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CNN Live Saturday
Interview With 'Time' Magazine's Tim Roche
Aired March 02, 2002 - 18:15 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN ANCHOR: One of the others testifying this past week was Andrea Yates' husband, Russell Yates. He was interviewed recently by Tim Roche from "Time" magazine. Mr. Roche joins us now live from Atlanta.
Thanks for coming in this evening.
Let me ask you first of all, Tim, how does Russell Yates cope with this, live with this, the fact that his wife murdered their five children?
TIM ROCHE, TIME MAGAZINE: Well, it's interesting. When you talk with Mr. Yates, you hear him describe a family that literally went from being a very happy, intact family where the children were the hobby of the parents, the parents put everything into raising them.
And suddenly you hear how her mental illness wiped this completely out. And he's had a hard time dealing with it.
He has begun to research mental illness and psychosis. He has thought a lot about a future with Andrea if she were to be found not guilty by reason of insanity and what that would mean.
And he's even given some thought as to what would happen if she were to be convicted and sent to prison.
He says, the more and more time that goes by, he realizes that it's going to be difficult to ever get her back, and he's doubtful she'll ever be able to come back to the same house where they lived and she killed the children.
MESERVE: But he still lives there, doesn't he.
ROCHE: He does. At first he said it was the only place he could go. He couldn't necessarily stay in a hotel because he couldn't afford it.
He couldn't just sell the house, because who would buy it at that time. And he said he found some peace there. He had happy memories there.
And it's gotten better the longer he stayed there, he says.
MESERVE: Does he fail to grasp, or did he fail to grasp, the depth of his wife's illness?
ROCHE: I think an outsider would think so. If you talk to him he says that before this latest episode in the year 2001, he always thought that depression was something that only required a swift kick in the pants.
And it wasn't until she killed the children that he fully grasped the extent of her psychosis and the tragedy that followed her psychosis, or came as a result of her psychosis.
It was something that he just never imagined, or at least he thought it was always something that could happen to somebody else.
Like I said before, he has begun to research mental illness and psychosis, and I think he's realized that there was a lot about it he didn't know before.
MESERVE: Does he feel any guilt about that?
ROCHE: Guilt is one of those tough things that comes only with perspective. And Rusty's perspective is only beginning to develop on this.
He is -- only wants to talk about a very happy family. He finds it difficult to talk about what he should have done or could have done, what Andrea should have done or could have done, or what any of the other relatives could have done.
Guilt is one of those things that, I don't know if he'll ever get there, but it's one of those things he's probably going to have to come to grips with his own actions in order to get on with his life after this is, you know, begins to settle down.
MESERVE: He visits her. You said a moment ago he even contemplates a future life with her.
What are his feelings towards her right now?
ROCHE: One of the things that he's realized since the deaths of his children is, how little of communication there was between Andrea and him.
Now, that was for a variety of reasons, in part because Andrea was not the type to discuss what was going on. And he was not the type to pull it out of her.
And they got into the situation where they just lived like this, and there were lots of things that perhaps he could have pulled out of her if he would have tried talking to her in depth or really pulling it out of her, if he would have maybe tried different approaches.
However, he says that Andrea was just a very private person, and through the years he began to respect that.
As far as future, he says, he's -- Andrea's going to have to learn how to be more open with him and talk about things. And indeed she has been talking to him when he visits her in jail or when they talk by phone, with her from the jail.
It's going to be hard to say, at this point, what kind of future he sees with her. But, you know he's at least thinking about it because he talks in bits and pieces about it.
MESERVE: Tim Roche, "Time" magazine, thanks a lot for joining us tonight.
ROCHE: Sure. Any time.
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