Andrea Yates, born July 2, 1964, lived in Clear Lake, Texas (a Houston suburb) with her husband and five children. However, happy she was not. She was diagnosed with severe postpartum depression and schizophrenia and had tried to commit suicide at least once before she drowned her children on June 20, 2001, one by one, in the bathtub. There was Noah, 7, John, 5, Paul, 3, Luke, 2, and Mary, 6 months.
Andrea started with John, Paul, and Luke, and then laid them in her bed. Then she drowned Mary and left her floating in the tub. Noah came in, and asked what was wrong with Mary. He then ran, but she soon caught him and drowned him. She left him floating in the tub, and laid Mary in John’s arms in the bed. They had all just been eating breakfast.
She then called the police repeatedly saying she needed an officer, but would not say why. So she called Rusty, and told him to come home right away. After the drownings, she laid each on her bed.
Her husband, Rusty, a former NASA engineer, had left for work, leaving Andrea alone to watch the children – against her physician’s instructions to supervise her around the clock. His mother, Dora Yates, had been scheduled by Rusty to arrive an hour later to take over for Andrea. In the space of that hour, Andrea drowned all five children.
She was convicted of capital murder but has lived in a Texas mental hospital since 2007, when she was declared in court to be not guilty by reason of insanity. This decision outraged much of the public. They could not understand how a mother could kill her own children.
In August 2004, Rusty filed for divorce, stating that he and Yates had not lived together as a married couple since the day of the murders. The divorce was granted on March 17, 2005.
Andrea now is likely living out the rest of her life at the Kerrville State Hospital, a low-security mental health facility in Texas.
Richard D Hobbs
Gertrude Baniszewski
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