20 Jun Criminology Assignment
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Realities and Challenges Andrea Yates waited for her husband, Rusty, to leave for work. She gathered their five young children—ages 6 months to 7 years— around the kitchen table for breakfast. The four boys enjoyed corn puffs cereal while Andrea fed milk to their infant sister, Mary. Rusty said good- bye at about 9 a.m. and left their suburban Houston home for work. The morning of June 20, 2001, seemed like any other in this thriving neigh- borhood of tree-lined streets and middle-class families.
As Rusty drove away, Andrea carried baby Mary to the bathroom, placed her in a bassinet, and filled the bathtub nearly full of water. She then called her four boys to the bathroom one by one and methodically drowned her children by holding them face down in the tub. Andrea would later say that her oldest son, Noah, put up the biggest fight, and she had to drag the boy back to the tub repeatedly until he succumbed. As he fought against his mother, Noah’s last words were, “I’m sorry.” He was then held down in the water while around him floated vomit and feces from the siblings who had died before him.1
After murdering her children, Andrea neatly arranged their bod- ies on her bed. She called 911 to report what she had done. Yates then called Rusty to tell him that he needed to come home.
Explaining Andrea Yates’s crime is not easy. Her mental history included bouts of postpar- tum psychosis. Throughout most of her eight-year marriage she was either pregnant or breast- feeding. After the birth of her first child, she began to have visions of a knife stabbing her babies and claimed that Satan was speaking to her. Andrea attempted to kill herself on more than one occasion. Soon after the birth of their fourth child, Andrea overdosed on her mother’s antidepres- sant pills; a month later Rusty found Andrea holding a knife to her own throat. In the years leading up to her crime, Andrea also became increasingly isolated from the peo- ple and community around her. Not long after she married Rusty, Andrea gave up her career as a registered nurse to raise their family. For several years, before moving into their house, the couple lived with their children in a 20-year-old, 350-square foot Greyhound bus converted to living quar- ters. Two of the children slept with their parents in the main cabin of the bus, and the other two slept in the luggage compartment. She homeschooled her children and tended to her father who had Alzheimer’s disease. Further complicating the situation, a friend of Rusty’s from college held particular influence over Andrea with his “repent-or-burn” preaching in which he characterized women as being forever linked to the sin of Eve and that “bad mothers” created “bad children.”2 After her suicide attempts Andrea was hospitalized. A psychiatrist prescribed medication for severe mental illness and advised the Yates not to have more children because having another baby could trigger more episodes of bizarre behavior. When their youngest child was two and half, Andrea discontinued her medication at Rusty’s urging and became pregnant again. After the birth of their fifth child, her psychiatrist told Rusty that Andrea should not be left alone with the children. The morning of the killings, Rusty left for work before his mother arrived to help Andrea with the children. That is when Andrea acted upon the tragic plan that she had been contemplating for many months. Prosecuting the crime of Andrea Yates was as challenging as trying to understand why she did it. Under Texas law, Andrea was charged with capital murder: “intentionally and knowingly” causing the deaths of her children. Although she knew that killing her children was wrong, she had done so believing that it was the only way that she could save them from damnation. She willingly submitted herself to the judgment of the criminal justice system so that she could be punished for her “personal weaknesses.”3 Originally found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison, an appeal led to a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity.4 Andrea was then sent to a psychiatric hospital where she remains in treatment as a psychiatric patient.
A Mother, A Murderer
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