| Case
B.6.4 - Filicide - 'Andrea Yates'
This case
was significant not only in the State of Texas, but
for the entire United States of America and to the
world that watched. The outcome will be a precedent
setting case in US history for cases of filicide that
will be compared with for years to come.
Case
- Filicide - 'Andrea Yates'
HOUSTON,
Texas (CNN) - Andrea Yates, a 37 year old wife
and mother, drowned her 5 children
in the family bathtub on June 20, 2001. John and Mary,
along with Paul, 3; and Luke, 2, were found on a bed.
Noah was found dead in the bathtub.
Yates'
husband, Russell, is a NASA
computer specialist at the Johnson
Space Center. He was at work at the time of the drownings.
He said his wife called
him at work afterward to tell him to come home. Concerned
by the tone of her voice, he asked if anyone was hurt.
She responded, yes, it was the children -- "all
of them." When he arrived at home, he found police
at the scene and his children dead.
Yates had
been treated for postpartum
depression after delivering her fourth
and fifth child. Her attorneys
said she has a history
of mental illness and argued that she is
not fit to stand trial.
In July
2001, Yates was indicted by a Harris County grand
jury for three of the five fatalities
-- the deaths of Noah, 7; John, 5; and 6-month-old
Mary Yates. If convicted, she could be eligible for
the death penalty.
In August
2001, defense attorney Wendell Odom had asked the
jury to find Yates incompetent
to give her more time to recover fully before a trial
is held. Andrea P. Yates pleaded not
guilty by reason of insanity, but a jury
found her competent to stand
trail. Following the
jury's decision, prosecutor,
Chuck Rosenthal was criticized by some women's groups
and legal analysts when he announced that he would
seek the death penalty.
In January, 2002, five months after the district
attorney made the controversial decision
to pursue the death penalty
against Andrea Yates, the mother charged
with murder for drowning her five young children in
a bathtub, Rosenthal the prosecutor suggested that
he would agree to a life
sentence if Mrs. Yates pleaded guilty to
the murders.
Assistant District Attorney
Joseph Owmby said prosecutors
would ''very likely call the state to recommend a
life sentence''
if Mrs. Yates ''could choose to accept criminal
responsibility.'' Mr. Owmby said local
prosecutors had never faced such a
case and had concluded that a jury should have a full
range of sentencing options, including death. 'There
is no institutional history
in the district attorney's
office in dealing with a crime of this enormity,''
said Mr. Owmby, according to a pool report of the
hearing.
Mrs. Yates, 37, confessed to the police in June that
she had methodically drowned her five children, ages
7 years to 6 months. But her lawyers
and her defenders,
citing her medical history, have said that if found
not guilty she
would be placed in a mental hospital.
''Andrea Yates was suffering from severe
psychotic depression,'' Mr. George Parnham
defense lawyer,
said in his statement read into the record ''But for
the psychosis,
she would never have considered, much less acted upon,
any thought to take the lives of the children
she bore into this world and dearly loved as their
mother.''
This case has elicited national outpourings of condemnation
as well as sympathy
for Mrs. Yates, who has a history of postpartum
psychosis and twice tried to commit suicide.
|
Topic
B - Forensic Psychiatry > Section B.6.0. Forensic Concepts >
Unit.B.6.4. Filicide/Infanticide/Neonaticide
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