Anti-depressant warning may help Yates
By JANET ST. JAMES / WFAA ABC 8
HOUSTON, Texas - Andrea Yates' treatment for post-partum depression played a big role in her first murder trial. Now the pills she was prescribed for depression may be the key in her second defense.
The FDA in November quietly ordered a safety labeling change for Effexor XR, a warning that in rare cases patients will experience "homicidal" thoughts.
Harris HEB psychiatrist Cathal Grant has been treating patients for depression for over 20 years.
He says many doctors probably don't know the warning has been added to Effexor. But this extreme side-effect doesn't surprise him either.
"Anyone who's suffered from severe depression will know that it can cause anger and irritability at times, and there are a certain percentage of those people who may be homicidal," said Dr. Grant.
Most anti-depressants do warn of side - effects including suicidal thoughts, hostility, aggressiveness, and manic reactions. Homicidal thoughts are not on any other anti-depressant labels, we could find.
Still, the vast majority of people take the medicine safely. Defense attorneys will no doubt argue Effexor's new labeling could prove Andrea Yates did not.
BREAKING NEWS: Andrea Yates Not Guilty in Retrial
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TexasStooge
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bvigal
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It disturbs me to think that we may get to a point where routinely people can murder, plead insanity, go to a mental hospital, and then later be released. There is good reason for having an insanity defense in law, but it seems to be more and more loosly interpreted. Who prescribed these pills for her, and how often were they monitoring her condition? How could her husband not know she might be a danger to the children, is he partially to blame? If so, no wonder he is backing her up in this, it lessens his guilt of inaction before the fact. It doesn't sound to me like this family truly treasured those children! How sad. 
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bvigal wrote:It disturbs me to think that we may get to a point where routinely people can murder, plead insanity, go to a mental hospital, and then later be released. There is good reason for having an insanity defense in law, but it seems to be more and more loosly interpreted. Who prescribed these pills for her, and how often were they monitoring her condition? How could her husband not know she might be a danger to the children, is he partially to blame? If so, no wonder he is backing her up in this, it lessens his guilt of inaction before the fact. It doesn't sound to me like this family truly treasured those children! How sad.
You say that the insanity defense is used more and more loosely. I would certainly argue that. When you have to give someone medicine right before you execute him so that he'll understand why you're executing him, then it's not being used loosely. People who sit in the corner every waking minute and mumble to themselves are denied insanity pleas.
It's wrong to think that just because someone is found insane that they walk free. Most often, they spend the rest of their lives in a hospital.
Andrea Yates thought God told her to drown her kids. If she isn't crazy, who is?
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TexasStooge
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Doctor warned Yates not to have more babies
HOUSTON, Texas (DallasNews.com/AP) – A psychiatrist testified Friday that she warned Andrea Yates not to have any more children after she tried to commit suicide twice within months of having her fourth child in 1999.
"I could pretty much predict that Mrs. Yates would have another episode of psychosis," Dr. Eileen Starbranch told jurors in Yates' murder retrial.
Starbranch said Yates suffered from postpartum psychosis, which she said causes a mother to have delusions and lose touch with reality, making it much more severe than postpartum depression, from which millions of new mothers suffer.
Yates is being tried again in the drownings of her children in June 2001. An appeals court overturned her 2002 capital murder conviction because erroneous testimony might have influenced the jury. She has again pleaded innocent by reason of insanity.
Yates had her fifth child in late 2000. The next June, Yates drowned 6-month-old Mary, 2-year-old Luke, 3-year-old Paul, 5-year-old John and 7-year-old Noah in the bathtub.
Yates's attorneys have never disputed she killed the youngsters but say she didn't know at the time that it was wrong.
Later Friday, a neuropsychologist testified that Yates was psychotic and suffering from a delusion as she drowned her five children, so she thought she was doing the right thing. Dr. George Ringholz, who worked at Baylor College of Medicine when he tested Yates about six months after the June 2001 drownings, is set to finish testifying when the trial resumes Monday.
Prosecutors say Yates' actions belie the defense attorneys' claims. They say she planned the drownings when she'd be alone with the children, after her husband went to work and before her mother-in-law arrived. Then Yates called 911 and later told a detective she killed them because she was a bad mother and wanted to be punished, according to trial witnesses.
Starbranch said she treated Yates after she tried to kill herself by overdosing on sleeping pills in June 1999.
About a month later, Starbranch said, Yates's then-husband, Rusty, told her that Yates had held a knife to her own throat the previous day, and he disarmed her.
Starbranch said Yates had a bald spot on her head from scratching it, had not been taking her antipsychotic medication, had filthy hair and was unable to function. Starbranch said she sent the couple immediately to a mental hospital so Andrea Yates could be admitted.
Under cross-examination, Starbranch acknowledged that the words "filthy" and "catatonic" were not in her notes and said that Yates' nervousness and anxiety may have been a sign that she simply did not want to be at a psychiatrist's office. But Starbranch maintained that Yates was psychotic and not lethargic or exhausted from caring for four young children.
Over the next two weeks or so while hospitalized, Yates steadily improved while on antipsychotic drugs, Starbranch said. She saw Yates again several more times until early the next year, when Yates said she had stopped taking any medication because she was better.
But then in March 2001, Rusty Yates called Starbranch's office trying to make an appointment, saying his wife was getting worse since having the couple's fifth child in November, Starbranch testified.
"I knew that was a very ominous sign ... that lives were at stake, so I asked that she be brought in immediately," Starbranch said.
The couple never showed up, but Starbranch later learned that Yates was admitted to another mental hospital, the psychiatrist testified.
Yates, being tried in only three of the children's deaths, will be sentenced to life in prison if convicted. After the first jury rejected execution, prosecutors could not seek the death penalty again because they found no new evidence.
Prosecutors say they plan to call as a rebuttal witness Dr. Park Dietz, the psychiatrist whose testimony inadvertently led to Yates' conviction being overturned.
Dietz, also a Law & Order television series consultant, told the first jury that in one episode a woman was acquitted by reason of insanity after drowning her children in the tub. He said the show aired before the Yates children died, but after her conviction, those involved in the case discovered no such episode existed.
HOUSTON, Texas (DallasNews.com/AP) – A psychiatrist testified Friday that she warned Andrea Yates not to have any more children after she tried to commit suicide twice within months of having her fourth child in 1999.
"I could pretty much predict that Mrs. Yates would have another episode of psychosis," Dr. Eileen Starbranch told jurors in Yates' murder retrial.
Starbranch said Yates suffered from postpartum psychosis, which she said causes a mother to have delusions and lose touch with reality, making it much more severe than postpartum depression, from which millions of new mothers suffer.
Yates is being tried again in the drownings of her children in June 2001. An appeals court overturned her 2002 capital murder conviction because erroneous testimony might have influenced the jury. She has again pleaded innocent by reason of insanity.
Yates had her fifth child in late 2000. The next June, Yates drowned 6-month-old Mary, 2-year-old Luke, 3-year-old Paul, 5-year-old John and 7-year-old Noah in the bathtub.
Yates's attorneys have never disputed she killed the youngsters but say she didn't know at the time that it was wrong.
Later Friday, a neuropsychologist testified that Yates was psychotic and suffering from a delusion as she drowned her five children, so she thought she was doing the right thing. Dr. George Ringholz, who worked at Baylor College of Medicine when he tested Yates about six months after the June 2001 drownings, is set to finish testifying when the trial resumes Monday.
Prosecutors say Yates' actions belie the defense attorneys' claims. They say she planned the drownings when she'd be alone with the children, after her husband went to work and before her mother-in-law arrived. Then Yates called 911 and later told a detective she killed them because she was a bad mother and wanted to be punished, according to trial witnesses.
Starbranch said she treated Yates after she tried to kill herself by overdosing on sleeping pills in June 1999.
About a month later, Starbranch said, Yates's then-husband, Rusty, told her that Yates had held a knife to her own throat the previous day, and he disarmed her.
Starbranch said Yates had a bald spot on her head from scratching it, had not been taking her antipsychotic medication, had filthy hair and was unable to function. Starbranch said she sent the couple immediately to a mental hospital so Andrea Yates could be admitted.
Under cross-examination, Starbranch acknowledged that the words "filthy" and "catatonic" were not in her notes and said that Yates' nervousness and anxiety may have been a sign that she simply did not want to be at a psychiatrist's office. But Starbranch maintained that Yates was psychotic and not lethargic or exhausted from caring for four young children.
Over the next two weeks or so while hospitalized, Yates steadily improved while on antipsychotic drugs, Starbranch said. She saw Yates again several more times until early the next year, when Yates said she had stopped taking any medication because she was better.
But then in March 2001, Rusty Yates called Starbranch's office trying to make an appointment, saying his wife was getting worse since having the couple's fifth child in November, Starbranch testified.
"I knew that was a very ominous sign ... that lives were at stake, so I asked that she be brought in immediately," Starbranch said.
The couple never showed up, but Starbranch later learned that Yates was admitted to another mental hospital, the psychiatrist testified.
Yates, being tried in only three of the children's deaths, will be sentenced to life in prison if convicted. After the first jury rejected execution, prosecutors could not seek the death penalty again because they found no new evidence.
Prosecutors say they plan to call as a rebuttal witness Dr. Park Dietz, the psychiatrist whose testimony inadvertently led to Yates' conviction being overturned.
Dietz, also a Law & Order television series consultant, told the first jury that in one episode a woman was acquitted by reason of insanity after drowning her children in the tub. He said the show aired before the Yates children died, but after her conviction, those involved in the case discovered no such episode existed.
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beachbum_al
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Audrey2Katrina
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Andrea Yates thought God told her to drown her kids. If she isn't crazy, who is?
If she's that crazy then she's a proven menace to society and deserves to be put away for the rest of her UNnatural life.... but I'd be willing to bet she'll get some shrink a few years down the pike to declare her "cured"... and THAT is what the courts should not allow for someone guilty of having done something this hideous.
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GalvestonDuck
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beachbum_al wrote:She is going to use every excuse she can come up with to her defense on killing her precious innocent children. And why is she only be tried in three of the children's death?
They did it that way the first time also (3 instead of 5). If I recall, it had something to do with being able to try her for the other two murders at a later date if she was acquited of the first three. It would give the prosecution a chance to use a different angle to get her convicted.
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TexasStooge
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Questions raised about drug Yates was taking
HOUSTON, Texas (WFAA ABC 8/AP) - An antidepressant that Andrea Yates had been taking before she drowned her five children in 2001 has recently been found to possibly increase the risk of homicidal thoughts, according to a medical watchdog group that says Effexor's manufacturer has not warned the public.
"Homicidal ideation" was added last year as one of the drug's rare adverse events on Effexor XR's label and on Wyeth's Web site.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration defines rare as occurring in less than one in 1,000 people. In the U.S. alone, about 19.2 million prescriptions for Effexor were filled last year, but that does not reflect the number of people who take the drug because some of those are refills.
Dr. Moira Dolan, executive director of the Medical Accountability Network, said she discovered the labeling change about two weeks ago when she stumbled across the FDA's MedWatch newsletter from November. The Madison, N.J.-based drug company did not send letters to doctors or issue warning labels.
"People need to be warned that this is a possible side effect," Dolan, an Austin doctor who has reviewed Yates' medical records but is not involved in the case, said Sunday. "Families don't know to be aware of this possible effect. As doctors, we're not going to look through 36 pages of labeling."
Effexor is Wyeth's top-selling drug, with $3.46 billion in 2005 sales worldwide, more than twice the total for its No. 2 product and 18 percent of its total revenues for last year.
"We believe there is no causal link between Effexor and homicidality," said Wyeth spokeswoman Gwen Fisher. "In our minds, we've taken every precaution."
She said that as Effexor was being studied for use in treating panic disorder, Wyeth found that only one person reported having homicidal thoughts in its clinical trial. Fisher said she did not know the trial date.
In approving Wyeth's application to use Effexor for that disorder, the FDA wanted homicidal ideation listed as a rare adverse event, defined as something not proven to be linked to the drug, Fisher said. That is different from an adverse reaction, she said.
Wyeth never notified doctors or issued warning labels because it found no causal link between its drug and homicidal thoughts, Fisher said. The current Web site label, mentioning homicidal thoughts in the middle of a paragraph on page 36, is appropriate, she said.
In 2004, the FDA ordered that all antidepressants carry "black box" warnings that they increase the risk of suicidal thinking and behavior in children. That action was driven by data that showed that, on average, 2 to 3 percent of children taking antidepressants have increased suicidal thoughts and actions. The link is stronger with Effexor than with other antidepressants in the same class of drugs.
James T. O'Donnell, assistant professor of pharmacology at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago and the author of "Drug Injury: Liability, Analysis, and Prevention," said the homicidal ideation issue should be on the same level of public awareness.
"For something as final as homicide, that's important to know about," O'Donnell said.
But Fisher said the drug is safe and effective. Yates, who remains jailed, continues taking Effexor as well as an anti-psychotic drug to help stabilize her mental illness, according to a psychiatrist testifying in Yates' retrial that started two weeks ago.
Yates, 42, has pleaded innocent by reason of insanity in her second murder trial. Her 2002 capital murder conviction was overturned on appeal because some erroneous testimony may have influenced jurors.
Yates had been prescribed Effexor in varying doses since shortly after her first suicide attempt in 1999, said Dolan, who reviewed her medical records after her first trial at the request of her then-husband, Rusty Yates. A month before the murders, her daily dose had increased to 450 mg, twice the recommended maximum dose, Dolan said.
Her lead attorney, George Parnham, has criticized the amount of medications Yates was prescribed before the children's bathtub drowning deaths. He said Wyeth should have publicized information about the possible connection between Effexor and thoughts of murder, but he said that will not affect Yates' case.
"Obviously this is a severely mentally ill individual who was on a plethora of psychiatric meds," Parnham said. "There's no question mental illness killed those children."
Parnham said Yates suffered from postpartum psychosis and drowned the children in the family bathtub while in a delusional state, which likely was exacerbated after she was suddenly taken off Haldol, a strong anti-psychotic drug.
Yates, being tried in only three of the deaths, will be sentenced to life in prison if convicted.
Effexor sales rose only 3.3 percent in 2005, compared with 2004, but jumped 8.8 percent in the first quarter of this year, to $945 million.
HOUSTON, Texas (WFAA ABC 8/AP) - An antidepressant that Andrea Yates had been taking before she drowned her five children in 2001 has recently been found to possibly increase the risk of homicidal thoughts, according to a medical watchdog group that says Effexor's manufacturer has not warned the public.
"Homicidal ideation" was added last year as one of the drug's rare adverse events on Effexor XR's label and on Wyeth's Web site.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration defines rare as occurring in less than one in 1,000 people. In the U.S. alone, about 19.2 million prescriptions for Effexor were filled last year, but that does not reflect the number of people who take the drug because some of those are refills.
Dr. Moira Dolan, executive director of the Medical Accountability Network, said she discovered the labeling change about two weeks ago when she stumbled across the FDA's MedWatch newsletter from November. The Madison, N.J.-based drug company did not send letters to doctors or issue warning labels.
"People need to be warned that this is a possible side effect," Dolan, an Austin doctor who has reviewed Yates' medical records but is not involved in the case, said Sunday. "Families don't know to be aware of this possible effect. As doctors, we're not going to look through 36 pages of labeling."
Effexor is Wyeth's top-selling drug, with $3.46 billion in 2005 sales worldwide, more than twice the total for its No. 2 product and 18 percent of its total revenues for last year.
"We believe there is no causal link between Effexor and homicidality," said Wyeth spokeswoman Gwen Fisher. "In our minds, we've taken every precaution."
She said that as Effexor was being studied for use in treating panic disorder, Wyeth found that only one person reported having homicidal thoughts in its clinical trial. Fisher said she did not know the trial date.
In approving Wyeth's application to use Effexor for that disorder, the FDA wanted homicidal ideation listed as a rare adverse event, defined as something not proven to be linked to the drug, Fisher said. That is different from an adverse reaction, she said.
Wyeth never notified doctors or issued warning labels because it found no causal link between its drug and homicidal thoughts, Fisher said. The current Web site label, mentioning homicidal thoughts in the middle of a paragraph on page 36, is appropriate, she said.
In 2004, the FDA ordered that all antidepressants carry "black box" warnings that they increase the risk of suicidal thinking and behavior in children. That action was driven by data that showed that, on average, 2 to 3 percent of children taking antidepressants have increased suicidal thoughts and actions. The link is stronger with Effexor than with other antidepressants in the same class of drugs.
James T. O'Donnell, assistant professor of pharmacology at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago and the author of "Drug Injury: Liability, Analysis, and Prevention," said the homicidal ideation issue should be on the same level of public awareness.
"For something as final as homicide, that's important to know about," O'Donnell said.
But Fisher said the drug is safe and effective. Yates, who remains jailed, continues taking Effexor as well as an anti-psychotic drug to help stabilize her mental illness, according to a psychiatrist testifying in Yates' retrial that started two weeks ago.
Yates, 42, has pleaded innocent by reason of insanity in her second murder trial. Her 2002 capital murder conviction was overturned on appeal because some erroneous testimony may have influenced jurors.
Yates had been prescribed Effexor in varying doses since shortly after her first suicide attempt in 1999, said Dolan, who reviewed her medical records after her first trial at the request of her then-husband, Rusty Yates. A month before the murders, her daily dose had increased to 450 mg, twice the recommended maximum dose, Dolan said.
Her lead attorney, George Parnham, has criticized the amount of medications Yates was prescribed before the children's bathtub drowning deaths. He said Wyeth should have publicized information about the possible connection between Effexor and thoughts of murder, but he said that will not affect Yates' case.
"Obviously this is a severely mentally ill individual who was on a plethora of psychiatric meds," Parnham said. "There's no question mental illness killed those children."
Parnham said Yates suffered from postpartum psychosis and drowned the children in the family bathtub while in a delusional state, which likely was exacerbated after she was suddenly taken off Haldol, a strong anti-psychotic drug.
Yates, being tried in only three of the deaths, will be sentenced to life in prison if convicted.
Effexor sales rose only 3.3 percent in 2005, compared with 2004, but jumped 8.8 percent in the first quarter of this year, to $945 million.
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TexasStooge
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Jurors see video of Yates interviewed in jail
HOUSTON, Texas (WFAA ABC 8/AP) — A videotaped jail interview played for jurors Monday showed Andrea Yates weeping after she told a psychiatrist why she drowned her five children in a bathtub.
“In their innocence, I thought they would go to heaven,” Yates told Dr. Lucy Puryear, an expert on reproductive-related psychiatric disorders, about five weeks after the June 20, 2001, drownings. “I just — since they were so young,” Yates stammered before trailing off, then started to cry.
Yates, whose hair looked stringy, wore an orange jail jumpsuit hanging slightly off her right shoulder, and she often clenched her jaw and paused for up to a minute or more after some questions. She also occasionally scratched her head.
Yates is being retried in the drownings. An appeals court overturned her 2002 conviction because erroneous testimony might have influenced the jury. She has again pleaded innocent by reason of insanity.
Court ended at midday Monday because of a scheduling conflict. Testimony resumes Tuesday.
Her defense team says Yates suffered from severe postpartum psychosis and did not know that killing 6-month-old Mary, 2-year-old Luke, 3-year-old Paul, 5-year-old John and 7-year-old Noah was wrong.
Yates' attorney Wendell Odom said Friday he doesn't know whether Rusty Yates, who divorced Andrea last year and remarried in March, will be called to testify for the defense or state. Rusty Yates, who was sworn in as a witness before the trial began, has repeatedly said he believes Andrea was insane at the time of the killings, and he testified for the defense at the first trial.
Prosecutors say Andrea Yates may be mentally ill but did not meet the state's definition of insanity, because she called 911 to report the crime and later told a detective that she killed the youngsters because she was a bad mother and wanted to be punished.
Yates, being tried in only three of the children's deaths, will be sentenced to life in prison if convicted. After the first jury rejected execution, prosecutors could not seek the death penalty again because they found no new evidence.
After the defense rests its case, prosecutors will begin their rebuttal phase. They say they plan to call Dr. Park Dietz, the psychiatrist whose testimony inadvertently led to Yates' conviction being overturned.
Dietz, also a “Law & Order” television series consultant, told the first jury that in one episode a woman was acquitted by reason of insanity after drowning her children in the tub. He said the show aired before the Yates children died, but after her conviction, those involved in the case discovered no such episode existed.
HOUSTON, Texas (WFAA ABC 8/AP) — A videotaped jail interview played for jurors Monday showed Andrea Yates weeping after she told a psychiatrist why she drowned her five children in a bathtub.
“In their innocence, I thought they would go to heaven,” Yates told Dr. Lucy Puryear, an expert on reproductive-related psychiatric disorders, about five weeks after the June 20, 2001, drownings. “I just — since they were so young,” Yates stammered before trailing off, then started to cry.
Yates, whose hair looked stringy, wore an orange jail jumpsuit hanging slightly off her right shoulder, and she often clenched her jaw and paused for up to a minute or more after some questions. She also occasionally scratched her head.
Yates is being retried in the drownings. An appeals court overturned her 2002 conviction because erroneous testimony might have influenced the jury. She has again pleaded innocent by reason of insanity.
Court ended at midday Monday because of a scheduling conflict. Testimony resumes Tuesday.
Her defense team says Yates suffered from severe postpartum psychosis and did not know that killing 6-month-old Mary, 2-year-old Luke, 3-year-old Paul, 5-year-old John and 7-year-old Noah was wrong.
Yates' attorney Wendell Odom said Friday he doesn't know whether Rusty Yates, who divorced Andrea last year and remarried in March, will be called to testify for the defense or state. Rusty Yates, who was sworn in as a witness before the trial began, has repeatedly said he believes Andrea was insane at the time of the killings, and he testified for the defense at the first trial.
Prosecutors say Andrea Yates may be mentally ill but did not meet the state's definition of insanity, because she called 911 to report the crime and later told a detective that she killed the youngsters because she was a bad mother and wanted to be punished.
Yates, being tried in only three of the children's deaths, will be sentenced to life in prison if convicted. After the first jury rejected execution, prosecutors could not seek the death penalty again because they found no new evidence.
After the defense rests its case, prosecutors will begin their rebuttal phase. They say they plan to call Dr. Park Dietz, the psychiatrist whose testimony inadvertently led to Yates' conviction being overturned.
Dietz, also a “Law & Order” television series consultant, told the first jury that in one episode a woman was acquitted by reason of insanity after drowning her children in the tub. He said the show aired before the Yates children died, but after her conviction, those involved in the case discovered no such episode existed.
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LSU2001
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Tstormwatcher wrote:I think its a shame that her husband wasn't tried too. After all he was told after the first baby, not to get her pregnant anymore. But he put his selfish wants ahead of her health.
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george_r_1961
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alicia-w wrote:that isnt really fair. the woman has been diagnosed with a real condition. i dont condone what she's done but she's suffers every day.
Alicia sorry it took so long for me to respond but there is a substantial part of the population with mental illness and they dont go around killing people. She knows right from wrong.
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gtalum
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george_r_1961 wrote:Alicia sorry it took so long for me to respond but there is a substantial part of the population with mental illness and they dont go around killing people. She knows right from wrong.
In criminal law, "insane" specifically means the inability to know right from wrong.
As I just noted, the "best" scenario she faces is life in a mental institution.
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TexasStooge
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Yates 'admitted drownings were wrong'
HOUSTON, Texas (WFAA ABC 8/AP) - A sheriff's deputy who overheard Andrea Yates' interview with a jail psychiatrist the day after she drowned her five children in the bathtub testified Wednesday that she said she decided to do it the night before and knew it was wrong.
"She said, `I considered using a knife, but that would be too bloody. I considered using a gun, but that would be too noisy. I decided that drowning would be the safest way to take them into the next world,"' Deputy Michael Stephens told jurors in Yates' second capital murder trial.
Stephens, who stood guard as Dr. Melissa Ferguson and other staffers interviewed Yates the day after the June 20, 2001, drownings, said he didn't hear Yates mention a prophecy that Satan was living inside her or that she had to be executed in order for Satan to be killed and for her children to be saved from hell.
Ferguson previously testified for the defense that Yates told her about that prophecy.
Yates, 42, is being retried because her 2002 conviction was overturned by an appeals court that ruled erroneous testimony might have influenced the jury.
She has again pleaded innocent by reason of insanity. Her attorneys say she suffered from severe postpartum psychosis and did not know that killing the children was wrong.
Stephens said Ferguson asked him to be there because she didn't know what mental state Yates would be in. Stephens said Yates initially was calm during the interview but later became agitated when talking about killing 7-year-old Noah, 5-year-old John, 3-year-old Paul, 2-year-old Luke and 6-month-old Mary. Stephens said the staff also became upset and had to take several breaks.
Yates called herself stupid about four times, getting louder each time, he said. She also said she was a bad mother, he said.
"Mrs. Yates (said), `I realized I only had to kill one to justify all of them," said Stephens, testifying for prosecutors during their rebuttal. "I should have just killed Mary. She was the youngest. She didn't struggle. Russell wanted another boy for his basketball team. He didn't want her anyway."
Under cross-examination, Stephens said this was the first mental-health evaluation he had witnessed, and that he sometimes walked away to tend to other matters, so he did not hear everything that was said.
He said he wrote notes about the exam eight months later, although he was not asked to do so. He gave the notes to prosecutors after they contacted him.
Prosecutors said they planned to call Dr. Park Dietz, the forensic psychiatrist whose testimony inadvertently led to Yates' conviction being overturned, either Wednesday or Thursday.
Dietz evaluated Yates and told jurors in the first trial that she knew drowning the children was wrong. Dietz, also a "Law & Order" television series consultant, said that one episode showed a woman being acquitted by reason of insanity after drowning her children in the tub. After Yates' conviction, those involved in the case discovered no such episode existed.
_____________________________________________________________
DUH!!! You know drowning loved ones is wrong, so why do it?
HOUSTON, Texas (WFAA ABC 8/AP) - A sheriff's deputy who overheard Andrea Yates' interview with a jail psychiatrist the day after she drowned her five children in the bathtub testified Wednesday that she said she decided to do it the night before and knew it was wrong.
"She said, `I considered using a knife, but that would be too bloody. I considered using a gun, but that would be too noisy. I decided that drowning would be the safest way to take them into the next world,"' Deputy Michael Stephens told jurors in Yates' second capital murder trial.
Stephens, who stood guard as Dr. Melissa Ferguson and other staffers interviewed Yates the day after the June 20, 2001, drownings, said he didn't hear Yates mention a prophecy that Satan was living inside her or that she had to be executed in order for Satan to be killed and for her children to be saved from hell.
Ferguson previously testified for the defense that Yates told her about that prophecy.
Yates, 42, is being retried because her 2002 conviction was overturned by an appeals court that ruled erroneous testimony might have influenced the jury.
She has again pleaded innocent by reason of insanity. Her attorneys say she suffered from severe postpartum psychosis and did not know that killing the children was wrong.
Stephens said Ferguson asked him to be there because she didn't know what mental state Yates would be in. Stephens said Yates initially was calm during the interview but later became agitated when talking about killing 7-year-old Noah, 5-year-old John, 3-year-old Paul, 2-year-old Luke and 6-month-old Mary. Stephens said the staff also became upset and had to take several breaks.
Yates called herself stupid about four times, getting louder each time, he said. She also said she was a bad mother, he said.
"Mrs. Yates (said), `I realized I only had to kill one to justify all of them," said Stephens, testifying for prosecutors during their rebuttal. "I should have just killed Mary. She was the youngest. She didn't struggle. Russell wanted another boy for his basketball team. He didn't want her anyway."
Under cross-examination, Stephens said this was the first mental-health evaluation he had witnessed, and that he sometimes walked away to tend to other matters, so he did not hear everything that was said.
He said he wrote notes about the exam eight months later, although he was not asked to do so. He gave the notes to prosecutors after they contacted him.
Prosecutors said they planned to call Dr. Park Dietz, the forensic psychiatrist whose testimony inadvertently led to Yates' conviction being overturned, either Wednesday or Thursday.
Dietz evaluated Yates and told jurors in the first trial that she knew drowning the children was wrong. Dietz, also a "Law & Order" television series consultant, said that one episode showed a woman being acquitted by reason of insanity after drowning her children in the tub. After Yates' conviction, those involved in the case discovered no such episode existed.
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DUH!!! You know drowning loved ones is wrong, so why do it?
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TexasStooge
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