Mother says she thought about killing for months
She considered children damaged, blamed herself
06/23/2001
By Lee Hancock / The Dallas Morning News
HOUSTON Andrea Yates told police she began thinking several months ago about killing her five children and finally did it this week because she believed she was a bad mother and they were hopelessly damaged.
Without emotion, Mrs. Yates also described how she methodically drowned the children Wednesday morning in her Clear Lake home, chasing down her oldest son, Noah, after he saw his baby sister floating lifeless in the bathtub and tried to get away, said a police official familiar with the case.
She told police she had already drowned her three middle sons and carried their bodies to a back bedroom when her 7-year-old son walked into the open doorway of the bathroom and saw the full tub where 6-month-old Mary lay, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
"The kid asked, 'What's wrong with Mary?'" said the official familiar with the details of Mrs. Yates' taped confession. "The mama turned and told him to get in the tub. The kid took off running."
Mrs. Yates chased the boy and "grabbed ... and wrestled him" back to the bathroom. There, she told police, she forced him down into the water beside his dead sister.
"She essentially said she had realized that she was a 'bad mother' and she felt that the children were disabled that they were not developing normally," said the official, recounting details of Mrs. Yates' 90-minute interview with police. "She told us that she had thought about doing this for several months."
Even in a city that has seen more than its share of sensational murders, the horrific details of the Yates slayings have stunned veteran police and law enforcement officials.
"I've been here for 15 years," said Joe Ownby, the Harris County assistant district attorney assigned to lead Mrs. Yates' prosecution. "This is the most horrendous thing that I have ever seen."
Court appearance
The 36-year-old mother made a brief court appearance Friday morning and was given a court-appointed defense lawyer. After shuffling into a closed courtroom with arms tightly folded, she softly answered "yes, ma'am," and "no, ma'am" to the judge's questions about her inability to pay for an attorney.
Mrs. Yates stood slightly slumped in front of the judge's bench during the hearing, her long hair askew over an ill-fitting orange jail jumpsuit. She stared vacantly as she was led from the courtroom, clenching her arms to her chest as if fending off a blow.
Authorities barred the media from the courtroom, allowing reporters to watch only from a nearby room where a poor audio feed made it impossible to hear much of the proceeding.
Assistant District Attorney Kaylynn Willford gave state District Judge Belinda Hill a brief summary of the probable cause that led to Mrs. Yates' being charged with capital murder. But the prosecutor's account was inaudible and she later declined to speak to reporters.
Judge Hill declined a request by Ms. Yates' court-appointed attorney, Bob Scott, to impose a gag order in the case. Mr. Scott could not be reached for comment Friday.
But late Friday afternoon, prominent Houston defense attorney George Parnham visited Mrs. Yates in the jail along with her husband and other family members and emerged to tell reporters that he is now the attorney of record.
Houston police have said that Mrs. Yates readily told one of their officers what she had done when he arrived at her home Wednesday morning to answer a call for assistance. A police spokesman said the shocked officer later recounted how Mrs. Yates, wet and breathing heavily, first told him she'd killed her children and then led him to their bodies. Noah, the oldest, was still in the bathtub, and his four younger siblings were in a back bedroom, shrouded in a sheet.
After killing the children, authorities said, Mrs. Yates summoned police by phone and then called her husband, Russell Yates, a NASA computer engineer, to tell him he had better come home.
Mr. Yates told reporters on Thursday that he was frightened by her tone and then devastated when he asked if someone had been hurt and she replied, "Yes. ... The children. ... All of them."
Severe depression
Mr. Yates and other relatives of the woman said she had been suffering from severe depression for several months and had not responded to several brief hospitalizations, multiple combinations of anti-depressants and a round of an anti-psychotic drug.
Mr. Yates said his wife's emotional spiral mirrored a bout of depression in 1999 after the birth of their son Luke, a months-long ordeal in which she tried to kill herself with an overdose of pills and was briefly hospitalized.
He and her oldest brother, Houston resident Andrew Kennedy, said they believed her latest downturn was triggered by the death of her father in March after a long and agonizing illness.
"She'd gotten better for a while," Mr. Kennedy said. "But recently, you could kind of tell by looking at her. I'd say, 'How are you doing?' And she'd say, 'OK.' But I could sense that it wasn't OK. My sister, she didn't open up."
He said he and other family members had noticed "changes" in Mrs. Yates demeanor even before she began having children in 1994.
"I think it was a slow process," he said. "Both she and her husband, we talked to them a lot. But they were kind of you know how some people don't like to ask for help? It was kind of that way. They didn't want to talk.
"I also think it may have been a big mistake with them taking her off one of the medications a week or two ago. Maybe it was just a misdiagnosis," he said. "I think she needed a combination of medication and some therapy, but that didn't happen."
Mr. Yates told reporters Thursday that his wife was taken off the anti-psychotic drug Haldol about two weeks ago, and had gone to a doctor on Monday to have dosages of several anti-depressant medications adjusted and to discuss starting therapy.
She now faces a capital murder charge for the "death...by drowning" of her two oldest sons, Noah and John.
Supportive family
She is being held without bond in the Harris County Jail's mental health wing, where she is under round-the-clock supervision.
Her Friday morning arraignment was postponed after Mr. Scott was appointed as public defender, and the hearing was reset for July 24.
Mr. Ownby, the prosecutor, told reporters after the brief morning hearing that additional charges may be added later, after authorities decide whether to pursue the death penalty. He said he expects the case will be presented to a grand jury in about 30 days.
Mr. Yates and other family members including Mrs. Yates' mother Mrs. A.D. Kennedy and her brother Pat declined to comment Friday afternoon when they came to the Harris County jail to visit Mrs. Yates.
Mr. Parnham told reporters after he and Mr. Yates met with Mrs. Yates that she was "doing as well as could be expected."
"The family is very supportive of the mother," he said. "This includes the father of the children ... they are unifying behind her."
He declined to discuss his legal defense strategy, telling reporters he would defer such comments until after the children's funeral.
Family members said the five children will be buried together Wednesday. Services will be at 10:30 a.m. at the Clear Lake Church of Christ.
Staff writer Laura Heinauer contributed to this report.
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