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Yates lived by rigid schedule, according to husband
The Dallas Morning News ^ | March 1, 2002 (The Ides of March are upon us!) | By TERRI LANGFORD / The Dallas Morning News

Posted on 03/01/2002 1:45:51 AM PST by MeekOneGOP


Yates lived by rigid schedule, according to husband

Husband also testifies she was allowed 3 hours a week without her kids

03/01/2002

By TERRI LANGFORD / The Dallas Morning News

HOUSTON - Russell "Rusty" Yates told jurors Thursday about how his wife, Andrea, lived by a rigid schedule as housekeeper and teacher and was allowed three hours each week to do whatever she wanted, alone, without her children.

"Man's the breadwinner and the woman's the homemaker," Mr. Yates said Thursday during Mrs. Yates' capital murder trial. Mrs. Yates pleaded insanity after admitting that she drowned her five children in June.

While he talked proudly of the couple's decision to toe a higher ethical line based on biblical teachings and lessons gleaned from a conservative newsletter called "Perilous Times," Mr. Yates coincidentally painted a picture for jurors of a bleak life bereft of any outlet for Mrs. Yates besides her children.

*
AP
"A scared animal" is how Debbie Holmes testified that her friend Andrea Yates behaved in the days before she killed her children.

Mr. Yates, 37, told the jury that he and his wife agreed before their wedding in 1993 to a "traditional" marriage in which he would serve as sole breadwinner and she would be homemaker.

The pact included being a stay-at-home mother, primary caregiver and, eventually, home-school teacher. Mr. Yates said that he controlled the cash and that she stuck carefully to an allowance.

Therapist Earline Wilcott, who met with Mrs. Yates after her suicide attempts, testified that her client felt overwhelmed and trapped.

Ms. Wilcott said Mrs. Yates felt criticized for the way she ran the household. Ms. Wilcott said Mrs. Yates told her that her husband bought her a book on how to get organized.

When pressure from raising their children appeared to be getting to Mrs. Yates, she could always look forward to Thursdays. Mr. Yates testified that for three hours once each week from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Mrs. Yates could do whatever she wanted, alone, without the children.

The free time was to provide some relief for his wife, Mr. Yates said. "I guess that's what we decided," he said.

Mrs. Yates is a diagnosed schizophrenic predisposed to pitch-black depressions that followed the births of her last two children. Testimony has shown that the 37-year-old registered nurse with perfectionist tendencies and a solid Christian faith went along with the home management plan she and Mr. Yates hammered out before marriage.

During a second day of testimony, this time during questioning by Harris County prosecutor Joe Owmby, Mr. Yates, a NASA engineer, said he and Mrs. Yates agreed before marrying that she would give up her job at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center at Houston.

"We thought it best that Andrea be home," Mr. Yates testified.

Prosecutors say Mrs. Yates was fully aware of what she was doing when she drowned Noah, 7; John, 5; Paul, 3; Luke, 2; and 6-month-old Mary in the family bathtub.

Mrs. Yates' trial, which began Feb. 18, is expected to go through next week. She faces life in prison or lethal injection if convicted.

During questioning, Mr. Yates said his wife was quiet and remarkably modest. After they were married, Mrs. Yates wouldn't undress in front of her husband. "That's a pretty personal question, but generally that's true. She's shy," he testified.

While Mr. Yates found time for interests such as biking to work, joining a gym and working in the garage, Mrs. Yates had the children and home-schooling to keep up with.

Their life also included some unusual experiments and choices.

Almost as soon as their first home was built, they rented it out, trading it for a 38-foot trailer to live a "simpler life."

"I think a lot of it was that Andrea was generally happy in the house, I probably wasn't as happy in the house," he said.

After being married 41/2 years, with three young children and another on the way, they sold the trailer for a $37,000 converted Greyhound bus.

"I didn't view it as a hardship," Mr. Yates said. "We like it better than a house."

After the 1999 birth of their fourth child, Luke, the close quarters appeared to get to her. She summoned her husband home one day. He found her sobbing and shaking in the back of the bus.

The next day, she took an overdose. Less than a month later, she held a knife to her throat.

Mr. Yates told jurors how he faithfully drove his wife to therapy after her two suicide attempts.

He also told jurors that his wife opted for natural childbirth.

Although he conceded that the newsletter he and his wife read advocated natural childbirth for a "humbling experience for a woman," Mr. Yates said it was his wife's idea to go without local anesthetic.

"It was her choice," he said. "Sometimes Andrea liked to take the hard road instead of an easy road."

Despite warnings from at least one psychiatrist who said having more children would bring Mrs. Yates a harsher version of the depression that sent her to try to kill herself, they had a fifth child on Nov. 30, 2000.

They knew that Haldol pulled her out of the depths in 1999, after the birth of Luke. When Mrs. Yates faltered again, particularly after her father died in March 2001, they asked for the drug again.

"I knew she was sick," Mr. Yates said. "She wouldn't have tried to commit suicide if she hadn't been sick."

Four days before she drowned her children, Mrs. Yates awoke screaming that she was trapped. As her husband comforted her, she told him about her nightmare. "Something about in her dream she was trapped in her bed," Mr. Yates said.

"A scared animal" is how Debbie Holmes later testified that Mrs. Yates behaved in the days before she killed her children. The women met about 16 years ago at M.D. Anderson.

Mrs. Holmes said Mrs. Yates spoke only three complete sentences to her in the four months before the children died. Her hair greasy and matted, her body reeking, Mrs. Yates was a walking zombie then, Mrs. Holmes said.

"I was appalled," said Mrs. Holmes. "She looked like a cancer patient." When she heard that the children were drowned, a teary Mrs. Holmes said she collapsed.

"I fell on the floor, and I just cried," Mrs. Holmes said. "I was screaming. It can't be my Andrea."


Online at: http://www.dallasnews.com/latestnews/stories/030102dntexyates.278df.html


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; News/Current Events
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To: joathome
Civil societies don't fry the insane.

No, they don't, and rightfully so. But this one puts them in an asylum under therapy then announces them cured and released after a span of time. She probably is insane. That does not mean she is one whit less dangerous to society, and neither does therapy for a few years and release.

361 posted on 03/01/2002 10:41:41 AM PST by William Terrell
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To: one_particular_harbour
Correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding of the "not guilty by reason of insanity" defense is that it was originally developed to protect the insane and the retarded, and if they were acquitted under this defense it didn't mean they went free, but they would be committed to an insane asylum instead of being sentenced to death or prison. People acquitted under this defense were not meant to walk free.
362 posted on 03/01/2002 10:42:53 AM PST by Alouette
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To: biblewonk
My wife laughed at the horrible story they tried to paint of Andrea's life.

I'm speechless.

365 posted on 03/01/2002 10:46:31 AM PST by ladyjane
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To: xsmommy
I don't think he could. The law would have demanded that she get some parental rights. His complaints about her mental health would probably be cast aside as "sour grapes". He may have been nailed for kidnapping.
366 posted on 03/01/2002 10:47:56 AM PST by AppyPappy
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To: one_particular_harbour
I doubt Yates saw Christianity as more than a hammer to used on any convenient nail.
368 posted on 03/01/2002 10:50:06 AM PST by AppyPappy
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To: AppyPappy
he could have had his mother watching the kids instead of his wife, for heaven's sake! tell me you would feel helpless and locked in if you knew about your wife what he knew about his? tell me you would leave them all there with her daily??
369 posted on 03/01/2002 10:50:12 AM PST by xsmommy
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To: one_particular_harbour
We have two of these downtown although they don't preach. They mostly just yell at people for no reason. Same thing.
371 posted on 03/01/2002 10:51:47 AM PST by AppyPappy
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To: Real Cynic No More
"Sounds to me as if her motive was to punish him."

Well, it didn't seem to work. He's more concerned with justifying her behavior, hence justifying his own selfish, twisted actions... Neither one seems to care about the kids any more, gone/buried/forgotten! And, for someone so crazy the beatch sure is fighting like he!! to save her worthless life!

373 posted on 03/01/2002 10:53:41 AM PST by tinacart
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To: one_particular_harbour
Thanks for posting these excerpts, harbour... I read them and referred others to the sites so they could read for themselves and form their own conclusions...

Sometimes I have to wonder about "religious tolerance". I know it is a good thing in general, but in this specific case, it certainly led to horrific consequences via what clearly seems to me to be heresy.

374 posted on 03/01/2002 10:54:16 AM PST by jacquej
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To: xsmommy
No I wouldn't but I'm not sure I could legally do anything about it. Unless her doctor put her away, it would be a tough road. If her husband started the process to put her away, she might have snapped earlier although that's a chance I'd take.

I have a friend whose wife is certified and has tried suicide. He eventually divorced her. She has custody despite his attempts to get the kids. The fathers rarely get the kids if the mom fights for rights.

375 posted on 03/01/2002 10:54:52 AM PST by AppyPappy
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To: SunnyUsa
Why does this woman want to live? That's my question...how could you live with yourself after drowning her 5 babies?

Yes it would have been better if she had killed herself or even herself and her creepy husband. I'm not convinced this woman still wants to live. Her lawyers are doing what lawyers do, putting on a defense and her husband was such a control freak that he might be the one pushing for an insanity defense. Who knows what Andrea really wants in the way of a defense. Maybe she wants the death penalty.

377 posted on 03/01/2002 10:55:48 AM PST by muggs
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To: MeeknMing
What a pitiful excuse for a life he allowed her to have. No wonder she's nuts.
378 posted on 03/01/2002 10:56:01 AM PST by Ditter
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To: one_particular_harbour
I cannot feel sympathy for this woman, I think I maybe could find a speck in me if she pleaded guilty, admitted her guilt - her horrible guilt - and faced the death sentence she deserves. Her trying to SAVE her LIFE after what she's done makes me ill.

I think she's a wacko, but she made her choices in life...and adding more and more kids to her messed up little world was unfortunately for those babies her choice too.

I can't even imagine how anyone could drown their kids - but she found the strength to do it and did it in a logical order of reverse birth order.

Her brain worked well enough to do what she wanted to do ...she had a plan (the tub) she *remembered* to fill it with enough water....she waited till no one was around - success assured, and when she was all done... she calls 911 and her husband.

I say her actions speak volumes, and I think she should pay with her own life (too bad RUSTY doesn't die with her)

379 posted on 03/01/2002 10:56:23 AM PST by SunnyUsa
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To: AppyPappy
they gave a certifiable wife custody? i have absolutely no experience with family court, thankfully.

even if he didn't have legal recourse, he had practical recourse, he could have had his mother caring for the kids. it appears that andrea was cognizant of the fact that she was not up to the task, doesn't sound like she would have fought him on the issue.

380 posted on 03/01/2002 10:57:47 AM PST by xsmommy
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