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Psychiatrist
says Yates was threat to self HOUSTON — Andrea Yates was a mere “shell,” a threat to herself and her children, in the weeks before she drowned them in the bathtub, a psychiatrist testified Monday. Ellen Allbritton, who admitted Yates to Devereux Texas Treatment Network on March 31, said she immediately recognized Yates was someone who required in-patient treatment. Yates’ five children were dead less than three months later. Asked by defense attorney George Parnham to elaborate, Allbritton said: “Someone who had declined to the point of non-function, just there, a shell.” In her medical notes, Allbritton wrote that Yates, whose father had died about three weeks earlier, “needs in-patient stabilization for safety of self and others.” Under cross-examination, Allbritton told prosecutor Joe Owmby that Yates denied having any suicidal or homicidal thoughts but: “I wouldn’t have trusted her to walk across the street.” Allbritton said Yates and her husband, Russell, were hesitant to hospitalize her and did so only after Allbritton filed an emergency detention order. “The patient was so ill and had obviously been ill for quite some time,”' Allbritton said. “I really wondered why she hadn’t been presented to our facility sooner.” Defense attorneys are trying to show Yates didn’t know right from wrong on June 20, when she drowned her children. Yates, 37, who has pleaded innocent by reason of insanity, faces murder charges in the drownings of 7-year-old Noah, 5-year-old John and 6-month-old Mary. Charges could be filed later in the deaths of Paul, 3, and Luke, 2. She faces life in prison or the death penalty if convicted. Determining if Yates knew right from wrong will be a key decision for jurors in the case where there is little debate over whether Yates drowned her children or whether she suffered from a mental illness. To prove insanity, defense lawyers must prove Yates suffered from a severe mental disease or defect and that she didn’t know her actions were wrong. |
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