When the prosecution doesn't have manufactured "evidence" to support their case, the truth comes out, or rather gets seen for what it is. Andrea was found not guilty by reason of insanity.
In a dramatic turnaround from her first murder trial, Andrea Yates was found not guilty by reason of insanity Wednesday in the drowning of her children in the bathtub.
The 42-year-old woman will be committed to a state mental hospital and held until she is no longer deemed a threat. If she had been convicted of murder, she would have been sentenced to life in prison.
[...]
Yates' chief attorney, George Parnham, called Wednesday's verdict a "watershed for mental illness and the criminal justice system."
Wendell Odom, another of Yates' attorneys, suggested that attitudes have changed since the first trial: "Five years ago there were a lot of people who could not get past the anger of what happened."
This case, in particular, alerted the public to a rare effect of pregnancies, postpartum psychosis. We've all heard of postpartum depression, and many women suffer from ppd., yet after each birth her ppd worsened, until she and her then husband were told not to have more children, that the psychosis would return. Rusty ignored that advice from Andrea's psychiatrist, and impregnated Andrea.
He told them how their family had grown, and how they had moved from a house in suburbia to a camping trailer to a bus converted into a motor home, where Andrea focused on raising the toddlers. After the birth of their fourth child, Luke, in 1999, Andrea tried twice to commit suicide. She was hospitalized both times and was diagnosed with postpartum depression and psychosis.
The couple and their four sons moved from the bus into their house on Beachcomber Lane in a Houston suburb. She recovered while using Haldol, but eventually stopped taking the medication. Against the advice of her psychiatrist, Andrea soon became pregnant again with their fifth child, Mary. Within months, following the death of her ailing father, her psychosis returned. Instead of taking her back to the same doctor who'd treated her before, Rusty told jurors that he and Andrea went to the Devereux-Texas Treatment Network, where Mohammed Saeed became Andrea's psychiatrist. Rusty testified that he never knew that Andrea had visions and voices; he said he never knew she had considered killing the children. Neither did Dr. Saeed, even though the delusions could have been found in medical records from 1999. Andrea would not talk or eat.
After only slight improvement, Andrea was released from Devereux. A month later, she had another episode. Rusty took her back to Devereux. Again, she was released. Dr. Saeed reluctantly prescribed Haldol, the same drug that worked in a drug cocktail for her in 1999. But after a few weeks, he took her off the drug, citing his concerns about side effects. (For more on Saeed's response, see our previous examination of the Yates trial.) Though Andrea's condition seemed to be worsening two days before the drownings, when her husband drove her to Saeed's office, Rusty testified, the doctor refused to try Haldol longer or return her to the hospital. Rusty was frustrated, he told the jury, and he didn't know what else to do.
So, I really want to scream when the prosecutor makes assinine statements:
"I'm very disappointed," prosecutor Kaylynn Williford said. "For five years, we've tried to seek justice for these children."
At no time, under Texas law, did Rusty have to worry about his coersion and oppression of Andrea. He alienated Andrea from reality, through religious fundamentalism as taught by this person. And no legal action will be forthcoming. In short, Rusty is morally just as guilty for perpetuating the psychosis that tormented that woman, and for all intents and purposes, he could care less, as long as some woman or other is submissive and produces children (from the Time article).
Standing there, Rusty appeared to have no regrets about any of the choices he and Andrea had made in their life together. No regrets about moving into the trailer, then the bus. About having a fifth child, who had been "a blessing." About his own inability to recognize his wife's needs. About his own part in their lack of communication in which she apparently suffered scary visions for years but never told him. About not researching postpartum depression and psychosis in the two years before his wife killed their kids.
So, I am satisfied that Andrea will now be properly treated (or at least treated for the psychosis), instead of finding a way to lock her up behind bars, never to be seen again. This is a woman that will forever be tormented.
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