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American Morning
Andrea Yates: Were There Signs? Were They Overlooked?
Aired January 21, 2002 - 08:41 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.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: For months, people have been wondering how could a mother kill her own children? And could the murders have been stopped? That's our big question this hour -- what pushed Andrea Yates over the edge? And were warning signs ignored?
Jury selection continues this week in the trial of Andrea Yates, charged with the drowning her five -- four young sons and her infant daughter. At issue in the case is not her guilt, but her mental state. Did she kill her children because she was insane?
CNN's Ed Lavandera looks at what promises to be a long and emotionally charged trial.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Scattered throughout Houston are 12 people, preparing to carry an undescribable burden. To determine the fate of Andrea Yates, a 37-year-old mother, who confessed to drowning her five children. A woman plagued by years of mental illness.
Eight jurors have already been chosen, three of which, are men. Evidence in Yates' capital murder trial will focus heavily on medical testimony. Experts will attempt to find truth in mounds of psychiatric records, where truth can be blurred by interpretation.
DAVID BERG, ATTORNEY: Certainly, they can claim that they were -- she was misdiagnosed or they missed the diagnosis. But that doesn't seem to be what's reflected in the records.
DEBORAH BELL, TEXAS NATL. ORG./WOMEN: The society failed this woman. the system failed her. There wasn't a safety net for her. So let's not allow that to be the scenario that continues.
LAVANDERA: Public medical records show Andrea Yates first had a vision of a knife stabbing someone shortly after the birth of her first child. There were two suicide attempts in 1999. And, on another occasion, she filled the bathtub with water, never able to explain her actions.
Several themes surfaced from the medical records. Yates expresses intense concern for her children and fears she's not a good mother. Yates often stopped eating and talking during two years of psychiatric treatment. This left Russell Yates responsible for communicating the problems to doctors. And, on one occasion, medical reports say, Russell Yates pressured his wife to leave the hospital.
(on camera): A new "TIME MAGAZINE" report indicates, since Andrea Yates' arrest, she's opened up to detectives and court appointed doctors. Russell Yates says, in the last seven months, he's learned things about his wife she never shared with him or anybody else who tried to help her.
Ed Lavandera, CNN, Houston.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: So just what did push Andrea Yates over the edge? Well, in "TIME MAGAZINE" this week, as Ed mentioned, is an exclusive investigation of the Andrea Yates case. One that raises the question of whether the tragedy could have been stopped.
And "TIME"'s Timothy Roche joins us now from Atlanta with more on his investigation. Good to have you with us Tim. Thank you for joining us this morning.
TIMOTHY ROCHE, "TIME MAGAZINE": Good morning.
ZAHN: Based on what you have uncovered, in your 40 hours of interviews, were there enough warning sights -- signs that Andrea Yates should have been stopped, or could have been stopped?
ROCHE: I think the unfortunate thing about this case is that they didn't become warning signs until after the fact. I mean, when she was going through the psychotic behavior in 1999, it was pretty clear -- it was pretty evident. Obviously, she tried those two suicide attempts in that year, and her behavior was pretty extreme.
Scratching bald spots into her head, refusing to feed the youngest child, the newborn, that actually sparked the postpartum depression and pyschosis at that time. And a lot of that replayed itself over again after the birth of the fifth child. And, as Rusty Yates, her husband, says, and her family points out, those were things that told them, this past year, that the depression and pyschosis had come back.
ZAHN: Where were the people in her life when she was scratching bald spots in her head? Where was her safety net?
ROCHE: Her safety net was mostly her husband. They were a family that was very private. They kept to themselves. They didn't have a close relationship with her family as a couple, although Andrea spent quite a bit of time over at her family's house, taking care of her ailing father, after 1999. And as well, into the year 2001, when he finally died, which is what they think may have caused the onset of the illness this past year, at least caused it to come on far more quickly than it did the last time.
The safety net is sort of blurred in some ways because you have friends who describe her as being this wonderful mom, very delicate, very gentle, just -- and the kids themselves were just great kids. And yet you have a husband who says that, you know, she did not have burdens that he recognized. She never spoke up. That was actually problems with her relationship all along with him, is that she -- and with herself more than anything -- is that she didn't have the confidence or the ability to speak up about what was going on.
ZAHN: And yet, I think what was painfully evident to folks when they heard from Russell Yates for the first time, was his awareness that something wasn't right there. Let's replay this interview that was done shortly after it was discovered that she had drowned her five children. Let's listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RUSSELL YATES, HUSBAND OF ANDREA YATES: She obviously wasn't herself. I think that will come out, you know, that she's -- everyone that knows her knows she loves the kids. And that she's a kind, gentle person. And what you see here and what you saw yesterday, you know, is not her.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZAHN: But what Russell Yates knew, at that moment, was that his wife had attempted suicide by taking her mother's sleeping pills some five years before. When that happened, what did Russell Yates do, and what did his wife do?
ROCHE: Well, in 1999, actually is when she tried to take the sleeping pills and commit suicide. And that second attempt, Rusty discovered her in the bathroom, holding a knife to her neck, deliberating as she looked at herself in the mirror. And what came out after her hospitalization in 1999, was that she was having visions of thoughts and was hearing voices telling her to "get a knife, get a knife."
And she saw somebody being stabbed. The unfortunate part of it is, we still don't know who was being stabbed in those visions. And her counseling -- I mean, in her treatment in the year 2001, once the pyschosis and depression came back, that wasn't explored to the depths that it probably should have been, in which we would have been able to better understand what was going on.
You know, the thing about pyschosis is that it takes your entire world. It takes your fears, it takes your views of religion, it takes your very being, and your brain becomes -- begins to play its tricks on you. And so you're going about your business. You're putting up Christmas trees. You're cooking Thanksgiving dinner for your family. You're going to the supermarket. You're raising, you know, four to five wonderful kids, and all this time, you have these thoughts that are not really your own, because they've taken over.
ZAHN: Well, Tim, we appreciate your joining us this morning. I'm just going to close with something Russell Yates told you about both he and his wife thinking the devil got inside of her. He said, "The Bible says the Devil prowls around looking for someone to devour. I look at Andrea, and think that Andrea was weak."
It's shattering to read this piece, but, it was a very interesting read, and we appreciate your sharing a little bit of your investigation with us here this morning. Thanks, Tim.
ROCHE: Thank you for having us.
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