As Andrea Yates was led from the courtroom by officers, she looked back toward her mother and siblings.
The sentence brought a swift end to a case that began last June 20, when a wet and bedraggled Yates called police to her home and showed them the five bodies of her children, age 6 months to 7 years. She had called them into the bathroom and drowned them one by one.
At trial, Yates' lawyers and her husband argued that she suffered from severe postpartum depression and that she had no choice but to kill her children to save them from the clutches of Satan.
Prosecutors acknowledged she was mentally ill, but that she could tell right from wrong and was thus not legally insane at the time of the killings.
The case stirred new debate over the legal standard for mental illness and whether postpartum depression is properly recognized and taken seriously. Women's groups had harshly criticized prosecutors for pushing for the death penalty.