BREAKING: Andrea Yates is...

[Zomby Woof]

Not guilty by reason of insanity on all counts.

[nini]

1. I've got to agree

No one in their right mind could do what she did.

[Deja Q]

2. What did she do?

[nini]

3. She was the one that drowned her kids in the bathtub

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060726/ap_on_re_us/yates_trial


tragic

[SOteric]

5. That was my feeling about it as well.

[jpgray]

4. Yeah... Medea she was not

[LSK]

6. is she the one who had the Republican father who abused her?

[Zomby Woof]

8. That was Susan Smith

More than a decade ago. Her stepfather had an abusive sexual relationship with her when she was 14, and he was the South Carolina head of the Christian Coalition and a Republican. That was revealed after scumbag Newt Gingrich said that we need to vote Republican to get the kind of change in America which would stop acts like these. :eyes:

[Maddy McCall]

7. Good. Now it's time to try her asshole husband.

Well, I know that you can't try someone for being an asshole, but he endangered his children and he knew it--and he kept demanding more children, even after he was warned that another child could send Andrea irretrievably over the edge.

Selfish bastard.

Even has his own website: www.yateskids.com

[Crazy Dave]

9. The prick has a website huh?

I remember he was blaming and threatening to sue the doctors for not seeing or warning him that something like that was coming. Now I ask you, who knows or should know you better than your doctor, employer, etc.? The person you sleep next to every night. Real class act....trying to blame everybody else and totally excuse himself for what happened.

[Maddy McCall]

10. Yes. He has a website.

And I agree with every word in your post.

He is a despicable person.

[Benfea]

11. Yeah, I think he's scum too.

As you pointed out, he knew there would be horrible consequences to having more kids, and he did it anyway. Just as with his wife, he was probably motivated by religion.

PS -- whlie I think Andrea Yates is clinically insane, I strongly disagree that she met the Texas legal definition of insane. I think she did know right from wrong when she killed those kids.

[RedCloud]

12. Yeah she would have been "killing" other things too

Like the rubber duckies...

[Schema Thing]

13. I think she thought she was doing the right thing

her beliefs combined with her insanity to create a perfect storm. And it happens all too often. Frankly, I think that the bad beliefs can even contribute to the insanity.

[Benfea]

14. Then why did she wait until she was alone to kill them?

She waited because she knew that killing those kids was wrong and that if anyone saw her doing it, they would stop her.

[Schema Thing]

17. I don't see you get from one to the other

If you think it is the right thing to do, you're going to take steps to allow you to do it.

We've had several moms go Old Testement-meets-Revelations on their own children in Texas in the past 10 years. I think they were all quite insane, but I also think their insanity was nurtured and fueled by their bad beliefs.

One way or another, humans tend to act on their beliefs. I feel like I know a little about this, having been raised in a fundamentalist cult that was literally killing me with depression by the time I broke free.

[Benfea]

18. Getting from one to the other is simple.

By waiting until she was alone, she demonstrated that she understood that society at large would find her actions abhorrent and try to stop her.

[Schema Thing]

19. Not necessarily, but possibly.

That's the thing about crazy people, they aren't always drooling, mumbling incoherently and clutching their knees in a corner somewhere. They are out and about, doing....stuff. Stuff that takes a modicum of rational thought to accomplish, like making a sandwich, or killing someone you love, or cutting your babies arms off, like one north Texas woman recently did (again done on God's orders or suggestion).

The lady was quite insane. I wish we could stop every insane person from hurting themselves or others.

[Benfea]

21. Who said anything about drooling or mumbling?

The fact that she waited until all other adults were gone does not demonstrate that she is rational, it shows that she understood that what she was going to do was wrong, or at least that society at large viewed the action as wrong.

[Bridget Burke]

51. If she'd really known it was wrong, she would have invented a story...

"Those evil (non-whites) broke into the house & did this!" And she'd be sure to bruise herself, to proved she'd put up a fight.

She thought she was doing the right thing--saving her kids from going to Hell--& she didn't want anyone to interfere with her grim duty.

[Benfea]

53. Wrong in this legal definition....

...is as much about what society thinks than just what the perp thinks. She understood that society would think it wrong, or she wouldn't have waited for her husband to leave. She'd have asked him to join her in killing the kids or something.

[Midlodemocrat]

25. I am a clinical psychologist and perhaps I can answer that.

Delving into the human mind is far from an exact science as you know, but there is a good chance in her PPP, that she wasn't really 'waiting' for a chance to do this heinous act, but that she made up her mind while she was alone with the kids because there wasn't another adult to distract her from delusions that were overtaking her.

Of course, I can't know that for sure, because unlike Frist, I wouldn't presume to diagnose someone from afar, but I have been following this.

She is most probably in a psychotic state and frankly, I hope she never comes out of it. I don't see how she could live with what she did.

[blondeatlast]

27. I'm no pro, but that was kind of my take as well.

I've been clinically depressed in the past. When I was in a particularly bad state after a medical illness, I basically spent the entire day waiting for Mr. B to come home, and would often have to call him at work to temper my hopeless feelings.

I have a child, but that didn't help--I needed that adult around to keep me busy and rational. I seem to have emerged from it, but I can understand a bit of what must have happened as her illness began to overtake her reason.

[Midlodemocrat]

29. I'm sorry you had to suffer with that. I hope you have found

happiness and relief from the sadness.

:hug:

[blondeatlast]

50. Actually, I'm doing quite well now; I've made a remarkable improvement.

Family and I just returned from Europe; 6 months ago that wouldn't have been even a remote possibility.

Thanks for the hug!

[jobycom]

35. What the jury ruled

is that she knew it was illegal, but also believed that she was saving them by setting them free. So, while she understood the law, the law contradicted with what she "knew" to be right.

Which, even under the barbaric Texas legal system, fit the insanity defense.

So the fact that she did this when no one could stop her, whether she plotted it that way or whether she just snapped when no one was there to talk her out it, does not prove she thought it was wrong, only that someone would interfere with what she believed to be right.

I really can't understand people on this one. This is a woman who lived a conscientious life, always strove to do the right thing, then one day did this. How anyone can claim she was sane or knew what she was doing is beyond me.

[Jamastiene]

49. You make a good point.

That does show forethought and an understanding that it was wrong.

[jobycom]

15. Hard to feel good about any decision in this case, but that's the right

one. She'll be in an institution the rest of her life, getting as much help as they can give her. It's only a shade better than prison, but that's not even the point. The recognition of mental illness as the cause of so horrific a crime is good not just for any future accused, but also for those who might be saved. Maybe husbands or wives or doctors or even preachers will be more aware of the signs and the possibilities, and will seek help before the tragedy occurs.

To claim that a guilty verdict here would have been a deterent to future crimes is just stupid. No parent who reaches that stage of sickness or desperation would be detered by a fear of jail. The psychological impulses in such cases are so complex and so confused that the killer often believes she is saving her children or family by killing them. When I was a teen, a family in Kiln, MS, was killed by their foster brother with a sledgehammer. These were close friends of my best friend, though I barely knew them. When they caught the man, he claimed he was saving them from demons in their heads. He really believed it. Yates believed something similar. You don't deter such crimes by punishment. You deter them by recognizing the failures of the human mind and seeking help when someone shows warning signs of those failures. Yates gave off plenty of warning signs, but her husband, her preacher, her doctors, her family, all failed to react in a useful way to them. No one could really imagine what she would do. Maybe this case will mean that now people CAN imagine what might happen, and stop it before it does.

[idgiehkt]

16. one caveat about mr. yates

I do hold him and his wacky religion responsible, as well as the cult that they were following, but he has been spot-on about her conviction and her mental illness in interviews, which I think is brave considering the fact that so many fundies would just as soon see her executed.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

20. But please tell me she's not getting out of the asylum...

She does not belong on the streets, not guilty or not.
Duckie

[Heidi]

22. Why shouldn't she be released if she is eventually free of

delusional behavior after successful psychiatric treatment?

[YellowRubberDuckie]

23. Because the truth of the matter is, she still killed her kids.

Crazy or not, she still needs to be locked up.
Duckie

[bigwillq]

24. I so agree with you Duckie.

She still killed her kids. Case closed, imo.

One by one in a horrific manner. She might've been mentally ill but she is still a murderer.

[China_cat]

34. Yes. And it's a worse punishment than being

in jail. Because the better she gets, the more she's able to appreciate just what she did.

I heard her this morning on the things that were in her mind when she killed them. She truly believed that the oldest was going to grow up to be a serial killer and that one of the other boys would be a 'mute, homosexual prostitute' and it would be because she was such a lousy mother. That the only way she could save them from those fates was to send them to god.

And now the voices in her head are silent and she KNOWS. How awful that must be.

[Midlodemocrat]

26. God willing. She won't be.

How could she live with what she did? IMHO, her psychosis is shielding her from the reality of her actions.

[AtomicKitten]

28. A genuine tragedy.

I am pleased with this verdict.

[bigwillq]

30. You are?

Why? :shrug:

[AtomicKitten]

31. I have felt from the onset

that she was/is genuinely mentally ill. You could see it in her demeanor. Her life was hell, her fundie husband didn't help in the least. Of all the child-killing mothers in the news over the years, her mental illness seemed obvious and genuine.

Doctors say she is worse today, so it is very likely she will spend the rest of her life in a mental institution mulling over this nightmare in her lucid moments. For those that seek retribution, I would think that would be the worst punishment imaginable.

My heart goes out to her.

[bigwillq]

32. I believe she is very ill

But she still killed her five children and I believe she knew what she did and I believe she knew what she did was wrong. There goes the insanity plea.

I wanted the guilty verdict on the record. To me, she got a free pass.

Those children are still dead. And what a horrible death it was. Where is the justice for them?

[AtomicKitten]

33. there is none to be had

of if there is, it's different for each of us observers. And that's what we are really, not privy to all the details. My feeling about her is just an impression, from what I've observed and what I've read. Her fate is in the hands of 12 jurors and her doctors.

Again, I think living with what she has done, if she is lucid enough to appreciate it, will be a horrible punishment. Whether it's punishment enough is not for me to decide.

[Bridget Burke]

52. Well, 12 Texans think you're wrong...

Because they spent a month in the jury box. (This Texan agrees with them--as go many others.)

Yates jury wiser than hired guns

By RICK CASEY

What I appreciate most about the Andrea Yates jurors is that they gave the high-priced, hired-gun shrinks brought in by the prosecutors exactly the due they deserved.

The jurors cut through the psychiatric sophistry of the professional testifiers who examined Yates only after being hired by prosecutors. They relied instead on the judgments of the mental health professionals who actually treated Yates during her crises.

Dr. Michael Warner of New York testified he expects to be paid about $200,000 for his testimony, in which he declared authoritatively that in his "professional opinion, Andrea Yates drowned her children to help herself, not to help her children."

Dr. Park Dietz of California estimated he will probably receive about $150,000 total for this trial and an earlier one.

www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/casey/4078005.html

Park Deitz's lies during the first trial led to the judgment being overturned--& made this trial possible. I don't think the Prosection got their money's worth from him at either trial.

[barb162]

36. when someone is hallucinating, they are clearly psychotic

And this woman should not have been left alone with the kids, she should have been getting way more help than she was getting, etc.

[bigwillq]

37. She still killed her five kids.

And I still believe she knew what she did was wrong. There goes the insanity plea.

She was a ill woman, there is no doubt about that. For anyone to kill five human beings, let alone five children, you would have to be mentally unstable but I still don't agree with the verdict. That's all.

[barb162]

38. Yeah, I understand.

It was clear she loved those kids and everyone said she was a goood mother. But when Satan's talking to you and she was trying to save them from Satan and all....

That poor woman, in her lucid moments, will have to realize what she did and that will be hell for her.
It's a tragic , tragic story

[jobycom]

39. That's not how the judge or jury interpreted the insanity plea

The jury ruled that she knew her actions were illegal, but that she believed that she was freeing them from Satan, and therefore she believed what she was doing was right. The judge upheld that interpretation of Texas law. From my own experiences with the mentally ill, including having a close relative try to kill me as a child, I believe the decision is the only moral and just one. The first decision was a travest based on a lie, and for once, medieval Texas "law" did the right thing.

[bigwillq]

40. Thanks for your input.

But five children are still dead. Her actions, by what she said and what she did, to me, proves she knew damn well what she was doing. She is mentally unstable but she murdered her kids.

Waiting for hubby to leave, covering up the kids, admitting on the 9-11 call that she knew what she did and said how she would be punished for it....She's a murderer in my opinion and I will never agree with the verdict no matter if it was just and correct based on state law.

[jobycom]

41. Well, again, I and the jury and her husband and both families

and the medical professionals who examined her all disagree with you. Insanity doesn't mean you don't know what you are doing. It's far more complex than that. The only movie I've ever seen that captures it somewhat accurately is A Beautiful Mind. In that film, you are in the mind of the patient. He is completely convinced that the world is a certain way. He is sure that his actions are completely right. And yet he's wrong, and the audience doesn't understand he's wrong any more than him until the point where it is revealed.

That's what happened here. Andrea Yates believed Satan had possessed her. She was calmly, coldly rationally convinced of it. She knew, beyond a doubt, that the only chance to save her children from Satan was to drown them. Yes, she plotted it, and yes, she expected to be punished for it, because she knew that it was illegal. And yet she was as absolutely sure that she was doing the right thing as you are that she was wrong. Probably more so. That's the whole point of insanity. You cannot trust your mind. She wasn't mentally unstable. She was insane.

[bigwillq]

42. I don't care who disagrees with me

I guess by law, they did do the 'correct' thing and while I can very well understand everything you said in your post....

Five children are dead. She murdered her children. Insane or not, I don't agree with the verdict.
She is guilty of murder and I believe that's what should have gone down in the record books concerning this case.

[jobycom]

43. She didn't murder her children, and more children will be saved by this

verdict than if she had been found guilty. It has increased awareness of the warning signs of mental illness. Maybe, just maybe, husbands, wives, parents, preachers, doctors and communities in general will use that awareness to intervene the next time. This is not a crime where prison would act as a deterent--the woman was insane, she had no fear of prison. In her mind she was sacrificing her life for her loved ones. You can't reason that out of someone, or frighten it out of someone. The only chance to stop similar instances in the future is to recognize what's happening and get help for the person.

A guilty verdict, despite being horrifically unjust (to the children as well as the mother) would have sent a message that this was a criminal act, that it was something the mother could have controlled. That would have had the opposite effect, of convincing families in that situation that the mentally ill person could control her actions, could control what she did. And that would create more corpses. The insanity verdict tells anyone who will listen that insanity is stronger than free will, that it will take more to stop such murders than trusting someone to be able to fight off her insanity.

Andrea Yates could not have stopped what she did. She did not have the ability to stop it, only the ability to go forward with it. People need to be more aware that that happens. THAT's how you give justice to the children in this case--by ensuring that they didn't die in vain, that society has learned from its failure to save them. That's the real meaning of justice--not vengence, but an attempt to set a situation right.

[bigwillq]

44. You make some very good points

and I appreciate you're willingness to work through my stubborness and help me understand.

I really hope it does save children. I see your point, understand it.

I still however have no sympathy for Andrea Yates and I still consider it murder.

[Midlodemocrat]

46. bigwillq...if I may.

I practiced psychotherapy in CT for about 10 years. I treated mostly children and adolescents, but had my fair share of adults as well, (mainly due to insurance issues).

At the risk of 'Fristing' her, she completely and totally fits the profile of someone with PPP.

I think you know I have three children myself. I had a mild case of the 'baby blues' after my second child because we had moved and I didn't know anyone, in addition, obviously to the physical hormonal 'dump' that occurs when a woman gives birth. When a woman gives birth the entire hormonal world that has been her body changes dramatically in order for the body to start healing as well as the giving the mom the ability to produce colostrum and milk for the newborn. The complexities are enormous and frankly, I don't think, fully understood. If they were, there would be no Andrea Yates type cases.

I fully believe that she is in the throes of full blown psychosis, as do her psychotherapists, both MDs and PhDs. Frankly, I hope she never comes out of it because by all accounts, when she wasn't suffering she was a really great mom to those kids and the knowledge of what she did would simply drive her further insane. I sincerely believe that. Psychosis can be almost a form of MPD, protecting the body and the intellect from the horror that has occurred.

There are people who have killed their children before and not suffered from mental illness, just evilness. I don't think she fits that bill. I genuinely, honestly believe that any other who would systematically drown her five children HAS to be insane. Susan Smith, the mom who drove into the lake with her two kids because she hated her husband more than she loved her kids isn't the same. She was trying to better HER life. Andrea Yates, by all accounts, was trying to SAVE her children and the fact that the doctors haven't been able to lift the psychotic fog in which she lives makes me even more certain that she is a tragic, tragic figure to be pitied and not excoriated.

You may disagree and you are certainly entitled to and it won't change the fact that I adore you. :hi:

[Major Hogwash]

54. Wait a minute, are you saying that Andrea Yates killed her kids, knows she

killed her kids, but still thinks that she did the right thing?

5 years later?

[bigwillq]

56. There is no doubt she was very ill

but she still is guilty of murder in my book.

Thanks for your input. I really do repsect your viewpoint.


And I adore you too. :hug:

[barb162]

45. I feel so sorry for that poor woman

( And don't get me going on that Robot- Rusty)

[Lindsey]

47. I heard he's a religious nutcase and even moved the family

into an RV (at one point) because his pastor told him too. IMHO - he's the one who's at fault and should go to jail. He knew she suffered from the psychosis. He's scum.

[Jamastiene]

48. I don't really want to get into a GD style argument here, but

I think she needs to stay locked up (in a mental institution) for the rest of her life for what she did. She should never be allowed to have children again either. I suffer from mental illness too, although I am perfectly sane and not a danger
to anyone. I have my bad moments too including some psychotic type episodes, although not violent toward others, but if I ever did kill 5 innocent people, I would hope someone would stop me from ever doing that again.

[bigwillq]

55. The husband should've have taken those kids

and RAN!

HE still could've been there for Andrea, be supportive and get her the real help she needed but take those children away.

[Jamastiene]

57. Right, anything to stop that senseless tragedy from happening.

It was pointless and preventable. The doctor even told her she should have another kid with her PPPD. The whole thing was pointless and senseless and sad.