Yates lived by rigid schedule, according to husband
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
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."
My wife and I have been married 14 years. 15 this June. We have 3 gorgeous kids. She's a stay at home mom. We stopped at 3 for 2 reasons. 1) We couldn't afford anymore my income alone and 2) I don't think my wife was meant to have 20 kids just because her uterus might be able to take it.
She had an epidural with all 3 births. Hell, if she hadn't taken I would have.....just watching her in that pain would have killed me.
I do NOT have her on a schedule. I do NOT need to "allow her private time". As soon as my big butt gets home, all she needs to say is, "Hon, I'm going ....blah blah blah." My usual response is, "Ok, love you!" And sometimes, "hey.....will you bring me some doughnuts/ice cream/cookies?" (She has us on a strict healthy food thing:-( )
Twice a year she and old college and sorority chums get together for a week. She goes without me and the kids. We survive just fine. She has yet to come home to a burnt kitchen or anything like that.
I love my wife because she is beautiful, has a warm heart, a brain, cajones, and is my rock. I never wanted a slave.
I'd hope my wife would leave me flat if I ever treated her this way.
IMO, you sound like a good husband, nothing like Rusty Yates. Andrea Yates still would have been mentally ill even with a good husband but I doubt she would have been driven to murder their kids if her husband had acted more like you.
Then he'll sell the book and movie rights, go on the talk show circuit, and find himself another victim.
I had heard that Rusty was unnaturally calm during this press conference , I would say he was Supernaturally Calm I needed to see that press conference in order to have a more informed opinion. I don't know how anyone could have thought to ask him a question - I would think they would have been rendered speechless. He was like an incredibly gifted robot, one who looked real, but could say emotionally charged words with no human pain.
Boy you know I hadn't thought of that. Good point!
I don't know that I would either... I am furious but I can't say for sure without being in there and hearing everything.
yea, but GUILTY of murder
she needs to pay with her LIFE or a LIFE SENTENCE ....I'm hoping for DEATH.
She took 5 lives, and is trying to spare her own, what a sickening murderous woman, never a mother.
And if she was suffering from depression so serious that she needed to be put on a schedule, why did they have 5 kids??????
Sorry to rant so but as a mother of three children who also home-schools and knows from experience what being married to an alcholic control freak who didn't even give me three hours for myself, no car, no phone, no money and no close neighbors, I CANNOT for the life of me even consider this woman as part of the human race! Of course, I got out of the controlled/dangerous relationship (finally - after 14 years) so maybe I'm just a more self-reliant sort than she is.
(lol) sorry to laugh but you write with such honesty, he sounds like a nightmare in-law (aren't most of them tho?)
He'll probably wonder WHY no one ever wants them to visit.
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