Andrea Yates and the Drowning of Her Kids
How does a perfectly normal woman, living in a typical suburban neighborhood wind up in jail on charges of murdering her five children? On June20, 2001, Rusty Yates receives a call from his wife Andrea to return home from work. He learns that his wife of eight years has systematically drowned each of his five children in the family bath tub. She is arrested in Texas on charges of capitol murder and is convicted and sentenced to life in prison.
Andrea Yates was born in Houston, Texas on July 2, 1964. In high school she was valedictorian, captain of the swim team, and Valedictorian. She graduated from Milby High school in Houston, Texas in 1982. She graduated in 1986 from the University of Texas, school of nursing. For the next eight years she worked at a cancer center for children as a nurse. At age twenty five she met her husband Rusty in the apartment complex where they both lived. Rusty and Andrea married in 1993. During their eight years of marriage they had five children.
In 1998 Rusty moved his family into a three hundred and fifty square foot remodeled bus. With four young children in such a cramped space, Andrea began to show signs of mental decline. In June of 1999, Andrea had her first suicide attempt then was hospitalized and diagnosed with a major depression disorder. She was prescribed an antidepressant and released. Hallucinations, self mutilation, and the hearing of voices began.
On July twentieth of 1999, Andrea made a second suicide attempt. She put a knife against her throat, and begged to die. She was hospitalized and in a catatonic state for ten days. She was injected with the antipsychotic drug Haladol, and her condition improved. The attending psychiatrist warned them that having further babies might bring on additional psychotic episodes. She was released from the hospital, placed in outpatient care, and prescribed Haladol.
Upon the urging of Andrea’s family, Rusty purchased a home for Andrea and the children in a small suburban neighborhood and moved the family out of the cramped bus. Andrea’s condition began to improve to the point that she began to swim again, and socialize with the neighbors. She told Rusty that for the first time she felt encouraged about the future, but would always view their past life on the bus as failure as a mother.
Story of Andrea Yates Composition I: Effective Writing for Criminal Justice Majors Story of Andrea Yates On June 20, 2001 a woman by the name of Andrea Yates, stunned the whole country with one of the most bizarre acts of violence that a parents could ever do to their own children. She called her husband at work and told him “I did it” confused by what was going on, he rush home only to find his house filled with officers of the law. The husband asked, “What is going on?”, and only to found
This paper discusses the case of Andrea Yates, she confessed to the drowning of her five children and was charged with capital murder in 2001. The initial conviction was overturned and Yates was found not guilty due to insanity and was ordered to a mental hospital in 2006. Yates had sought help for her mental illness and was seeing a psychiatrist, who advise her not to have another child. Andrea Yates only received a minimal amount of therapeutic treatment. If the treatment was possibly longer could
The Andrea Yate’s case impacted America greatly. She was known as an average catholic mother who was born in Houston, Texas. She had an education, pursued a nursing degree. And was normally developed and respected by her family throughout her life (Murderpedia). After reading about this case study I found it to be very interesting but also very insane... Andrea Yates’ was a mom of five children and randomly decided one day to drown all of them because she believed that would save them from “burning
horror to other people. To diagnose someone with insanity, according to the observation of the Andrea Yates, one must suffer and be diagnosed with a form of a mental disorder. A correlation between mental disorders and syndromes are also linked to insanity but not all me... ... middle of paper ... ...annot. In conclusion, Andrea Yates was sane and was not guilty by insanity. Workcited Yates' Cofession (2006, August 1). In CNN.com. Retrieved January 20, 2014 Reuters, Thomson ( 2013) Insanity
pregnancy hormones, past insanity, and extreme stressful anxiety. On Thursday, July 16, Mary spent her day like she would any other. She looked forward to the time with her husband that they had every evening when he arrived at home (Dahl). Mary was glancing at the clock, without anxiety, awaiting her husband’s arrival (Dahl). Knowing this, it’s obvious that Mary was calm and unprepared to murder her husband. If Mary is being charged with first degree murder, it states, “The killing is deliberate
will fall under the altruistic filicide, acutely psychotic filicide, and unwanted child. One case that was highly publicized and brought filicide to the forefront of America’s mind was Andrea Yates. Andrea murdered all five of her children by drowning them in the bathtub in her home. Prior to this incident, Andrea had been in and out of hospitals and mental institutes for depression and psychosis (West). Psychosis is defined as, “disruptions to a person’s thoughts and perceptions that make it difficult
“Postpartum depression (PPD) is a major form of depression and is less common than postpartum blues. PPD includes all the symptoms of depression but occurs only following childbirth.” stated by William Beardslee, MD is the Academic Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at Children’s Hospital in Boston and Gardner Monks Professor of Child Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. After reviewing and seeing what many mothers and young teenage mothers go through on what seems like an everyday basis one