Child killer Yates thinks kids are still alive..
Posted: Thu Jul 22, 2004 9:33 am
Attorney: Yates Thinks Children Are Alive
Wed Jul 21,10:21 PM ET Add U.S. National - AP to My Yahoo!
By PAM EASTON, Associated Press Writer
HOUSTON - Andrea Yates, serving a life sentence for drowning her children in a bathtub, asked her husband why he didn't bring them to visit her in prison last weekend, her attorney said Wednesday.
"She thought the kids were still alive," attorney George Parnham said.
Andrea Yates was transferred from the prison near Rusk to a Galveston hospital Monday night after refusing food and losing more than 20 pounds. Parnham said she voluntarily drank something Wednesday.
Her husband, Russell Yates, also said Wednesday that his wife thought their children, who ranged in age from 6 months to 7 years, were still alive.
"On top of the medication, and her chemistry, and her underlying illness, she obviously has a tremendous amount of guilt over her actions and taking the lives of our children," Russell Yates said.
"She has a hard time having hope. ... She lost everything she loved," he said. He described her as "overtly psychotic."
Within hours of Russell Yates leaving for work in June 2001, Andrea Yates called police and an ambulance to her home. She answered the door in wet clothes and told an officer what she had done.
She led the officer to a bedroom where the four youngest children's bodies were laid out on a bed. Police found the oldest, Noah, 7, floating face down with arms outstretched in the tub.
Psychiatrists testified that Yates suffered from schizophrenia and postpartum depression, but jurors determined she knew it was wrong to kill her children and found her guilty of murder in the deaths of three of them. She was not tried in the deaths of the other two.
Wed Jul 21,10:21 PM ET Add U.S. National - AP to My Yahoo!
By PAM EASTON, Associated Press Writer
HOUSTON - Andrea Yates, serving a life sentence for drowning her children in a bathtub, asked her husband why he didn't bring them to visit her in prison last weekend, her attorney said Wednesday.
"She thought the kids were still alive," attorney George Parnham said.
Andrea Yates was transferred from the prison near Rusk to a Galveston hospital Monday night after refusing food and losing more than 20 pounds. Parnham said she voluntarily drank something Wednesday.
Her husband, Russell Yates, also said Wednesday that his wife thought their children, who ranged in age from 6 months to 7 years, were still alive.
"On top of the medication, and her chemistry, and her underlying illness, she obviously has a tremendous amount of guilt over her actions and taking the lives of our children," Russell Yates said.
"She has a hard time having hope. ... She lost everything she loved," he said. He described her as "overtly psychotic."
Within hours of Russell Yates leaving for work in June 2001, Andrea Yates called police and an ambulance to her home. She answered the door in wet clothes and told an officer what she had done.
She led the officer to a bedroom where the four youngest children's bodies were laid out on a bed. Police found the oldest, Noah, 7, floating face down with arms outstretched in the tub.
Psychiatrists testified that Yates suffered from schizophrenia and postpartum depression, but jurors determined she knew it was wrong to kill her children and found her guilty of murder in the deaths of three of them. She was not tried in the deaths of the other two.
That funding comes from the prison system anyway so it's not going to be used anywhere else.
