Andrea Yates Found Not Guilty

[Sweet_VeeVee24]

The verdict just came in about Andrea Yates...the jury made the decision to hand in a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity.

Although that she will be free from jail time, it doesn't mean that she will be free to go home. She will be instructed to stay in a mental facility for the rest of her life.

Once I find the news link, I'll add it in this thread...

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/07/26/...in1837248.shtml

[King]

Well, they need to lock her away then. !@#$%^&*] be CRAZY!

[bellcurve]

Why couldn't they just fry the !@#$%^&*]!?

[KMan101]

Insane ... please. IMO, she is crazy, but again, IMO, she knew what she was doing when she killed her kids, so IMO, the insane thing doesn't fly with me.

[Kwing42]

I was stunned. I am not saying there migiht not be some mental issues with her, but I think anyone who does this has some sort of issue, but she admitted that she knew it was wrong....if you KNOW it is wrong, you aren't crazy...in my opinion.

But, from what lawyers were saying, the way the law is written in Texas, the verdict was probably accurate.

Whatever, those children never had a chance, but at least she DOES have a chance to..eat, get help, sleep, have play time...whatever.

[Bree]

Well, I agree with the jury's decision to send her away to a mental hospital.

I also think her ex-husband should bear some responsibility. I'm sorry, but you don't continue to impregnate someone who clearly has severe mental problems. Her family and doctor also weren't a good support system either. Although Andrea was the one to physically kill her children, there are others who had a hand in their deaths.

I know I will be in the minority here, but jail would have done her no good. She wouldn't have been able to get the help she needs, and it would have been a waste of our money keeping her there anyway. The other inmates probably would have killed her.

[alwaysAMC]

Yeah this news interrupted all of my AMC yesterday Thankfully they replayed it at 1:50am for me to tape this morning.

Crazy !@#$%^&*].

[Ms. Tee 7]

I think she knew exactly what she was doing when she was drowning those children one by one! She might be crazy, but she needs to be locked away for the rest of her life. From what I can tell, this verdict means that one day she can be called "cured" and be released.

[kelli_blue]

She was only charged with 3 of the deaths, so someday, if the prosecutors want, they CAN charge her for the deaths of her 2 other children and she could go to jail that.

[DanTheMan]

What's also crazy is that her husband stands by her completely!!! You believe that!! They both need to be shot!!!

[Sweet_VeeVee24]

I thought her husband divorced her and said he didn't want to have anything to do with her...Am I correct in saying that he got married to someone else?

I think that somewhere, he HAD to have known during the time that they were together that she wasn't in the right frame of mind. If he knew, he could have done a lot to help her or take her somewhere to get help. If he chose to ignore it, then, he is responsible for some part of her status of mental health.

I remember some time back, they were trying to use some Law and Order episode as being what could have caused her to kill her children (I heard that there was no such episode that the lawyer was trying to put on the table).

[Q Steph]

I have sympathy for the woman. She is clearly insane and incoherent of her actions. She shouldn't be let loose into society but what would kiling her have accomplished? Andrea was obviously acting in the absence of sond judgment and deliberate intent to hurt her kids. Granted, she believed she was sparing them from the Devil, but she is not comparable to that monster Susan Smith who killed without a strain on her conscience. I believe Andrea is mentally ill and hope she receives the treatment she needs.

Rusty Yates remarried this blonde woman. He said he was dissapointed the state was prosecuting her when she needed mental help. He said his current wife understands him visiting and still caring for Andrea.

He said Andrea was doing better on the treatment and not locked up in jail.

I do believe he should have taken corrective action beforehand to help with her illness.

[darraholic]

I highly doubt it. She'll be in a mental hospital for the rest of her life.

Her husband outta join her as well. Who the [!@#$%^&*] leaves his kids with there mother when he's told not to leave the kids with her.

[Q Steph]

Rusty Yates told The Associated Press that Andrea Yates never told him, "I finally did it" in her telephone call to him after the drownings, as a Houston police officer testified during her second trial.

"It's been printed in papers as fact, and it's absolutely not true," he said. "Much of the state's case was built on lies."

A jury on Wednesday found Andrea Yates not guilty by reason of insanity in the June 2001 bathtub drownings of her children. She was retried after her 2002 murder conviction was overturned because of erroneous testimony about a nonexistent "Law & Order" television episode.

On Thursday, the 42-year-old was committed to the maximum-security North Texas State Hospital in Vernon.

Hospital officials will review her mental state and decide whether she is a danger to society. State District Judge Belinda Hill will review that report and hold a hearing within 30 days to determine if Yates should remain there or be moved to another state hospital.

During the interview, Rusty Yates said that on the day his children died, Andrea had called him and asked him to come home. When he and his mother arrived and learned from police what had happened, he reminded his mother that Andrea had filled the bathtub for no apparent reason about a month or so earlier.

"I said, `I guess she'd been thinking about this for some time and finally did it," Yates said. He said an officer must have overhead the conversation and took it out of context.

Prosecutors also seemed to change their theory about his now ex-wife's motive, Yates said.

"In the first trial, they said Andrea did this to try to get out, whatever that means, which sounded like she wasn't happy at home ... and this time they said she wanted to run off with me into the sunset," he said. "Well, which is it?

"The fact is, they spent five years and still don't have a reason why she did it because they are unwilling to look at the fact she was psychotic. That's the only reasonable explanation for her behavior."

Prosecutor Joe Owmby said Thursday the state offered no false testimony.

"I do not think about Rusty Yates; I do not want to think about Rusty Yates, and he needs to stop thinking about us," Owmby said.

Yates, an engineer at NASA's Johnson Space Center, said he plans to visit his ex-wife regularly, but his role in her life will diminish as he moves on with his own. He remarried in March and has now has two stepsons.

"I don't forget my children, and I don't forget Andrea, but I don't dwell on it either. I try to remember my children fondly," he said. "I'm building new life ... and have a new family and am more focused on them."

For his ex-wife to ever be released from state care will require a complicated evaluation process. Experts say it can take decades before psychiatrists decide a patient is healthy enough to leave, and even then a judge can reject those findings.

Yates said he was nervous on Wednesday as he waited for the verdict. The family, which has always supported Andrea, was devastated when she was convicted at the first trial 2002, he said.

Yates had testified for the defense in that first trial, and he said Thursday he didn't know why he wasn't asked to testify again.

"In some respects," he said, "I know Andrea better than anybody."

The defense attorneys never disputed that Andrea drowned the children, but they said she suffered from severe postpartum psychosis and, in a delusional state, believed Satan was inside her. She believed she was trying to save the children from hell by drowning 6-month-old Mary, 2-year-old Luke, 3-year-old Paul, 5-year-old John and 7-year-old Noah, they told the jury.

"It's this simple: This lady never did anything, anything wrong in her whole life," defense attorney Wendell Odom said. "She's mentally ill. She wakes up one morning. She drowns her five kids. Come on - we all know she's insane, and it's a shame that it took us this long to finally get the right verdict."

Prosecutors had maintained that although Andrea Yates was mentally ill, she didn't meet the state's definition of insanity: being so severely mentally ill that she did not know her actions were wrong.

The foreman of the jury said Thursday that the group had "some emotional difficulty" reaching its unanimous verdict and would have had an easier time if they could have found her "guilty but insane."

Shortly before they delivered their verdict, the jurors asked to see a picture of the five young children, then sat in silence for 10 minutes - 2 minutes for each child - remembering the victims, foreman Todd Frank, a 33-year-old marketing manager with his own young son, told "Good Morning America" on Thursday.

"We understand that she knew it was legally wrong," he said. "But in her delusional mind, in her severely mentally ill mind, we believe that she thought what she did was right."

[JinkiesP]

I thought the father should have at least been charged with child neglect. I have had a touch of the baby blues when my son was born and believe me my hubby knew all about it.