06/21/01: TX Mom killed her 5 Kids

[Freakapotimus]

Texan Is Accused of Killing Her Five Children
By C. Bryson Hull

HOUSTON (Reuters) - A 36-year-old woman suffering a long bout of postpartum depression was charged with killing her five children in their Houston home on Wednesday, a crime that could have her facing the death penalty.

The four boys and a girl, 6 months to 7 years old, appeared to have been drowned in the family's bathtub, police said.

The woman, Andrea Yates, had taken medication for depression since the birth of her youngest boy two years ago, but John Cannon, a spokesman for the Houston Police Department, said the role her illness might have played in the crime would not be clear until she gave a formal statement.

A television report showed the longhaired, bespectacled Yates, her shirt torn in many places, being led away in handcuffs by police.

Late on Wednesday, she was formally charged with multiple counts of capital murder, which carries a maximum penalty of death by injection in Texas. Prosecutors have not yet decided whether to seek the death penalty, but Houston's Harris County is one the most aggressive prosecution districts in the nation.

Cannon said the woman called police to her home in a modest southeast Houston suburb in the shadow of NASA (news - web sites)'s Johnson Space Center.

OFFICER THOUGHT CALL WAS ROUTINE

Yates was wet, breathing heavily and clearly disturbed when the first officer arrived on what he thought was a routine welfare check, the police spokesman said.

``She said to the officer, 'I killed my children,' and the officer said, 'Where are they?''' Cannon told reporters.

The woman took the officer to a bedroom, where he pulled back a sheet on a bed to reveal four still-wet bodies -- Yates' sons Luke, 2, Paul, 3, and John, 5, and her 6-month-old daughter, Mary.

The fifth child, Noah, 7, was found in the bathtub by a second officer responding to the call, Cannon said.

Photos

Reuters Photo


Cannon said the father, whom neighbors identified as Russell Yates, arrived at the house at the same time as police.

His wife of eight years had called him at work seconds after calling police and had told him simply, ``You better come home,'' Cannon said.

Officers refused to let him inside as they discovered the bodies inside the tan, one-story brick home, where a dog barked and a blue bus, apparently the family's private recreational vehicle, was parked on Wednesday.

He was not a suspect in the crime and was cooperating with investigators, Cannon said.

ATTENDED RECENT BIRTHDAY PARTY

Neighbor Raymond Rivera said the Yates children regularly played outside and three of them enjoyed themselves during a birthday party at his home on Saturday.

Rivera said he was surprised that Andrea Yates had not joined her husband and children at the party and had asked his neighbor why.

``He told me his wife didn't want to come because she was depressed from having the last babies,'' Rivera said.

Judy Hay, a spokeswoman for Harris County Child Protective Services, said Yates was hospitalized two years ago for a suicide attempt by drug overdose. The agency investigated to ensure that someone was caring for the children and took no action after finding they were being looked after, Hay said.

Rivera said he believed Russell Yates did computer work for NASA. Space agency spokesman James Hartsfield confirmed that Russell Yates worked in the space shuttle program.

As detectives and medical examiners worked inside the house, from which no windows face the street, neighbors stood outside in disbelief as heavy rain fell.

``I'm so shocked this happened so close to where I live and there are five children who will never get a chance to grow up. It's horrendous,'' Shelly Sampson said, weeping.

The killings echoed the Susan Smith case, in which a South Carolina mother drowned her two sons by driving her car into a lake in 1994. After initially blaming a carjacker, Smith confessed she had killed the children after a man she loved rebuffed her because of them. She was sentenced to life in prison.

PHOTO CAPTION
Houston Police crime scene investigators work outside the home where five children were killed by their mother in their home in southeast Houston June 20, 2001. A 36-year-old woman suffering a long bout of postpartum depression confessed to killing her five children in the Houston home Wednesday, a crime police said could have her facing the death penalty. (Richard Carson/Reuters)

[Shrapnel]

The person I really respect right now is the suspect's husband.

He is standing by her.

I hope she gets a fair trial as well as the help she needs.

[Punkman777]

At 6/23/01 07:22 PM, Shrapnel wrote: The person I really respect right now is the suspect's husband.

He is standing by her.

I hope she gets a fair trial as well as the help she needs.

I really feel no one deserves death the 5 children didn't deserve death but now niether does the mother she just needs some help sending her to die is not the answer and just as Shrapnel wrote I too respect the husband for standing by her.

[Freakapotimus]

At 6/23/01 07:22 PM, Shrapnel wrote: I hope she gets a fair trial as well as the help she needs.

I hope she gets help as well. From what I've read/seen, it doesn't seem to be a malicious killing. I hope her trial is fair, I know many people who would want her dead.

Her husband must be very brave, not only to be able to stand by her (I wonder if I could?) but to withstand the arrows of the press and the public.

[SubMethod]

I think that she should not get the death penalty though I am not against the death penalty. In prison the ones who are harassed the most are child abusers. If she is convicted she wont last 5 years in prison. The one thing I want to know is her motive. Does anybody know what it was?

[Jonny-Alpha]

At 6/25/01 05:11 PM, SubMethod wrote: I think that she should not get the death penalty though I am not against the death penalty. In prison the ones who are harassed the most are child abusers. If she is convicted she wont last 5 years in prison. The one thing I want to know is her motive. Does anybody know what it was?

She was suffering from depression..there wasn't really a motive, she was going through a mental illness.
Obviously, she wasn't getting the help of the level she needed, and the sad thing is after getting the help for this depression she will still have to live with the loss of her children.

[Low-Budget-Superhero]

I think she should the death penalty, after all, she is a murderer of children, and there is a chance that she will kill again...

How do I know this? I heard on the radio she has stated that she is pregnant again.