Posted on 03/24/2002 5:33:11 PM PST by Jean S
The nightmares started late last summer. There's this man, emotionless and unmoving, with dead eyes. He speaks in a monotone and never flinches no matter what he sees or hears. Show him pain, suffering, anger, devastation, death -- nothing moves him. He's in total, absolute, perfect control.
Lucky for me, it's only a dream. I get to wake up to my family, dogs, cat, coffee and newspapers and heave a sigh of relief. He's a bad dream for me, but for Andrea Yates, he was the real thing.
Has there ever been a scarier guy than Russell Yates? Watching him a few nights ago on Larry King Live, all I could think was Night of the Living Dead. He looks like a human; he talks and walks like a human. But he's missing something. Ah, yes, the heart, a human soul.
What an anomaly that a professed Christian man who believes in God, the hereafter and the life everlasting should lack the very thing that qualifies one for entry into the Kingdom. Hate to break it to you, Russell, but it's the soul that goes to heaven, and yours has gone missing.
OK, maybe I'm being too harsh. After all, we've been told by the Talking Shrinks that we shouldn't judge people who've suffered tragedy, that we all grieve differently. Which is true, of course. If I had a mentally ill husband who had drowned our children, I'd be buried next to my kids. And so, by the way, would he. But that's just me -- predictably emotional when someone kills my children.
Do I need Russell Yates to break down and cry?
No.
Do I need him to curl up in the fetal ball?
No.
Do I need him to stop smiling when he talks of his dead children as though he's on a cruise with their mother while the children are eating homemade peach ice cream with Gramps and Nanny?
Yeah, I really do.
To say that Russell Yates is "not real emotional," as he puts it, is like saying that Andrea Yates is a tad moody. His public dispassion in the face of such breathtaking horror is the definition of creepy. And we wonder what pushed Andrea over the edge?
Indeed, a perplexed public, and now prosecutors, wonder whether he might be criminally culpable in the deaths of his children. Prosecutors are considering charging Russell Yates with negligent homicide or child endangerment. In an unscientific, on-line survey sponsored by crime observer and author Bill Bickel, 77 percent of respondents agreed that Russell Yates should be held partially responsible for the five deaths.
Legal experts will have to figure out whether they have a prosecutable case, but common sense puts Russell Yates squarely in the culpable range. His wife tried to commit suicide twice after the birth of their fourth child (Hint to Russell: She may be unstable/dangerous); she had been diagnosed as "psychotic" (Hint: She may be psychotic); a psychiatrist told the Yateses unequivocally that another child would "guarantee future psychotic depression." (Hint: Russell? Nurse, take his pulse.)
Even so, Russell contends that no one correctly diagnosed his sick wife's illness or fully comprehended the severity of her disease. He's considering suing the doctors.
Even if he were right, and the record reflects otherwise, Russell might have extrapolated from his wife's behavior that his children were in danger. He told Larry King, for instance, that when Andrea called after the drownings to tell him to come home, she was talking more than she had in weeks.
Huh? The wife doesn't talk. She has a history of suicide attempts. In the weeks before she killed her children, according to Russell's own accounting, she would hold the baby and stare straight ahead and not talk. Is this man really alive? I need proof.
As to culpability, Russell Yates' leaving his children with a demented, psychotic, suicidal woman is no different than leaving them alone with a loaded gun. They were defenseless; she was a delusional maniac; and he, apparently, was so self-absorbed that he failed to notice.
We may not have a name on the books for the particular crime of being Russell Yates, but he's guilty.
Kathleen Parker can be reached at kparker@orlandosentinel.com.
Also, check out her Web site: Kparker.com
As horrified as I was by Andrea Yates, I was left speechless by the fact that when she was sentenced, she was alone in the courtroom with her attorney and the judge. Her husband was off giving a television interview.
So he belongs in jail? This is typical gender feminism gone wild. He's a guy, he is in control, he's responsible even when he's not actually done the deed
This is like prosecuting for thought crimes. The author "knows" he's soul-less, now he must be jailed because of it.. That is just plain scary to listen to...
It seems that Kathleen Parket is, also, a nutcase.
Amen to that, Slyfox. I've been there.
The thing that amazes me - everyone is pointing fingers at Yates and saying he should be put away - but no one says anything about the friends of the family that crawled out of the woodwork to say that they had known that Andrea was sick (one of them even kept a diary). Any one of them could have gone to court in Texas and filed to have her committed - and brought her illness to the public light and maybe - just maybe - saved the kids. But no one stepped forward until after it happened.
I agree. This is great out of the NOW handbook. The mans at fault. "She wouldn't have done it if he would have blah, blah, blah, blah."
"R. Emmett Tyrrell March 21, 2002
Debating Andrea Yates
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- I am reluctant to enter the cacophony over Andrea Yates. In fact, I suspect the discussion is exaggerated in all its intensity and speculations. Certainly there is more of it now than back when the crime was discussed.
Possibly this is because the nation is in a heightened state of public awareness owing to the War on Terrorism. That war is temporarily in a period of lull. But the nation remains anxious, and so there follows the yakking from every perspective about every aspect of the Yates case -- her culpability, her husband's culpability, the verdict, the nature of mental health, postpartum depression and on the cacophony descends into the truly cheap. The feminists want to make their case. Other monomaniacs join in. Once again, we see the wisdom of that simple timeworn apothegm, talk is cheap. After all, how many of the commentators will pay any price for the imprudence of their remarks?
Essentially, the Yates case was like any other murder case, save for its grisliness -- a mother killing her five children by methodically drowning them. Society had to act. It had to decide if she was guilty of murder. It had to make a statement about women who kill their children. Do they get the death penalty, or life imprisonment, or years of psychiatric treatment?
Society responded intelligently, though I side with the judgment laid down by Charles Krauthammer when he wrote in his syndicated column: "Andrea Yates was clearly mentally deranged, not as proved by the murders -- that would make the murders self-acquitting -- but as demonstrated by her noncriminal behavior: self-injury, severe withdrawal, bizarre behavior, occasional catatonia, delusion, hallucinations. ... Andrea Yates' mental illness is now masked by the Haldol she should have been taking at the time of the murders. I find it hard to see how she can be deemed by society to be truly responsible for her crime. ... This is not a matter of sympathy. I have infinitely more sympathy for the five innocents who died so terribly. This is a matter of justice. Guilt presupposes free will. Did Andrea Yates really have it."?
My only problem here is that if society had held that Yates was mentally ill, would it be notifying the citizenry of how profoundly serious murder is by sending her to a mental hospital? That is a major problem with mental-health questions. They usually deny guilt and often diminish the loathsomeness of evil. As society learns more about mental health and how to treat it, society is going to have to figure out how to reemphasize the evil of a criminal.
Not much mention of this is going to come up in the cacophony provoked by Yates' trial. Instead, we are having the present "media frenzy" starring such unlikely characters as Yates' family and loquacious husband, who is turning himself into a target for feminist wrath.
Typical of the feminists' know-it-all mentality, they consider themselves experts on how the Yateses lived in the intimacy of their home. They feel Russell Yates is culpable for the children's deaths and for his wife's condition. He is defending himself. He is also becoming a media expert on other matters. The other night, he appeared on "Larry King Live" and maundered on about his family life. My guess is that the feminists loved it. So did those ghouls who spin their TV dials to every show that focuses on misery and the macabre.
Well, soon the Yates fascination will fade. The War on Terrorism will pick up. The chatterboxes will weigh in with their expert advice on geopolitics, modern warfare and whatever related topic extends from this war. It is far from over. Prosecutors, intelligence officers and members of the military expect more strikes against us here and abroad.
So soon, the Yates case will be behind us, and that will be a very good thing. Caring for the mentally ill is a matter that demands a very exacting debate. Such a debate is not likely to take place on "Larry King Live" or as carried on by feminists and Russell Yates
and to the rest of the feminazicrappie, that blame anyone but the culprit!
Hillary sucks Chealsea!
Yes and no. A friend of mine has a son who is manac sp? depressive. But they are doing all they can to help him through it. And they recognise what they can and should do. It appears that RY is not in that category and was and is in denial. That is the problem. And I can understand it. It is the easy way out. My friends are going through hell.
Should he have had her committed? Is that what you would have done? You think that's an easy thing to do?
If he goes to jail, it's because he didnt do that. And what about her family ? Shouldnt that have tried to have her committed? Shouldnt they spend time in jail too? What about her doctors? You sound like a witch hunt type of person.. Nothing like a little hysteria to ensure justice, is there?
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