Andrea Yates: Criminally insane or getting away with murder?

annarocket · Guru

Andrea Yates: Criminally insane or getting away with murder?

angelloghry · Member

I firmly do believe that this woman is crazy, as you would have to be crazy to drown you five children. However, I believe that she knew fully well what she was doing and in no way should she have been found not guilty. I was absolutely disgusted when I read the book as I felt that it was written in her defense. I was absolutely flabergasted when I learned that she got a second trial, and sick to my stomach when the verdict came back. I do not understand how this can happen. This woman should most definatly have to spend the rest of her life behind bars.

From all the info out there on this case, it is obvious that Andrea, as well as others in her family, knew that something was wrong, and she supposedly had half attempted to do this a few weeks before, so as a mother, at that point I would say "oh $&!^ someone get theese kids away from me before I do something to them" and then proceed to seek the help that I knew I needed. There is no excuse for what she has done and since the justice system has failed, we will just have to seek comfort in knowing that she will rot in hell for all eternity. This woman, along with many others like her make me sick!!

annarocket · Guru

I read that book too.It almost made me throw up and that's pretty hard,considering I have to look at all kinds of things that would make most people throw up.My throw up factor is really high.

She should be in prison.I'm sorry.I don't care if she's crazy.She murdered those innocent children and she should be in prison.

Rusty and Andrea's family knew she had mental problems and they should have done something. I really believe they failed to get her the help she desperately needed. She herself knew she was ill. Very sad end to a very tragic story

PS:The fact that Rusty married some little bitty blonde didn't sit right with me either but I don't know,the whole thing sucks. I don't think I'd be happy with any way it turned out.

angelloghry · Member

Man I cant believe how many people out there are defending this woman, it makes me seriously sick. My feeling is that you have to be crazy to murder someone, nobody in their right mind, could take another human beings life. so I guess according to all these Yates, supporters, then all murderers should be set free as they are all crazy. I mean come on you cant tell me that Charles Manson, or ted bundy or the son of sam or Hannibal I could go on and on, that these people I mean theese monsters arent crazy. So therefore I guess they should be instituionalized (sp) and realased when found sane, UUHHMM I dont think so. I also think that the term Not guilty by reason of insanity should not be used, it should be guilty by reason of insanity. And I am not denying the fact that the woman needs help, but if and when she gets better, she should not be freed, she should either have to stay there or be returned to prison. Those kids dont have a chance to live normal lives why the heck should she.

annarocket · Guru

I definately agree that it should be called "guilty by reason of insanity" I'm totally with ya on that one.My Mom and I tried to have a conversation about this but when she said,"Anna,she's mentally ill,can't you see that?" I got so mad I literally bit my lip. By that defination any woman with post partum depression would be called "mentally ill" even if they didn't kill their kids.

Too many people are supporting her and after I saw the headstone on the grave of the poor children,all buried together,it turned my blood to ice water where she is concerned.I'm sorry.She should be in prison,in general population like every other baby killer and she should have to face the concequences of her actions,crazy or not.

angelloghry · Member

I know what you mean I get pretty upset too, I just dont understand how anyone can defend this woman. Once again I say that all people who commit terrible acts of murder are mentally ill so should they all be released. I think not, ill or not ill they should still have to suffer the consequences of their actions. I am also writing on another message board and these people are seriously getting on my nerve, I just read the last reply to my post and my stomach is all tied up knots, its kinda a good thing this is done over the computer or I probly woulda socked this woman. LOL

annarocket · Guru

Send me the link,I want to see what other people are saying about her. I won't mention your name.

angelloghry · Member

Its abc13.com and most of it is on the posting Andrea yates by maggiemay although there are supporters under all the yates posts. Good luck, seems like a tough board to ma ;)

annarocket · Guru

ooooo let's watch anna get her butt kicked by the angry Yates groupies

angelloghry · Member

Thats funny, I dont know though I kinda have a tendency to duck when I am posting on that board. Technology these days, ya never know. :) Ha ha

annarocket · Guru

Yeah,well I went over there but I tried to bring the hate and nobody was having it and finally someone said to me,We know you are one of the owners of another forum.Noone's going to provoke you in here.

I was like well,Holy crap on a corndog. What's this world coming to when you can't even pick a fight on the internet?

angelloghry · Member

How funny! I am shocked cuz they sure dont seem to mind bringing on the hate to other people. that board is very fierce. Oh well their loss right!!

annarocket · Guru

LOL

Yeah I was all hong kong fooey for a fight and noone would argue with me.It was like being the last kid to be picked for a baseball team on the playground!

Stuckinahs · Senior Member

Okay, I'm going to put on my psychologist hat on here...please leave your weapons at the door. There is a big difference between someone like Susan Smith, who was depressed, killing her children, and Andrea Yates. Andrea may have been depressed, but she was also psychotic. She knew she was breaking man's law by drowning her children, but she believed that she was doing God's bidding, and God's law, as she "heard it" was more important than man's law.

When a psychotic person hears voices and sees things...they really do hear them and see them. They are real to them. Andrea had a history of psychotic episodes. Her doctors knew that. Rusty knew that. Andrea asked for help, and although she was a nurse and probably knowledgeable to some extent about psychotropic meds and psychiatric conditions, all of that meant nothing, when voices were telling her otherwise.

I am going to go out on a limb here, but here is what I believe. We have become so complacent about mental illness, ever since the restructuring of the mental health system some years ago. We are told that the mentally ill have rights too, and if they don't want to take their meds, then they shouldn't have to take them. Not only do we do the mentally ill a great disservice, but we also do their families, their children, and society a great disservice. I blame the psychiatrist who took Andrea off her anti-psychotic meds and sent her off to "think happy thoughts" for the deaths of those children.

There is a book called Crazy Love that you should read. It's a short book, but it outlines what life is like for a sane person living with a psychotic spouse. It is not clinical at all, but it is very enlightening.

annarocket · Guru

LOL I'm out of ammo so you are safe.....for now.

I have very little knowledge of mental illness other than my siblings telling me I'm mental so I guess it is unfair to make an assumption about her mental condition at the time of the crime.I did read the book about the crime and I do agree that both her doctor and Rusty failed her miserably.

Stuckinahs · Senior Member

There was a case in Wichita a few years ago, where a schizophrenic went to the hospital ER and was clearly psychotic. The guy's doctor told the hospital to tell him to just go home. Kind of like Andrea's doctor. Well, the guy literally went home and made an aluminum foil cap for himself and his little boy, got his gun, and went out looking for Satan. Another man and his son were filling the newspaper machines, and the schizophrenic guy spotted them. He shot and killed both of them. I blame the hospital and the doctor. He tried to get help, was turned away, and the voices became stronger telling him to kill Satan.

-- Edited by Stuckinahs at 04:04, 2006-08-03

annarocket · Guru

Stuck,why do you think so many people fall through the cracks like that? Why isn't our system doing more to help the mentally ill?

Stuckinahs · Senior Member

I think we went from absolute control of the mentally ill complete with forced sterilization and horrid conditions in the mental hospitals to the extreme cases of observation of the civil rights of the mentally ill. The trouble is where does that leave the mentally ill? A huge percentage of the homeless are mentally ill. When states began closing mental hospitals starting back in the 1960's, the former patients, who didn't have relatives with whom to live, were just turned out on their own. Services are available, but if you're mentally ill and not on medication, what makes anyone think that they will seek out the help that is available.

angelloghry · Member

I agree that there is a huge difference between Yates and Smith. I also agree that other people are just as much responsible for what Yates did. But in my opinion, regardless, she should be held accountable for what she did. She is not "not guilty by reason of insanity" she is "guilty by reason of insanity" And I have no problems with her being in an institute, but only if she never EVER can get out!! I agree that our system lets too many people who seek help, go unhelped, but that doesnt make it ok for them to kill. I think that she should have to live with the consequences of what she did, without the freedom of a normal daily life. Even if she "gets better" I dont think she should ever be allowed to live in society again. And maybe I shouldnt be saying any of this as I dont have any experience with menal illness either, I just know that regardless of if she was "better" I wouldnt want her to live next door to me!

annarocket · Guru

This is gonna sound harsh and I'm sure I'll get some hate mail for it but I'm gonna speak my mind anyhoo.

The difference between Andrea Yates and Susan Smith for annarocket:

Andrea Yates:If I saw her I'd call the cops and have her led quietly back to prison.

Susan Smith:If I saw her,I'd walk strait up to her,punch her in the face as many times as I could and then wait till somebody called the cops on me.

Andrea is mentally ill but she deserves to be in prison for murdering her innocent children. Susan Smith, IMO, slept with everyone in town and then when the guy she wanted most didn't want to be saddled with kids,she drowned them and tried to lie her way out of it.She belongs on death row.

Stuckinahs · Senior Member

Some states' laws differ...they commit the person to a state mental facility, and when and if they are ever judged to be sane, then they are tried for their crimes. Another alternative would be to "sentence" them to a mental facility, and when they are judged to be sane, then send them to prison. My thoughts are that, if and when Andrea is ever judged to be sane, her guilt for what she did will be a life sentence.

I doubt that Andrea will ever be released from the mental facility. For one thing, even if there is a medication that works for her, some of these psychotropic meds don't always work on a long term basis. Kind of how our bodies build up a resistence to certain antibiotics after taking them over an extended period. Sometimes, nothing helps.

FreeFalling · Veteran Member

Anna, if you get the chance, hit Susan Smith for me, too!

The Yates case causes my brain to get overly-tired in a hurry. I have the book learning on mental illness, and I have worked with the mentally ill. I understand psychosis and the chemotherapy for psychosis. I also am very much aware that schizophrenics do not like to take their medication and a lot of times will stop their medication for absolutely no reason. I know that people who are grossly mentally ill will do things they most likely would not do if they were not.

On the other hand, this woman murdered her five children, and I have a REAL problem with that! Trying to remember that she is psychotic and out of her mind just makes me see her killing her kids and going to the telephone to call 9ll. In some states, "craziness," is decided based on whether the person knew right from wrong at the time the crime was committed. Andrea Yates knew she did something WRONG. That's why she called 9ll.

Criteria for holding a person in a mental hospital is based on 3 things.
Is she homicidal?
Is she suicidal?
Is she just plain crazy.
When a treatment team can answer NO to those three questions, then a patient, by law, can no longer be held against her will in a mental facility.

Right now today, Andrea Yates, is not homicidal. She might be suicidal from time to time. If she is on the proper medication, she is NOT psychotic (not just plain crazy (my term, of course.) Sounds to me like she is almost ready to be discharged. According to law. And I do not think that is right.

Since people sometimes take things said on these boards so dang literally, I'm beginning to feel I have to include a disclaimer in every post I make on the internet

, so here it is for this post. I have not said that Andrea Yates is ready to be discharged from the hospital or that her treatment team thinks she is close to being ready.

lol AnnaRocket, you've probably dealt with online stalkers, so you probably know where I'm coming from on this one. Some nut is taking every post I've ever made on the internet and interpreting them HER way for other people. Oh me, life online. Sometimes I wonder if it's worth it. Then I say, SURE IS.

annarocket · Guru

Note to self: after punching the holy living crap out of Susan Smith,kick her when she's down for FreeFalling. Got it. #1 on my to do list.

It is very difficult to know what would be the right thing to do for someone with no formal education in psycology. I can sit her and arm chair the pair of them to death but it isn't going to change the things I feel are most important to note:

We as a society are failing our children.

We as a society are failing to care for the mentally ill.

It is a sad state of affairs,if you ask me.

Stuckinahs · Senior Member

You know, when the news folks (like Nancy Grace) are talking about Andrea Yates and other mentally ill people, they lump mental problems like depression and character and personality disorders into the same category as schizophrenics and bipolar. They are not by any stretch in the same category.

Susan Smith suffers from a personality disorder. There is no medication for this problem and no amount of treatment seems to work for them. Around age 40, some of them start to spontaneously recover, but not all of them. They can control their behavior, but they choose not too. Among personality disorders, there are several, including borderline personality disorder (Susan Smitr and narcissistic personality disorder (Scott Peterson) and antisocial character disorder (BTK). I hate working with these individuals. They love therapy, although it really does no good for them. That has been my experience anyway.

Schizophrenics like Andrea Yates actually have a chemical brain disorder. Their brains do or don't release chemical properly. They have dellusions, but to them, they are real. Like the guy I mentioned who killed the man and his son at the newspaper machine...if he saw the father as Satan in the flesh trying to consume the little boy in flames, he may have shot the father to save the son. But we have to remember that he actually SAW this. It was as real to him as the very air we breath each day.

FreeFalling · Veteran Member

Stuckinahs, give me your opinion on this, please. When a person in full blown psychosis hears a voice telling them to do something, does that person possess EVER the ability to say NO to that voice? Is that person able to know that they need to tell someone else what the voice is saying?

How prevalent is faked psychosis? Guess that might be hard to answer, because somebody who fakes psychosis to get away with committing a crime ain't about to tell anybody later that they were faking. lol

Reminds me of "the perfect crime." I think it happens all the time, but the perp knows if he brags about it to anybody, it won't be perfect any longer! So we really can't say there is no such thing as a perfect crime, can we?

annarocket · Guru

I want to know too.....can you "fake" crazy to get away with a crime?

annarocket · Guru

Did any of you guys see the Nancy Grace show where they had all that evidance that handn't been released to the public yet????

Stuckinahs · Senior Member

Are you talking about the videos of Andrea's interviews with the psychiatrist? Andrea was obviously in emotional distress, but I wondered if she was on medication or not. Schizophrenics often appear vacant, but Andrea did sob and cry during the interviews

Stuckinahs · Senior Member

I think Kenneth Bianchi tried to fake schizophrenia. There have been several notorious killers who tried to fake the disorder. There was a man by the name of Willie Brown (I think) that tried to fake it in a murder trial. Brown had had a horrendeous childhood and his attorney tried to blame that for his schizophrenia. The thing is, abuse does not cause schizophrenia. Character disorders and personality disorders are caused by abuse, but shizophrenia is an organic brain disorder.

Remember when John DuPont was on trial for murdering a former wrestler? DuPont is very schizophrenic...he thinks he is the Dali Lama, the pope, and others. What is the name of that man, who is also very wealthy, and murdered his landloard in Galveston...decapitating him? It wasn't that long ano...he was found not guilty by reason of insanity. I think his first name is Robert, but I just can't remember his last name right now.

FreeFalling · Veteran Member

There was a movie on television about six months ago about a man who faked split-personality (schizophrenia) so well that his own attorney believed him. I mean he really believed him. Can't remember the name of it, but it had a shocking twist at the end when the attorney realized the truth. His client, of course, and just been found not guilty of a horrendous murder. Didn't catch all of it. Could have been based on a true story. I don't know.

Which brings up one of my favorite t-shirt slogans: I used to be schizophrenic, but we're alright now.