# Andrea Yates - Guilty **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 13, 2002, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/andrea-yates-guilty/97963 "2002-03-13T01:24:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Sauron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce7236/32.png) [@Sauron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sauron)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2002, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/andrea-yates-guilty/97963/121 "2002-03-20T14:39:26Z")
**Stoid** , I feel compelled to point this out: The Andrea Yates case was not about you. ---
**Author:** ![jsleek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8dc957/32.png) [@jsleek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsleek)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2002, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/andrea-yates-guilty/97963/122 "2002-03-20T17:05:31Z")
I venture that she was insane, but not crazy. What she did was perfectly rational, in her way of thinking. Possible sequence: She had four boys that were irritating her to no end. She expected a girl would be different; but the girl was as much bother as the boys. And she’s angry at her husband for getting her into this mess. She decides that killing the children will solve both problems at once. All that noise will stop, and she’ll get even with her husband. The police will ask some questions, but let’s think about that later. For now, lets stop the noise. ---
**Author:** ![Hamlet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hamlet/32/2818_2.png) [@Hamlet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamlet)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2002, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/andrea-yates-guilty/97963/123 "2002-03-20T17:19:08Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Stoid \* > \*\* > Wow! I said I wasn’t surprised that she got convicted in Texas! And as everybody knows, of COURSE that means: “All Texans are stupid, everyone who wanted her convicted is an evil Republican Redneck and a bad person, and clueless to boot”. > \*\* That’s definately a fair reading of what **stoid** said. That’s also the way I read it. ---
**Author:** ![grayhairedmomma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/47e85d/32.png) [@grayhairedmomma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grayhairedmomma)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2002, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/andrea-yates-guilty/97963/124 "2002-03-20T17:20:54Z")
> [@](#): > > _posted by Stoid_ > …That while Rusty was controlling and a jerk and clueless, etc, she made the choices she made to be at home and devote her life to her kids. He suggested nannys, part time work for him, all kinds of things. She would have none of it… Can anyone corroborate this? I’ve heard all the reports of him not allowing her out, forcing her to do such and such, but this is the first I’ve heard of him trying to do anything to alleviate the situation. > [@](#): > > _posted by DoperChic_ > Forcing your wife to stop taking antidepressant medicine so she can get pregnant is the problem here. Andrea even told her psychiatrist that she did not want to be taken off the medication. The psychiatrist did not want her to be taken off the medication. But her husband wanted her off it, so she was taken off it. Once taken off the medication, her symptoms inevitably get worse. Isn’t it possible for psychiatrists to have someone they deem dangerous to others/themselves committed to a mental institution? Or is that only possible if the family agrees? Could the psychiatrist have called child proctective services and tried to get the children out of a dangerous situation? Or would patient confidentiality laws not allow that? > [@](#): > > _posted by Sauron_ > He said that she knew what she was doing was a sin, which, to a devout Christian, is the whole basis between right and wrong. Sin = wrong. > > So even taking away society’s interpretation of murder and/or insanity, AY knew she was committing a sin in killing her children. Perhaps she didn’t know she was committing murder, but she did know she was doing something wrong. As a devout Christian she knew that what she was doing was a sin that SHE would be punished for, both here and in the afterlife. She made the choice to commit the sin because she believed that her children would be better off. (To oversimplify: If her children were starving and she had no money to feed them - she would steal food to feed them even knowing that she could be punished because it would be more wrong for her to let them suffer) She didn’t care what happened to herself, only that her children were in a better place. > [@](#): > > _posted by Fenris_ > Also, I find it very telling that she didn’t start raving about Satan until after she was in jail and had talked to her lawyer. How much of what she experienced did she keep quiet about? We know she wasn’t the stereotypical raving lunatic. We know that she was able to maintain a semblance of a normal life. She was trying to keep herself together and to provide her children with as a good a life as she could. How would running around screaming about the devil controlling her help her provide that (in her mind)? From the DSM-IV(Postpartum Onset Specifier - page 386): _“Postpartum mood episodes with psychotic features appear to occur in from 1 in 500 to 1 in 1000 deliveries……The risk of postpartum episodes with psychotic features is particularly increased for women with prior postpartum mood episodes.……Once a woman has had a postpartum episode with psychotic features, the risk of recurrence with each subsequent delivery is between 30% and 50%._ Andrea Yates has stated that she first starting hearing voices [had a psychotic episode] after her first child was born. But how long was it before she realized there was something really wrong and sought treatment? How long was it before she had any indication that she was physically ill in her mind? How long did they try to treat the problem with prayer(if at all)? Was she receiving psychotherapy along with psychopharmacolgic treatment? Was anyone doing anything to convince her that it wasn’t her fault that she was experiencing these psychotic episodes? Or did she just see the medication as a method of containing an evil she thought she possessed? How long had she been off the medication before she killed the children? Was she experiencing any [movement side effects of the drug](http://www.psyweb.com/Drughtm/halope.html)? Could this have contributed to her belief that Satan was trying to control her? My thoughts: I don’t doubt/deny (neither does she) that she knowingly killed all five of her children. I don’t think that she should be set free. I think that the most humane choice in her case is to kill her too or not allow her to recover from her psychosis. I think that if she were to receive psychotherapy and fully comprehend what was going on in her mind, the knowledge that if she had pursued/been allowed to pursue the appropriate treatment, that she might have been able to raise her children well would be torture. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/andrea-yates-guilty/97963.md?page=6)