and her becoming 'sane' is a precarious proposition at best. The more 'sane' she becomes, the more she knows what she's done....the more insane she is, the less emotional connection she has.
Those who want her punished should wish for a life in a mental hospital, sane enough to know, but not sane enough to leave.
I forgot that you work in the mental health industry, so you have more insight into this, than many of us.
Didn't she murder her boys in Ohio? Can't remember, and Lord knows I have enough trouble keeping up with the laws in my own state. If her state has the death penalty, why wasn't she eligible for it?
Andrea was pushed beyond her limits, that's for sure. IIRC, she also took care of her dying father at one point? Did Rusty consult more with Warniecki(the preacher), than the doctors? Look, if you are immersed in a harsh form of religion, there is an answer to not having more children. You don't have sex, if you believe that you cannot use contraception. Nature will take care of the build up. That's another thing...Andrea was looking pretty bad. Why would you pick on a sick person? Did you see her at the arraignment? You can't fake that.
People can say what they want about Ozzy, but his problems were brought about because of drug addiction. He knows right from wrong. I don't know too many people who would want to be on the same show as Rusty, even if just from the fear of saying something really nasty to him on national TV.
There were an awful lot of different sources weighing in on this, many with first hand information. Anyone who carves 666 into their scalp is a stark raving lunatic, and the physical evidence of that is such that it either happened the way various family sources said it did (i.e. she did it to herself) or dear Russell did it to her and she still didn't get herself and her children the he!! out of there.
Nobody can ever really know what her state of mind was at the very time she killed her children. People who are truly psychotic and/or schizophrenic have constantly changing perceptions. My half sister is schizophrenic (and due to our stupid laws. can't be forced into treatment until she kills or maims somebody). She lives in a makeshift tent near McAllen, Texas, despite my father's perpetual offers to buy her a little house. Some days she's very focused on her task of "guarding the border"; other days she's very focused on how she can't go into the post office to pick up mail from dad anymore, because the metal detectors that were installed at the entrance a few years back set off the things that "they" (somebody other than border-crossing invaders) implanted in her head. If she finally gets seriously violent and kills someone, there will be no way of knowing whether at the moment she killed them, she thought they were dangerous invaders from Mexico and it was her duty to kill them, or she thought they were the people who had implanted things in her head and they were about to try to implant more things, or thought some other non-reality-based thing, but we'll know she was out of mind when she did it, because she's always out of her mind to one degree or another.
Given Andrea Yates' well-documented history of complete insanity, the only reasonable assumption is that she was insane when she did it (and will never be remotely sane unless she's kept under close supervision so she can't deliberately or inadvertently not take her very strong medication). Whether the specific line of thinking that she'd expressed to relatives before, and IIRC repeated afterwards during psych exams, that the children could go to heaven if she killed them, was what was in her head when she killed them, we'll never know. Maybe she'd forgotten all about that, and had a different insane idea in her head right then. But the chance that she was thinking even remotely rationally is not plausible IMO.
She tried to commit suicide, and damn near everyone cheered. I think she's coming around to realizing exactly what she's done. Remove the negative, bust through the religious delusions, and there you have it. She'll never be sane enough to leave an institutional setting.
I don't recall hearing about her carving 666 into her head, in the past, but just learned about it on this thread. You're right, it's insane. That's one thing I don't think Rusty did himself.
She listened to "sermons" which stated that women are sinful, they are bad, if they are bad their children will be bad and go to hell. Andrea internalized this message, and her mental state grabbed the ball and ran with it. She believed at the time that she was sending her children to heaven, before she had the chance to turn them into bad people because of her "sins". I have some experience about how bad religious beliefs can become ingrained and harmful.
I am so sorry about your half sister. It brings up what I said yesterday about laws prohibiting involuntary commitment. Extremely dangerous for all concerned, and they need to be changed. Your father must be heartbroken over this, as I'm sure you are as well :(
It's really my dad and half-brother who bear the emotional burden. She's about 15 years older than me and I barely knew her at all. I know she visited us a few times during school breaks, but I was too young to remember it directly. Pisses me off plenty, though, that my dad and brother pay tons of taxes, a lot of which go to medical care and other support for deadbeats and illegal aliens, while their daughter/sister who really needs and is entitled to care can't get it because the idiot leftist courts insist she's freely choosing to live the way she does.
My dad actually managed to get a Texas court to have her hauled in for an involuntary psych exam, which naturally resulted in a diagnosis of schizophrenia. Not only did this not result in any Texas agency taking her off the streets, but the court said it can't share the info with federal agencies due to her "privacy rights", so she's not eligible for any Social Security disability or Medicaid benefits. And naturally there is no federal agency with authority to arrest her and make her undergo an involuntary psych exam. Convenient, huh?
Those poor children. Why hasn't this murderous smirking creature been executed yet?
Yup, I have a schizophrenic relative (well, she's no longer alive).
susie
That sucks! Convenient my ass. Your dad and half brother's emotional burden must be a heavy one. The thing about government is that they cover each other's behinds, while some folks just waltz in here and take advantage of all the "freebies" that stupid Americans provide. Try and get some help when you aren't "eligible" for anything.
She can't apply for benefits because there is nothing wrong with her in her mind :( The laws need to be changed.
We have a huge problem with the homeless in CA. They wander around, getting themselves hurt and dead, when there is help for them....but we can't step on their "rights".
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