What Was He Thinking?

With the tragic death of the five Yates children in Clear Lake, Texas – a suburb of Houston, you have to wonder what in the name of all that’s holy was Russell Yates thinking, not to mention his wife, who is now facing a syringe and the very real possibility of joining the Karla Faye Tucker Club? Texas Governor Rick Perry (Rep.) may not be as supportive of the death penalty as former Governor and now President Bush was, but it is highly doubtful that he would seek to stop her execution in the event she is sentenced to death by a Houston jury.

Andrea Yates

As the entire civilized world is aware by now, Andrea Yates (pictured, right) not only drowned her five children in the bathtub of her family home while her husband was working at his job at NASA, she admitted the same to police when they arrived. After drowning her children one by one, she called her husband and told him to come home.

It has been reported that she was suffering from severe post-partum depression following the birth of their fourth child. In addition, her father died shortly thereafter, sending her even deeper into depression. Now, the fact is that I understand depression much better than most people who do not have an MD beside their name, as I suffer from it myself as part of a bi-polar condition. While I manage my condition well, I get the distinct impression she was not treating her condition at all, and that has me scratching my head with a number of questions.

First of all – and forgive me for being extremely blunt, what the hell was this guy thinking by impregnating his wife with a fifth child when she was still in post-partum depression from the fourth – not to mention the suicide attempt two years ago? Do not get me wrong; I believe in large families as I am the seventh of 11 children and have children of my own. My father was the youngest of seven children. My oldest brother has six kids; a sister and a brother have five each, so large families continue to run in my family. However, in each case, the health of the mother was taken into consideration before giving the green light to another pregnancy. After all, what good was it having children if the mother would not survive to enjoy them?

In looking at the Yates tragedy and having suffered from depression in my life and observing it in the lives of others I know and have known over the years, I cannot understand the deaths of ALL FIVE of the Yates children. The killing of the first child should have snapped her out of her depressed state and brought her to the realization that what she was doing was wrong, yet she even went as far as to chase down her oldest son when he realized what was happening and stopped his escape attempt and drowned him in the family bathtub as well.

George Parnham is Yates’ lawyer, and he has indicated he will be seeking an NGI (Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity) verdict. His likelihood of getting it in Texas is for all intents and purposes, zero. Yates has been charged with Capital Murder and that carries either one of two sentences under Texas law - those sentences are either life in prison with no parole for at least 40 years, or death by lethal injection. With Texans as intolerant of crime such as they are, you can bet that if certified to stand trial, she will be strapped to a gurney in Huntsville – and that suits me more than just fine.

What SHOULD be done in this case is for Texas to follow the lead of other states that have enacted a GMI (Guilty But Mentally Ill) plea. GMI ensures a conviction, yet shows compassion in allowing the prisoner to receive what mental help is available through the system in a state hospital, following which they serve the remainder of their sentences in prison for the crimes they committed.

Russell Yates

When you get right down to it, the Yates’ actions are inexcusable and beyond pale. They are unacceptable in every sense of the word. Yates went off her medication and her husband should have seen the warning flags in her mood swings. She should not have been having additional children if she was not in sufficient health to handle the ones she already had. Russell Yates (pictured. left) was not only unwise, but downright reckless in impregnating his wife with a fifth child, given her history of extended depression coupled with the documented suicide attempt.

Call me cruel if you want; brand me insensitive if you wish. The fact of the matter is that I believe that Andrea Yates should not only be sentenced to die for the slaughter of her family, she should not get off the hook easily for what she did by getting a lethal injection. Dogs that get put to sleep go down by lethal injection. Yates’ atrocities are of such severity that for her, they should fire up the electric chair and plug her in.

• Photos of Russell and Andrea Yates courtesy of the Associated Press

Copyright © 2001 by Timothy Rollins.
All Rights Reserved.

-Published with permission