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Andrea Yates Jury Trial In Deliberations
HOUSTON Whether jurors find Andrea Yates guilty of drowning her children or innocent by reason of insanity depends on how they see her: a perfectionist afraid of failing as a parent or a loving but psychotic mother trying to save the youngsters from hell.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys presented those very different portrayals of Yates, 42, during her capital murder retrial before handing the case to the jury on Monday.
The jury, which had been sequestered for the night, resumed its deliberations Tuesday, trying to determine if Yates knew that killing her children was wrong.
If the jurors find her innocent by reason of insanity, Yates will be committed to a state mental hospital, with periodic hearings before a judge to determine whether she should be released — though prosecutors weren’t allowed to tell that to the jury. If convicted of murder, she will be sentenced to life in prison.
Prosecutor Kaylynn Williford described Yates during closing arguments as a woman who was overwhelmed, failing at home-schooling and feeling hopeless and helpless.
Williford brought out the pajamas that the children died in. She also displayed the crime scene photos showing 6-month-old Mary, 2-year-old Luke, 3-year-old Paul and 5-year-old John laid out on a bed and 7-year-old Noah still floating face down in the bathtub.
“Is that the act of a loving mother? Were there words of comfort? Were there prayers? They didn’t want to die,” Williford said. “The legacy of this case should be that you will hold her accountable for the deaths of these children.”
The children’s father, Rusty Yates, walked out of the courtroom as Williford described Noah’s intense struggle in the water and showed a close-up photo of his face after he was removed from the tub. Rusty Yates, who has said he does not want Andrea to be convicted, divorced her last year and remarried in March.
Andrea Yates started to cry after those photos were shown, but at other times looked down at the defense table without showing emotion.
Yates is being retried because her 2002 conviction was overturned by an appeals court on the grounds that some erroneous testimony may have influenced jurors. Yates, charged in only three of her five children’s deaths, has again pleaded innocent by reason of insanity.
Yates’ attorneys said she meets the state’s definition of insanity: that a severe mental illness prevents someone who is committing a crime from knowing it is wrong.
Defense attorney George Parnham reminded jurors that expert witnesses on both sides agreed Yates was psychotic the day of the June 2001 drownings. He said Yates suffered from severe postpartum psychosis, which he called the cruelest of mental illnesses.
“It leaves intact the natural instincts of motherhood. You love. You nurture. You want to make certain that your child is safe from dangers. Every mother wants that,” Parnham said. “But the danger that the mother perceives is twisted, and mom sees the danger where there is no danger.”
He said Yates thought she was a bad mother and that Satan was inside her, and that she had to kill them to save them from hell. He said logic cannot be applied to a psychotic mind.
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