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Psychiatrist Says Andrea Yates Was Psychotic
Jail Psychiatrist Testifies Andrea Yates Was Psychotic After Child Drownings
HOUSTON – Andrea Yates believed she was fulfilling a prophecy that she would destroy herself and Satan when she drowned her five children in the bathtub, a jail psychiatrist testified Thursday during Yates’ second murder trial.
The day after the drownings, Dr. Melissa R. Ferguson said, Yates picked at her lip until it bled and at first showed no emotion, but then started crying and yelling.
“She screamed, ‘Couldn’t I have killed just one to fulfill the prophecy? Couldn’t I have offered Mary? Are they in heaven?’” said Ferguson, the former medical director of psychiatric services at the Harris County Jail.
Ferguson was the first defense witness for Yates, who has again pleaded innocent by reason of insanity. She is being retried because her 2002 conviction was overturned last year by an appeals court citing erroneous testimony.
Ferguson, who also testified in the first trial, said that when she asked Yates if she was suicidal, she said, “I cannot destroy Satan; only the state can.”
“She said at her death the prophecy would be fulfilled,” Ferguson told jurors.
Ferguson testified that Yates said her children were not righteous and had stumbled because she was evil, and they could never be saved because of the way she was raising them.
The psychiatrist testified Yates said that when her children watched cartoons on television, the characters told her she was a bad mother. Ferguson also said she did not think Yates was faking her symptoms.
Yates, who turns 42 on Sunday, will be sentenced to life in prison if convicted.
Prosecutors, who rested their case Wednesday, say Yates knew her actions were wrong.
Six-month-old Mary, 2-year-old Luke, 3-year-old Paul, 5-year-old John and 7-year-old Noah drowned in their Houston-area home in June 2001. Yates is being tried for three of the deaths.
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