February 11, 2025 • 51 mins
This is the story of Andrea Yates and the debilitating effects of postpartum depression in the digital age.
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This series is hosted by Mary Kay McBrayer. Check out more of her work at www.marykaymcbrayer.com.
This episode was written by Mary Kay McBrayer
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Diversion audio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
This episode contains mature content and descriptions of violence that
may be disturbing for some listeners. Please take care in listening.
In a suburb of Houston in two thousand and one,
Officer Frank Stumpo responded to a nine to one one
(00:33):
call from Andrea Yates. When he arrived to clear Water,
a middle class neighborhood with very little crime, he was
shocked when his fellow policeman told him it was a homicide.
Andrea sat on the sofa in a dirty living room,
her wet hair lank. As Stumpo walked into the bedroom,
(00:55):
he assumed she'd killed her boyfriend or something. Instead, he
saw what he thought was a doll's head under the
covers of the bed. He touched the head. It wasn't
a doll, and it was ice cold. Next to the
infant's body, three of her brother's bodies were soaking through
(01:16):
the mattress. They were all lined up under the covers.
Officer Stumpo next discovered the body of Andrea's eldest son,
face down in the bathtub. It was Andrea who called
in the murders, and it was Andrea who had committed
the murders. Now she sat on the sofa, soaking wet
(01:41):
and completely emotionless. Welcome to the greatest true crime stories
ever told. I'm Mary Kay McBrayer. Today's episode is called
Postpartum Psychosis horror Story, and this one is grim, not
(02:07):
just because it's about a multiple murder of children, although
of course that alone makes it impossible. This episode is
about Andrea Yates, a loving wife and mother of five
who had postpartum depression after giving birth to each one
of her children. She was also invested in the fundamentalist
teachings of a Hellfire and Brimstone evangelist, So when the
(02:30):
postpartum depression after her fifth delivery turned into postpartum psychosis,
it melded with the fundamentalist teachings and led to a
truly dismal conclusion. Will untangle Yates's story right after the break.
(03:02):
Maybe you've heard the story of the Yellow Wallpaper. It's
by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. From some perspective. It was first
published in eighteen ninety two. I taught English composition and
world literature for years. I'm a lifelong reader, and of
course I'm a writer, and that makes me a literature person.
(03:23):
But this story. I read it for the first time
in public school in seventh grade, and I did not
understand what was happening. If you haven't read the yellow Wallpaper,
do it. It's harrowing and it's genius, and it was
ahead of its time. Essentially, this very intelligent woman has
a baby and she doesn't bounce back the way they
(03:46):
think she should. So her husband, who is also her
doctor and yes that is a big red flag, decides
they'll go live in the country for a little while,
and our protagonist, she gets to stay in the top
floor apartment. Sounds like a penthouse, but it isn't. It
looks like a former nursery, except for the huge iron
(04:07):
bed nailed to the ground, the bars over the windows,
and the disgusting, scrolling yellow wallpaper. While they stay in
the country house, her husband slash doctor, doesn't let her
do anything, ostensibly for her own health, I mean, he
is a doctor. She wants to go on a walk,
(04:28):
but no, too much exertion. She wants to write a letter, Nope,
too much stimulation. So she sits in her room and
she stares at that wallpaper. She stares at it for
so long that she sees things moving in it, and
then it starts to come to life. To our seventh
grade minds, this sounded like fantasy. Some lady went crazy,
(04:52):
sucks for her. But our teacher said us straight. This
was postpartum depression and her doctor's slash husband treated it poorly,
which made it escalate into postpartum psychosis. So obviously, the
Yellow Wallpaper is fictional. It's a piece of literature. And
(05:13):
while it's great, those are characters. They represent real people
and real struggles, but they themselves are not real. Andrea
Yates is real. She lived one hundred years after that
short story's publication. But I want to start her story
when she was twenty five in nineteen eighty nine, when
(05:34):
she met her future husband, Rusty Yates. Andrea was a
graduate of the University of Texas and a registered nurse.
She'd achieved those milestones despite some troubles with depression, but
these days she was doing well. Andrea and Rusty lived
(05:55):
in the same apartment complex. And Andrea made up some
cute little excuse to meet him, and soon after they
were dating, and about a year later they got married.
By every eyewitness account, Andrea and Rusty were very happy together.
(06:16):
They both had some pretty traditional values, and I know
that by this many episodes in y'll probably think of
me as a radical feminist killjoy, which I am. But
the most powerful tool anyone can have is options. And
Andrea did have options. No one forced her into that
traditional lifestyle. She was smart and beautiful, and she had
(06:38):
gotten her education, and she became a nurse. She supported herself,
and then she chose Rusty. So, dear listeners, please don't
think I am judging Andrea for wanting what she wanted.
It is fine to want tradition, and it's fine to
have it if it works for you. But the thing is,
(06:58):
it didn't really work for Andrea, even though it seems
like she really really wanted it to. A little over
a year after they got married, Andrea had their first child, Noah,
and Andrea chose to be a stay at home mother
(07:20):
to him. I should probably say as well. Rusty Yates
was a NASA engineer. He earned enough that it wasn't
a big financial strain for her to stay home. She
did entertain the idea of returning to nursing part time
too for a while. But the point is he was
a scientist and she was a medical professional. And this
(07:42):
was a smart, educated couple, which makes what happened next
particularly unsettling. After Andrea quit her job, she and Rusty
got pretty heavy into the teachings of Michael Warrenyuki and
(08:04):
his family, and the Warren Yuckies were a pretty tough crowd.
I get to interview the author of this exhaustive book
on the case called Breaking Point, Susie Spencer, so stick
around for that. And when she talked to Rusty, Rusty
told Susie that Michael Warrenyuki was a soft spoken preacher.
(08:26):
A quick google of that name reveals the exact opposite.
His videos are terrifying. He gesticulates wildly. He wears a
mask of Satan, which he said was to help convey
his message through language barriers. One of their evangelists banners
read all that matters is that you are a sinner
(08:47):
headed to Hell. So that's pretty bad. And to be
fair to non extremist Christians, that message is the exact
opposite of Christianity thesis that would go something like, you
would have been a sinner headed straight for Hell if
Christ had and died to save you from that eternal fate.
(09:12):
So the fact that the Warren Yuckes went another way,
not good. Andrea had a lot of Michael Warrenyucki's teachings
on tape, which she played often. She even wrote to
the Warren Yuckies, mostly Michael's wife Rachel, alongside their donations
(09:34):
to this cause. All of this continued after the birth
of the Yates' second child, John and their third child, Paul.
Andrea wrote to them even after she and Rusty moved
out of their first house and into a trailer park.
(09:56):
That move, if it had been necessary, wouldn't have been
that odd. It's an understandable thing to do if money
is tight, but it wasn't necessary. Remember, Rusty worked for NASA,
and the yates Is didn't move into a trailer either.
Trailers might be small and mobile, but they are set
(10:18):
up for life, with a bathroom and a kitchen and
a table at which to eat, even an entertainment area
depending on the model. But the yates Is moved into
an old school bus. You might be wondering, but why
did they do that in the first place, or more importantly,
(10:39):
why did that idea come into their brains at all.
Rusty bought their Greyhound bus directly from the Warren Yuckies,
and Rusty was immediately disillusioned with the Warren Yuckies teachings
because this bus sucked. There were all kinds of problems
with it that the Warren yuckes knew about and did
not disclose to him. And if you'll lie about a
(10:59):
little thing, well go back to the story. Rusty had
wanted to travel in an RV around the States for
a while. That's not an awful idea in itself. It's
kind of romantic unless you take it to the extreme,
which he did. He also wanted to live in the
vehicle permanently and get rid of all their worldly possessions.
(11:21):
He had Andrea sell everything in Breaking Point, Susie Spencer
says they sold quote, their wedding gifts, most of their furniture,
everything but his tools and workout equipment, which went into
a ten foot by ten foot storage facility. That's different,
(11:43):
and it's really different when there are small children, because well,
babies need a lot of stuff. Not to mention, the
kids slipt in the luggage compartment. If you're like me,
(12:04):
you might be thinking something like, what the fuck is
a pregnant mother doing living in a Greyhound That's what
Andrea's family said to more or less when they found
out about it. Because remember, Andrea never said she didn't
want to live in this bus. I can't imagine that
she actually wanted to. No one actually wants to do
(12:26):
something like that. I'm sorry, No, you don't. You want
to want to. You might like the ideology or the
concept of communing with nature, or minimalism or scaling back
your consumerism, but no one actually likes it. Not when
it comes down to it. No, you don't. I will
die on this hill. Think about the last time you
(12:48):
went camping. Remember how you laid your thirty something year
old back on the hard ass ground, and try to
recall how you forgot your contact lens solution or some
other such Toiletry that makes our core poral existence bearable.
Really absorb those tactile observations, Really feel that piece of
gravel in your hip that you missed when you were
(13:08):
clearing the campsite. And now look me in the eyeballs
and lie to me that you want to do that
some more. And listeners, I am six months pregnant as
of this recording, and I say with some confidence that
just walking down the aisle of a Greyhound bus at
this moment would prove a challenge. More likely, you feel
(13:32):
like you should want to do those things, and if
you feel that way, it's probably because someone else is
selling you on it. Speaking of Unlike Rusty, after the
move onto the bus, Andrea was still down with the
Warren Yakis and their message. I said before that she
(13:52):
owned innumerable tapes of Michael's preaching, and she continued to
listen to them all the time, and she believed a
lot of what they said, things like.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
This, whoever causes one of these little ones who believe
in me to stumble, it is better for him than
a heavy millstrong to be hung around his neck and
he'd be drowned in the depth of the sea. I mean, Jesus,
you're saying to kill yourself.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Yeah. Long after Rusty stopped engaging with them, Andrea sent
postcards to the Warren Yackies saying things like how lonely
she was and asking for advice. Rachel Warrennicki responded that
Andrea needed to just be better, be a better wife,
(14:44):
be a better mother. No instructions on how to do that,
just that if she didn't, her kids would probably go
to hell. While all this was happening with the Warren Yeckies,
(15:23):
Andrea continued to have children. By the time she had
her fourth child, Luke, her psychological state had significantly deteriorated.
She went into a deep postpartum depression. On Wednesday, June sixteenth,
nineteen ninety nine. She called Rusty home from work. When
(15:44):
he got to their converted Greyhound, she said, I need help.
Rusty didn't know what to do, so he proposed a vacation.
Maybe a break from the normal would help, even if
just for a quick trip. He took them for a
drive to Galveston and they walked along the water. The
next day, he took them all to the home of
(16:05):
Andrea's parents. Maybe he thought she just needed more time
with her family, or maybe he thought her parents would
know what to do. Mid afternoon the same day, Andrea
wouldn't get out of bed. Her mom said, you need
to get up. Your child's needing to be fed. And
Andrea said she couldn't feed them. She'd just taken an
overdose and she didn't want them to get the drug
(16:28):
through nursing. At the emergency room, they induced vomiting. When
she was stable, they moved her to Methodist Hospital, where
she was diagnosed with depression with postpartum onset with psychosis.
(16:49):
Doctor Eileen Starbranch also prescribed Andrea antidepressants, anti anxiety medication,
and antipsychosis medication when she spoke with Andrea, though Andrea's
main goal was to stay off medication so that she
could breastfeed her child. A side note, most of these
kinds of substances are safe to take while breastfeeding. I
(17:13):
don't know exactly what her prescriptions were at this time,
but most of the time, contemporary doctors will encourage their
pregnant patients to continue taking drugs that stabilize their mental
health because your mental health is also important to the
life you're growing. When a social worker spoke to Rusty
about allowing their small children small as in three years old,
(17:36):
to handle power tools, Rusty bragged that Andrea had given
birth to all four of their children without medication. Doctor
Starbranch continued to see Andrea even after she discharged from
Methodist Hospital. She recommended medication changes from zoloft, an SSRI drug,
to Zyprexa, an antipsychotic used for treating bipolar, romania and schizophrenia.
(18:02):
Susie Spencer writes that Ziprexa is quote a drug reserved
for the most resistant cases as a last resort. A
one month's supply cost six hundred to seven hundred dollars,
depending on the strength. StarBridge handed Andrea a few samples
up the drug. Andrea Yates took the pills home and
(18:23):
flushed them down the toilet. So when Andrea was prescribed
medications for depression, she would do the thing that most
people do. She'd take them long enough to restabilize, and
then she stopped taking them and listeners, In case you
(18:45):
don't know, that's not how this kind of medicine works.
It's not like taking advil for pain. Consistency is crucial
to these drugs working the way they're supposed to. I
still can't get a clear read on why Andrea was
so resistant to medication, except for the Warren Yaki's telling
her it made her weak, just a quick sidebar. Again,
(19:07):
medicine like this actually makes you stronger. Anyone who is
telling you that medicine makes you weak does not understand
the situation. They don't understand what it's like without the medicine,
and they certainly don't understand how literally life changing a
drug like this can be. When she returned home from
(19:30):
this first hospitalization, Andrea started pulling out her hair. She
started scratching herself. These are, without doubt forms of self harm.
Only four weeks later, the psychosis returned to Andrea full force.
She saw an image of a knife, and she heard
(19:50):
the words get a knife, get a knife. So she
got a knife. She was holding a steak knife to
her throat in the bathroom, trying to find the pulse
point when Rusty came in looking for her. Andrea said,
just let me do it. He didn't, of course, He
(20:14):
got the knife from her, and the next day she
was admitted to a new hospital, and even though Rusty
managed to persuade her into signing herself in for care,
she refused to sign a consent for medication form. By
one o'clock the next day, though they'd had to administer
an emergency shot of the antipsychotic heldall. That's when Andrea's
(20:38):
mother stepped in and said to Rusty, no more bus.
While Andrea was hospitalized, Rusty closed on a home in
a safe suburban neighborhood. While at Memorial Spring Shadows Glen,
(20:59):
doctor James Thompson diagnosed Andrea Yates with major depressive disorder
severe recurrent with psychotic features. If psychotropic drugs did not work,
or if she would not take them, he recommended electroshock therapy.
On August tenth, Andrea started outpatient treatment back with doctor Starbranch.
(21:22):
Moving into the house had made Andrea feel like a failure,
even though Rusty said it would give him the opportunity
to complete some renovations. On the bus, Andrea said again
that she wanted to stop using all medications. Her reason
was that she wanted to have more children. Doctor Starbranch
(21:43):
wrote in her notes, Apparently patient and husband planned to
have as many babies as nature will allow. This will
surely guarantee future psychotic depression. After she gave birth to
(22:04):
their fifth child, Mary, psychiatrists prescribed Andrea medication for both
depression and psychosis. She saw things moving in the walls.
She heard the devil talking to her telling her to
do things. For example, when Andrea watched cartoons with her children,
quote the characters would speak directly to her and comment
(22:29):
on her, telling her she was a bad mother. The
same characters spoke directly to her children, telling them don't
eat so much candy and your mother is feeding you
too much cereal. That seems cruel enough. Characters from the
film O Brother where Art Thou also judged her and
(22:49):
said she was a Hellish influence. After a while, she
reported that the voices told her quote, my children were
not righteous. I let them stumble. They were doomed to
perish in the fires of hell, and they had to
die to be saved. But this didn't happen when she
(23:10):
took Haldall. Haldal is prescribed for quote psychotic patients hearing
voices or thinking delusionally. Later, doctor Lucy per Year, a
medical professor, further explained the patient usually functions normally as
a result of the medication, but is also subject to
recurrences when he or she goes off of it, so
(23:31):
it's important to be sure they're not at risk of
hurting themselves or someone else. Basically, Haldall stopped those psychoses,
but like many medicines and preventative care measures, they don't
work if you don't use them. Even while she was hospitalized,
Andrea was notorious for cheeking her medicine, which is the
(23:53):
inside term for hiding her medicine in her cheek and
then spitting it. Out. When Andrea became pregnant with their
fifth child in early March of the following year, which
was two thousand, she was off all medications. Andrea did
(24:15):
fine for a few months after Mary's birth. Two weeks
after Mary was born, Andrea threw a birthday party for
their third son. On the home video, everyone including Andrea,
seems to be in high spirits. And then Andrea's father
died in March of two thousand and one. At the
end of March, Andrea went into a deeper depression and psychosis.
(24:37):
And while Andrea's care at the previous hospital was great,
this new hospital Devereaux had a lot of problems. They
had twenty nine pages of complaints from September one, nineteen
ninety six to August third, nineteen ninety nine. Susie Spencer
says in Breaking Point. The complaints involved everything from neglect
(25:00):
to abuse to death, and twenty eight percent of those
complaints were found to be valid and the typical stay
there was only one to three days. Rusty asked one
of the professionals if her doctor was any good, and
they said they're all good. When Andrea was admitted to
(25:21):
Devereaux Hospital on March thirty first of two thousand and one,
Rusty asked her new doctor, Mohammed said to put her
on the same medications as before because they worked. He refused,
hal Dahl was an old drug. He put her on
a different antipsychotic, risperd All. The notes from this time
(25:47):
period are rushed and inconsistent. Sometimes nurses claimed Andrea was
near catatonic, refusing to bathe or participate in group therapies.
Doctor said sometimes wrote that she was up and about
when nurses said she hadn't left bed all day. So
because Andrea's compliance was poor and her condition was documented
(26:10):
as improved by report, Rusty was shocked when he arrived
at six pm on April eighteenth, two thousand and one,
and Andrea's bags were packed. She was completely released from
Devereaux eighteen days after holding a steak knife to her
own throat. At that time, she had prescriptions for effectsor whalbutrin, Restoril, taylanol,
(26:35):
and milanta. Both her effectsor and while bututrin dosages had
been reduced, doctors made no mention of the antipsychotic Risperdol
at all. On Monday, June eighteenth, Rusty took Andrea to
(26:56):
the doctor and told him that she wasn't doing well.
He asked the doctor if her antidepressant could be changed.
The doctor said, quote, well, since it's not working anyway,
he would reduce the EFFECTSIR from four hundred and fifty
milligrams to three hundred milligrams. Rusty had read that effects
(27:17):
or shouldn't be reduced by more than seventy five milligrams
every three or four days, not one hundred and fifty
milligrams in one day, but the doctor said it was okay.
Rusty tried to intervene to advocate for her, but the
doctor didn't hear him. Rusty Yates went to the pharmacy,
got the new prescriptions filled, came home and gave them
(27:40):
to Andrea. That was Monday night. On Wednesday morning, their
children were all dead, drowned one by one at Andrea's hand.
When police arrived to find Andrea soaked, they also found
wet footprints outside the bathroom, which indicated at least one
(28:01):
child had known what was happening. Noah, the eldest boy,
had tried to run from Andrea, but she caught him.
On July sixteenth, two thousand and one, nearly one month
after the murders, the doctor at the Harris County Jail
(28:24):
telephoned Rusty. She said she was going to put Andrea
on well buttrin effectsor and haldall. Those were the same
drugs she'd been on before, the ones he had asked for.
If the doctors had listened to him, he said, my
kids would be alive, Andrea would be in recovery, and
(28:46):
we wouldn't be famous. Andrea Yates had held each of
(29:14):
her children face down in the full bathtub until they
asphyxiated by drowning, and then she laid the youngest four
side by side, soaking wet, under the covers on the bed.
The eldest was still floating in the tub when the
police arrived, the police that Andrea called. They arrested her immediately.
(29:39):
Rusty Yates was outside the house screaming, how could you
do this? I don't understand. Andrea sat drenched on the
love seat and barely looked up at him. The reporting officer,
Frank Stumpo, asked her, do you realize what you have done?
And she said, yes, I do. That's what she said.
(30:10):
And she did know what she had done, or she
wouldn't have called the police. But it wasn't as simple
as that. Her attorney, George Parnham, knew as much. He
would plead for her that she was not guilty by
reason of insanity. He said, for the defense of insanity
to be credible, one must be suffering from a severe
(30:33):
mental disease and as a result thereof does not know
what he or she is doing is wrong. Five children
were now dead by their mother's hand. But why in custody?
Andrea seemed to be almost completely unresponsive. If asked questions,
(30:55):
she would either not respond at all, or respond minutes
later asking for them to be repeated. In occasional moments
of clarity, she would scream and cry when she realized
her children were dead. She was psychologically evaluated many times
(31:26):
by many professionals. Not one of them ever suggested that
Andrea's condition was not authentic. One expert who later testified
in court was professor of psychiatry doctor Philip Resnik. After
hours of interviews, he said that, quote missus Yates had
the belief that children were not accountable for their actions
(31:49):
until they were ten years old. When someone is deeply
religious like that, I need to sort out to what
extent these ideas are held by her co religionists. He asked, Andrea,
if you had not taken their lives, where would they
have ended up? Andrea said, hell. She actually thought that
(32:11):
by taking their lives she was saving her children, She
was saving them from herself because of her hallucinations that
she saw and heard the devil in her mind, she
was the devil. The plan was, it seemed to save
her children from the devil by killing them and releasing
(32:32):
them to heaven, and then to save herself from the
devil by killing herself as well. While Andrea was being evaluated,
life outside the prison went on. I mean it didn't
(32:53):
not really. What I mean is Rusty and their families
had to bury their five children. They held one large,
moving funeral for all five of them. Rusty talked about
each of his children in a heartfelt eulogy, and their
likenesses are engraved above the grave that they share. So
(33:14):
are their ages, ranging from six months old to seven years.
The whole country was horrified at the case. Of course,
the Yateses were a normal middle class Christian family. It
(33:35):
not only couldn't have happened, it couldn't have happened to them.
Protesters showed up at the courthouse. They echoed the prosecution
that in her son John's fist was a lock of
Andrea's hair. He fought to survive. And Andrea completed the
murders in a single hour between when Rusty left for
(33:58):
work and when his mother was supposed to to show
up to help for the day she had planned it.
She had killed five children, her children, and then called
the police. Andrea should be immediately put to death. What
was there to discuss? Others rallied to support her, using
the opportunity to advocate for mental health rights and teach
(34:20):
others how to recognize its signs. Rusty Yates said this
about Andrea after the murders my life.
Speaker 4 (34:30):
I'm supportive of her.
Speaker 3 (34:31):
You know.
Speaker 4 (34:31):
It's hard because on one hand, I know she killed our children,
you know, But on the other I know that you
know the woman hears not the woman that killed my children.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
Andrea's attorney, George Parnham said, if Andrea is not insane,
then no one is. You can just wipe that term
from the books. To plead insanity, you have to know
what you did, but not know that what you did
was wrong, and that's really hard to prove. Especially when
(35:14):
your client can't help you, which Andrea couldn't. She was
almost entirely nonverbal at this point. So Parum decided to
hold a competency trial. It was set for Monday, August
twenty seventh, two thousand and one. Competency is different from sanity.
(35:46):
Someone can be competent and insane. When Parum defined competency
for the jurors, he said it hinged on two things.
Quote one sufficient ability to consult with the person's lawyer
with a reasonable degree of rational understanding, and two a
(36:08):
rational and factual understanding of the proceedings against the person.
What Attorney param wanted to show the jury is that
Andrea Yates was so incompetent at this moment that she
couldn't help her defense will defend her. She couldn't answer
simple questions. The hearing went on for an excruciating amount
(36:33):
of time. Both sides of the iss'le fiercely passionate in
their beliefs. All witnesses were aware of the intensity. One
statement that I personally found super impactful came from Joe Ombi,
the prosecution. He said to the jury, if you don't
find her competent, she will never be put to trial.
(36:57):
The defense objected and Judge Belinda Hill sustained it, but
she didn't order it struck from the record. Finally, after
three weeks of the hearing, on Saturday, September twenty second,
the juror stood and pronounced Andrea competent to stand trial.
(37:21):
Andrea Yates was subsequently tried for the murders of her
five children. One piece of evidence that seemed to sway
the verdict was the testimony of doctor Park Deets. He
said that because Andrea watched the television show Law and
Order regularly, she likely based her plan for murder on
an episode in which a mother drowns her children. It
(37:43):
implied premeditation, which implied sanity. After the court was presented
with evidence and expert witness testimonies, Andrea Yates was ruled
guilty of capital murder and sentenced to life in prison.
She could have rest the death penalty. Rusty said in
(38:06):
a press interview after the verdict that none of us
wanted her to be found guilty. In fact, most of
us were offended that she was even prosecuted. The prosecution
said that the best possible outcome was serving justice for
the children, but that wasn't the end of it. A
(38:38):
reporter approached Andrea's defense attorney, Parum, she'd seen every episode
of Law and Order. There was no episode about a
mother drowning a child. It just didn't exist. Further scrutiny
revealed doctor park Deets's testimony, or at least that part
of it, to be untrue. With this false testimony, Parum
(39:00):
appealed Andrea's verdict. The case was retried in June of
two thousand and six, without the television shows Blueprint as evidence.
This time was different. This time, on July twenty sixth
of two thousand and six, Andrea was ruled not guilty
by reason of insanity. The jury said, yes, she knew
(39:24):
what she was doing was against the law, but she
also thought that what she was doing was right. Andrea
was confined and still is, to Kerrville State Hospital. She's
(39:45):
now fifty seven years old, and every year she has
the opportunity for her situation to be reviewed. She's waived
her right to review every single year. Instead, she continues
her treatment. She and Rusty divorced but still remain in contact.
(40:05):
Rusty remarried and has become a father again. As a
result of Andrea Yates's case. Texas now administers a screening
test for postpartum depression to all women who give birth
in the state. To write this episode, I drew heavily
on the book by Susie Spencer about Andrea Yates called
(40:26):
Breaking Point. Now I get to talk to Susie Spencer herself. Hey, Susie,
thank you so so much for coming back to talk
to me about Breaking Point and Andrea Yates.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
I'm excited to talk about it. It's been a long
time since I've discussed that one.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
How do you approach researching Andrea? Like what was the
moment of inception there? And what was that journey for you?
Speaker 1 (40:53):
The monday after it happened, my agent called me up
and said, would you like to do a book on this?
So I talked to my mom about that, who's was
my advisor on everything, and she said, someone's going to
do the book and you'll do it with more sensitivity,
So do it. The next day I called my agent
(41:15):
and said, Okay, I'm doing it, And a few hours
later I was on the road to Houston, and so
I drove over there and the first thing I did
was drive by the church where the funeral was going
to be. Just got overwhelmed with that, you know, kind
of searched it out and tape recorded as much as
(41:39):
I could have nonchalantly, you know. And that's how it
all started.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
Oh, that is a really beginning with a bang. Do
you have like a starting question when you go into
the research or you just open to what's happening.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
On this This was all happening in the Houston area
and I live in Austin. I had zero contacts there,
and I was competing against the big names. It was
just kind of reading the newspapers and seeing who they
had interviewed, and then going and knocking on doors or
(42:18):
another thing I would do is just hang out somewhere
and listen to the gossip. But the first time I
saw Rusty Yates, I think we were both walking into
the courthouse and I recognized him immediately, and I went
up to him and I said, hey, Rusty, if you
want to avoid the cameras, go in this other way,
(42:40):
and he said, no, that's okay, thanks, And so that
was the extent of our conversation. I did not introduce
myself at all, and some way or other, I don't
remember how I met a woman who was going to
the same church as Rusty. And one of the things
that shocked me is how Rusty had so many groupies,
(43:09):
people who were already dreaming of marrying him.
Speaker 2 (43:13):
That's so weird. It's so weird. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1 (43:16):
Good yeah, it kind of blew me away. And so
she went to the church that Rusty was now going to.
They had not gone to a church previously, but because
of the funeral that he started going to this church,
and so I just went to kind of get a
feel of everything. And then all these sweet little old
ladies and the person I was with, the one who
(43:38):
had a crush on Rusty, said come on, and we
always have this after church pot luck. Come join us.
Our Sunday school is putting it on. We have really
good food. Come on.
Speaker 2 (43:51):
And so it would be hard to turn down that
invitation at any church for me.
Speaker 1 (43:55):
And the food was good, and Rusty was there, yep,
And to watch everyone just fawn over him. Oh, Rusty,
would you like this? Rusty would you like that? And
so I was sitting near him and we just started talking,
and I'm pretty sure at that point I said, look, Rusty,
I want you to know who I am Susie Spencer.
(44:18):
I'm doing a book on this case, and so we
just started staying in touch. And then when the competency
hearing was supposed to start, that's when nine to eleven happened.
So all these big fancy names who had been wooing
(44:40):
Rusty disappeared. They were off to New York to cover that.
I was the only one left standing there in Houston.
So Rusty and I started communicating more often. I explained
it that he has tunnel vision, and it's what I want,
(45:00):
what I want, and nothing else is going to get
in the way. Okay, my wife is suicidal and you
know everything's going horrible, but I can't deal with that
right now because I've got to do this project and
(45:21):
that doesn't fit in with my life and my image,
my images. I have the perfect family. I can't deal
with that. And I think that is his biggest downfall.
No offense, trustee, because I know he's not thrilled with me,
but that's I just see the tunnel vision. God willing,
(45:43):
he's grown out of that, but we all have that
to some degree.
Speaker 2 (45:47):
Shifting gears a little bit. When you were talking with him,
or even afterward, was there a point where like where
you could not pinpoint but be like, this is the
breaking point. This is where the break happened. This is
where her train jumped the tracks. This is where some
early intervention could have potentially saved six lives.
Speaker 1 (46:09):
I think there's numerous answers to it, and the very
first one is choosing to have another child. Rusty was
told least I think he was told that if he
had another child that surely she would go in to
postpartum depression and psychosis again. And every time it happens,
(46:31):
it gets worse and worse. And Rusty told me he
thought of it as the still just stuns me that
he said this. He thought of it as like you
were offered a brand new Mercedes for free or whatever,
and if you took this Mercedes, you might get the flu,
(46:57):
but then you knew what the true was to get
over the flu when everything would be okay. So another
child was the Mercedes. But they knew what would happen
to Andrea, and they knew how to treat it, and
so it would be okay. But it wasn't okay because
(47:18):
she did not get the proper treatment, as well as
the fact that it was made worse by the death
of her father. And Andrea, even though people don't believe
this was a very loving mother.
Speaker 2 (47:35):
I do believe that. I think that came across very clearly.
I get that intuitive leap that she made because she
was only ever around them and rusty, like she never
had a reality check. Voicing some concerns to a friend
and the friend being like, what, no, that's exactly wrong,
you know, like she didn't have that release valve right,
she could just go deeper into it.
Speaker 1 (47:54):
Her best friend was worried about her and tried to
come see her and communicate with her, and she was
just kind of shut out. The other people that she
had communication with was Michael Warrenecki and his family, the
traveling evangelist, and Lucy Purgier, who was the psychiatrist who
(48:15):
treated Andrea or was the defense expert witness spent a
lot of time with Andrea, and she told me Andrea
would have been mentally ill no matter what, but she
would not have drowned the children without the influence of
(48:36):
the warren Neckis, who taught her that all women are
witches and evil.
Speaker 2 (48:43):
Well, thank you so so much for coming to talk
to me again.
Speaker 1 (48:47):
Yeah, you could tell I've gotten a little heated up
about this. My glasses are fogging everything. It's like this
one just gets my emotions going yeah and just still
it rips the soul, rips the soul.
Speaker 2 (49:17):
Thank you again to Susie Spencer, both for talking to
me about this case and for writing the book Breaking Point,
which helped me write this episode. Other sources include Investigation
Discoveries episode on Andrea Yates from their series The Crimes
That Changed Us, and several news articles. All of these
sources are linked in our show notes. If you want
(49:38):
to learn more, join me next week on The Greatest
True Crime Stories Ever Told for our episode about Pablo
Escobar's hostages. That's right in the nineteen nineties, the drug
kingpin of the Medaine cartel didn't want to be extradited
to the United States, so he started taking hostages. Of
(50:00):
them were powerful women journalists. I'll tell you all about
it next week. For more information about this case and
the others we cover on the show, visit Diversionaudio dot com.
The Greatest True Crime Stories Ever Told is a production
of Diversion Audio. I'm Mary Kay mcbraer and I hosted
(50:22):
this episode. I also wrote this episode, and if you
like my writing, you should check out my book, America's
First Female serial Killer, Jane Toppin and the Making of
a Monster. One more thing before I go. If you
haven't already, I'll love you forever. If you pre order
my forthcoming true crime book, Madam Queen, the Life and
(50:42):
crimes of Harlem's underground racketeer Stephanie Sinclair, there's a link
to do it at your favorite retailer in our show's notes.
Our show is edited by Antonio Enriquez. Theme music by
Tyler Cash, Produced by Emma Dumouth. Executive produced by Scott Waxman.
Diversion audio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
This episode contains mature content and descriptions of violence that
may be disturbing for some listeners. Please take care in listening.
In a suburb of Houston in two thousand and one,
Officer Frank Stumpo responded to a nine to one one
(00:33):
call from Andrea Yates. When he arrived to clear Water,
a middle class neighborhood with very little crime, he was
shocked when his fellow policeman told him it was a homicide.
Andrea sat on the sofa in a dirty living room,
her wet hair lank. As Stumpo walked into the bedroom,
(00:55):
he assumed she'd killed her boyfriend or something. Instead, he
saw what he thought was a doll's head under the
covers of the bed. He touched the head. It wasn't
a doll, and it was ice cold. Next to the
infant's body, three of her brother's bodies were soaking through
(01:16):
the mattress. They were all lined up under the covers.
Officer Stumpo next discovered the body of Andrea's eldest son,
face down in the bathtub. It was Andrea who called
in the murders, and it was Andrea who had committed
the murders. Now she sat on the sofa, soaking wet
(01:41):
and completely emotionless. Welcome to the greatest true crime stories
ever told. I'm Mary Kay McBrayer. Today's episode is called
Postpartum Psychosis horror Story, and this one is grim, not
(02:07):
just because it's about a multiple murder of children, although
of course that alone makes it impossible. This episode is
about Andrea Yates, a loving wife and mother of five
who had postpartum depression after giving birth to each one
of her children. She was also invested in the fundamentalist
teachings of a Hellfire and Brimstone evangelist, So when the
(02:30):
postpartum depression after her fifth delivery turned into postpartum psychosis,
it melded with the fundamentalist teachings and led to a
truly dismal conclusion. Will untangle Yates's story right after the break.
(03:02):
Maybe you've heard the story of the Yellow Wallpaper. It's
by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. From some perspective. It was first
published in eighteen ninety two. I taught English composition and
world literature for years. I'm a lifelong reader, and of
course I'm a writer, and that makes me a literature person.
(03:23):
But this story. I read it for the first time
in public school in seventh grade, and I did not
understand what was happening. If you haven't read the yellow Wallpaper,
do it. It's harrowing and it's genius, and it was
ahead of its time. Essentially, this very intelligent woman has
a baby and she doesn't bounce back the way they
(03:46):
think she should. So her husband, who is also her
doctor and yes that is a big red flag, decides
they'll go live in the country for a little while,
and our protagonist, she gets to stay in the top
floor apartment. Sounds like a penthouse, but it isn't. It
looks like a former nursery, except for the huge iron
(04:07):
bed nailed to the ground, the bars over the windows,
and the disgusting, scrolling yellow wallpaper. While they stay in
the country house, her husband slash doctor, doesn't let her
do anything, ostensibly for her own health, I mean, he
is a doctor. She wants to go on a walk,
(04:28):
but no, too much exertion. She wants to write a letter, Nope,
too much stimulation. So she sits in her room and
she stares at that wallpaper. She stares at it for
so long that she sees things moving in it, and
then it starts to come to life. To our seventh
grade minds, this sounded like fantasy. Some lady went crazy,
(04:52):
sucks for her. But our teacher said us straight. This
was postpartum depression and her doctor's slash husband treated it poorly,
which made it escalate into postpartum psychosis. So obviously, the
Yellow Wallpaper is fictional. It's a piece of literature. And
(05:13):
while it's great, those are characters. They represent real people
and real struggles, but they themselves are not real. Andrea
Yates is real. She lived one hundred years after that
short story's publication. But I want to start her story
when she was twenty five in nineteen eighty nine, when
(05:34):
she met her future husband, Rusty Yates. Andrea was a
graduate of the University of Texas and a registered nurse.
She'd achieved those milestones despite some troubles with depression, but
these days she was doing well. Andrea and Rusty lived
(05:55):
in the same apartment complex. And Andrea made up some
cute little excuse to meet him, and soon after they
were dating, and about a year later they got married.
By every eyewitness account, Andrea and Rusty were very happy together.
(06:16):
They both had some pretty traditional values, and I know
that by this many episodes in y'll probably think of
me as a radical feminist killjoy, which I am. But
the most powerful tool anyone can have is options. And
Andrea did have options. No one forced her into that
traditional lifestyle. She was smart and beautiful, and she had
(06:38):
gotten her education, and she became a nurse. She supported herself,
and then she chose Rusty. So, dear listeners, please don't
think I am judging Andrea for wanting what she wanted.
It is fine to want tradition, and it's fine to
have it if it works for you. But the thing is,
(06:58):
it didn't really work for Andrea, even though it seems
like she really really wanted it to. A little over
a year after they got married, Andrea had their first child, Noah,
and Andrea chose to be a stay at home mother
(07:20):
to him. I should probably say as well. Rusty Yates
was a NASA engineer. He earned enough that it wasn't
a big financial strain for her to stay home. She
did entertain the idea of returning to nursing part time
too for a while. But the point is he was
a scientist and she was a medical professional. And this
(07:42):
was a smart, educated couple, which makes what happened next
particularly unsettling. After Andrea quit her job, she and Rusty
got pretty heavy into the teachings of Michael Warrenyuki and
(08:04):
his family, and the Warren Yuckies were a pretty tough crowd.
I get to interview the author of this exhaustive book
on the case called Breaking Point, Susie Spencer, so stick
around for that. And when she talked to Rusty, Rusty
told Susie that Michael Warrenyuki was a soft spoken preacher.
(08:26):
A quick google of that name reveals the exact opposite.
His videos are terrifying. He gesticulates wildly. He wears a
mask of Satan, which he said was to help convey
his message through language barriers. One of their evangelists banners
read all that matters is that you are a sinner
(08:47):
headed to Hell. So that's pretty bad. And to be
fair to non extremist Christians, that message is the exact
opposite of Christianity thesis that would go something like, you
would have been a sinner headed straight for Hell if
Christ had and died to save you from that eternal fate.
(09:12):
So the fact that the Warren Yuckes went another way,
not good. Andrea had a lot of Michael Warrenyucki's teachings
on tape, which she played often. She even wrote to
the Warren Yuckies, mostly Michael's wife Rachel, alongside their donations
(09:34):
to this cause. All of this continued after the birth
of the Yates' second child, John and their third child, Paul.
Andrea wrote to them even after she and Rusty moved
out of their first house and into a trailer park.
(09:56):
That move, if it had been necessary, wouldn't have been
that odd. It's an understandable thing to do if money
is tight, but it wasn't necessary. Remember, Rusty worked for NASA,
and the yates Is didn't move into a trailer either.
Trailers might be small and mobile, but they are set
(10:18):
up for life, with a bathroom and a kitchen and
a table at which to eat, even an entertainment area
depending on the model. But the yates Is moved into
an old school bus. You might be wondering, but why
did they do that in the first place, or more importantly,
(10:39):
why did that idea come into their brains at all.
Rusty bought their Greyhound bus directly from the Warren Yuckies,
and Rusty was immediately disillusioned with the Warren Yuckies teachings
because this bus sucked. There were all kinds of problems
with it that the Warren yuckes knew about and did
not disclose to him. And if you'll lie about a
(10:59):
little thing, well go back to the story. Rusty had
wanted to travel in an RV around the States for
a while. That's not an awful idea in itself. It's
kind of romantic unless you take it to the extreme,
which he did. He also wanted to live in the
vehicle permanently and get rid of all their worldly possessions.
(11:21):
He had Andrea sell everything in Breaking Point, Susie Spencer
says they sold quote, their wedding gifts, most of their furniture,
everything but his tools and workout equipment, which went into
a ten foot by ten foot storage facility. That's different,
(11:43):
and it's really different when there are small children, because well,
babies need a lot of stuff. Not to mention, the
kids slipt in the luggage compartment. If you're like me,
(12:04):
you might be thinking something like, what the fuck is
a pregnant mother doing living in a Greyhound That's what
Andrea's family said to more or less when they found
out about it. Because remember, Andrea never said she didn't
want to live in this bus. I can't imagine that
she actually wanted to. No one actually wants to do
(12:26):
something like that. I'm sorry, No, you don't. You want
to want to. You might like the ideology or the
concept of communing with nature, or minimalism or scaling back
your consumerism, but no one actually likes it. Not when
it comes down to it. No, you don't. I will
die on this hill. Think about the last time you
(12:48):
went camping. Remember how you laid your thirty something year
old back on the hard ass ground, and try to
recall how you forgot your contact lens solution or some
other such Toiletry that makes our core poral existence bearable.
Really absorb those tactile observations, Really feel that piece of
gravel in your hip that you missed when you were
(13:08):
clearing the campsite. And now look me in the eyeballs
and lie to me that you want to do that
some more. And listeners, I am six months pregnant as
of this recording, and I say with some confidence that
just walking down the aisle of a Greyhound bus at
this moment would prove a challenge. More likely, you feel
(13:32):
like you should want to do those things, and if
you feel that way, it's probably because someone else is
selling you on it. Speaking of Unlike Rusty, after the
move onto the bus, Andrea was still down with the
Warren Yakis and their message. I said before that she
(13:52):
owned innumerable tapes of Michael's preaching, and she continued to
listen to them all the time, and she believed a
lot of what they said, things like.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
This, whoever causes one of these little ones who believe
in me to stumble, it is better for him than
a heavy millstrong to be hung around his neck and
he'd be drowned in the depth of the sea. I mean, Jesus,
you're saying to kill yourself.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Yeah. Long after Rusty stopped engaging with them, Andrea sent
postcards to the Warren Yackies saying things like how lonely
she was and asking for advice. Rachel Warrennicki responded that
Andrea needed to just be better, be a better wife,
(14:44):
be a better mother. No instructions on how to do that,
just that if she didn't, her kids would probably go
to hell. While all this was happening with the Warren Yeckies,
(15:23):
Andrea continued to have children. By the time she had
her fourth child, Luke, her psychological state had significantly deteriorated.
She went into a deep postpartum depression. On Wednesday, June sixteenth,
nineteen ninety nine. She called Rusty home from work. When
(15:44):
he got to their converted Greyhound, she said, I need help.
Rusty didn't know what to do, so he proposed a vacation.
Maybe a break from the normal would help, even if
just for a quick trip. He took them for a
drive to Galveston and they walked along the water. The
next day, he took them all to the home of
(16:05):
Andrea's parents. Maybe he thought she just needed more time
with her family, or maybe he thought her parents would
know what to do. Mid afternoon the same day, Andrea
wouldn't get out of bed. Her mom said, you need
to get up. Your child's needing to be fed. And
Andrea said she couldn't feed them. She'd just taken an
overdose and she didn't want them to get the drug
(16:28):
through nursing. At the emergency room, they induced vomiting. When
she was stable, they moved her to Methodist Hospital, where
she was diagnosed with depression with postpartum onset with psychosis.
(16:49):
Doctor Eileen Starbranch also prescribed Andrea antidepressants, anti anxiety medication,
and antipsychosis medication when she spoke with Andrea, though Andrea's
main goal was to stay off medication so that she
could breastfeed her child. A side note, most of these
kinds of substances are safe to take while breastfeeding. I
(17:13):
don't know exactly what her prescriptions were at this time,
but most of the time, contemporary doctors will encourage their
pregnant patients to continue taking drugs that stabilize their mental
health because your mental health is also important to the
life you're growing. When a social worker spoke to Rusty
about allowing their small children small as in three years old,
(17:36):
to handle power tools, Rusty bragged that Andrea had given
birth to all four of their children without medication. Doctor
Starbranch continued to see Andrea even after she discharged from
Methodist Hospital. She recommended medication changes from zoloft, an SSRI drug,
to Zyprexa, an antipsychotic used for treating bipolar, romania and schizophrenia.
(18:02):
Susie Spencer writes that Ziprexa is quote a drug reserved
for the most resistant cases as a last resort. A
one month's supply cost six hundred to seven hundred dollars,
depending on the strength. StarBridge handed Andrea a few samples
up the drug. Andrea Yates took the pills home and
(18:23):
flushed them down the toilet. So when Andrea was prescribed
medications for depression, she would do the thing that most
people do. She'd take them long enough to restabilize, and
then she stopped taking them and listeners, In case you
(18:45):
don't know, that's not how this kind of medicine works.
It's not like taking advil for pain. Consistency is crucial
to these drugs working the way they're supposed to. I
still can't get a clear read on why Andrea was
so resistant to medication, except for the Warren Yaki's telling
her it made her weak, just a quick sidebar. Again,
(19:07):
medicine like this actually makes you stronger. Anyone who is
telling you that medicine makes you weak does not understand
the situation. They don't understand what it's like without the medicine,
and they certainly don't understand how literally life changing a
drug like this can be. When she returned home from
(19:30):
this first hospitalization, Andrea started pulling out her hair. She
started scratching herself. These are, without doubt forms of self harm.
Only four weeks later, the psychosis returned to Andrea full force.
She saw an image of a knife, and she heard
(19:50):
the words get a knife, get a knife. So she
got a knife. She was holding a steak knife to
her throat in the bathroom, trying to find the pulse
point when Rusty came in looking for her. Andrea said,
just let me do it. He didn't, of course, He
(20:14):
got the knife from her, and the next day she
was admitted to a new hospital, and even though Rusty
managed to persuade her into signing herself in for care,
she refused to sign a consent for medication form. By
one o'clock the next day, though they'd had to administer
an emergency shot of the antipsychotic heldall. That's when Andrea's
(20:38):
mother stepped in and said to Rusty, no more bus.
While Andrea was hospitalized, Rusty closed on a home in
a safe suburban neighborhood. While at Memorial Spring Shadows Glen,
(20:59):
doctor James Thompson diagnosed Andrea Yates with major depressive disorder
severe recurrent with psychotic features. If psychotropic drugs did not work,
or if she would not take them, he recommended electroshock therapy.
On August tenth, Andrea started outpatient treatment back with doctor Starbranch.
(21:22):
Moving into the house had made Andrea feel like a failure,
even though Rusty said it would give him the opportunity
to complete some renovations. On the bus, Andrea said again
that she wanted to stop using all medications. Her reason
was that she wanted to have more children. Doctor Starbranch
(21:43):
wrote in her notes, Apparently patient and husband planned to
have as many babies as nature will allow. This will
surely guarantee future psychotic depression. After she gave birth to
(22:04):
their fifth child, Mary, psychiatrists prescribed Andrea medication for both
depression and psychosis. She saw things moving in the walls.
She heard the devil talking to her telling her to
do things. For example, when Andrea watched cartoons with her children,
quote the characters would speak directly to her and comment
(22:29):
on her, telling her she was a bad mother. The
same characters spoke directly to her children, telling them don't
eat so much candy and your mother is feeding you
too much cereal. That seems cruel enough. Characters from the
film O Brother where Art Thou also judged her and
(22:49):
said she was a Hellish influence. After a while, she
reported that the voices told her quote, my children were
not righteous. I let them stumble. They were doomed to
perish in the fires of hell, and they had to
die to be saved. But this didn't happen when she
(23:10):
took Haldall. Haldal is prescribed for quote psychotic patients hearing
voices or thinking delusionally. Later, doctor Lucy per Year, a
medical professor, further explained the patient usually functions normally as
a result of the medication, but is also subject to
recurrences when he or she goes off of it, so
(23:31):
it's important to be sure they're not at risk of
hurting themselves or someone else. Basically, Haldall stopped those psychoses,
but like many medicines and preventative care measures, they don't
work if you don't use them. Even while she was hospitalized,
Andrea was notorious for cheeking her medicine, which is the
(23:53):
inside term for hiding her medicine in her cheek and
then spitting it. Out. When Andrea became pregnant with their
fifth child in early March of the following year, which
was two thousand, she was off all medications. Andrea did
(24:15):
fine for a few months after Mary's birth. Two weeks
after Mary was born, Andrea threw a birthday party for
their third son. On the home video, everyone including Andrea,
seems to be in high spirits. And then Andrea's father
died in March of two thousand and one. At the
end of March, Andrea went into a deeper depression and psychosis.
(24:37):
And while Andrea's care at the previous hospital was great,
this new hospital Devereaux had a lot of problems. They
had twenty nine pages of complaints from September one, nineteen
ninety six to August third, nineteen ninety nine. Susie Spencer
says in Breaking Point. The complaints involved everything from neglect
(25:00):
to abuse to death, and twenty eight percent of those
complaints were found to be valid and the typical stay
there was only one to three days. Rusty asked one
of the professionals if her doctor was any good, and
they said they're all good. When Andrea was admitted to
(25:21):
Devereaux Hospital on March thirty first of two thousand and one,
Rusty asked her new doctor, Mohammed said to put her
on the same medications as before because they worked. He refused,
hal Dahl was an old drug. He put her on
a different antipsychotic, risperd All. The notes from this time
(25:47):
period are rushed and inconsistent. Sometimes nurses claimed Andrea was
near catatonic, refusing to bathe or participate in group therapies.
Doctor said sometimes wrote that she was up and about
when nurses said she hadn't left bed all day. So
because Andrea's compliance was poor and her condition was documented
(26:10):
as improved by report, Rusty was shocked when he arrived
at six pm on April eighteenth, two thousand and one,
and Andrea's bags were packed. She was completely released from
Devereaux eighteen days after holding a steak knife to her
own throat. At that time, she had prescriptions for effectsor whalbutrin, Restoril, taylanol,
(26:35):
and milanta. Both her effectsor and while bututrin dosages had
been reduced, doctors made no mention of the antipsychotic Risperdol
at all. On Monday, June eighteenth, Rusty took Andrea to
(26:56):
the doctor and told him that she wasn't doing well.
He asked the doctor if her antidepressant could be changed.
The doctor said, quote, well, since it's not working anyway,
he would reduce the EFFECTSIR from four hundred and fifty
milligrams to three hundred milligrams. Rusty had read that effects
(27:17):
or shouldn't be reduced by more than seventy five milligrams
every three or four days, not one hundred and fifty
milligrams in one day, but the doctor said it was okay.
Rusty tried to intervene to advocate for her, but the
doctor didn't hear him. Rusty Yates went to the pharmacy,
got the new prescriptions filled, came home and gave them
(27:40):
to Andrea. That was Monday night. On Wednesday morning, their
children were all dead, drowned one by one at Andrea's hand.
When police arrived to find Andrea soaked, they also found
wet footprints outside the bathroom, which indicated at least one
(28:01):
child had known what was happening. Noah, the eldest boy,
had tried to run from Andrea, but she caught him.
On July sixteenth, two thousand and one, nearly one month
after the murders, the doctor at the Harris County Jail
(28:24):
telephoned Rusty. She said she was going to put Andrea
on well buttrin effectsor and haldall. Those were the same
drugs she'd been on before, the ones he had asked for.
If the doctors had listened to him, he said, my
kids would be alive, Andrea would be in recovery, and
(28:46):
we wouldn't be famous. Andrea Yates had held each of
(29:14):
her children face down in the full bathtub until they
asphyxiated by drowning, and then she laid the youngest four
side by side, soaking wet, under the covers on the bed.
The eldest was still floating in the tub when the
police arrived, the police that Andrea called. They arrested her immediately.
(29:39):
Rusty Yates was outside the house screaming, how could you
do this? I don't understand. Andrea sat drenched on the
love seat and barely looked up at him. The reporting officer,
Frank Stumpo, asked her, do you realize what you have done?
And she said, yes, I do. That's what she said.
(30:10):
And she did know what she had done, or she
wouldn't have called the police. But it wasn't as simple
as that. Her attorney, George Parnham, knew as much. He
would plead for her that she was not guilty by
reason of insanity. He said, for the defense of insanity
to be credible, one must be suffering from a severe
(30:33):
mental disease and as a result thereof does not know
what he or she is doing is wrong. Five children
were now dead by their mother's hand. But why in custody?
Andrea seemed to be almost completely unresponsive. If asked questions,
(30:55):
she would either not respond at all, or respond minutes
later asking for them to be repeated. In occasional moments
of clarity, she would scream and cry when she realized
her children were dead. She was psychologically evaluated many times
(31:26):
by many professionals. Not one of them ever suggested that
Andrea's condition was not authentic. One expert who later testified
in court was professor of psychiatry doctor Philip Resnik. After
hours of interviews, he said that, quote missus Yates had
the belief that children were not accountable for their actions
(31:49):
until they were ten years old. When someone is deeply
religious like that, I need to sort out to what
extent these ideas are held by her co religionists. He asked, Andrea,
if you had not taken their lives, where would they
have ended up? Andrea said, hell. She actually thought that
(32:11):
by taking their lives she was saving her children, She
was saving them from herself because of her hallucinations that
she saw and heard the devil in her mind, she
was the devil. The plan was, it seemed to save
her children from the devil by killing them and releasing
(32:32):
them to heaven, and then to save herself from the
devil by killing herself as well. While Andrea was being evaluated,
life outside the prison went on. I mean it didn't
(32:53):
not really. What I mean is Rusty and their families
had to bury their five children. They held one large,
moving funeral for all five of them. Rusty talked about
each of his children in a heartfelt eulogy, and their
likenesses are engraved above the grave that they share. So
(33:14):
are their ages, ranging from six months old to seven years.
The whole country was horrified at the case. Of course,
the Yateses were a normal middle class Christian family. It
(33:35):
not only couldn't have happened, it couldn't have happened to them.
Protesters showed up at the courthouse. They echoed the prosecution
that in her son John's fist was a lock of
Andrea's hair. He fought to survive. And Andrea completed the
murders in a single hour between when Rusty left for
(33:58):
work and when his mother was supposed to to show
up to help for the day she had planned it.
She had killed five children, her children, and then called
the police. Andrea should be immediately put to death. What
was there to discuss? Others rallied to support her, using
the opportunity to advocate for mental health rights and teach
(34:20):
others how to recognize its signs. Rusty Yates said this
about Andrea after the murders my life.
Speaker 4 (34:30):
I'm supportive of her.
Speaker 3 (34:31):
You know.
Speaker 4 (34:31):
It's hard because on one hand, I know she killed our children,
you know, But on the other I know that you
know the woman hears not the woman that killed my children.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
Andrea's attorney, George Parnham said, if Andrea is not insane,
then no one is. You can just wipe that term
from the books. To plead insanity, you have to know
what you did, but not know that what you did
was wrong, and that's really hard to prove. Especially when
(35:14):
your client can't help you, which Andrea couldn't. She was
almost entirely nonverbal at this point. So Parum decided to
hold a competency trial. It was set for Monday, August
twenty seventh, two thousand and one. Competency is different from sanity.
(35:46):
Someone can be competent and insane. When Parum defined competency
for the jurors, he said it hinged on two things.
Quote one sufficient ability to consult with the person's lawyer
with a reasonable degree of rational understanding, and two a
(36:08):
rational and factual understanding of the proceedings against the person.
What Attorney param wanted to show the jury is that
Andrea Yates was so incompetent at this moment that she
couldn't help her defense will defend her. She couldn't answer
simple questions. The hearing went on for an excruciating amount
(36:33):
of time. Both sides of the iss'le fiercely passionate in
their beliefs. All witnesses were aware of the intensity. One
statement that I personally found super impactful came from Joe Ombi,
the prosecution. He said to the jury, if you don't
find her competent, she will never be put to trial.
(36:57):
The defense objected and Judge Belinda Hill sustained it, but
she didn't order it struck from the record. Finally, after
three weeks of the hearing, on Saturday, September twenty second,
the juror stood and pronounced Andrea competent to stand trial.
(37:21):
Andrea Yates was subsequently tried for the murders of her
five children. One piece of evidence that seemed to sway
the verdict was the testimony of doctor Park Deets. He
said that because Andrea watched the television show Law and
Order regularly, she likely based her plan for murder on
an episode in which a mother drowns her children. It
(37:43):
implied premeditation, which implied sanity. After the court was presented
with evidence and expert witness testimonies, Andrea Yates was ruled
guilty of capital murder and sentenced to life in prison.
She could have rest the death penalty. Rusty said in
(38:06):
a press interview after the verdict that none of us
wanted her to be found guilty. In fact, most of
us were offended that she was even prosecuted. The prosecution
said that the best possible outcome was serving justice for
the children, but that wasn't the end of it. A
(38:38):
reporter approached Andrea's defense attorney, Parum, she'd seen every episode
of Law and Order. There was no episode about a
mother drowning a child. It just didn't exist. Further scrutiny
revealed doctor park Deets's testimony, or at least that part
of it, to be untrue. With this false testimony, Parum
(39:00):
appealed Andrea's verdict. The case was retried in June of
two thousand and six, without the television shows Blueprint as evidence.
This time was different. This time, on July twenty sixth
of two thousand and six, Andrea was ruled not guilty
by reason of insanity. The jury said, yes, she knew
(39:24):
what she was doing was against the law, but she
also thought that what she was doing was right. Andrea
was confined and still is, to Kerrville State Hospital. She's
(39:45):
now fifty seven years old, and every year she has
the opportunity for her situation to be reviewed. She's waived
her right to review every single year. Instead, she continues
her treatment. She and Rusty divorced but still remain in contact.
(40:05):
Rusty remarried and has become a father again. As a
result of Andrea Yates's case. Texas now administers a screening
test for postpartum depression to all women who give birth
in the state. To write this episode, I drew heavily
on the book by Susie Spencer about Andrea Yates called
(40:26):
Breaking Point. Now I get to talk to Susie Spencer herself. Hey, Susie,
thank you so so much for coming back to talk
to me about Breaking Point and Andrea Yates.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
I'm excited to talk about it. It's been a long
time since I've discussed that one.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
How do you approach researching Andrea? Like what was the
moment of inception there? And what was that journey for you?
Speaker 1 (40:53):
The monday after it happened, my agent called me up
and said, would you like to do a book on this?
So I talked to my mom about that, who's was
my advisor on everything, and she said, someone's going to
do the book and you'll do it with more sensitivity,
So do it. The next day I called my agent
(41:15):
and said, Okay, I'm doing it, And a few hours
later I was on the road to Houston, and so
I drove over there and the first thing I did
was drive by the church where the funeral was going
to be. Just got overwhelmed with that, you know, kind
of searched it out and tape recorded as much as
(41:39):
I could have nonchalantly, you know. And that's how it
all started.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
Oh, that is a really beginning with a bang. Do
you have like a starting question when you go into
the research or you just open to what's happening.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
On this This was all happening in the Houston area
and I live in Austin. I had zero contacts there,
and I was competing against the big names. It was
just kind of reading the newspapers and seeing who they
had interviewed, and then going and knocking on doors or
(42:18):
another thing I would do is just hang out somewhere
and listen to the gossip. But the first time I
saw Rusty Yates, I think we were both walking into
the courthouse and I recognized him immediately, and I went
up to him and I said, hey, Rusty, if you
want to avoid the cameras, go in this other way,
(42:40):
and he said, no, that's okay, thanks, And so that
was the extent of our conversation. I did not introduce
myself at all, and some way or other, I don't
remember how I met a woman who was going to
the same church as Rusty. And one of the things
that shocked me is how Rusty had so many groupies,
(43:09):
people who were already dreaming of marrying him.
Speaker 2 (43:13):
That's so weird. It's so weird. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1 (43:16):
Good yeah, it kind of blew me away. And so
she went to the church that Rusty was now going to.
They had not gone to a church previously, but because
of the funeral that he started going to this church,
and so I just went to kind of get a
feel of everything. And then all these sweet little old
ladies and the person I was with, the one who
(43:38):
had a crush on Rusty, said come on, and we
always have this after church pot luck. Come join us.
Our Sunday school is putting it on. We have really
good food. Come on.
Speaker 2 (43:51):
And so it would be hard to turn down that
invitation at any church for me.
Speaker 1 (43:55):
And the food was good, and Rusty was there, yep,
And to watch everyone just fawn over him. Oh, Rusty,
would you like this? Rusty would you like that? And
so I was sitting near him and we just started talking,
and I'm pretty sure at that point I said, look, Rusty,
I want you to know who I am Susie Spencer.
(44:18):
I'm doing a book on this case, and so we
just started staying in touch. And then when the competency
hearing was supposed to start, that's when nine to eleven happened.
So all these big fancy names who had been wooing
(44:40):
Rusty disappeared. They were off to New York to cover that.
I was the only one left standing there in Houston.
So Rusty and I started communicating more often. I explained
it that he has tunnel vision, and it's what I want,
(45:00):
what I want, and nothing else is going to get
in the way. Okay, my wife is suicidal and you
know everything's going horrible, but I can't deal with that
right now because I've got to do this project and
(45:21):
that doesn't fit in with my life and my image,
my images. I have the perfect family. I can't deal
with that. And I think that is his biggest downfall.
No offense, trustee, because I know he's not thrilled with me,
but that's I just see the tunnel vision. God willing,
(45:43):
he's grown out of that, but we all have that
to some degree.
Speaker 2 (45:47):
Shifting gears a little bit. When you were talking with him,
or even afterward, was there a point where like where
you could not pinpoint but be like, this is the
breaking point. This is where the break happened. This is
where her train jumped the tracks. This is where some
early intervention could have potentially saved six lives.
Speaker 1 (46:09):
I think there's numerous answers to it, and the very
first one is choosing to have another child. Rusty was
told least I think he was told that if he
had another child that surely she would go in to
postpartum depression and psychosis again. And every time it happens,
(46:31):
it gets worse and worse. And Rusty told me he
thought of it as the still just stuns me that
he said this. He thought of it as like you
were offered a brand new Mercedes for free or whatever,
and if you took this Mercedes, you might get the flu,
(46:57):
but then you knew what the true was to get
over the flu when everything would be okay. So another
child was the Mercedes. But they knew what would happen
to Andrea, and they knew how to treat it, and
so it would be okay. But it wasn't okay because
(47:18):
she did not get the proper treatment, as well as
the fact that it was made worse by the death
of her father. And Andrea, even though people don't believe
this was a very loving mother.
Speaker 2 (47:35):
I do believe that. I think that came across very clearly.
I get that intuitive leap that she made because she
was only ever around them and rusty, like she never
had a reality check. Voicing some concerns to a friend
and the friend being like, what, no, that's exactly wrong,
you know, like she didn't have that release valve right,
she could just go deeper into it.
Speaker 1 (47:54):
Her best friend was worried about her and tried to
come see her and communicate with her, and she was
just kind of shut out. The other people that she
had communication with was Michael Warrenecki and his family, the
traveling evangelist, and Lucy Purgier, who was the psychiatrist who
(48:15):
treated Andrea or was the defense expert witness spent a
lot of time with Andrea, and she told me Andrea
would have been mentally ill no matter what, but she
would not have drowned the children without the influence of
(48:36):
the warren Neckis, who taught her that all women are
witches and evil.
Speaker 2 (48:43):
Well, thank you so so much for coming to talk
to me again.
Speaker 1 (48:47):
Yeah, you could tell I've gotten a little heated up
about this. My glasses are fogging everything. It's like this
one just gets my emotions going yeah and just still
it rips the soul, rips the soul.
Speaker 2 (49:17):
Thank you again to Susie Spencer, both for talking to
me about this case and for writing the book Breaking Point,
which helped me write this episode. Other sources include Investigation
Discoveries episode on Andrea Yates from their series The Crimes
That Changed Us, and several news articles. All of these
sources are linked in our show notes. If you want
(49:38):
to learn more, join me next week on The Greatest
True Crime Stories Ever Told for our episode about Pablo
Escobar's hostages. That's right in the nineteen nineties, the drug
kingpin of the Medaine cartel didn't want to be extradited
to the United States, so he started taking hostages. Of
(50:00):
them were powerful women journalists. I'll tell you all about
it next week. For more information about this case and
the others we cover on the show, visit Diversionaudio dot com.
The Greatest True Crime Stories Ever Told is a production
of Diversion Audio. I'm Mary Kay mcbraer and I hosted
(50:22):
this episode. I also wrote this episode, and if you
like my writing, you should check out my book, America's
First Female serial Killer, Jane Toppin and the Making of
a Monster. One more thing before I go. If you
haven't already, I'll love you forever. If you pre order
my forthcoming true crime book, Madam Queen, the Life and
(50:42):
crimes of Harlem's underground racketeer Stephanie Sinclair, there's a link
to do it at your favorite retailer in our show's notes.
Our show is edited by Antonio Enriquez. Theme music by
Tyler Cash, Produced by Emma Dumouth. Executive produced by Scott Waxman.
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