Posted on 03/16/2002 7:30:26 PM PST by Tumbleweed_Connection
The husband of Andrea Pia Yates lashed out at the medical community and the legal system Friday after his wife was sent to prison for life for drowning their children.
Able to speak publicly for the first time shortly after the verdict was announced, Russell Yates also criticized the court-imposed gag order that has kept him silent until the trial ended.
Finally getting a chance to answer his critics, Russell Yates acknowledged he made mistakes in getting treatment for his wife who suffered from bouts of depression in the past two years. But he said there was no way to protect his family from a psychotic person.
"She's a victim here, not only of the medical community but the justice system," Yates said on the steps outside the Harris County courthouse. "We're obviously very disappointed in the verdict of guilty. All of us in our family, we all stand behind Andrea. None of us wanted her to be found guilty. In fact, most of us are offended that she was even prosecuted.
"Obviously, it could have been worse if she had been given the death penalty, but it wouldn't have been that much worse."
Yates said Devereux Texas Treatment Network in League City, the hospital where his wife was admitted twice in the months leading up to the June 20 killings, failed to diagnose his wife's psychosis. And the doctor there, Mohammed Saeed, took her off anti-psychotic medication, Yates said.
"How could she have been so ill and the medical community not diagnose her, not treat her and, I'll say, not protect our family from her," Yates said. "The first thing I did when we bought our house was have a fancy alarm system installed ... My responsibility was to protect our family from people outside our house. You never think you have to protect somebody from inside your house.
"It's really the medical community's responsibility to identify psychosis. I'm not a medical professional, I don't even know what psychosis is, to speak of. I mean, I know now but I didn't then."
Yates said a family can't protect itself from a psychotic person.
"She had delusional thinking," he said of his wife. "She was psychotic. She thought it was imperative that she kill the children. And if it hadn't have been by drowning when we were gone, it would have been by smothering them at night or poisoning them at breakfast. It would have been some other way."
Yates said he didn't blame the 12 jurors who convicted his wife, but rather was disheartened by the insanity laws in Texas that allow a jury to find someone legally insane only if the panel believes as a result of a severe mental disease or defect the person did not know his conduct was wrong.
"It isn't that they didn't believe she was mentally ill, it's the way the law is worded," Yates said. "Obviously she called police. That could make a case, `Well, she thought it was illegal, which in some sense she thought it was wrong and, therefore, she should not be found insane.' "
Yates said he did not know if he would become an activist in trying to get the law changed.
Yates said when he arrived at his house after his wife called him at work on June 20, the police were already there. At first he tried to figure out why his wife had drowned his children in the bathtub, until several hours later he remembered a doctor from a previous hospital stay had told him his wife's depression could become psychotic with the births of more children.
Yates said he told police that immediately.
"I saw this terrible tragedy of my family," Yates said. "And then I see poor Andrea in this terrible medical state. And then the state comes forward and charges her with capital murder. And I couldn't believe it."
Yates held a news conference in his Clear Lake front yard the next day, and five days later was silenced by state District Judge Belinda Hill's gag order prohibiting witnesses, lawyers and investigators in the case from talking publicly. Yates said that caused people to speculate about him and his family.
"Everyone needs to know why this happened. I need to know why this happened. I want justice in this case more than anybody," Yates said. "It (the gag order) was personally injurious to me because not only did I see these tremendous injustices done to my family, my children and my wife, but then also I have to stand back and let people just basically vilify us and the whole family in the media for standing behind Andrea.
"Do you really think we would have supported Andrea if we believed anything other than she was psychotic on that day? If I felt it (the deaths of his children) was for any other reason than the fact that she was insane, I'd be the first in line to help the prosecution convict her."
Yates said if he could change one thing he did, he would have taken his wife to a different hospital and a different doctor. And when asked if he should shoulder any of the criminal responsibility he said he should not.
"Our responsibility (his and his mother's Dora Yates') in this was to seek medical treatment for Andrea, which we did," Yates said. "Neither of us saw any indication that Andrea was a danger during that period. She didn't step up and say anything that was so outrageous that made us concerned. She was just quiet and stared ahead.
"We didn't know she was psychotic. We just thought well, she was depressed. But she was just staring ahead. We would see Andrea standing there and we would see her in the same way we'd always seen her.
"We knew how much she loved the children. And if she didn't say anything we assumed she was thinking the same thing she always thought. And so no, we didn't see her as a danger."
Yates said he did not know if he would stay married to his wife, who will not be eligible for parole for 40 years. He also said he did not know whether he would ever have more children with another woman.
The only blame he places on his wife is that he wished she would have told him about having thoughts about harming the children.
"If she had said anything about that, we may have decided not to have any more children," he said.
Yates choked back tears when he spoke of the children and what he says to them when he thinks about them.
"Usually when I pray, I'll pray for the kids," he said. "And I'll talk to the kids a little bit. Say hello. And I will ask them to pray for Andrea. They love their mommy. I know they don't hold this against her. They know that she was sick and they know that she loved them."
Allowed? I must of missed something. I thought she was an adult.
If she wanted to leave the house she should have picked up the phone, called a sitter, and left. Let's quit trying, along with the liberals, to portray her as some sort of hopeless prisoner. She was a grown woman who made and was responsible for her own choices -- including the decision to have more children. If she made a bad choice in husbands, well, it was *her* choice.
Please, no more of the victim mentality -- not on FR of all places.
Maybe. But *he* didn't drown his children. Being stupid isn't a crime; murder is.
Interesting point. If I were a parent who'd lost five children by my own hand, I wouldn't have fought to live.
Exactly. They *agreed.* She is 100% responsible for her own choices. Now you're giving her the "insanity defense" by saying she's "nuts" and "something's got to give."
That's victim mentality.
In fact, most of us are offended that she was even prosecuted.
At first he tried to figure out why his wife had drowned his children in the bathtub, until several hours later he remembered a doctor from a previous hospital stay had told him his wife's depression could become psychotic with the births of more children.
Neither of us saw any indication that Andrea was a danger during that period
"If she had said anything about that [having thoughts about harming the children], we may have decided not to have any more children," he said.
was disheartened by the insanity laws in Texas that allow a jury to find someone legally insane only if the panel believes as a result of a severe mental disease or defect the person did not know his conduct was wrong
I really don't understand that last one.
I agree.
This story just keeps getting more incredulous with each passing day . . .
I think he wanted a distinction between right/wrong of the law vs. right/wrong of what she thought she was doing. She reportedly thought she was "protecting" the children from eternal damnation, but clearly knew what she was doing was unlawful. The law apparently only address the latter and Yates wanted it to apply to the former.
It's an illogical position, but the guy doesn't seem to be long on logic.
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