Posted on 07/28/2006 9:14:42 PM PDT by Niuhuru
"It's a shame that there's no law that can give Russell Yates his due," writes syndicated columnist Debra Saunders. "Russell Yates ought to be locked up instead of his wife," says writer Cindy Hasz. Creators Syndicate's Froma Harrop sneers that he probably "misses the obedient drudge who bore and raised his five children more than the five children." Harsh words for Russell Yates have come from many others, particularly former O. J. Simpson prosecutor Marcia Clark.
What these and others forget is that it's hard to make the right decision when you don't have a lot of options. According to Andrea Yates' brother, Andrew Kennedy, Russell Yates "did his best....He trusted the doctors and he did everything they said to do. He made sure she took her medication."
Psychiatrist Mohammed Saeed took Yates off the drug Haldol on June 4. Russell Yates, worried about his wife, brought her back to Dr. Saeed on June 18. The doctor said he saw no sign of psychosis and sent her home.
Two days later, she killed their five children.
Instead of using 20-20 hindsight, let's look at the situation as it must have appeared to Russell Yates before June 20. Mental illness is difficult for untrained people to cope with and to comprehend. Dr. Saeed had indicated that he believed that Andrea Yates was getting better, and Andrea herself has testified that she told nobody, not even her husband, about the "voices in her head." While Russell surely had doubts about leaving the kids with her, he didn't have a lot of choices. He couldn't quit his job to care for the kids--somebody had to put food on the table. Ending the home-schooling, a violation of both of their beliefs, might have been a severe blow to his fragile wife's self-esteem, perhaps pushing her over the edge.
Instead, Russell made the one move he needed to make--he brought his mother in from Tennessee to watch the kids every day. He generally left for work at 9 am and his mother arrived at 10 am, and he thought he had the situation under control.
He also probably believed that the best thing to do was to try to keep their family life stable, to try to be cheerful and to make the kids happy, and to hope that the medications would work and that his wife would get better. He may have believed that much of what Andrea was going through was simply post-pregnancy mood swings, and that the best thing to do is to be patient and to wait them out. He also attributed much of his wife's distress to the death of her father early last year. And he no doubt was in some denial, as people who are trapped in difficult situations often are. But should he really have expected that his troubled wife would kill their children?
The genuine mistakes Russell Yates made came earlier, when both he and Andrea decided to have a fifth child (perhaps because one or both of them wanted to have a girl), and when they decided upon home-schooling. Yet these decisions, which are now used against Russell, were mutual and were based upon the religious and moral beliefs of both Russell and Andrea. In fact, the testimony of Terry Arnold, a local merchant, indicates that Andrea Yates may have wanted a sixth child. Arnold testified that when he asked Andrea last year if they planned to have another child, a sudden wave of sadness washed over her.
"I felt like I had hit a sore subject," Arnold said. "There was a change in her demeanor...I thought she was going to cry."
Andrea's best friend claims that Russell didn't help out much around the house. It's hard to know how true this is, but we do know that Russell Yates was involved with his kids--he coached their sports teams, played basketball with them in the driveway regularly, selected and purchased some of their school materials, and was often seen around the neighborhood in the evenings as he walked with his family and pushed his youngest daughter in a stroller. He and his kids made lists of things they could do to cheer mommy up. And Russell alone shouldered the burden of supporting a wife and five children--a task certainly equal to the strain of being a housewife if home schooling is not in the equation.
Andrea Yates' defenders claim that she is not guilty of her crimes due to mental illness, and they may be correct. But the husband who has stood by his wife from the day of the tragedy, who has testified in her defense, and who has fought the public perception of her as a monster, deserves better than to be blamed for the murders and to be vilified as a cruel, domineering patriarch. Russell Yates is a flawed yet decent human being who tried to do what he could in a difficult and cloudy situation. Whether sane or insane, it is Andrea Yates, not Russell Yates, who killed their five children.
"Doesn't this make one wonder if he did NOT know what she was thinking? (about killing a child/children?)"
Excellent point, birdlady, to remember that. Had Mr. Yates been charged with any of the many charges that could have been laid on him, maybe this would have been resolved at trial. As it is, let him wander the earth like OJ, remorseless and unforgiven.
"He had been undergoing psychiatric treatment for depression."
Yes, but as far as I know about that case he had never been deemed "psychotic" or "delusional", Andrea had been.
Sometimes people do just "go off", even people who have given NO SIGN of it. Andrea had been a mental mess for years before this happened, and Russel was well aware of her severe instability.
Bottom line, you just don't take chances with your kids. Maybe that does apply to the mother of those twins too, I wouldn't rule it out.
I heard that it really was him pressuring her about kids, homeschooling, etc. Russell Yates is incredibly sexist and seems to have basically walked all over his timid, mentally unstable wife.
Furthermore, Russell's statements have failed to show any sort of feelings about his dead children or remorse that his actions (or lack there of) may have caused this tragedy.
Design a world for the convenience and safety of the criminally insane and those will be the only people for which it is a fit place to live.
Agreed....Men are always to blame and women are always excused.
Being crazy, a necessary ingredient for any murderer, should not give anyone a free license to kill.
It is obvious that the psychiatrists did not approve of the Yates lifestyle. What do you know she was undermedicated and killed her kids. Crazy relative or not I would never allow anyone to have that much power over my family. Russell should have cut Andrea loose and taken care of his children.
Feel better?
About what? That feminists dislike men, OR that anyone who criticizes the husband in this case has to be a feminist.
While I don't appreciate active, in-your-face feminists, you are way off track IMO when you apply that label to those who question whether Russell Yates carries some guilt for this tragedy.
Most are not being vindictive at all. For one, Andrea Yates was mentally ill and he knew it. She did not get pregnant all by herself. He participated each time.
Secondly, he didn't behave, react, as we think most normal people would after the fact. Yet, maybe he kept his grief completely private.
Russell Yates has puzzled me from the beginning and I am not a feminist.
LOL
And that makes me think he is wacko also.
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