Andrea Yates killed all five of her children (Image: Getty Images)
In one of the most disturbing and heartbreaking cases in recent memory, a mother tragically drowned her five children whilst suffering from severe delusions that she was ‘saving them’.
Andrea Yates, aged 37 at the time, carried out the devastating act at the family home in Clear Lake City, Texas. The victims ranged from seven years old down to just six months old.
Following the birth of her fourth child, she made several attempts on her own life and was admitted to psychiatric facilities on numerous occasions.
In July 1999, she received a diagnosis of postpartum psychosis, with a psychiatrist strongly advising against having further children due to potentially catastrophic consequences for her mental health.
Despite this warning, she and her husband Rusty welcomed a fifth child in November 2000.
Yates appeared to be improving until her father’s death in March 2001 – at which point she stopped taking her medication, started self-harming and became obsessively immersed in reading the Bible.
Andrea Yates (R) and her attorney George Parnham (Image: AFP via Getty Images)
On June 20, 2001, Yates waited until Rusty, a NASA engineer at the Johnson Space Center, left for work before systematically taking the lives of her children – Noah, seven, John, five, Paul, three, Luke, two, and Mary, six months old, reports <a href=”https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/us-news/mum-waited-husband-leave-work-36595816″ rel=”Follow” target=”_self”>the Mirror</a>.
In terror, Noah tried to escape but tragically his mother caught him. After killing each child in turn, she placed their lifeless bodies on a bed.
She carefully carried out the act, arranging the bodies of her younger children and draping them with a sheet before dialling 911.
She reported her children’s deaths, then telephoned her husband Rusty, telling him to come home from work.
“I just killed my children,” she admitted to the police officers who responded to the call. Yates was charged with five counts of capital murder in a case prosecutors called “heinous,” seeking the death penalty.
Andrea Yates will likely spend the rest of her life behind bars (Image: wikipedia.org)
However, her defence team argued Yates suffered from severe depression and psychosis after Mary’s birth – and it was this mental condition that drove her to kill all five of her children.
They called for comprehensive mental health treatment rather than imprisonment.
Found guilty of capital murder in 2002, she was handed a life sentence with the possibility of parole after 40 years. Yates’ lawyers filed an appeal and managed to get the conviction overturned.
During a retrial in 2006, she was found not guilty by reason of insanity. Even while imprisoned, Yates continued to voice delusional beliefs.
She told authorities she had thought about killing her children for two years, to save them from what she termed “eternal damnation”.
“My children weren’t righteous,” she confessed to her prison psychiatrist, as per court records.
“They stumbled because I was evil. The way I was raising them, they could never be saved. They were doomed to perish in the fires of hell.”
Defence lawyer George Parnham has consistently stated that Yates is content and thriving at Kerrville, where she’s resided for the past 24 years. According to court rulings, she may spend the rest of her days at this facility.
Despite their divorce and his subsequent remarriage, she reportedly keeps in monthly contact with Rusty.
“She’s where she wants to be, where she needs to be,” Parnham told ABC News in 2021. “And I mean, hypothetically, where would she go? What would she do?”.