Posted on 07/07/2006 6:26:30 PM PDT by Extremely Extreme Extremist
(AP) HOUSTON A psychiatrist testified Friday that she warned Andrea Yates not to have any more children after she tried to commit suicide twice within months of having her fourth child in 1999.
"I could pretty much predict that Mrs. Yates would have another episode of psychosis," Dr. Eileen Starbranch told jurors in Yates' second murder retrial.
Starbranch said Yates suffered from postpartum psychosis, which she said causes a mother to have delusions and lose touch with reality, making it much more severe than postpartum depression.
Yates drowned her five young children in a bathtub in June 2001, 6 months after the birth of her fifth child, Mary. She is being tried again because an appeals court overturned her 2002 murder conviction based on erroneous testimony that might have influenced the jury. She has again pleaded innocent by reason of insanity.
Yates' attorneys have never disputed she killed the youngsters but say she didn't know that the drownings were wrong.
Prosecutors say Yates may be mentally ill but does not meet the state's definition of insanity.
They say Yates planned to drown the children when she was alone with them, after her husband went to work and before her mother-in-law arrived. Then Yates called 911 and later told a detective she killed them because she was a bad mother and wanted to be punished, according to witnesses.
Along with Mary, Yates drowned 2-year-old Luke, 3-year-old Paul, 5-year-old John and 7-year-old Noah.
Starbranch said she treated Yates after she tried to kill herself by overdosing on sleeping pills in June 1999.
About a month later, Starbranch said, Yates' then-husband, Rusty, told her that Yates had held a knife to her own throat the previous day.
Starbranch said Yates had a bald spot on her head from scratching it, had not been taking her antipsychotic medication, had filthy hair and could not function. Starbranch said she sent the couple immediately to a mental hospital so Andrea Yates could be admitted.
Under cross-examination, Starbranch acknowledged that the words "filthy" and "catatonic" were not in her notes and said that Yates' nervousness and anxiety may have been a sign that she simply did not want to be at a psychiatrist's office. But Starbranch maintained that Yates was psychotic and not lethargic or exhausted from caring for four young children.
Over the next two weeks or so while hospitalized, Yates steadily improved while on antipsychotic drugs, Starbranch said.
But then in March 2001, Rusty Yates called Starbranch's office trying to make an appointment, saying his wife was getting worse since having the couple's fifth child in November, Starbranch testified.
"I knew that was a very ominous sign ... that lives were at stake, so I asked that she be brought in immediately," Starbranch said.
The couple never showed up, but Starbranch later learned that Yates was admitted to another mental hospital, the psychiatrist testified.
Yates, being tried in only three of the children's deaths, will be sentenced to life in prison if convicted. After the first jury rejected execution, prosecutors could not seek the death penalty again because they found no new evidence.
10) They don't know how to work a fax machine.
Starbranch said she didn't know how to work a fax machine and couldn't confirm that the fax had been sent.
9) They don't remember sending your medical records to your new doctor
Starbranch said she had gone through her office records before coming to court and found no messages from Saeed or any requests for Yates' medical records. Prosecutor Joe Owmby then produced a fax cover sheet sent May 9, 2001, with a handwritten note from Starbranch's assistant to Saeed. "Here are the medical records on Andrea Yates," the cover sheet on the 20-page fax said. "Thanks for your (patience)." ... Not very impressive so far.
Russell Yates contradicted the testimony of a psychiatrist who treated his wife, saying Dr. Eileen Starbranch discouraged but didn't forbid the couple from having more children. He also said Starbranch took Andrea Yates off anti-psychotic medication, a contention the doctor denied.
Yates told jurors that his wife spent 10 days at Devereux before being discharged, with many of the same symptoms still apparent.
6) (new) Dr. takes patient of medication prematurely.
With his wife's condition still concerning him about three weeks later, Russell Yates said he asked that Saeed keep his wife on the anti-psychotic drug Haldol. Saeed recommended that she be weaned from the drug on June 4, he said.
Russell Yates said he and his wife returned on June 18, but the doctor didn't place her back on the anti-psychotic drug and changed her prescription.
Your delusiions are not worth a further comment.
An accomplished and personal woman.
Try "delusions" and go back to your DU home.
Shaking a child to death is despicable.
drowning her children was insanity.
You are only able to make that assessment based on 20/20 hindsight. What real evidence do you know he had available to him before she murdered her children that she was emotionally unstable?
Uh, well, suicide attempt is usually a tip off.
I should have said "insane" rather than "emotionally unstable" since that is what they are actually arguing over to get her aquitted for her crime.
The suicide attempts were two years prior. She had recovered from that psychotic episode. The current treating Dr. had released her from the hospital.
Seems like she fooled both the Dr. and her husband.
She had her act planned out. The husband thought she was doing well enought to be left alone for what - a hour at most? - til the mother-in-law arrived.
If anything failed in this system, it was the treating psychiatrist.
Given her history, would you leave your kids alone with her?
Now that is a very difficult question to answer.
Would I have left her?
Obviously from hindsight and all the claims being made by the shrinks one would tend to want to say NO, DEFINITELY NOT.
Based on what Mr. Yates knew at the time and what he may have been told or not told... I would say I probably would.
Obviously Mr. Yates was trying not to leave her at home. He new she was currently fragile and not herself - we know this because the mother-in-law was on her way and was running late. All prior evidence was that she was a danger to herself and not others. She had been recently released by the last Dr. and was supposedly recovering from her recent depression. She had was highly intelligent and an avid mother... She seemed 'okay' when he left - so probably so.
I personally I doubt the Dr. warnings were anywhere near as strigent or clear cut as they are currently trying to make them seem. Some of these communications were probably only made to Mrs. Yates and not to Mr. Yates.
She planned this crime. She waited hid her intentions and waited til there was a gap in coverage. I don't think she was insane, I think she was evil. There is a big difference.
I don't think she was insane, I think she was evil. There is a big difference.
You believe in "evil" and I believe in "bad wiring." Those two things can't be reconciled.
Can't they now?
Do you think she planned the event?
No idea. There's simply no way to know what was going on inside her head. To her the world may have looked like a road runner cartoon played backwards at high speed.
If you're addressing the idea of legal responsibility, that's one thing. If you're addressing moral responsibility, unfortunately, that's another thing. In many, many cases the instruments of the law have no way of arriving at an absolute truth.
Its not about absolute truth. Or even what the inside of her head looks like.
Did she plan the event?
No idea if she planned it or not.
I think perhaps you do already know the answer.
If she was insane, would she have not attacked at any time - regarless of who was there or not?
Why did she wait til she was alone for a very brief period to commit her act?
Since her husband knew her situation and knocked her up for the 5th time, he is an accomplice to the crime.
Yea if I was her husband I would listen to some whack job telling me not to have children. Just because one psych was right does not excuse the many that are ruining people's lives.
She only had ONE hour to do this.
How would I know the answer? You're applying logic to the actions of a woman with a head like a busted radio. And logic simply doesn't apply. That's one reason why crazy people are terrifying.
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