Andrea Yates Essay

Andrea Yates was born on July 2, 1964 in Houston, Texas. She was the youngest of five children and grew up in a Catholic household. She graduated from Milby High School in 1982. Yates was involved in many extracurricular activities including the swim team and the National Honor Society. Yates had a seemingly typical childhood and life thereafter that. After high school she continued her education at the University of Houston. She was enrolled in a pre-nursing program and later went on to graduate from the University of Texas School of Nursing. She worked as a registered nurse at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center from 1986 until 1994. (Andrea Yates Murderpedia) Andrea met her future husband, Russell Yates, at her apartment

“On May 3, 2001, she drew a bath in the middle of the day; she would later confess to police that she had planned to drown the children, but had decided against doing it then” (Andrea Yates Murderpedia). I believe she did not follow through with her plan on this day because she feared that either her husband or mother in law may interfere with her plan. On June 20, 2001, her husband left for work leaving Yates alone, despite the doctor’s orders to supervise her for twenty four hours. Dora Yates, Andrea’s mother in law planned on arriving to the Yates home to take over for Andrea an hour after Rusty left. Within that one hour, she drowned all of her children. She laid the youngest boys in her bed, she left her daughter floating in the tub, and she left her oldest son floating in the tub as well. After she drowned all five children she called the police and then subsequently called Rusty saying “it’s time” repeatedly. She told him that he needed to come home, but would not say why. Yates told the 911 operator, Sylvia Morris, that she needed the police. Morris transferred the call to the Houston Police Department, and Yates told the police operator that she needed a police officer to come to her home. Rusty called her and asked if anyone was hurt, and she said that the kids were hurt. When he asked, which ones? She responded, “all of them”. Within minutes of the

Her severe depression and postpartum psychosis played a huge role in the state of mind she was in while committing the crimes. Another factor that played a role in the commission of the crime was that she chose to stop taking her antipsychotic medication, Haldol. Yates stated that the reason for her crime was because she felt as though she was condemned , an idea that stemmed from Woroniecki’s sermons about the role of women and “women being derived from the sin of Eve and that bad mothers who are going to hell create bad children who will go to hell” (Andrea Yates Murderpedia). Her husband deciding to leave and go to work that morning is also a large factor that led to the commission of the crime, had he obeyed Dr. Saeed’s orders, Andrea may have not had the opportunity to drown all of their children. Andrea Yates was “charged by two indictments with capital murder for the drowning deaths of her children” (Yates, Andrea Pia v. The State of Texas). In January 2005, Yates conviction was overturned when information became present that Dr. Park Dietz’s statement during the trial was false. This led to a retrial and Yates upheld her not guilty by reason of insanity defense. The jury agreed and she was remanded to a mental facility in Texas, until she is no longer deemed a threat to