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Forensic
psychiatrist testifies that Yates was schizophrenic HOUSTON (AP) — Andrea Yates suffered from a severe mental illness last year when she drowned her five children in the bathtub, a forensic psychiatrist hired by the state testified Thursday at her murder trial. “My own impression was that she was suffering from schizophrenia,” said Dr. Park Dietz, testifying for the prosecution, which maintains Yates does not meet the legal definition of insanity in Texas. Dietz said several things contributed to Yates’ condition, including her refusal to take her medicine and her efforts to home-school her children inside a converted bus where the family lived in 1999. Her husband believed she only needed rest, Dietz said. “They get her some rest and took her over to her mother’s house. She got medical attention only after taking an overdose.” 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. Defense attorneys are trying to show Yates didn’t know right from wrong last June 20 when she drowned her children. Dietz, who has testified in other high-profile trials such as the Unabomber and South Carolina child killer Susan Smith, was among rebuttal witnesses presented by prosecutors Thursday. Earlier, a store owner who sells home-schooling materials for parents said she saw Yates’ demeanor change quickly last year when she asked Yates about having more children. Terry Arnold said she became friendly with Yates in the months before the killings. “I felt like I hit a sore subject,” Arnold said. “There was a change in her demeanor very quickly. It was just sadness. I thought she was going to cry.” Arnold said she first met the Yates family early last year and perceived Yates as a loving mother. A couple of weeks before the killings, however, Yates seemed disheartened. “She was not as lit up from the inside,” Arnold said. “There was a flatness there.” The defense rested its case Wednesday. Several defense witnesses contended Yates believed by killing her children she would save them from hell and eliminate Satan from the world when she was executed. |
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