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Nancy Grace
Yates` Confession
Aired August 01, 2006 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
NANCY GRACE, HOST: Tonight, exclusive, never-before-seen footage, video of Andrea Yates confessing to the drowning murders of her five innocent children. Judge for yourself. The video the defense didn`t want you to see, we obtained. We`ve gone through over 14 hours of Yates`s confession. You be the judge and the jury tonight. Is she sane? You decide. And tonight, the expert psychiatrist who testified under oath at trial that Yates was not insane.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANDREA YATES: (INAUDIBLE) the water. He said, Mommy. And I put him back in the water. (INAUDIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What were you thinking when he came back up out of the water?
YATES: I was just determined (ph).
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Tonight, never-before-seen footage, Andrea Yates confessing to the murders, one by one up to five, of her children. Of course, a jury came back NGBRI -- not guilty by reason of insanity. What does that mean? And what will her life be like now? Elizabeth, do you have the confession? Roll.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What happened when you woke up in the middle of the night (INAUDIBLE)
YATES: Taking the children`s lives.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What were you thinking about?
YATES: That I had to do it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What was the reason you had to do it the next morning?
YATES: Because Rusty would be at work.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Here in the studio with me, the psychiatrist who testified before the jury under oath that Andrea Yates was not insane at the time she killed her children. We`re going to be reviewing, not that sound bite but many more like it, as we progress through this evening, and we are taking your calls.
Here in the studio with me Dr. Michael Welner. Welcome, Dr. Welner. You testified in front of the jury under oath. Did that jury hear everything you heard?
DR. MICHAEL WELNER, PSYCHIATRIST, PROSECUTION WITNESS: No, they did not.
GRACE: What happened?
WELNER: Well, the -- what we do in the course of our evaluation may be different from rules of evidence in the court. I did have an opportunity in the course of my evaluation to interview and take in information from 29 witnesses. The court ruled that that was hearsay that the jury should not be exposed to. So that, among other things, was aspects of what influenced my opinion, that the jury did not hear.
GRACE: At the time when you interviewed her -- you talked to her for hours on end -- did Yates believe what she did was right?
WELNER: I think that Andrea Yates has come to believe what she has done was right, but I was evaluating her state of mind at the time of the crime. And I came to the conclusion that while she believed that her children might be better off and might feel that they weren`t going to be with a bad mother and that they might go to heaven if she killed them, that her decisions, as she described them on that day, were different from the way she has come to describe them with interview after interview over time.
GRACE: You be the judge. Let`s take a listen to what Andrea Yates had to say on videotape
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If he you knew you were going to kill the kids, would this have happened?
YATES: No.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why not?
YATES: He wouldn`t have let me alone with the children. (INAUDIBLE) started to fill the tub.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What was going on before that?
YATES: That`s all I thought about.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Was?
YATES: Drowning them.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When did you start to think about drowning the kids?
YATES: When I had made up my mind that night at 4:00 in the morning of the drownings.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At what point did you start to contemplate it?
YATES: I would say at least a couple days before.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: To Dr. Michael Welner. She said she began contemplating killing the children far in advance. Significance?
WELNER: Well, what`s interesting is that in our interview, she said a couple days before. When she was interviewed in 2001, she told Dr. Dietz one month before. Earlier, she told Dr. Resnick two months before. So she was aware of the important issues of her trial, and in my professional opinion, her answer was changing over time. Again, in my experience in working on criminal responsibility cases, it`s extremely important when someone is thinking and planning...
GRACE: Well, I just heard her say...
WELNER: ... to do something for that long in advance.
GRACE: ... that she was waiting for her husband, Russell Yates, to leave. Why?
WELNER: Because he would have stopped her if he were there. And she mentioned in an earlier interview with Dr. Dietz that when she had not done it, when she had a chance and she was alone, it was because she wasn`t ready yet. So she was thinking and getting herself ready to do something that she otherwise was restraining herself. And again, that restraint reflected her awareness that it was wrong to kill her children.
GRACE: Let`s go out to the lines, Liz. Let`s go to Michelle in New York. Hi, Michelle.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi, Nancy. How are you? I just want to tell you first that I love you!
GRACE: Thank you for watching.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, thank you. I just want to know how is it that she could be considered insane and she knew every detail and she knew what to do before and after? How is that insane?
GRACE: How is that insane, Dr. Welner? I mean, I`ve read the transcript, and they ask her her name, her DOB, the names of all her children, their DOBs, the date she was married, all types -- her address -- all types of information. She was coherent the day of the killings!
WELNER: Well, look, I appreciate the question. She had a psychiatric illness. In my professional opinion, Andrea Yates had psychotic depression.
GRACE: What`s that?
WELNER: She had irrational ideas of her guilt, of her being a bad mother, and irrational ideas that she deserved punishment. But that was the extent of it. After -- after -- she killed her children, the evidence demonstrates that she dramatically deteriorated when she had an opportunity to reflect on what she did.
GRACE: Wait a minute. Whoa. You said that she believed she deserved punishment. If she thought she deserved punishment, why in the transcript does she say, I never considered suicide, it didn`t cross my mind?
WELNER: Because she wasn`t suicidal.
GRACE: But then if she thought she deserved punishment, why kill the children?
WELNER: There are a variety of ways to have punishment, to get punishment. Could be punishment from the criminal justice system. And Nancy, she indicated to every questioner who asked her that she anticipated, looking ahead, that she knew she would be punished by the criminal justice system. She told the sergeant this after she was arrested, that she anticipated being punished by the system.
And for those who make a distinction between whether she understood legal wrong and didn`t understand moral wrong, she said she was prepared to go to hell. Nancy, you`re not prepared to go to hell when you believe what you...
GRACE: Unless she did something...
WELNER: ... when you believe what you did...
GRACE: ... wrong!
WELNER: ... was right. Unless you believe and you recognize that you not only were legally wrong but also spiritually wrong.
GRACE: With us, a very special guest. Elizabeth, do we have Ms. Kelley yet? With us is a member of the jury. Her name is Lucille Kelley, and she is speaking out tonight. Ms. Kelley, thank you for being with us.
LUCILLE KELLEY, YATES TRIAL JUROR: Well, it`s a pleasure being here, and you`re being concerned about my belief, as well.
GRACE: I am. I`m very concerned. I mean, Ms. Kelley, there`s no doubt that Andrea Yates had mental and emotional problems. Insanity under the law, our law, is that you don`t know what you`re doing is wrong at the time you do it. What are your thoughts as you reflect back on this trial?
KELLEY: Well, based on this trial, we as jurors, we had to comply with the rules and the letter of the law based on Texas insanity code section 801, which we agreed solely (ph). If -- according to the preponderance of the evidence, if we find that after had -- did not know during the act that she was wrong, then we as jurors must find her not guilty...
GRACE: Are you happy with the verdict?
KELLEY: ... by the reason of insanity. Well, I`m happy with the letter of the law. But however, I disagree with the letter of the law. We should have -- we should have had another alternative which would have stated guilty but insane.
GRACE: OK. Let`s take a listen to what the jury heard. This is never-before-seen video meant for the eyes of the jury only that we managed to get. Joining us tonight, a psychiatric expert that testified to this jury that Yates was sane -- not that she didn`t have any sort of mental illness, but that she was sane when, one by one, she planned and executed the murders of five children! Take a listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you feel overwhelmed at the time that you decided to kill the kids?
YATES: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you help me understand that a little better?
YATES: (INAUDIBLE) with regard to reality and the house. And there wasn`t (INAUDIBLE) children during that time.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Were you feeling inadequate around the time that this happened?
YATES: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you help me understand that?
YATES: Just I wasn`t meeting their needs, the children`s needs.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) other aspects of that that defined inadequate for you, as you were experiencing them?
YATES: Well, I was feeling inadequate as a mother and as a wife both, both of those roles.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What other kinds of examples would you think of, of things that would happen that contributed to the feeling of inadequacy?
YATES: Maybe seeing family on TV, you know, showing families on TV.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Was that another reason to contribute to your not wanting to watch television?
YATES: Yes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: You are hearing Andrea Yates talk about her feelings of inadequacy and frustration, how she wanted her family to be like families on TV. She even goes so far in this videotaped confession to state that she felt inadequate compared to her mother-in-law, Dora (ph), because the children seemed to bond with Dora. And shortly after that, she murdered her children.
Inadequacy, frustration, Dr. Welner, being forced to raise children inside of a school bus, at one point, home schooling five kids? That was a prospect she faced. I would be frustrated and inadequate, too. But that doesn`t equal insanity.
WELNER: Well, no, it doesn`t. And we are faced -- look, to be a forensic psychiatrist means that you have to confront the unthinkable every day. Of course, who would eat anybody? Well, Jeffrey Dahmer did, OK? And who would blow themselves up? Well, a whole lot of people in Palestine do. And who would kill five people? So we have to confront the unthinkable, but we have to get passed the unthinkable to look at what that person was behaving, demonstrating, speaking of around the time of the crime. And that`s what I had to focus on.
Many people in Andrea Yates`s situation kill their children for psychotic reasons, and many people do not. And so the presence of a diagnosis does not tell you the story without a thorough inquiry.
GRACE: To the lines, Liz. Let`s go to Nova Scotia and Patricia. Hi, Patricia.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi, Nancy. I watch your show all the time.
GRACE: Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And I`d just like to ask you one thing. Canadian law is quite a bit different.
GRACE: Right.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And I`d like to know why Rusty Yates is not held...
GRACE: Oh~!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ... to some sort of culpability here. He knew his wife had depression. He knew she was psychotic. And yet, nevertheless, they continued to have children, and this is what happened.
GRACE: You know what? Patricia, you are right. The moment he could, he went out on the courthouse steps and he stated to a microphone, Andrea Yates, my wife, was psychotic when she killed the children.
So Jason Oshins, defense attorney, why wasn`t he charged with at least negligence in raising his children? Leaving your children with someone that you believe is psychotic, that`s like leaving them with a crack head or a meth freak! I mean, if he thought she was psychotic, why leave the kids alone with her?
JASON OSHINS, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: You make a great point, Nancy. Obviously, that`s a decision a local prosecutor has to make. But clearly, going after him was really second banana, if you will, to going after, in the prosecutor`s mind, the murderer. He wasn`t a co-conspirator. He certainly was negligent in some of his actions as a human being, as a husband, as a father, but...
GRACE: Well, Jason, I believe you have two young children. Would you leave them alone with someone you truly believed was psychotic?
OSHINS: No. I wouldn`t do that, Nancy.
GRACE: Of course not!
OSHINS: And most people, you know, objectively wouldn`t do something like that. But obviously, the situation was overwhelming to him.
GRACE: Oh!
OSHINS: Maybe he was inadequate enough to reach out in a proper way.
GRACE: Inadequate? Don`t just -- wait. Put the camera on Oshins, please, Elizabeth. Did I just hear you say inadequate to reach out in the appropriate way? Did you just say -- what are you saying?
OSHINS: Nancy, lots of people...
GRACE: That doesn`t even make sense!
OSHINS: Nancy, he could have...
GRACE: To reach out in an appropriate way!
OSHINS: Well, the appropriate way would have been to reach out to authorities or insist that they remove her from the home, that she had a mental disability and was a danger. That would have been appropriate. But clearly, he didn`t do that, and obviously, the consequences...
GRACE: OK...
OSHINS: ... were the death of his five children.
GRACE: Somebody`s got a JD, not an MD. What about it, Doctor?
WELNER: Well, look, the prosecutors did spend a lot of time looking at Rusty and expressing concern...
GRACE: Russell Yates.
WELNER: Right. Russell Yates...
GRACE: Are you on a nickname basis?
WELNER: Different people had different opinions. In my professional opinion, based on my analysis, Russell Yates and Dora Yates came to the conclusion that she was getting better, and they did -- they came to that conclusion just based on what they see and how they knew her. And so Russell Yates was involved, and Andrea Yates had to hide her intention to kill these children in order for it to happen, and that cannot be overlooked. She hid it when she was sick, but she hid it when she was well.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
YATES: He kept coming out of the water. And he said, Mommy. And then I put him back in the water. And that`s all.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What were you thinking when he came back up out of the water?
YATES: I was just determined. I put Mary on the bed and (INAUDIBLE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
YATES: I had these visions of harming Noah, and so I said, (INAUDIBLE) closing in. And I called Rusty at work and told him I needed him to come home. When he came home, I said I needed help, and I meant medical help. He thought I meant help with the children.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Tonight, never-before-seen footage, footage that was meant for the jury`s eyes only, of Andrea Yates`s video confession. With us also, the psychiatric expert that testified to this jury that under the law, Andrea Yates was sane at the time she drowned her children. His name, psychiatrist Dr. Michael Welner.
Dr. Welner, what can you tell us about Andrea Yates that we don`t already know? What leads you to believe she was sane under the law? And please put it in terms we can all understand. We`re just lawyers.
WELNER: There were 68 pieces of evidence that demonstrated she was aware that what she was doing was wrong -- her restraint, that she had this plan and she held back on it for as long as she did. Even in the face of different kinds of psychiatric symptoms, she restrained herself. When she felt that Satan was tormenting her, she didn`t turn around and kill her children at that time. She did it in opportunity, in the circumstances of opportunity. That she didn`t tell anyone, that she concealed it. There`s a woman who was thinking about drowning the children, fills up the tub, gets taken to the hospital and has a couple of reasons for filling the tub that she tells them one reason and withholds the discussion of thinking about killing the children, knowing that Rusty would protect the children, knowing that the child welfare might separate the children, knowing that doctor would protect the children.
So the concealment and the awareness of how people would respond. And also, what she had to do to orchestrate making this happen -- acting normal when Rusty was around, thinking, I`m going to kill the children, but going back to sleep, knowing she was going to do this because Rusty would have been there to stop her. So there were 68 factors that related to that, including her calling the police and her minimizing things to police, and very important to this, knowing what she was -- thinking that what she did was right, thinking -- she was ashamed. She was ashamed. She hid from Rusty. She didn`t bring up anything religious with them. She didn`t bring up anything with the police.
GRACE: Until two days later.
WELNER: Well, she never brought up with Rusty -- and this came out in my correspondence with Rusty -- never talked to Rusty about Satan or anything religious as a reason for doing this. They didn`t even discuss it.
GRACE: I thought it was two days after her arrest before she ever mentioned Satan.
WELNER: It was one day.
GRACE: One day.
WELNER: The day after she -- that she brought that up in a psychiatric interview. The point that I want to make here is her husband visits her, husband is a support, her husband has lost the children. He would be very receptive, as he was, to saying, I did this for religious reasons. I wanted to save the children. She never brought this up to him.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
YATES: I put him in the water until he stopped breathing. I don`t know how many minutes it was or anything.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So when did he begin to struggle?
YATES: Right away.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. What was your reaction when he began to struggle?
YATES: I just held him down.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What was different about Luke`s drowning?
YATES: He didn`t struggle as much. He wasn`t as big as the others.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What happened (INAUDIBLE)
YATES: I put Luke on the bed. And then I put Mary in the water.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Never-before-seen footage, footage for the jury`s eyes only, of Andrea Yates as she confessed to killing all five children. And tonight, the expert that testified she was not insane, Dr. Michael Welner.
The significance of tears interspersed in this interview, Doctor?
WELNER: Well, it`s a tragedy. And getting into it and her recalling the significance, the enormity of what she`s done, it`s a very sad subject. But I would also point out that in the course of our interview, there were times that she was teary in order to change the subject.
GRACE: Oh!
WELNER: And sometimes defendants will do that. You`ll interview them, and they`ll start crying, and for some interviewers, they`ll change the subject because they don`t want to upset someone. And in her record, it demonstrates that there were questioners who stopped talking to her because they said the topic was too upsetting. When you`re a psychiatrist, you have to probe and you have to elicit and you provide a comfortable environment so that someone works through the tears.
GRACE: So were the tears interspersed?
WELNER: Sometimes, but there were long periods of just banality, with no reaction at all and the kind of coldness that she described to police on the day of the offense. What we see on these tapes was not the same relief and coldness that the police saw.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
YATES: (INAUDIBLE) in such a valuable part of the body and the defect in it, it was -- it was -- it was very difficult. It was a very important part of the body, and it was a matter of (INAUDIBLE) it`s hard. I was very disappointed in myself.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: In most jurisdictions in this country, the murder of five individuals would be considered mass murder, but instead Andrea Yates is going to be ultimately put in an institution where there is music therapy, pet therapy, coed dancing, art classes, exercise, even daytrips to Wal- Mart.
What happened? What was the jury thinking? Tonight, never-before- seen footage of Andrea Yates` confession to killing her five children. And with us here in the studio, the expert who testified she was sane at the time she murdered her children. We are taking your calls.
To Dr. Michael Welner, you say she was not insane at the time of the incident. If that is true, why do you believe she killed her children?
WELNER: A lot of things came together. Andrea Yates, in my professional opinion, was very depressed, had a depression with psychotic features, and she was increasingly alienated from her children because she was neglecting them and at the same time they were becoming increasingly rebellious. And to her, obedience was so important, she organized home schooling around it. It equated with righteousness or not righteousness for her.
So she was being helped by Dora Yates, mother-in-law, who was there and helping with the children. But according to Andrea Yates, a decision had been made for Dora Yates to spend less and less time with the children. She wasn`t involved in that decisionmaking.
So here`s someone who was overwhelmed, who felt inadequate, increasingly alienated and distant from her children, feeling that decisions are made for her. And what she told me in our interviews, only two times made a decision without consulting Rusty. In `99, when she thought about killing Noah and attempted suicide because she knew it was wrong and didn`t want to follow through. And in 2001, when she decided to go through killing her children, only those two times.
So all of these factors coming together, along with her knowing that Rusty would be leaving, Russell Yates would be leaving at 8:00, 9:00, and that Dora Yates would be coming at 10:00. And when I asked her what would have happened if Dora Yates were there, would this have happened? Did it have to happen? She said, "Probably not."
So why is that important to me as a forensic psychiatrist? We always want to know from the people we examine, "Did it have to happen?" And if they truly believe that it is right, then they will tell you and they will show you that it had to happen. But if they tell you probably not and possibly, that`s not being compelled to do something. That`s not determination to do something; that is opportunity acted upon.
GRACE: Let`s go out to Dr. Phillip Resnick, a special guest joining us tonight. He is a Yates defense witness, a professor of psychiatry at Case Western Reserve. Dr. Resnick, response?
DR. PHILLIP RESNICK, TESTIFIED AT TRIAL: Well, I think that you`ve been presenting a particular vantage point and that has been Dr. Welner`s and that vantage point was rejected by the jury. And what you are not presented is that Mrs. Yates, when she drowned her children, believed that the only way she could save their souls was to take them while they still were young enough, innocent enough, and had not yet reached the age of accountability.
And the jury foreman said: We knew that she did what she believed was against the law, but in her delusions she believed she did what was right.
GRACE: Dr. Welner?
WELNER: Well, then why was she ashamed of what she did, and why did she not bring this up to Rusty`s attention? And more importantly, why did she kill the children before the age of accountability? If the age of accountability, by her belief, was age 10, then that means that there was no urgent pressure for her to kill children when her oldest child was 8. And there is no basis to presume that her children would go to Hell then or would go to Hell afterwards.
She was concerned about her children going to Hell for a long time. She was concerned about it in `99.
GRACE: Was it because of her escalating disobedience to her?
WELNER: Her belief, that her children were on a pathway of non- righteousness was in her mind worsened because the children were increasingly disobedient. But her concern about the children going to Hell, that came up in `99. She didn`t kill them then. In fact, she had enough awareness that what she was doing was wrong that she made two serious suicide attempts just to keep herself from acting on that impulse.
GRACE: Let`s go out to the lines, Liz. Let`s go to Sheila in Ohio. Hi, Sheila.
CALLER: Hello, Nancy. How are you?
GRACE: I`m good. What`s your question, dear?
CALLER: My question is, is there a history or was there a history of abuse as far as with the children or with Ms. Yates?
GRACE: What about it, Dr. Welner?
WELNER: In my professional opinion, there was no history of abuse, but there was a history of neglect. And Andrea Yates, again very rational, contemplated the children being taken away by child protective services, even suggested in her interview that her mother made these kinds of suggestions. So is neglect abuse? No. She had rational ideas that she was a bad mother, but she was also failing as a mother.
GRACE: So as people began to suggest that the children would be taken away from her, her response was to murder them?
WELNER: Well, I had given her a diagnosis also of obsessive compulsive personality disorder. And this is a very key...
GRACE: But that`s not insanity.
WELNER: No, this is a very key point here. What is it about Andrea Yates that distinguishes her from the majority of mothers with psychotic depression who do not kill their children? She was rigid. She is a perfectionist. She is overly conscientious, and she does not tolerate failure in herself. And that was a life pattern and is why she could not tolerate the notion of failure as a mother. And CPS, child protection, is the epitome of failure as a mother and a wife.
GRACE: Let`s take a listen. You decide. Was Andrea Yates sane or insane when she killed her children? This expert says she was sane. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Of all the kids that you drowned, which of the kids was hardest for you emotionally to drown? Who was hardest for you to do this to?
YATES: Probably Noah and Paul.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because?
YATES: He was always my first-born, and I knew him the best. He was a lot like me.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You didn`t talk to Rusty about this?
YATES: No.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What kept you from discussing it with Rusty?
YATES: I was afraid if I discussed it that it would happen. If it was -- we had spoke to this treatment and started -- he said that Satan can`t read your thoughts. But if you say them aloud, he will hear them and he`ll use them against you. Now, I thought I verbalized these fears that that they would come about.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Let`s go out to the lines. David in Texas. Hi, David.
CALLER: Hey, Nancy. I love you and your show.
GRACE: Thank you. What`s your question, dear?
CALLER: My question is, where`s justice for them kids?
GRACE: You know what? I`ve been wondering that myself. And wait until you hear this, David.
Elizabeth, do you have the amenities at Rusk Institution yet? OK, let`s see. This is where the defense wants Yates to go. There the citizens can work on a farm. There`s coed dining, art therapy, pet therapy, dancing, grounds for them to wander around. There`s a nice shot. It looks a lot like an upscale condo community. There you go. There`s even a lake for them to look at, David in Texas.
To Steve Greenberg, veteran defense attorney joining us tonight, along with Jason Oshins, Steve Greenberg, part of the frustration that juror Lucille Kelley has demonstrated -- hey, that looks like a postcard, but that`s where Andrea Yates may be living -- is that they didn`t have enough alternatives such as guilty but mentally ill, where she would have gotten treatment and then gone to the jail for the murders of these children.
STEVE GREENBERG, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: In many states, Nancy, they now have four alternative verdicts for this kind of situation: guilty, not guilty, not guilty by reason of insanity, and guilty but mentally ill. Guilty but mentally ill means that you go to a mental hospital. And when they`ve decided you`re no longer a danger to yourself or others, no longer in need of treatment, you go and you serve the balance of a criminal sentence.
So you get sentenced the same as if you were found guilty. The placement is just different. But these hospitals, these are not like going to the Waldorf Astoria, Nancy. These are not good places.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
YATES: They`re having riots in the streets in St. Petersburg where the hospital was, and (INAUDIBLE) people, they had people that were protesting (INAUDIBLE) was pretty upset (INAUDIBLE) not upset that I just found out I had lost the baby (INAUDIBLE) not the way I wanted to be greeted.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: The video the defense did not want you to see. Andrea Yates speaking coherently about the day her children were murdered. She knew her DOB, her children`s DOB, the date of her anniversary, you name it.
Out to Court TV`s Beth Karas who covered the case from the very beginning, Beth, tonight we are showing never-before-seen video meant for the juries` eyes only. Yates back in court July 27th. Why, Beth?
BETH KARAS, COURT TV NEWS CORRESPONDENT: She was back in court to be committed to a state hospital, but she did not leave Houston until today to take the 450-mile trek by vehicle across the state to North Texas State Hospital in Vernon, Texas. She`s going to be there for a month being assessed, and she`ll be back -- well, I don`t even know if she has to be in court, but her attorneys will be back in court in a month, a month from the verdict in the case. And the judge will determine if she stays there at the maximum security hospital or goes to a place like Rusk with all of those amenities that you just showed.
GRACE: Yes, you know, the thing about Rusk, Beth, they have dances, movies, bingo tournaments, daytrips to Wal-Mart, ping-pong, you name it, board games. It sounds like you`re on a cruise, Beth.
KARAS: Well, there is a lot of therapy, and it is a much more lenient...
GRACE: Therapy, ping-pong therapy?
KARAS: There is therapy, but her emphasis will be on therapy when she is in Vernon, Texas. Deanna Laney continues to be in Vernon, Texas, another mother found not guilty by reason of insanity for killing two of her children with a rock, saying God told her to do it. It is possible that Andrea Yates will stay in this maximum security facility for some time. She will not have the kind of permissive environment that you`re describing.
GRACE: But even, even here, if she doesn`t go to Rusk, wait, they want her to go to Rusk. She`s in Vernon. But even in Vernon, it`s not like lock down. There are three to five patients in each bedroom. They have free access. They`re not locked into a common area. They have television. There is recreation. The bedrooms are not locked. It`s set up like a wheel with spokes.
KARAS: Right.
GRACE: We`re showing you pictures of where Andrea Yates -- I bet her children would really have loved to go to that little animal petting farm we`re showing right there, but they`re not going to. They`re in Heaven tonight, Beth.
KARAS: Nancy, she was found not guilty. She`s not an inmate in a prison. We have to remember that. I know that you may feel that she should be incarcerated. I know you think she should be incarcerated, but she`s not an inmate. She`s in a hospital.
GRACE: Yes, I know she`s in a hospital, Beth. And when they have her medicated to where they believe she is stabilized, there is nothing to stop a judge from letting her walk out.
Is that correct, Dr. Welner?
WELNER: Absolutely. I would tell you, just from my own professional experience in examining people who`ve been found not guilty by reason of insanity, that I spent 14 hours with her May 3rd and 4th. I would tell you right now she`s not a danger to anybody.
I`ll tell you something else: She showed no sign of unstable psychiatric illness that could not be managed to the community. And if she were another inmate in New York under certain circumstances, the majority of my colleagues would say, "Now send her out into the community."
GRACE: OK. Get ready, everybody. Have you ever heard of a makeover, when you go and you get your hair highlighted, and trimmed, and your nails done, and your makeup redone? You may not think that goes in a sentence with Andrea Yates. You`re wrong -- Doctor?
WELNER: Well, certainly, you know, there are a variety of services that are provided to...
GRACE: She was having a makeover.
WELNER: She was. She did have...
GRACE: When?
WELNER: Well, she had a makeover, and a hair, nails, and all of that done right around the time of the anniversary of her children`s birthdays.
GRACE: Repeat.
WELNER: She was provided with a makeover, among other things, which she appreciated, enjoyed around the time...
GRACE: Ms. Kelley, you`re still with us, the Yates` juror.
KELLEY: Yes, I am.
GRACE: Did you hear that? Did you hear she`s having a makeover?
KELLEY: Do I approve of her having a makeover?
GRACE: No, I just wanted to know if the jurors had any idea how she - - how her -- let me say "incarceration" would work, makeovers, bingo, free daytrips to Wal-Mart, dance therapy, coed dining. Did you have any idea that that would be the outcome after all five children were held underwater?
KELLEY: No. We was not given that information.
GRACE: Why not, Steve Greenberg? Why hide it from the jury, Steve Greenberg?
GREENBERG: Well, because it`s not up to the jury to decide the punishment. The jury is to listen to the facts and they`re supposed to decide if she, in fact, committed these killings in cold blood and knew what she was doing was wrong or didn`t appreciate what she was doing was wrong. They`re not supposed to get caught up in what`s going to happen to her in the future.
GRACE: Yes, why would that matter? Let`s go to the lines. Francis in Kentucky. Hi, Francis.
CALLER: Hi, Nancy. How are you this evening?
GRACE: Well, I`m a little disturbed, especially after I heard about the makeover on the anniversary of her children`s -- was it their birthday or their death?
WELNER: Birthday.
GRACE: Birthday. What`s your question, dear?
CALLER: Well, my question is, can the psychiatrist that she had seen two days prior be held responsible for her actions to her children, legally or financially?
GRACE: That`s an excellent question. Dr. Phillip Resnick is with us. He was Yates` defense attorney at trial.
Dr. Resnick, isn`t it true that, I believe around 48 hours before the murders, a licensed health care physician allowed her to walk free? He said nothing was wrong with her.
RESNICK: Actually, he discontinued her anti-psychotics two weeks before. He did see her 48 hours before, and she was not revealing her delusions to him at that time.
GRACE: Dr. Welner?
RESNICK: The malpractice suit was brought against him, but it has been dropped.
WELNER: Well, the problem with this is that she was harboring homicidal plans when she was on medicine, when she was not on medicine. Do I feel that the presence of anti-psychotics might have had an impact on this? Certainly. But she planned to do this when she was sick and when she was well.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How did the diagnoses of mental illness and treatments and all of that, how did that get on? How did you deal with that?
YATES: I wasn`t happy about it. I didn`t want to be mentally ill.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Noah, 7, John, 5, Paul, 3, Luke, 2, Baby Mary, 6 months, all dead.
Dr. Welner, did Andrea Yates tell you anything specific about each child?
WELNER: Well, I asked her, and again in interviewing, in a forensic psychiatric examination you interview a mother in a case like this, you want to get a sense of just how maternally connected she feels to the children. And I asked her what she remembered about the children`s smell, the children`s touch.
And, for example, when I asked her about what she remembered about how the children felt, she didn`t give me anything more than "soft." And in my experience in communicating with mothers and listening to them, in terms of treating them, in terms of examining them, you get a description "cottony soft," and, "I remember the smell," and there is that attachment.
There was nothing. She was as detached in that interview as she was when she filled out a psychological exam with a sentence completion that said, "I miss being with Rusty. I wish to be out of jail." Not, "I wish to be with the children. I wish the children were alive."
GRACE: Dr. Welner, you have testified nearly 100 times. This is the first time a jury went against you, yes, no? Yes, no?
WELNER: This is the first time in -- in an insanity case, yes.
GRACE: To Lucille Kelley, would you vote the same way again, yes or no?
KELLEY: If the law as it is the date of July the 26th, I would still vote based on the words of the law, which was presented on the preponderance of evidence.
GRACE: OK. You have seen the video. Andrea Yates, not guilty by reason of insanity.
Everyone, join GLENN BECK tonight. He`s on every night 7:00, 9:00 and 12:00 a.m. Eastern right here on Headline News.
But let`s just stop our legal analysis now and remember Army Specialist Bobby West, 23 from Beebe, Arkansas. Following family tradition, he joined the National Guard at 17 and then went to the Army. He was part of the operation that captured Saddam Hussein, leaving behind a loving family. Bobby West, American hero.
Thank you to all of our guests. Our biggest thank you, to you for being with us. Nancy Grace signing off for tonight. See you tomorrow night, 8:00 sharp Eastern. Good night, friend.
END
