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I had a feeling this was coming on..
1 posted on 03/16/2002 7:41:28 AM PST by codebreaker
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To: codebreaker
these prosecutors should ,collectively, go sit on a
sharp stick
90 posted on 03/16/2002 9:02:57 AM PST by jwatz
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To: codebreaker
Are they also going to go after the doctor who did not even bother to get her medical
chart from the previous doctor before he took her off her anti-psychotic medication?
104 posted on 03/16/2002 9:14:21 AM PST by Slyfox
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To: codebreaker
I had a feeling this was coming on..

Yep. Me too. Here was a story that I posted a little while back that has a LOT of discussion about Rusty:

Yates lived by rigid schedule, according to husband
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/637758/posts


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.

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."

140 posted on 03/16/2002 9:44:47 AM PST by MeekOneGOP
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To: codebreaker
Bring it on! This bastard is getting away with murder and how much cash if he wins his law suit against the doctors? Knowing that his wife wasn't fit to be around their kids, he had her homeschool them. That was 24 hours of Adreas Yates/ a day for these kids. This Russel Yates guy wanted his wife barefoot and pregnant and at home no matter how dangerous she was to the kids.
173 posted on 03/16/2002 10:19:00 AM PST by paltz
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To: codebreaker
Russell Yates is an enabler and that may not be illegal. He thrived off her inability to cope but did nothing to harm the children. He is not required by law to know the dangers of his wife's condition and then act on the warning signs. Add that she was under the care of supposedly competent shrinks and he is a lot less indictable.
176 posted on 03/16/2002 10:21:46 AM PST by RGSpincich
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To: codebreaker
Creative Prosecution. That all this is. Just a bunch of whiney, do nothings who want to hold the father responsible for what were clearly the actions of his wife.

THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT!

Lets prosecute Satan in abstentia, too.

189 posted on 03/16/2002 10:47:19 AM PST by antidemocommie
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To: codebreaker
our feminist freepers should love this. Woman who KILLS kids gets 40 years, reduced to 7 years on appeal for "mental health" reasons.

EVIL man who did NOT kill his kids gets the freakin' chair. AXIOM of feminism:"No matter the facts, no matter the patriachal system's corrupt and oppressive findings of guilt or culpability, behind EVERY evil act committed by any woman, stands an evil man, who SHOULD and WILL be held responsible."

We got a LOT of freeper women who blame the guy. "HE LET HER DO IT." and "HE PUT HER IN A MOBILE HOME" or... whatever. And they call themselves conservatives. rofl.

I guess the matriachy JUST cannot face the facts. Women do evil things too, without ANY help or culpability from the male... but the hegemony of matriarchal oppression just cannot let this stand.

... this should be rich.

190 posted on 03/16/2002 10:47:30 AM PST by Robert_Paulson2
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To: codebreaker
The theif said that he's not fully responsible for burglarizing the house. It's a bad neighborhood. The homeowner knew that. If the homeowner hadn't had the stereo and computer equipment, the burglar wouldn't have broken in to steal it.

The "victim" is culpable. The victim should have known his home had "treasure" to be stolen....hence, he's as much to blame as the thief.

Imprison them BOTH!

192 posted on 03/16/2002 10:49:39 AM PST by Thumper1960
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To: codebreaker
You know what bothers me most about this guy? The fact that his wife killed his five kids and he still defends her. He said just the other day that not only should she not be executed but she shouldn't have been convicted in the first place. That's similar to the statement that Taliban Walker's father said, "John loves America." These people ought to be tried for being liars and idiots if for no other reason. But since you can't put them on trial for that then the fact that they are culpable in some way is a a legitimate consideration, in my opinion.
215 posted on 03/16/2002 11:37:37 AM PST by Contra
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To: codebreaker
I really don't no how much more punishment you could inflict on Russel Yates then what he will suffer for the rest of his life.I really don't.I do not believe he would have the left the children alone with her if he had known she wanted to kill them.
233 posted on 03/16/2002 12:50:50 PM PST by linn37
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To: codebreaker
I heard that on the news. I also saw him give an interview right after the sentence was passed and he sounds like he is gearing up for a lawsuit against the doctors... I hope the prosecutors listened to his interview and recorded it.
252 posted on 03/16/2002 1:27:47 PM PST by celtic gal
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To: codebreaker
I saw the press conference. The man makes me want to puke. However, having said that, he is not legally guilty of anything but being a hapless liberal wacko. There's no way he could have known something like this would happen despite the after-the-fact analyses by many of you. I mean who would have thought she would harm anyone. Had the police ever been sent to their house because of violent outbursts? So it stays like it is, he writes a book, gets remarried, and becomes one of the most hated men in America - right up there with O.J.
259 posted on 03/16/2002 1:58:50 PM PST by plain talk
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To: codebreaker
Gee, if we executed them both, there would be two less psychos in the gene pool. I say let's clean the pool.
263 posted on 03/16/2002 2:14:24 PM PST by MadRobotArtist
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To: codebreaker
What an outrage. Here we go with the next sickening turn in the American justice system. The man loses his children, his wife and goes through the hell he has gone through before hand and now they want to blame him!

Only becuase they don't want to admit the medical profession failed to treat his wife. Sickening, sickening.

269 posted on 03/16/2002 2:37:28 PM PST by BJungNan
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To: codebreaker,Zviadist
Prosecutors 'Seriously Considering' Case Against Russell Yates

This is an example of the same reflex that has the state file charges against a parent when the child commits a crime. Of course that reflex makes sense to everyone who has no children or, if they did, haven't yet seen them through to the teenage years, or if they have, were among the lucky whose teens don't pick up on the social decay of our society.

Would Russell be in trouble now if he was just her boyfriend, not a husband? I doubt it. I think Zviadist may be onto something in pointing out the political uses to which this case is being put.

Thanks for the post.

Regards.

272 posted on 03/16/2002 2:44:59 PM PST by The Irishman
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To: codebreaker
We must be compassionate and understanding. After all, this is a man and he could have been suffering from postfartum depression. Everybody knows how serious that is and must empathize. </sarcasm>
274 posted on 03/16/2002 2:52:04 PM PST by stripes1776
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To: codebreaker
I think that they would be right. I am not attacking "traditional" families like I saw one poster comment they thought that is what it was. I dont think so. I am a stay at home mother, my husband is the "breadwinner". Being in that position I know how terribly stressful it can be. I believe he was aware of her mental problems, and did not expect anything like this to transpire when he married her. So out of ignorance of its severity turned a blind eye. I understand alot of people cannot understand mental illness. I know I am having a hard time myself. One of my very closest friends was recently diagnosed with very similiar mental problems as Andrea Yates. I saw it coming too. I even contemplated calling CPS because I knew her kids were in danger. Her husband also turned a blind eye, and in fact was enabling of her psychotic behavior. He reasoned it away to whatever was going on that day. Finally two weeks ago she had a serious break from reality with their 4 yr old in the car and ended up in the mental hospital. Thankfully the baby was okay. We told him, told him and told him for months to get her more help. He refused. He got lucky, no one was killed. If something had happened, I would still vote her guilty, because even with pychosis she was very manipulitive and aware of right from wrong, but I would also have held him equally responsible. So I guess I am saying, yes he is just as responsible for not taking her condition seriously after being told it was serious. Who here would leave their child with a psychotic person and then be shocked if lord forbid something happened?
283 posted on 03/16/2002 3:32:31 PM PST by mini_teacup
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To: codebreaker
What legally recognized duty did he breach, so as to cause the death of his children? Remembering that we do not have common law crimes, please name a statutory duty this man breached? At the most it appears that he did not handle a difficult situation(as to intensity and duration) very well. How many could have handled it. Leave him alone.
289 posted on 03/16/2002 3:55:47 PM PST by HENRYADAMS
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To: codebreaker
Father of Six Charged with Their Murders
Will his wife be blamed for leaving the children in his care?
291 posted on 03/16/2002 4:10:37 PM PST by ValerieUSA
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To: codebreaker
Well then, I guess we'll just have to prosecute every guy who marries a crazy bleeptch and every gal that marries a dumba$$.
295 posted on 03/16/2002 4:27:27 PM PST by wattsmag2
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