Verdict
Moms View Message Board: The Kitchen Table (Debating Board): Verdict
I just cried with happiness when the verdict was read "not guilty by reason of insanity".
I've always believed she was "sick" and needed help. I am a firm believer in mental illness and do believe that justice was served.
wow...
I think where texas goes wrong is she is now considered innocent.
it should be guilty by reason of insanity.
i agree she needs help, but i think she should spend her life in prison, i think she shouldn't be allowed to have more children.
however the likelyhood is she will be out of treatment probably very soon...i don't know that I am completely convinced that she isn't a danger to society
I misunderstood it originally and thought that her sentence was either going to be "guilty by reason of insanity" or just "guilty". In that case either way she would have been locked up for the remainder of her natural life. This way she has a possiblity of being released. I'm not sure I believe she will be "made well", I feel her issues are much to complex. Then to get "well" and find out and realize what you did would send you right back over the edge again.
I think it will be many many years until she will/if be released and the issues of her bearing anymore children won't exist. (she's 42 now)
I think that even if she is able to conquer her mental illness in the end that will be what gets her. I wouldn't be surprised if after she did get "well" that she ended up killing herself with the true knowledge that she killed her own children.
I'm just sick!
Kaye, I agree. If they are going to agree that insanity is the cause, then it should be:
GUILTY BY REASON OF INSANITY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Those poor babies.
This makes me sick. How knowing she did it can they find her not guilty by any reason? She did it. Like Monica said it should be at least Guilty by reason of Insanity
Those people on the jury are crazy themselves.
This just makes me sick. Insane or not she killed 5 babies she was guilty.
Ditto Kaye. I'm sick over this.
Another one ditto Kaye, she's guilty, and while she may need mental treatment, I think it is a disgrace to her dead children that she is "innocent" of their murders.
The innocent part is what gets me, too. Of course she is insane. No sane person could kill even one of their children, let alone chase the oldest down the hall when it escaped, only to drag it back to the tub to complete the task. She's still guilty.
I am sick with the thought that she will be "rehabilitated" and then released. They say it may be decades, but there is still that chance it won't be. And she doesn't deserve to ever be released. No one that sick will ever be totally rehabilitated, in my opinion.
I just don't sympathize very much with the entire "insanity plea".
Can this woman still reproduce? Of course that's another huge debate but frankly, I think she should be cleaned out so she can't make more babies and kill them, too, once her meds or rehabilitation "relapses".
I think this verdict is a huge event which will benefit people with mental health problems. It will insure that the five babies did not die in vain. No child should live in a home with someone so mentally ill. If this case helps another mother seek help, continue to take meds and her family makes sure she is being treated, monitered, then this will be a great stride in the mental health field.
Brooke Shields brought the attention of post-partum depression/psychosis into conversation a few years back. Tom Cruise dismissed the entire idea. Obviously, there is a huge gap between understanding the human brain, hormones and if mental illness is a real "disease".
I think Andrea Yates and her kids needed help which they did not receive. I hold her husband and her doctor's partially responsible.
She will not be released from an institution. She admitted to killing her kids. She is "not guilty by reason of insanity" but not innocent of the horrific crime. Also, the DA only charged her with the deaths of 3 kids. They can always go back and charge her with the deaths of her other two children. The court would have to prove her sane at the time of the murders, which would be almost impossible, but it will make her stay in custody for a longer period of time.
The thing is, there is no "guilty but insane" verdict available in Texas. It is guilty, not guilty, or not guilty by reason of insanity (that is, she did it but was not in a mental state allowing her to know she was doing something wrong). I personally would like to see a "guilty by reason of insanity" verdict in all states, because it could give the court more flexibility in terms of sentencing. But the likelihood of her being released any time in the next decade or so is highly unlikely.
Another ditto Kaye!!
Yes, she should have gotten help before she killed her children. But I don't know how that can be anyones fault but her own. Did she tell anyone that she was having thoughts of killing the kids?? If that is the case, than yes, they should be responsible also, but I never heard that she did that. Only she knows what was going on inside her head and at some point in time she knew it was wrong and she should have had someone take the kids right then and there and forced someone to listen to her and get help. Anyone that can kill their own children should not be out in society. If you can kill you own kids, you would have no problem at all killing a stranger.
Only she knows what was going on inside of her head....yes, delusional thoughts from being insane. She was mentally ill for many years prior to her crime, mentally ill the day afterwards, but sane when she killed her kids?
No one is saying that she didn't kill her kids; she has admitted to the crime. She was/is mentally ill...there is no other motive.
Let's get her help and make sure that mental illness becomes recognized as a real disease.
I don't think that the question of whether she or anyone other murderer is insane is important here. What is important is that she and other multiple murderers never (ever) get another chance to kill again. Unfortunately the "not guilty be reason of insanity" verdict makes that a distinct possibility.
I find myself imagining those children running away from her in terror, trying to stay alive (I don't think that she deserves to be called a parent or a mother), only to die in violent terror. It is a horrible image. While I oppose the death penalty and any other penalty that reeks of revenge, we need to get better at making sure that multiple murderers never get another chance to kill.
Imagine, for example, if Jeffrey Dahmer had been declared "not guilty by reason of insanity". Would he be back on the stree by now (if he had not been murdered in prison)? The whole comcept of mental health professionals being given the implicit authority to decide when someone is no longer a threat should be reconsidered. I have no issue with them declaring someone "cured", as long as that does not put the rest of us in jeopardy.
Just to comment on, Did she tell anyone that she was having thoughts of killing the kids??
Not only did she, but she actually filled up the bathtub a month prior and was stopped by her husband. She had a doc take her off of meds and it caused hallucinations. The doc, her hubby and her mil all knew she was not capable of being a parent and they left her alone with kids.
I am saddened that they are not prosecuting him also, apparently they looked in to it and decided there wasn't enough of a case.
I agree with Annie, this is an important case for mental health, i believe the defense atty said "a watershed case for mentla illness", also texas legislators will be looking back at our insanity plea. This is the first time houston has ever had one, and in texas I believe she is only number 2 found innocent via insanity.
I do believe she will get out of the hospital soon, I would bet no more than 5 years.
It makes me feel sick that somebody could kill there own children.It also sickens me that no one that she should have been able to depend on didn't help her.I don't think she deserves to rot in jail like Paul Bernardo but I do believe that she should spend a LOOOOOONG time in a mental institute.Mental illness is very hard to understand, its alot easier to feel sorry for someone when they have an obvious illness that you can see.
The prosecution was very upset with the verdict. As one prosecutor pointed out, and I agree, she had to know what she was doing. She waited until her husband left for work, and then systematically killed the children one by one. (Gives me the chills, just thinking about it). Then she covered them with a sheet and then called 911. That shows awareness of what she was doing.
I personally think that she should never be allowed out, because I don't think she can ever
be trusted.
I have no use for Rusty, her husband. As has already been stated, he left her alone with the kids after she attempted killing them before. Now he has divorced her. Yes, it is an unforgivable act (her killing the children), but you'd think he's stand with her.
Not only is he divorced from her. I believe that he recently remarried. So he will probably go on to have children with another woman. I wonder if he will keep her isolated and living in a bus to? I work with the mentally ill and have seen first hand people who are actively delusional. I feel for Andrea Yates that she was probably not in control of herself and as someone else said had asked for help. However, I think she deserves to spend the rest of her life in a mental institution or at least until she is deemed as "well" as to be expected and then go to prison for the rest of her life. I also believe her husband should be in prison also. I guess what I am saying I don't think just because you are mentally ill you can be excused for such a horrific crime.
Just because you are mentally ill doesn't mean you cannot run through the same daily routines as everyone else. So while she did wait for her husband to leave, that doesn't mean much to me.
I said something to my parents shortly before a doctor on tv said the same thing. Every time they medicate her and she approaches normality, the horrificness of her actions will become realized again and again and it will spiral her back into more madness. I think ashe will truly live a hell on earth and I do not think she should be let out of any instiution.
OWEVER, I think her HUSBAND holds some tremendous blame in this and had no right to even speak about her new verdict. He makes me sick.
I don't feel she is being excused from the crime. We all know she is guilty.
Holly, awareness is no test of how mentally ill a person is. I know a lot of people have this idea of legal insanity involving losing all control but it simply isn't like that all the time or at least, in that sense. And I find the verdict of innocent absolutely right.
To be found guilty of a crime it usually needs to be proved that you had a) intent and b) commited the act. Andrea Yates certainly commited the act but a finding of 'innocent by reason of insanity,' means there was no intent. She couldn't form intent because she was so ill. It has nothing to do with her planning skills or seeming awareness. It's whether she knew this was wrong, had a choice not to do it, and did it anyway.
She had a mental illness. She had some shift in brain chemicals that fed her brain a destructive image of herself and her family. Like the anorexic who's skin and bones but sees herself as fat, she couldn't form any normal, lucid view of the world and her children in particular that would allow her to stop and not kill her kids. She had no free will in the matter. We can understand the profound disconnect an anorexic has between reality and what's in their head. It's similar for someone who's deep in a psychotic world like Andrea Yates was. There's just no way to do the right thing because it doesn't exist anymore. A severe anorexic will starve herself to death. Andrea Yates killed her children.
We can see how a simple phone call to the police by Andrea might have stopped it all but we're sane.
I'm glad she's not guilty because then all the people who contributed to this would be free of the guilt. Certainly her husband shared a portion. What of her religious community? Her neighbours? A prosecutor's office that's ignorant of mental health issues? Heck, the way she's been villified instead of anyone taking a closer look at the mental illness issues with mothers.
And I can't help thinking she gets so much venom not because of her act, but because people want to make it clear that it was something about HER that made the act possible. And not anything that the rest of us could be capable of. Which I don't believe for a minute. I had PPD and there were some dark moments that I KNOW could have gotten a whole lot darker. I'm not sure why I dug out and Andrea Yates fell in but I'm not nursing any illusion that if something hadn't been just a bit different, a less caring husband, an absent extended family, a church that preached wifely duty above all else, that I couldn't have fallen in as well. I feel pretty strongly about this but all I can think is that, boy, it will happen again if we don't start looking at mental health, esp. in mothers, more seriously.
There, but for the grace of god...
I personally believe that her husband and doctors should be held accountable because they released her from the hospital because her insurance would not pay anymore. Who cares if the insurance will pay or not, if she is sick enough that she needs to be in the hospital they should have kept her and worked something out later for payment. I feel that if the doctors wanted to keep her in the hospital maybe her husband should have not left her alone with her children or by herself either. I feel that he should rot in jail also.
And whoever said they thought he was remarried they are right.. he got remarried not long ago and has nothing to do with Andrea anymore.
he got remarried not long ago and has nothing to do with Andrea anymore.
He was just on the Today show today and he said he still goes and visits her. So yes, he still has something to do with her.
Ditto Unschoolmom. There, but for the grace of God...
One thread I read on the murders said that she drowned baby Mary first, then killed three of the little boys, one by one. Then, she left her first born, age 7, for last. He asked her what was wrong with Mary, as she left her tiny body floating in the tub while she drowned the others. When her last victim realized what was happening, he ran away twice, and twice, she ran after him, and forcibly held him under the water until he, too, drowned.
I'm sorry, but I see intent and the committed act. She KNEW what she was doing.
And, even after she had numerous hospitalizations after the birth of the third and fourth child, AND Rusty being told that she should NOT have any more children, he convinced her to have baby Mary.
Yes, he is remarried and has two step-sons. He has said this week, that while he has been visiting Andrea, the visits will become more infrequent as he "concentrates on his new life". Well, isn't that nice!!! At least he has that option. His babies don't. You're right, Beth, he probably WILL father more children.
The whole thing is just sickening and very, very tragic.
>>I'm sorry, but I see intent and the committed act. She KNEW what she was doing.>>
The anorexic who starves herself knows what she's doing as well. The thing is that her mental illness won't allow her to see any other option. She can't stop it.
Anorexia is a compulsion driven by a distorted image of reality.
Living in a BUS didn't help her sanity any I am sure. He sounds controlling and manipulative. How do we know if she wanted more children or not? I have so much to say here, not enough time.
I am not judging her. I have no right. I hope she gets help.
Yes, there's no doubt about it. Rusty had his own issues. He is a well educated man; a NASA engineer. And yet, he first had his family living in a travel trailer, then bought a bus from a travelling preacher, and had his family living in that. Both sets of parents convinced him to finally buy them a proper home, because the cramped living conditions were contributing to her mental state.
This extremist preacher was the one who started filling Andrea's head with all this stuff about Satan. He told her that "bad mothers go to hell, but they also have bad children who go to hell". In her illness, somehow she convinced herself that SHE was a bad mother, and believed that, by killing her children while they were young and innocent, that she was saving them from hell.
I just can't imagine the terror of those little ones as they were being killed, especially by the one person that they trusted the most.
I know Hol...that's what my DH says. They were supposed to be running TO their mother, not FROM her to save their lives.
I guess my biggest problem with this is that if she was sick. Yes, and I do believe not in control of her actions. Yes, she had a chemical imbalance that caused her to act this way. Something she certainly had no control over. She is in the hospital where she deserves to be. But I don't even want to think about her getting better and getting out. Because honestly in her extreme case I don't think she can ever be fully recovered. Like someone else said when she gets close to full recovery she is going to realize what she has done and who could live with that. There is also a big chance she could go off her meds, her body get used to that regimen ect... Then she is once again a danger to herself or others. I think that people can cured from mental illness. I have many clients who live on there own, go to school ect... We even have clients who have families. But we also have clients that no amount of meds stop the voices. It is very sad. They manage the best they can. Thankfully none of them are dangerous but some can not live on there own. They need the structure of a group home. Meds can only do so much. To do what she did I believe that Andrea Yates has to be in that second group of people that can never fully recover. That makes her still dangerous and why she should stay either in the hospital or prison forever. Like I said before though Rusty should also be right there with her.
I don't hae much to add, but since I am right here, I know quite a few details.
First she not not chase down the oldest twice, just once, but he did run. You can do a google search and get the actual transcript from the houston police department. It was horrific. I struggle with the intent, she did intend to kill them, she planned it and she succeeded, where her mental state comes in to play is why she choose to kill them.
As far as the church, yep, they were in a cult. Rusty switched churches right after the death of his children. That is the church he is now a member of (clear lake church of christ).
He has remarried, the lady he married is already a mental case. Rusty is hubby 4 or 5 I hear. She has two grown children, so step father is a reach. I do not believe they will have more children, she is around 40 I believe (at least looks to be so). Ultimately what type of person would marry him...think about that in your head, and yes that is exactly what this woman is like. She is what others have been quoted as saying not very mental stable.
Rusty has visited her in prison and the hospital, but ultimately not often. He did attend the trial, sans new wife. When he filed for divorce he did so because "he married for companionship and family and can have neither of those with Andrea now".
It is just horrific, I think she was failed by many, but mostly from her husband who should have acted on her mental illness and not reacted when bad things happen.
From what I hear Andrea's meds are working these days, but when she starts to realize what she has done she loses it and has to be very seriously medicated. I just don't know how she will ever function at all normally again.
I think that would be the caveat of treatment. Once she is treated, she becomes aware, and anyone would lose it knowing they committed such horrific acts. It seems to me that no amount of therapy would really touch that, and someone in her position would *have* to be heavily sedated for the rest of their lives. JMHO, of course.
Kaye - I was thinking the same thing...who would marry him?
I don't understand why the people taking charge of this woman, her doctors especially, aren't held accountable. I read where her psychiatrist took her off all her medication shortly before she committed these horrible crimes. He told her to "think happy thoughts."
What is wrong with this picture? Those children might still be alive if she had a husband with some sense, and the care of good doctors. And none of these people have to answer for their part in this terrible tragedy? She may not be sane or stable, but she was surrounded with people who should have protected those innocent children.
Ditto Crystal!
I would have to go back and read the stuff from the first trial, but I don't think her doctors took her off her meds. I think her husband stopped going to the therapy and somehow was involved in her not continuing therapy. He was also told after the 3rd child that she should not have more children. He was also told that she should not be under stress. It was his decision that she home-school the children.
But, I'll do some re-reading tonight after I get home on the case.
Here are some quotes from a TIME Magazine article after her first conviction:
8599,218445,00.html,Yates (I was wrong, her "new" doctor did take her off the meds.)
"...Rusty testified about his life with Andrea, whom he had met when they were both 25 years old and living in the same apartment complex in Houston. He told them how their family had grown, and how they had moved from a house in suburbia to a camping trailer to a bus converted into a motor home, where Andrea focused on raising the toddlers. After the birth of their fourth child, Luke, in 1999, Andrea tried twice to commit suicide. She was hospitalized both times and was diagnosed with postpartum depression and psychosis.
The couple and their four sons moved from the bus into their house on Beachcomber Lane in a Houston suburb. She recovered while using Haldol, but eventually stopped taking the medication. Against the advice of her psychiatrist, Andrea soon became pregnant again with their fifth child, Mary. Within months, following the death of her ailing father, her psychosis returned. Instead of taking her back to the same doctor who'd treated her before, Rusty told jurors that he and Andrea went to the Devereux-Texas Treatment Network, where Mohammed Saeed became Andrea's psychiatrist. Rusty testified that he never knew that Andrea had visions and voices; he said he never knew she had considered killing the children. Neither did Dr. Saeed, even though the delusions could have been found in medical records from 1999. Andrea would not talk or eat.
After only slight improvement, Andrea was released from Devereux. A month later, she had another episode. Rusty took her back to Devereux. Again, she was released. Dr. Saeed reluctantly prescribed Haldol, the same drug that worked in a drug cocktail for her in 1999. But after a few weeks, he took her off the drug, citing his concerns about side effects. Though Andrea's condition seemed to be worsening two days before the drownings, when her husband drove her to Saeed's office, Rusty testified, the doctor refused to try Haldol longer or return her to the hospital. Rusty was frustrated, he told the jury, and he didn't know what else to do."
Ginny - but, Rusty went to work every day, and left Andrea home-schooling five children, after multiple suicide attempts, hospitalization, diagnoses of post-partum depression, severe depression, dementia, even psychosis. He knew she was desperately sick, and he went to work. He can say all he wants that he "didn't know", but I don't believe it for a minute.
I agree that she should be institutionalized, and I personally think she should be in a controlled setting for the rest of her life, where she will get medications and proper treatment. Certainly she should never be in a situation where she is ever taking care of children. My personal guess is that in 15-20 years she will be released because some new, young doctors think she has "adjusted" (and, like Dr. Saeed, they won't bother to really learn her history), and will probably either take her own life or sink back into suicidal behavior and be hospitalized again and again.
I guess the situation with her new doctor angered me, Ginny, because it sounded like he took her off the meds without any other option. Thinking "happy thoughts" wouldn't cut it for someone like Andrea. And I have to wonder if she was weened off or cut off cold turkey. It's pretty hard on a normal individual to suddenly stop taking an antidepressant. I can just imagine what it would do to someone like Andrea. Yet, I agree with you, too. Rusty was totally irresponsible when it came to his own children. (I have to admit, though, is he all there? He seems a rather strange to me.) He obviously knows right from wrong. Leaving his children in the care of someone so disturbed and psychotic, to me, is beyond my comprehension. I couldn't live with myself knowing I could have prevented such a tragedy. Not to mention loosing those beloved children.
Nicki - I agree. Rusty doesn't look too well himself. He definitely had some wacky ideas, and didn't take her illness seriously enough.
Also, what about their parents? I understand, that with Andrea's mother being recently widowed, she probably wasn't as involved as she could have been otherwise. However, Rusty's mother supposedly went over everyday to help Andrea. (She arrived after Andrea killed the children). Couldn't she have seen the downward spiral of Andrea and intervened? Maybe she's as "swift" as her son.
I think everyone that sat in a room with that woman and didn't realize that she had lost it ought to be held accountable. If you look at the pictures they have of her with the children you can look at her and tell she is "sick". She was not eating, sleeping or taking care of herself physically. She was zoning out, a clear indication there might be a problem.. Her conversations, when they occurred, were not rational.. Her actions were not rational.. She was a time bomb and every one was sitting around with their fingers in their ears waiting for her to go off. And then she did.. Then everyone is standing around, "Oops, that wasn't supposed to happen". Her mother in law coming over and spending the days with her clearly shows to me that they knew she was a treat to at least herself and they didn't insist on treatment. I know my DH and when he is "sick" straight to the ER we go.. I can tell you that I have had to fight the ER to have him admitted before.. But I fought.. I didn't go, "oh okay, think happy thoughts and this will all go away". there was more that could have been done and more that should have been done on the part of everyone that sat in a room with that woman...
ditto, Bobbie.
Another ditto Bobbie.
Ditto Bobbie X3.
Agreed X4
This has always weighed heavy on my mind. The trial brought it all to light.
Half of me cannot understand how a mother could do this, mentally ill or not. This part of me is glad that they have found her insane because now she will get treatment and live with what she did. I hope her doctors are wonderful and treat her well so that she can live and long life and know what she lost.
The other half of me just wants her to rot in jail. Why should taxpayer's money go to support someone who did such and unforgivable act.
I feel much the same way I feel about the Smith (I believe) case where the mother drown her children by driving the car into a lake. Nothing but disgust.
There is one huge difference between the Yates and the Smith cases. Yates was/is mentally disturbed.. This is documented prior to and proven through out her stay with in the system. She killed them thinking she was saving them from eternity in Hell because she as a sinner couldn't raise them properly. Smith on the other hand committed her murders out of greed.. She would rather see her children dead than let their bio father have them so she could be with her new man that didn't want to be burdened with her children... She was looking out for herself and her life style. Which was also proven through court.
Another difference, Yates called 911 and confessed her crime with in minutes of the acts she committed. Smith lied, said she was car jacked all the way up until a good cop started poking holes in her story.. Begging us on national news to help find her babies as she cried.. She let them lay in the bottom of that lake, while she covered her rear end and she would have never confessed if she hadn't made mistakes when retelling her story..
Ditto, Bobbie. However, I am somewhat with Amanda, too. Part of me just cannot understand, mentally ill or not, HOW Andrea could have done what she did.
You are right on about Susan Smith. She also disgusts me, but her situation, as you point out, was much different.
What has happened to her? Is he still in jail? Supposedly, she was sexually molested by her step-father, as a kid.
I meant to say, "Is SHE still in jail".
She was sentenced to life in prison. She will be eligible for parole in 2025, after she has served a minimum of thirty years. She was convicted in 1995, being born in 1971 she would have been 24. Which means she will be 54 before she can go before a parole board.
Her father, Beverly Russell, admitted that he molested Susan when she was a teenager and had consensual sex with her as an adult. In spite of that, Susan Smith had no prior history of violence or abuse toward her children or any signs of psychosis or biological disorder.
I know as a person that doesn't suffer from Psychosis that it is hard to understand how/why Andrea Yates committed such a terrible act against her children. But during a psychotic break there is no rational. There often is no snapping out of it and coming back to reality.. There are only hallucinations, delusional beliefs, personality changes and disorganized thinking. It is also characterized by lack of insight into the unusual or bizarre nature of such behavior. She was doing what she did because she thought that is what she had to do because of her delusional state.
Rob was in the Hospital the time before the last. There was a woman in there that was clearly in the throws of Schizophrenia. She was hallucinating that she had her cat with her, her cat had flea's and the cat had scratched itself bloody. She had lost all touch of reality.. She was on the ground scrubbing the blood. She was begging the nurses to let her go home to get the flea treatment. She had crawled up under the bed to get the cat. It was so unreal.. I have dealt with Schizophrenia before but not to that extreme.. Basically, just because you have never seen it doesn't make it any less real. Andrea has been taken off her medication while in prison, she goes into psychosis when ever she is not treated. Her condition is real and it didn't just come about the day she took the life of her children. It was there and it was not treated.. Probably because she didn't tell anyone what was truly going on inside her and what she was telling clearly wasn't being heard.
They said her Dr had seen her days before she did it.. Why was she not hospitalized? Common practice, for someone that was as low as she seemed to be, would have been a five day stay on the Psyc unit to stablize medications with out outside stressors. He sent her off telling her to "think happy thoughts"..
Take that back she will be 53..
The circumstances between Yates and Smith were different but the end result was the same. The children are dead.
Right, Wrong, Insane, Not insane - I can't see a difference when the end result is the same.
I hold not only the individuals themselves guilty but also the immediate family that knew there was a thin threshold to reality and did nothing.
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