Andrea Yates' Trial May Not Be Over
Andrea Yates, the Texas mother who killed her five children while in a delusional state of Postpartum Depression, has had her second trial verdict decided. She was found not guilty by reason of insanity and sent to a psychiatric hospital. The decision regarding when she may be released is being placed in the hands of the court and the mental health experts to whom they will go for guidance.
When I worked on a forensic unit at a psychiatric hospital, we had women who had killed their children and fathers who had murdered their entire families. All of them had been judged NGRI (not guilty by reason of insanity) and sent to the hospital for an indeterminate time. Some waited for 10 years, others were still there when I left because their delusions were more related to an underlying mental illness on top of their Postpartum Depression.
Some of them didn't want to leave because they couldn't face life in the community or what they had done. Now that they had regained their sanity, their deed was too much for them to even discuss with members of their treatment teams. It was always "the incident" or "it happened" and it was left to the mental health professionals to know what that was.
Postpartum Depression with Psychotic Features (Postpartum Psychosis) is not usually found in new mothers, although Postpartum Depression is found in anywhere from 50-80% of new moms, depending on where you get the statistics. Only about 1% of new moms experience the far-more-serious form that carries with it the possibility of harm to the mother and/or her children. In Andrea Yates' case, she believed that, in order to save her children, she had to kill them. She planned the murder and after it was over, she called her husband and the police. Some have said to me that that indicates she knew what she was doing.
Allow me a quick moment for some important mental health information:
Psychosis, the loss of the ability to know reality from delusion, does not carry with it an inability to plan and carry out something. People in this state of diminished capacity do, indeed, plan and carry out sometimes complex plans. They are still, however, delusional and not able to know they are deluded. To them, they are acting in the only way they know to save someone or stop something from happening. I once had a forensic patient who had a serious delusion about a government official who he planned to kill. He was caught in time before he could put his plan into action.
The one cruel twist in the Andrea Yates case has yet to be realized. The prosecutor only charged her with the murder of three, not five, of her children. I am guessing that this means he retains a means to prosecute her again, only this time for the murder of the other two.
Related Topics: Brooke Shields' Struggle With Postpartum Depression, Mom's Antidepressants are Safe for Nursing Infants
Technorati Tags: Andrea Yates, postpartum depression, postpartum psychosis
When I worked on a forensic unit at a psychiatric hospital, we had women who had killed their children and fathers who had murdered their entire families. All of them had been judged NGRI (not guilty by reason of insanity) and sent to the hospital for an indeterminate time. Some waited for 10 years, others were still there when I left because their delusions were more related to an underlying mental illness on top of their Postpartum Depression.
Some of them didn't want to leave because they couldn't face life in the community or what they had done. Now that they had regained their sanity, their deed was too much for them to even discuss with members of their treatment teams. It was always "the incident" or "it happened" and it was left to the mental health professionals to know what that was.
Postpartum Depression with Psychotic Features (Postpartum Psychosis) is not usually found in new mothers, although Postpartum Depression is found in anywhere from 50-80% of new moms, depending on where you get the statistics. Only about 1% of new moms experience the far-more-serious form that carries with it the possibility of harm to the mother and/or her children. In Andrea Yates' case, she believed that, in order to save her children, she had to kill them. She planned the murder and after it was over, she called her husband and the police. Some have said to me that that indicates she knew what she was doing.
Allow me a quick moment for some important mental health information:
Psychosis, the loss of the ability to know reality from delusion, does not carry with it an inability to plan and carry out something. People in this state of diminished capacity do, indeed, plan and carry out sometimes complex plans. They are still, however, delusional and not able to know they are deluded. To them, they are acting in the only way they know to save someone or stop something from happening. I once had a forensic patient who had a serious delusion about a government official who he planned to kill. He was caught in time before he could put his plan into action.
The one cruel twist in the Andrea Yates case has yet to be realized. The prosecutor only charged her with the murder of three, not five, of her children. I am guessing that this means he retains a means to prosecute her again, only this time for the murder of the other two.
Related Topics: Brooke Shields' Struggle With Postpartum Depression, Mom's Antidepressants are Safe for Nursing Infants
Technorati Tags: Andrea Yates, postpartum depression, postpartum psychosis
15 Comments:
without a doubt I feel that someone with post partum depression or psychosis (actually had never heard it described by that term?) can definitely plan and carry out that type of action as Andrea Yates did. I know I sometimes thank God I never married nor had any children since sometimes my meds or my anxiety just gets me so tired that I can no longer stay up and if I had a child or children how could I cope? The thing that really irks me however? Is that Mr. Yates knew that his wife was ill and yet still did nothing to keep her from being alone with their children. In fact I believe she had even phoned him earlier to ask him to come home and help her. So? Why is he - with his new wife? - not culpable in anyway shape or form?
It seems to me that all murderers "think" they have a good reason for killing at the time. Wouldn't this then make them all delusional and not personally responsible for their crime? Sure does seem like another handy way of eliminating that pesky little line between right and wrong. IMO, people who commit murder should be removed from society......one way or the other. Now we the tax payers will pay for Mrs. Yates treatment and nice comfy hospital room. Did anyone happen to notice that she held her innocent children down ONE AT A TIME under water until they drowned? She should be put to death. She has no value in our society. God is her judge now.
I agree with anonymous...there is no reason for murder, no matter what state you are in at the time. There is always a breaking point in a person's life when our actions speak much more than we would like them to, that is why we have God given self control and a conscious. Things that we do, yes are sometimes done at impulse, but are not given birth at that time. Let me explain, Andrea Yates may not have woken up at the morning and said to herself, today looks like a good day to kill my kids, but at some point in her life, let it have been a week prior to the murders or 10 years prior, the thought ran through mind, at that point she gave birth to the possibility, and then carried it out. I don't believe in the death penalty, in my view no human has the right to take another human life, no matter how justifiable it may seem, jail time, a lifetime of it, may have been, in my opinion the price for the crime she committed. I don't believe, and I am sure many would agree that there is ever full rehabilitation after committing murder, especially if those murders were you're own flesh and blood that cause tears, pain and heartache to not only give birth to but raise.
They prosecuted the wrong person. Her husband was far more guilty.
The Andrea Yates case will serve to move discussion on this issue into the arena where it belongs; legal, medical and public discussion. It's a horrific crime, but I believe we can find "good from bad" here, too.
Thank-you for such a great site Dr. Farrell. I am so sad about all the uninformed educated people out their, I watched Nancy
Gracy tonight and didn't realize it was going to be a witchhunt. I just wish people would read her full story. I see this as a women who was so passive trying to please her husband and spirtual leaders that she followed them right off the edge of a cliff. Her husband didn't have a clue. I have read several bloggs that say such horrible things and no one mention the little travel trailer he had her living in with 3 children. No one mentions he thought she should home school the children. No one mentions he gave all the money to the preacher who's wife writes her and tells her -her only problem is she is not spirtual enough. You don't need medicine. No one mentions the fact he told the Dr. they were going to have as many children as God would allow. No one notice she had checked out a long time ago. No mentioned he drove off in his new red sports car with his new bride. How much can one person take? Some less than others. The plan is for the people who love you to know and if they don't you better know. Tears and more Tears for Andrea and her children.
Amen, Halleluliah, and pass the control freak/iresponsible badge to Mr. Yates. I have wondered if he secretly wanted Andrea to do what she did and elminate him of the family responsiblity weather conciously or unconciously. He is scum and why anyone else would marry him is beyond me. He had been told never to leave her alone w/the children; that she might be dangerous to them. He says he wasn't aware how bad it was. Phooey, he's a liar. At best he was a totally uncaring, selfish, tyrant of a spouse. I can't even call him a husband. And why didn't her own family interfere. These are very strange people. Not the only ones of course. Unfortunately she is the one who did the murders and only she can be prosecuted. I too, wish people would actually familiarize themselves better with the woman themselves before commenting. I saw the Dateline show following the second trial. They ran the tape of her original interview and confession. As she was talking about how she was thinking and acting, my thought was, my God...this woman sounds like she was on Haldol or something similar (I have had experience with what this drug can do to some people). Sure enough, it was reported afterwards on this same show that her Dr. was taking her off of Haldol when the murders occured. These new drugs are very dangerous to some people and can cause very, very strange effects, especially when they are withdrawn. In the extreme circumstances she was in, I am willing to bet that Haldol had a whole lot to do with what she did and, if so, she was defintely not responsible. They are using us for guinea pigs and things like this are sometimes the result.
slw
I have renewed hope that not everyone thinks of Andrea Yates as a cold blooded killer. sue and dee b. Bless you! Your comments are right on target. I have been a penpal to Andrea for over four years and I can tell you that she is the most kind and compassionate person you would ever want to meet. Now that she has been receiving consistantly good treatent you see the real Andrea. The real Andrea is NOT the pitiful creature on those police tapes. Her submissiveness no doubt played a role as well. That is about all I can say on that matter without revealing more than I should. I too lost my only child and it takes a tremendous amount of work to live through it. The only way to pay tribute to the Yates children in the way they deserve is to help Andrea as much as possible. If their "Mommy" gets better and her case affects changes for the good of others like her then they will not have died in vain. Hopefully new insights as a result will keep this from ever happening again. I am PROUD to call Andrea Yates my friend.
Andrea Yates is a very sick woman. He husband was well aware of this fact. She was given Zyprexa, along with other drugs to control her psycotic sympoms. In my opinion, religous cults like the one the yates were affiliated with, preys on vulneralbe individuals such as Mrs. Yates. Mr.Yates made her living conditions so horrid that most of us would have cracked to some degree. She was brainwased by the cult that she and Mr Yates were connected. The leader of the cult told her that her children would be better off dead, than to go to hell. This article was in People magazine. I am studying to work in the mental health field. I believe the other people in her life should be held accountable for the death of the children. There is more here than just murder. One has to understand mental illness, and be able to recognize the signs. Mr.Yates was told my mental health experts that his wife needed medications and therapy. He totally ignored them, and he put her in an unbearable living situation. She had a pschotic break the day she killed her children. The fact that she called her husband and the police afterwards is typical behavior of battered wife syndrome. I cried as much as anyone else when this story broke. But please, understand the facts of mental illness, and the environment she was in before making too harsh of a judgement.
I was put on Haldol when it was brand new, back in 1973. For some reason, I wasn't supposed to come home angry when I spent my 7th and 8th grade years being beat up daily by about 1/3 to 1/2 of my class in the Catholic school. When I started getting tics at the same time, Reader's Digest just happened to have a microscopic article in the March, 1973 issue on page 58. The article was about a new drug for Tourette's. The only reason I remember where that was, is that I wasn't told anything about it. By that time I had had enough years of having my family convinced that I was "the sick one" that they looked for a doctor every time something went wrong with me. I've read this about others who were bullied in school. Why is it that the ones who are getting socked around are considered to be the ones with the problem, while the bullies get off scot-free? Haldol is the most dangerous poison anyone can be subjected to; at least some of the others will kill you right away, rather than leaving you with permanent tension and jerking in the arms and legs. I'm 47 now, and still have this. I've been wanting to find out for years how to ban this stuff.
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What I meant to say in my last posting is that I'd had enough years of having things hidden from me that I had gotten to be a good detective. That's how I found the article that my family had come upon in Reader's Digest. Also the doctor I was sent to was someone I had already seen in second or third grade. She was already strange back then, but by the time I saw her again in 8th grade, she was a complete wacko. She was easily worse off than anyone who could ever come to see her. I believe she moved to another state and died a few years ago, so I don't see how I can track down her records and get some kind of compensation for the year and a half I was put on this trash. It would be good to have some form of retribution or settlement.
most people with pyscotic behavior tend to never really get over it completely. They will always have a reoccuring dream or delusion at some point that will bring those feelings and emotions back. medication and therapy can make their lifes better but in turn the pyschosis is already formed in the brains activity. I tell my clients and patients dont give up though.
If our society would stop looking at everyone with some kind of psychology problem and start focusing at the way we subject ourselves to the things that have made our world so hateful. The murders and the ones commiting such hateful crimes might just see another way to deal with their issues. From the beginning of time crime has existed but now its become our worlds main focus and we have turned ourselves from our families, friends and the people our ancestors had left there homes opened too. I believe hate is a learned behavior not just chemical. So stop blaming the murders and the emotional distraught and start looking at yourselves and the people you come in contact with. God stated, LOVE THINE NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF< are you going to love a killer or someone whose ill? hope so. Hate is a word and the action is all who you are and who you CHOSE to be.Psychologically, your genes follow us, so look at your ancestors also.
I was reading this for another reason, but I do believe it was the husband's fault. He knew she had post-partum depression long before she killed those children. he should not have let her have more children.
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